5 Best Debt Settlement Companies of 2023

How exactly does it work?

First, schedule a time for a free consultation call. This is an essential step because it helps you determine if debt settlement is truly right for you. You’ll talk to a debt consultant who can provide you with several options, allowing you to weigh the pros and cons of each one.

If you decide that Freedom Debt Relief is suitable for you, you’ll receive a customized debt settlement plan. Each plan has three goals it tries to reach:

1. Provide savings compared to making minimum payments
2. Resolve debt in a shorter time span
3. Ensure your comfort with your debt payments

Next, it’s time to start building your settlement fund. Like most debt settlement companies, Freedom requires you to make payments into an FDIC-insured Dedicated Account.

Once you’ve built up enough funds, they’ll start negotiating to lower your interest rates. But before committing to settle, they’ll reach out for your authorization.

This happens for each separate settlement so that you’re not responsible for anything you don’t agree to.

How do you pay them?

Rather than paying a fee upfront or monthly, you only pay for each account that is settled. You’ll be given a transparent cost estimate during your free consultation call.

You’re encouraged to enroll all of your credit cards in Freedom’s debt settlement program, although you can keep one for emergencies if the balance is less than $500.

The goal is to provide holistic debt relief so that you can move forward with a clean slate once the process is over.

Where Freedom Debt Relief Stands Out

Most of their debt management plans range between 24 and 48 months, so you can start seeing results relatively quickly. In total, the company has settled more than $7 billion in consumer debt, reflecting a solid track record of success.

They also serve many clients, which helps with their negotiating power. In fact, Freedom Debt Relief routinely manages nearly 37,000 accounts each month.

While enrolling in debt settlement programs can result in a lawsuit over the money you owe, they don’t see this come to realization for most of their customers. But, if a lawsuit does happen, Freedom is prepared.

Freedom Debt Relief can partner with a third-party law firm to work through the litigation and continue the settlement process.

You’ll likely be required to pay a higher fee for these additional services, but you know you’ll have access to expert help.

Read our full review of Freedom Debt Relief

Rather than performing the debt relief services themselves, they work with partner organizations that help you through a debt settlement program.

The process usually takes 24 to 48 months and goes faster when you put more money towards your settlement account.

Plus, your creditors find out about your enrollment right away.

Specialists call your creditors within the first two weeks of enrolling to let them know that you’ve signed up for the program.

This encourages the creditors to contact Accredited Debt Relief’s partner instead of you. Of course, it’s not a guarantee that you’ll completely avoid these calls, but it can help take some heat off your back.

What sort of expectations should you have going into a program through Accredited Debt Relief?

While there’s never any guarantee with debt settlement programs, people who make their account contributions on time can expect to pay similar amounts as these:

• Before Fees: 50% of your enrolled balance
• After Fees: 68% to 75% of your enrolled balance

That may sound like a hefty amount, but you’d still end up saving money on your balance, not to mention the interest you save by avoiding years of minimum monthly payments.

Where Accredited Debt Relief Stands Out

Accredited Debt Relief and their partners regularly work with creditors of all sizes — even the big names. Here are some examples to give you an idea of their scope:

• Wells Fargo
• Bank of America
• Chase
• Capital One

They are also certified to do business in just about every state, so you can qualify, regardless of where you live.

We also like their commitment to corporate social responsibility. For example, Accredited Debt Relief has provided financial support to several worthy nonprofit organizations.

These nonprofits include St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the Wounded Warrior Project, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure — to name a few.

Read our full review of Accredited Debt Relief

The company claims to have helped clients settle over $250 million in debt. They offer plans that come without any monthly administration fees, and there are no up-front fees at all. Instead, fees are performance-based and charged only when you see results.

According to New Era, the average debt settlement for clients takes less than two to three years. They also claim that on average, their clients save over 50% of their enrolled debt balances. This figure doesn’t take their fees into account, however.

Working with New Era Debt Solutions means clients have access to attorneys on staff. You will also benefit from having an account management team assigned to you from day one.

All of New Era’s work is conducted in-house so you can be sure of a high quality service throughout your contract.

Where New Era Debt Solutions Stands Out

One of the strongest draws to working with New Era Debt Solutions is that fees are only paid upon debt settlement. There are no fees up front.

You can also benefit from a free, no-strings consultation. This is a great chance to get your questions answered and help you understand the details of their service.

Another plus for New Era is the use of an online client dashboard. This makes it easy and convenient for clients to monitor their debt settlement program online. Since many debt settlement companies don’t offer this kind of dashboard, this is a noteworthy feature.

New Era Debt Solutions have excellent reviews, and no registered complaints with the CFPB database. Their online client dashboard stands out when it comes to ongoing customer service. 

There are also debt specialists and regular customer service agents on hand and available for your queries with regular service hours throughout the week.

Read our full review of New Era Debt Solutions

In most cases, your monthly payment for debt settlement is much less than if you continued making your minimum credit card payments each month.

Like the other debt relief companies on our list, they work as quickly as possible, settling most clients’ debts within 24 and 48 months. To get started, you’ll need at least $10,000 in unsecured debts.

Currently, the company works in 28 states, so read our full review to make sure you live in an eligible state. When applying, you’ll work with a debt counselor who will review your current financial situation. They’ll even help you make a budget so that you can stay on track with the program.

Once you enter Pacific’s program and grow your FDIC-insured account, the negotiation process begins. But you always get the final say — no settlement occurs without your approval.

Where Pacific Debt Relief Stands Out

One of the benefits of working with Pacific Debt is that you get a single agent who is dedicated to your account. So if you have a question or concern, you get to talk to the same person each time.

While there aren’t any guarantees, they do have proven results. They have settled over $200 million in debt for their clients. They work with both bank creditors and retail credit cards, so you can get help regardless of what unsecured debt you have.

In fact, they’ve worked to settle accounts with places like Citibank, Target, USAA, Kohl’s, and Capital One.

Read our full review of Pacific Debt Relief

It takes just 30 seconds to apply and find out if you’re eligible for their debt settlement services. The minimum amount of required debt is $7,500, but of course, many customers have much more than that.

Once your escrow account has accumulated enough money from your monthly payments, National Debt Relief’s team starts to work on the negotiation process.

National Debt Relief is upfront about how tenacious they are — they’ll keep trying until you either reach a settlement, or the creditor makes it abundantly clear that they won’t settle.

When the team does reach an agreement with the creditor, they’ll reach out directly to you so that you can authorize payment from your account. You have total control over those funds.

You also won’t be charged until you receive a settlement — there are no hidden monthly fees. And if you want to cancel out of the program, it’s an easy process with no fees involved.

Where National Debt Relief Stands Out

While most debt settlement companies only work with unsecured debt, National Debt Relief can sometimes help with secured loans or even private student loans. If these types of debts are a burden for you, then it’s worth reaching out to them.

Within these categories, however, there are some restrictions on debt that they can’t help you with, including:

• Auto loans
• Federal loans
• Mortgages
• Child support payments

Another stand-out feature from National Debt Relief is that their customer service reps and negotiators work together in teams. That helps you because there’s a lot more transparency regarding whose doing what and the progress that’s being made.

We also appreciate that they have worked with tens of thousands of clients over the years. You don’t get much more experience than that!

Read our full review of National Debt Relief