A platform that sells access to wages needs customers who have wages. This is the business logic behind EarnIn’s move into job searching.
erinn It began by giving workers access to wages before payday. Its new jobs platform, Earn Better, expands this scope to the point where one paycheck disappears and the search for another begins.
Following its acquisition of EarnBetter, the company placed job discovery, resume help and interview preparation within the EarnIn app. The service collects nearly 5 million job opportunities and is free for job seekers. The employer does not need to have a relationship with EarnIn. The return is indirect. Users who find work through the app become candidates for the paid products behind it.
The launch of the Earn Better platform in late June expanded the company’s offerings, But the organizing principle remains the same: salary.
“We’re really focused on making the paycheck work well,” founder and CEO of EarnIn Ram Palaniappan PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster told the latest during Monday’s conversation. “Salary is a digital product, yet it ships every two weeks. There is no other digital product that ships every two weeks.”
Earn Better applies this argument to the disruption that occurs when employment ends. EarnIn can detect when a user stops receiving wages and show a job search at that point. The same data that determines the salary payment rate identifies a defaulting customer.
“Our goal is to help them get a job instead of applying for jobs and clicking on them,” Palaniappan said, comparing the economics of EarnIn to job boards that benefit from application traffic. EarnIn makes money when a customer earns a salary, which gives it a stake in closing the gap between jobs, he said. Retention is the business case for the service a company provides.
A provider who sees when income comes in can also see when it stops, marketing to the user the moment the relationship ends. It has not been tested whether job seekers would choose a wage access app rather than existing councils.
Access to earned wages remains key. Palaniappan cited University of Oregon research that showed income among EarnIn users rose by about 11.5%. The research did not prove that access to wages caused this increase, and the company did not say what percentage of users benefited from this feature.
Webster pressed him to find out what the result actually meant.
“Is it because these are hourly workers who don’t miss their shifts?” I asked, and in this case, “It’s not that they’re getting raises, they’re just showing up.”
Palaniappan said attendance was a factor, not a factor only one. He said immediate access can make an overtime shift more attractive because the worker isn’t waiting for pay. It can also save small amounts of working capital. Workers who choose to take the wage may differ from those who do not in ways that the income figure does not capture.
The expansion comes as access to earned wages faces regulatory scrutiny. Webster pointed to tipping as a pricing model that is under scrutiny in Washington. Consumer groups argue that optional gratuities could carry annual costs similar to the short-term credit the products are supposed to replace.
Instead, Palaniappan claimed the discussion resembled earlier moments in banking history, recalling the arrival of ATMs, when Citibank promoted itself as “the bank that never sleeps,” and critics wondered why consumers needed cash in the middle of the night.
“I think it’s the same fear of change,” he added. “What is best for people eventually becomes” a standard. The comparison assumes a result that organizers are still studying.
From access to wages to income platform
Such examples are the case made by Palaniappan for Earn Better. EarnIn users include hourly and salaried workers, and are concentrated among hourly employees in retail, customer service, healthcare, and government. Teachers, some of whom receive monthly wages, also feature prominently.
The length of employment among many of these workers is often less than a year, so a stable unemployment rate can coexist with a high volume of job searches, Palaniappan said. The addressable market is therefore larger than just a service targeting layoffs. This includes workers who change jobs, are looking for hours, or are looking for wages. These users are already in the app, so EarnIn reaches them without any acquisition cost.
The expansion places Earn Better alongside automated savings, credit monitoring, bill reminders, and Bance Shield, which notifies users when balances fall below a set level and transfers earned wages to the account. EarnIn did not say how many users interact with these tools.
Webster wondered if Earn Better would become “a more prominent part of what EarnIn is about.” Palaniappan placed servicing jobs within a portfolio built on a mismatch between income and liabilities.
He pointed out that most workers receive their salaries every two weeks, while bills arrive monthly. The monthly bill will fall before payday six times a year. Rapid access alone does not solve this problem, and recognition narrows the scope of claims made for wages. ويحتاج العمال أيضًا إلى أدوات تتيح لهم توفير المال للإيجار، والتحذير من الفواتير، وإظهار المدى الذي ستمتد إليه الأرباح.
The problem is exacerbated if payroll moves beyond the two-week cycle, a shift to which no major payroll processor has committed.
“I think it will be ongoing pay,” Palaniappan said. “Take anything digital at once, the logical endpoint is continuous.”
The argument acknowledges a limit. Express Pay is not a stand-alone product. Its value depends on whether workers can use it to stay in their jobs, get better work, and manage bills that don’t follow the payroll calendar.
Get better tests of this proposal and distribution strategy. While the customer has a job, the platform sells tools for salary management. When the salary stops, the free jobs product keeps the customer in the app until there is another product.
Watch the interview
a witness The full PYMNTS conversation is on Monday
- Why the tipping debate is also a consumer choice debate.
- How the early backlash against ATMs influenced today’s debate about access to earned wages.
