What’s the new SoFi Smart card?
By: Goose
Published: 12/14/2025
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TLDR; SoFi is coming out with a new charge card dubbed the SoFi Smart card. It’s a unique no annual fee card with 5% cash back at grocery stores, but has a requirement to have a (paid) SoFi Plus membership.
SoFi is coming out with a different kind of card, the SoFi Smart Charge card. It is unlike any other credit card because... it’s not exactly a true credit card. It’s a charge card which means that you have to pay off your balance every month versus a credit card where balances roll over to the next month.
And it comes with 5% cash back at grocery stores. While the card doesn’t have an annual fee, you have to have a SoFi Plus membership which costs $120 annually ($10 a month). The SoFi Plus membership has all kinds of bells and whistles that 99% of other cards don’t offer.
What do you have to do to get the SoFi Smart card?
In order to qualify for & get the SoFi Smart card, you need to join SoFi plus which is SoFi’s premium membership subscription. This membership is $10 monthly which totals to $120 a year. You can think of this as an annual fee on the card.
What are the benefits of a SoFi Plus membership?
With a SoFi Plus membership, there’s lots of miscellaneous benefits. Here are all of the perks of a SoFi Plus membership:
- Boosted APY on one SoFi savings account for 6 months: You’ll receive a .70% APY temporary boost on the rate of 3.60% (rate is current as of 11/12/2025) This would be 4.30% total.
- Unlimited financial planning: You can schedule unlimited one-on-one meetings with SoFi financial wealth planners
- Investment match: You get a 1% match on IRA contributions along with a 1% cash match on recurring deposits made through SoFi invest.
- $1,000 Home Mortgage discount
- $400 home equity loan discount
- Rate discount on loans: rate discount on new parent student loans, new personal loans, and on student loan refinancing
- 50% discount on Hello Privacy
- $200 off trusts with Trust & Will
- 20% off on TurboTax
- 10% off tickets with Vivid Seats
- $20 reward on dining with Seated
What are the main features on the SoFi Smart card?
Most of the benefits of the SoFi Smart card fall under the the benefits of the SoFi Plus membership but there is one other benefit to be aware of. You’ll get 5% cash back on purchases at grocery stores (does not include superstores like Walmart & Target as well as warehouse clubs like Costco & Sam’s Club).
The “cashback” that you would earn is rewarded as SoFi membership rewards points. And each point is worth a cent. You would be able to redeem these points as a statement credit on your SoFi Smart Card, cash straight into your SoFi checking or savings account or cash towards paying off a loan through SoFi.
The card is a bit strange in that the 5% cashback on grocery stores is the only category for awards. That is to say you don’t even earn 1% cashback on all other purchases. Grocery store purchases is the only category you can earn rewards in.
The way I see it is that this card is supposed to encourage you to get a SoFi Plus membership. SoFi wants folks to put lots of money into checking and savings accounts along with brokerage accounts on SoFi invest.
I only find the SoFi Plus membership worth it if you are a high roller. The 1% match on IRA contributions and 1% cash match on recurring deposits with SoFi invest is not too bad.
But honestly, there’s better bonuses for brokerage accounts out there. For instance, WeBull offers a 2% match on brokerage transfers and cash deposits as long as you hold the qualifying deposit in the account for a year. And Moomoo offers $1,000 in Nvidia stock when you cash deposit $50,000 or more.
With the SoFi Smart card and the SoFi Plus membership, it feels like there are a million hoops to jump through to get rewards and bonuses. And at the end of it all, the rewards aren’t even that good.
Final Remarks
I really don’t like the SoFi Smart card. And while the SoFi Plus membership aspect of the card is more interesting, I don’t like it either.
From doing some brief math, it seems like SoFi will make out like a bandit with your money towards the SoFi Plus membership at $120 a year. You would have to spend a ton on groceries to get your money’s worth for the membership. And you would want to get the 1% match on IRA contributions and 1% cash match on recurring deposits with SoFi invest. Yes, there’s a possibility where you could get your money’s worth for the SoFi Plus membership but the point is that there are much better ways to earn rewards at grocery stores AND better ways to get bonuses with brokerage accounts.
FAQs
No. There are better ways to earn cashback/transferrable points at grocery stores AND better ways to get bonuses with brokerage accounts. WeBull has great bonuses for brokerage accounts and the <chase-freedom-flex> often has a 5% category for grocery stores and/or Instacart.
A charge card like the SoFi Smart card essentially is a card that you have to pay off in full every month. You can’t carry the balance into the following month.
SoFi invest is SoFi’s brokerage platform. You’ll have two options—a self-directed account or a robo invest account where SoFi invests based on what kind of portfolio you would like to have.
The American Express Blue Cash Preferred card is a great card to use at grocery stores. You’ll get 6% cash back on groceries up to $6,000 in spending per year. And this cashback comes in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit.