Budgeting app review for Monarch Money in 2024

An intuitive budgeting app like Monarch Money can transform managing your money from a chore to a pleasure.

CNBC Select evaluates Monarch Money's features, pricing, and suitability for your needs.

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Monarch Money pros and cons

Before subscribing to Monarch Money's fintech platform, it's important to weigh its advantages and disadvantages.

Pros

• Setting up your account on the dashboard is straightforward and easy to navigate.
• Monarch Money automatically updates your dashboard with your transactions, balances, and net worth by connecting your bank accounts, investment accounts, and credit cards, like many other budgeting apps on the market.
• Your subscriptions, memberships, and other regular payments are easily identifiable through the dashboard's display of your monthly recurring expenses.
• The dashboard features a net worth tracker, a monthly income and expense progress tracker, an investment portfolio and cash flow tracker, as well as spending and income reports.

Cons

• The cost of Monarch Money is $99.99 annually, which amounts to $8.33 per month or $14.99 billed monthly, which may be beyond your budget for a budgeting app.

How Monarch Money works

Monarch Money offers a comprehensive view of your finances by linking your bank, credit card, investment, student loan, debt, asset, and crypto accounts. With the app, you can create a monthly budget, track transactions and recurring expenses, monitor your net worth, and stay updated on your investment portfolio activity.

Standout features

Some of Monarch Money's more useful features include:

• Customized and Prioritized Goals: Create a list of personalized goals, such as "down payment for a house" or "Paris vacation," and then link financial accounts to each goal. Monarch will provide recommendations based on the amount you set for each goal, the balances of your linked accounts, and other factors to help you stay on track. Although the app's advice can be helpful, it may not be sufficient for more complex goals, such as saving for retirement, and you may want to consult a financial advisor.
• Zero-based budgeting: Monarch Money supports the zero-based budgeting approach, like YNAB. It provides users with an accurate picture of their remaining funds each month, but it does not require them to allocate every dollar.

Who Monarch Money is for

The comprehensive dashboard of Monarch Money, along with its subscription fee, is ideal for individuals who want to have a holistic view of their finances and utilize the app to make informed decisions regarding their money management.

Plans and pricing

$8.33/month or $99.99/year (billed annually)

$14.99/month (billed monthly)

Monarch Money offers a 7-day free trial.

How to sign up for Monarch Money

You can sign up for Monarch Money by visiting their website or downloading the app and providing your information, such as your name and email address. The app is available on Google Play and the App Store.

Alternatives to Monarch Money

While Monarch Money is a robust budgeting and expense tracking platform, it may not be suitable for all individuals.

If you don't want to pay for a budgeting app, Empower is a free platform that connects to your online accounts to track transactions and investments. However, if you want to add investment management services, you'll be charged 0.89% of your portfolio (for accounts under $1 million).

If you're seeking a budgeting app that utilizes a unique approach to managing your finances, then Goodbudget is worth considering. It virtually implements the cash envelope system, allowing you to organize your money in a more efficient manner. While the first 20 envelopes are free, you'll need to pay $70 annually for unlimited envelopes. Compared to Monarch Money, Goodbudget is more affordable at this price point, but it represents a different budgeting method altogether.

Why trust CNBC Select?

Our goal at CNBC Select is to deliver top-notch service journalism and in-depth consumer advice to our readers, enabling them to make well-informed decisions when it comes to their finances. Each of our personal finance articles is the result of thorough reporting by our team of expert writers and editors, who possess extensive knowledge of budgeting products. At CNBC Select, we are committed to maintaining our journalistic standards and ethics, even when it comes to earning commissions from our affiliate partners on many offers and links.

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