Deal has expired, view more Acorns deals here or more SoFi deals here.
The Offer
- Acorns investment is currently offering $200 back when you refinance your federal or private student loan with SoFi. Simply click through the Acorns link and you’ll get $200 added to your Acorns account automatically when you apply and complete a loan from SoFi.
The Fine Print
- Must click through the Acorns link.
- You must successfully complete the eligible transaction between 12:01 a.m. (Pacific Time) on June 14, 2018 and 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time) on August 13, 2018.
- Contribution: $200 for each eligible transaction that has been completed with Partner.
- Eligible Transaction: Establish a new student loan with Partner by clicking the Partner link in the Acorns app and immediately completing the transaction.
- Not available to residents of Michigan, Vermont, or Connecticut.
- You will typically be notified within 72 hours of successfully completing an eligible transaction, and contributions to your Acorns account will typically be posted within 120 days thereafter.
- Eligibility to participate in certain promotions may require the allowance of cookies on the applicable mobile or desktop device, and may also require other device settings as determined by Acorns from time to time.
- Notice: SoFi refinance loans are private loans and do not have the same repayment options that the federal loan program offers such as Income Based Repayment or Income Contingent Repayment or PAYE.
Our Verdict
Obviously, don’t use SoFi for the $200 – figure out where you get the best rate/terms before taking out any loan. SoFi is one of the big student loan providers, and this deal can be useful for someone planning to take out a loan. It’s possible refinancing other loans will also work to trigger the bonus, though the terms clearly only reference student loans.
Readers point out that there is a SoFi referral program which offers $300 for the referrer + $100 for the new member, so some people may prefer to use a friend’s referral to get them the $300 bonus.
Acorns offers $5 to new members who signup and make an investment, and also has a sweet offer for those referring new members. Appreciate if you use my Acorns referral link to signup.
Refied with sofi several times. Really great experience. Also got a mortgage with them – not as smooth. But the rates were worth it.
I’d skip all of the links currently mentioned on this page including in comments (as of the time of this writing) and go with this one – I used it even though I’m not a dentist and I still got the $500 bonus.
https://www.sofi.com/dental-pros-500/?refer=16-58601v
Otherwise, there are probably other affiliate links that actually shave fractions of a point off of the rate like this one (which I’ve also used):
https://www.sofi.com/americancollegeradiology/?refer=108-598
Which I’ve also used. Only reason it’s worth jumping through both is there are no closing costs at all with sofi. Didn’t hurt to do one, then the next. Not sure I’d recommend it to most since rates keep going up, but I happen to do this while rates were trending down.
Disclosure – I get exactly notta from either of the above links. They’re the ones I use when I’ve referred friends too since it’s a better deal than anything I could generate from sofi. Just trying to give back to the community.
You can also get at least $300 through affiliate links on some personal finance websites. Off the top of my head, Mister Money Mustache has one on his site.
New members to Sofi can get a $300 bonus using the following referral link from Mr. Money Mustache’s blog. https://www.sofi.com/sofi-refi-300/?refer=10-995
There’s also a SoFi/JetBlue partnership offering 1 TrueBlue point for every $2 refinanced, up to 50,000 points. Depending on how much you’d be refinancing & if you live somewhere served by JetBlue, that might offer a better return than Acorns or referrals.
Alaska Airlines has a partnership with SoFi too.
is it worth refinancing if my rate is 4.04 and balance only 4k?
I believe all SoFi Refinances have to be $10,000 or more to receive the bonus.
I don’t think you’ll get rates any lower than 4.04%, either. That’s extremely low for a student loan, original, ReFi or not.
They tend to scale their rates better at higher loan amounts.
I’ve refinanced three times and two of those times Laurel Road (formerly Darien Rowayton) offered the best rates. Their referral system is interesting in that it is $400 that can be split at the hundreds for the referrer and referee (i.e. $100, $300; $200, $200; $400, 0).
They admittedly don’t have the best interface (really liked Earnest’s when I used them), but it really does come down to who gives the best rate. You can easily find a calculator that’ll show you how much more you’d end up spending with a higher rate.
I almost went with an offer that I received using Credible, but Laurel Road ended up offering a better rate.
Lastly, I received advice from a loaner that couldn’t lend to me (less than $40,000) but he said that if you can, you should call and try to negotiate. They want your money, so you don’t have to go with what their website says they’ll do. Maybe this way you can get SoFi to match the rate of another lender and get this bonus.
Are there settlement costs for the refinance? I’m curious if you’re really making $200. I have a student loan I plan to pay off soon, so I would be willing to do this just for the moneymaker then payoff… Assuming SoFi allows early payoff. Anyone know the details?
Last time I checked (swagbucks offer) the combo of hardpull plus first month percentage/fee didn’t make sense, but I could be wrong
Thanks!
Having refinanced my loans many times I want to point out two other companies that gave me better rates than SoFi and are offering a larger bonus. ELFI ($300) and Laurel Road ($400). You can google for a referral link with that specific bonus offer.
I’ve had a good experience with all three companies. At the end of the day it was the same servicer handling the loan with each one so it didn’t make much of a difference who initially issued the loan other than the interest rate.
SoFi has a $300 referral bonus so this is weak.
Can you share more, Beefer? Is it $300 for the referrer and referree? Or do they split the $300?
Thanks Chuck!
SoFi is a great company. You become a “member” (very loose term) when you use any one of their products and they offer monthly events in most major cities – from free sports games, to celebrity meet and greets, cooking classes etc.
I refinanced at a lower rate with them (went from 6.8 to 5.4% plus .25% removed for auto-pay) on some unsubsidized loans and received a $300 bonus back in the day that I put right towards my loan payment.