X Money Just Capped Its 6% Savings Rate at $150,000. The Cap Won't Touch You. The Fine Print Might.

If you keep savings in X Money, or you’ve been eyeing that 6% rate, here’s the change: starting December 1, the 6.00% APY only applies to your first $150,000. Anything above that earns 4.00%.

Unless you’re sitting on more than $150,000 in cash, that changes nothing for you. The lines on the rate sheet that matter for a normal paycheck are somewhere else.

What X actually pays

X’s own rate page spells it out. On the free or Plus tier of the X subscription, or with no subscription at all, the standard rate is 4.00% APY. Get $1,000 or more in qualifying direct deposits within a trailing 34-day window and it gets “boosted” to 6.00%. Premium, Super and Ultra subscribers, plus legacy Premium+ members, get 6.00% without the deposit hoop.

“Qualifying” is narrow. It means an ACH direct deposit coded PPD, which is what a payroll deposit looks like, or certain X creator payouts. Payroll is the reliable way to hit it.

New York residents get no interest at all, boosted or otherwise.

The rate sheet is dated October 12. The cap shows up seven weeks later. So when the page says the rate is “variable and subject to change at any time,” take it literally.

The math on a real balance

Put $10,000 in at 6.00% and you earn about $600 in a year. At X’s 4.00% base rate, it’s $400. Marcus paid 3.50% as of October 31, so $350. Capital One paid 3.20%, so $320. The FDIC national average that X itself quotes is 0.38%, which is $38.

Translation: the free direct-deposit route is worth about $200 a year over X’s base rate on $10,000, and $250 over Marcus. That’s real money for rerouting part of one paycheck a month.

Paying for a subscription just to unlock 6% is a different deal. On $10,000, the whole gap between 4% and 6% is $200 a year. If the plan costs more than that, you’re paying X to earn X’s own rate. It only makes sense if you’d buy the subscription anyway.

Here’s the catch

X Payments LLC is not a bank, and its disclosure says so: “X Payments LLC is not an FDIC-insured bank. Deposit insurance only covers the failure of an insured bank.” Your money sits at Cross River Bank and gets swept across a network of banks for up to $10 million of pass-through coverage, but only if “certain conditions” are met. That protects you if a bank fails. It says nothing about what happens if the app in the middle has a problem.

Verdict: smart for a slice of your savings, if your paycheck can feed it. It’s a promo-shaped rate, and X has already shown it will trim the terms. We flagged the same kind of fine print in SoFi’s new 4.40% product last week.

What to do this week

Already in? Check the last 34 days. If $1,000 didn’t land as a payroll direct deposit, you’re earning 4%, not 6%. Fix it by splitting your direct deposit at work so at least $1,000 a month goes to X.

Thinking about it? Don’t move everything. Keep at least a month of bills at a regular FDIC-insured bank and let X hold the slice that’s chasing the rate. Plug your balance into our savings calculator and compare against the best high-yield accounts before you move a dollar.

Then set a reminder for December 1, and reread the rate page. It moved once already.

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