Monarch Money Review – A Mint Alternative
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An ideal alternative for Mint, Monarch Money takes you closer to your financial goals.
8/10
Cost
7/10
Features
8/10
Ease of use
8/10
Services
7/10
For many consumers, Mint was the budgeting app of choice for years, offering a simple way to track spending and analyze your spending habits in real time. However, Mint was discontinued recently, leaving a void for many personal finance subscribers hungry to stay on top of their bank accounts and financial goals. Enter Monarch Money.
Monarch Money is one of the few budgeting tools out there offering categorization of expenses and purchases, as well as assistance when it comes to making monthly budgets, investment tracking, and hitting savings goals. Like other apps on the market, such as YNAB, Quicken, or Empower, Monarch has a variety of budgeting features that make managing your money a little easier than simply going to your bank account’s mobile app or website.
How useful is Monarch Money if you’re used to Mint? What are its best features, and which are overhyped (or just not useful)? Keep reading our Monarch Money review to learn more about the good, the bad, and the ugly when choosing Monarch Money as your financial app.
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What is Monarch Money?
Monarch Money was founded in 2018 by Val Agostino, Jon Sutherland, and Ozzie Osman and has since grown to be backed by investment firms like Accel, SignalFire, and Menlo Ventures, amongst a number of angel investors.
Monarch Money’s mission is to “help people lead richer lives by making better financial outcomes available to everyone.” To that end, they created Monarch Money, a tool for financial planning, tracking your net worth, and managing your budget, cash flow, credit cards, and more.
Monarch Money is available through the Apple App Store and Android Google Play Store for iOS and Android devices. It can also be accessed via a web browser, meaning that you can utilize Monarch Money wherever you are and whatever device you use.
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How does Monarch Money work?
Getting started with Monarch Money is a pretty straightforward process. It all starts with navigating Monarch Money's website and clicking the Sign-Up button in the top right corner of your screen. Keep in mind that if you’re coming from Mint, you can save 50% just by using the code MINT50 and jumpstart your process.
Once you click the sign-up button, it’s time to start your free trial. You can create an account by logging in to your Apple or Google account or sign up by email.
One of the first questions you’ll be asked as you’re creating your account is what is bringing you to Monarch in the first place. By selecting from a list of financial priorities (including things like viewing all of your finances in one place, paying down debt to improve your credit score, or tracking investments), you’ll be able to get the information you need to really make the most of Monarch — and your money.
You’ll also be asked how you heard about the platform and share your full name, what country you live in, and whether you handle financial management with a partner or utilize a financial advisor or other finance professional.
You’ll then be asked to put in some payment information and choose whether you want to do a monthly or annual subscription to use Monarch. Your seven-day free trial will begin, and you can start exploring the platform. Best of all, you’ll get a notification from Monarch the day before your trial ends, so if you do not want to pay for the platform after demoing it, you can cancel without ever being charged.
Overall, the entire process of registering for Monarch only takes a few minutes. After signing up for your free trial, you can immediately start connecting your financial accounts using Plaid and setting up goals and your customizable dashboard.
How much does Monarch Money cost?
Monarch Money starts with a seven-day free trial so you can import your financial data and then begin to learn the platform. Once your trial is up, you have two options for the subscription service:
- $99/year (or roughly $8.33 a month)
- $14.99/month (or roughly $180 a year)
If you’re wondering how to justify paying for an app that will help you save money, Monarch has a few things to point out. For starters, having connectivity with financial institutions—and, more importantly, keeping that process and data secure—is an expense. Monarch also has this to say:
“When you are paying for a service, you are the customer. The opposite is true in a free service, these companies are incentivized to sell your data to advertisers, and build features that make you click more ads, not features that actually help you.”
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Monarch Money features
What makes so many people pay for Monarch, and why is it worth considering for your own personal finances? Here are some of its top features.
Easy bank synchronization
If you have credit cards, savings accounts, auto loans, a mortgage, personal loans, student loans, and a checking account, all from different financial institutions (or even only two or three institutions), it can be difficult to visualize your accounts. Monarch Money easily synchronizes with your banks and other financial accounts, allowing you to visualize the financial picture in one place. This also makes it possible to chart your net worth over time.
Custom categories for personalized budgeting
When it comes to budgeting, Monarch excels through its use of custom categories and the ability to visualize your budget from a monthly or annual perspective. Not only that, but Monarch will also notify you if you are trending away from certain savings or spending goals, giving you an extra nudge in the right direction. Your categories can be customized into different groups and even personalized with emojis for extra finance flair.
This is handled through banking synchronization, so you don’t need to worry about manual entry. This makes it easier to list the categories where you spend your money and forecast future spending, too. You can even test out different scenarios to see how they might impact your finances in the long-term, a major help if you’re considering changing jobs, having a child, or buying a new home.
Built with couples in mind
Did you know that money is one of the leading financial stressors in marriages and a leading cause of divorce? Monarch is designed with couples’ budgets in mind, making it easier than ever to get on the same page about your financial goals. With built-in collaboration tools, it’s easy to invite your spouse or partner to work with you on managing your budget. You’ll even get a monthly email report about your finances, which can be a great kickstarter for monthly family budgeting meetings. By sharing data and goals, you and your partner can better collaborate on achieving your desired financial life.
Helpful reporting features
Want to know where every dollar is going or discover unwanted subscriptions? Monarch Money can help with that. Their spending reports help you visualize your cash flow and identify trends, including your savings rate and the merchants where you spend most of your money. You can create charts based on almost anything — including accounts, categories, date ranges, merchants, and custom tags. Monarch will even create Sankey diagrams so you can really visualize where all of your money is going.
Intuitive goal setting and easy progress tracking
If you have money in multiple accounts, it can be tricky to visualize your overall goals. Monarch makes it intuitive to plan for vacations, emergencies, and everything in between. You can create as many goals as you’d like and determine whether you want to work towards a set amount or simply plan a monthly or annual contribution amount. Best of all, you can personalize them with a photo to really help you visualize what it is you’re saving for.
Who is Monarch Money best for?
If you previously used Mint and got a lot out of it — get ready to rejoice! Monarch Money is a Mint alternative and offers even better budgeting functionality, as well as powerful reporting that really lets you drill down into your spending habits. Especially if you’re looking to manage your money with a partner, Monarch is an ideal financial tool.
Who shouldn’t use Monarch Money?
Some users will love Monarch’s features, but others who care most about budgeting may have issues with the abundance of reporting and features in Monarch’s dashboard. Additionally, for those who need to take a truly proactive approach to managing their expenses and budget, reacting to imported data may be trickier than the hands-on, zero-based philosophy of budgeting tools like YNAB or Every Dollar.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Great for goal-oriented individuals. If you have goals you want to reach, Monarch makes it easy to set them, track them, and visualize them. This can be a great tool for staying on track as long as you can stay on your budget.
- Easy to share. Monarch makes it super easy to share your goals and finances across your accounts if you're managing your money with a family member like a spouse. Best of all, if you have family “money meetings” once a month, you’ll appreciate the monthly recap emails Monarch generates about your goals, income, and expenses.
- Great filters and custom reports. There are many ways to skin a cat, and in Monarch, there are just as many ways to toggle through and sort your expenses. Filtering your purchases and running custom reports can be an ideal way to really delve into your spending and financial habits. Monarch offers an intuitive way to personalize the lenses through which you view your budget and finances.
- Compatible with all operating systems. Not all personal finance apps are cross-compatible from one operating system or device to another. Even popular budgeting tools like YNAB leave some things to be desired when switching from desktop to mobile. Monarch offers a consistent experience whether you’re on Android, iOS, or accessing the platform on the web using a web browser.
Cons
- UI can be overwhelming. Monarch’s user interface is well-designed and easy on the eyes, but it’s also easy to get overwhelmed with a chock-full system of features. While all tools have their learning curves, Monarch is certainly an app that can be dizzying the first few days of your free trial.
- Pricey. While Monarch makes a great case for the importance of paying for a financial app for managing your money and accounts, if you’re trying to really pinch pennies, the cost of Monarch Money is a drawback.
- Free trial isn’t very generous. Other budgeting tools give you a few weeks with their app as part of their free trial. While Monarch gives you the full experience during its free trial, the fact that the trial is only seven days long certainly leaves a bit to be desired if you’re short on time to dedicate to learning the platform.
Monarch Money vs. competitors
How does Monarch compare to other tools like Copilot or YNAB? Here’s a breakdown of the price, operating system, and some of the apps’ top features.
App | Operating System | Price | Top Features |
Copilot | Mac, iOS | $13 a month or $95 a year | Money tracking with state-of-the-art AI features |
Monarch | Web, iOS, Android | $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year | Forecasting and sharing finances as a family |
YNAB | Web, Android, iOS | $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year | The envelope method of budgeting |
Copilot
Copilot is cheaper than YNAB and Monarch, but it does come with one caveat: it’s only available for Apple users. While that may not be a dealbreaker, if you’ve been a mint user on a PC or your Android device, Copilot won’t be an option. Copilot is a more cutting-edge tool, offering many new machine learning-powered categorization functionalities.
YNAB
While Mint, Copilot, and Monarch take a reactive approach to budgeting, tracking, and forecasting your personal finances, YNAB is much more hands-on. Part budgeting app and part philosophical approach, YNAB (You Need a Budget) focuses on helping its users embrace their yearly expenses, give every dollar a job, and stay adaptable if something requires them to “roll with the punches.” For many, it excels as a budgeting tool but leaves some things to be desired when it comes to reporting and filters. It’s also available on iOS, web, and Android.
FAQs
Is the Monarch app secure to use?
Yes. Monarch is not only encrypted using the latest in internet security protocols for financial data, but they also only collect the bare minimum amount of data needed in order to power their tool. They partner with Plaid and Finicity in order to handle their syncing to keep things secure, while also offering high bug bounties for the sector beyond their existing encryption methodologies. You can even add multi-factor authentication to secure your account even more.
Does it cost extra money in order to add a secondary user to your Monarch account?
No. One of the biggest perks of using Monarch is the ability to collaborate with a partner, family member, spouse, or financial advisor on your account. Thankfully, Monarch doesn’t charge additional money for this secondary user’s access.
Is Monarch available for use outside of America?
No. Currently, Monarch is only available for use in the United States and for tracking currency in USD.
What happens if you cancel your trial before it ends?
If you cancel your trial for Monarch Premium before it ends, you will still be able to finish out the duration of your trial. In this scenario, you will not be charged at the end fo your trial.
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The bottom line
If you’re looking for a replacement for Mint, Monarch might be the best option out there for you. With many of the same features offered by Mint, not to mention a robust way to filter your reports and analyze the nitty-gritty of your finances, there is a lot to love about Monarch. As a tracking tool that consolidates your financial accounts and allows you to better manage your finances, it’s hard to knock the app. All of this gets exponentially better when you consider that you can manage your app with a partner such as a spouse or financial advisor at no additional cost.
Of course, Monarch comes with a price tag that could make some would-be users balk. After all, wanting to save money and paying for an app that claims to help you better control your finances seems a little at odds. Even so, there are plenty of handy features and functionalities to make Monarch powerful.
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Writer
Brent Ervin-Eickhoff is a Chicago-based writer, stage director, and filmmaker with a background in digital marketing and content creation. In addition to Joy Wallet, Brent has written for Complex, Volkswagen, HowlRound, Picture this Post, and Third Coast Review, among others. He currently serves as the Associate Director of Marketing for Content Creation at Court Theatre at the University of Chicago. Brent graduated from Ball State University with Academic Honors in Writing.
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