Monarch Money Review: Is This Budgeting Tool Worth the Price? – Technologist

If you’re considering downloading a personal finance tool, Monarch Money may be a good option. 

In this article, I’ll take a close look at five things to know about Monarch Money, so you’ll know what to expect before you pay for a subscription. I set up a budget with Monarch Money, checked out what features it offers and looked at other popular budgeting tools to see how Monarch compares.

5 Things to Know About Monarch Money

If you have financial goals that you’re trying to achieve, budgeting is a crucial step. It’s important to delegate where your money is going so that you aren’t left wondering where it went. While you can set up a budget on your own, there are tons of budgeting apps and websites that can set one up for you. One of the newest options on the market is Monarch Money.

If you’re curious about where your money has been going, looking for motivation to start saving, need alerts to remind you of upcoming bills or simply want to see all of your investments and net worth in one place, Monarch Money may be the perfect resource for you. However, you will have to pay for a subscription.

If you’re thinking about signing up for Monarch Money, here are five things to know:

Table of Contents: 

1. What Is Monarch Money?
2. How Does Monarch Money Work?
3. How To Get the Most Out of Monarch Money
4. How Does Monarch Money Compare?
5. Final Thoughts: Should You Pay for Monarch Money?

Below, you’ll find more detailed information on Monarch Money including how to best use the budgeting tool and what to expect once you’ve created an account.

1. What Is Monarch Money?

Monarch Money is a paid personal finance and budgeting tool that launched in 2018. Since then, it’s grown rapidly in the U.S. and Canada.

According to the company’s website, Monarch “simplifies finances by bringing all your accounts together into one clear view. Always know where your money is and where it’s going, achieve your goals quicker, and collaborate with your partner or professional at no extra cost.” 

Monarch Money is currently available as an app for iOS and Android devices as well as online at MonarchMoney.com. Currently, the app maintains a 4.9/5 rating from 33.4K reviews on the App Store. On Google Play, 7.98K reviews leave the app with an average rating of 4.7/5.

While the app is free to download and an account is free to create, you’ll have to pay for a subscription to use any features. Fortunately, Monarch Money offers a 7-day free trial. That gives you a week to set up your budget and decide whether or not the features will be worth the cost of a full subscription. To avoid being charged, cancel your subscription before the free trial ends.

Here’s how much you can expect to pay for Monarch Money after your 7-day free trial:

• Annual Subscription: $99.99 ($8.33/month)
• Monthly Subscription: $14.99

2. How Does Monarch Money Work?

Like many other budgeting apps and services, Monarch Money works by connecting all of your accounts so that you can view and categorize all deposits and transactions in order to meet your financial goals. With Monarch, you can also track your investments, customize your financial plan and share your budget with a household partner or a financial planner.

In this section, I’ll take a close look at what you can expect when you sign up for Monarch Money. For a more in-depth walkthrough of how to get started, check out this guide from Monarch Money.

• Getting Started: Creating an Account
• Connecting Bank Accounts
• Customizing Categories
• Setting Goals
• Creating Your Budget
• Other Features

Getting Started: Creating an Account

When I tested Monarch Money myself, I downloaded the app to get started. You can download the app for iOS and Android devices or you can visit Monarch Money’s website to get started.

You’ll have to enter and verify your email address to create an account. Then, you’ll be able to create a password and answer a few questions about what you’re hoping to get out of Monarch as well as your personal goals. Once you’ve created your account, you can begin a 7-day free trial before paying anything for the app.

Once you sign in, you’ll see your account’s Dashboard. Eventually, your Dashboard will have a quick overview of all your finances with customizable widgets. You can choose which features are most important that you’d like to see on the front page of the app including your budget, recent spending, net worth, transactions, investments, goals and more.

To finish setting up your account, you can follow the quick list on your Dashboard under “Getting Started.” 

Connecting Bank Accounts

First, you’ll need to connect your bank accounts. Monarch used Plaid to connect two of my accounts and Finicity to connect two other accounts. According to Monarch, your institution may also connect through MX.

I chose my bank institutions and entered/verified my phone number. Then, I was able to log into my bank. For me, I was redirected to the banking apps that I already use on my phone to give Monarch permission to see certain information about my accounts including balances and transactions. 

Once you’ve connected your accounts, you can personalize alert preferences including when you make a transaction or deposit over a certain amount, when you’ve exceeded your budget, when transactions need to be reviewed, when recurring merchants are detected, etc. You can also skip this step and manage your alerts later. 

You can learn more about connecting your bank accounts to Monarch Money here.

Customizing Categories

After you’ve added your bank accounts, you can customize your categories. 

Customizing categories tells Monarch how you’d like to label and organize your income (including paychecks, interest and more), expenses (including donations, auto, housing, bills, travel, food and more) and transfers (including credit card payments and balance adjustments). 

You can customize the symbol that appears next to these types of purchases, the category and group those purchases fall under, whether they should appear in your budget and whether they should have a “rollover fund” that carries over remaining balances to the following month.

You can learn more about creating and customizing categories on Monarch Money here.

Setting Goals

Creating a goal will help you better save for large future expenses such as an emergency fund, down payment, vacation, retirement or something else. You can also use the Goals tab to make a plan to pay down long-term debts including credit card debts, student loans, mortgages and more. 

If you choose more than one goal, you’ll be able to customize each goal’s priority level. Then, you can enter how much you’d like to save up for each goal. If you connect accounts associated with any current debts, Monarch will automatically determine how much is owed to pay it off. 

Once you’ve set your goal(s), you can choose how much you currently allocate to each of your goals. This amount will be added to your budget to help track your progress. Plus, if you’ve connected your accounts, you can easily see what your average savings have been over the most recent three months to help you better determine how much you’d like to allocate toward each goal. 

Once your goals are set up, you can customize them and track your progress through Monarch. 

You can learn more about setting goals on Monarch Money here.

Creating Your Budget

Linking your bank accounts, customizing your categories and setting goals are all important steps to take before creating your budget. Once all the previous steps are completed, it’s much easier to see how much money you actually have to budget after expenses and savings. 

In the “Budget” tab, click “Create My Plan” to get started. 

If you’ve connected accounts, Monarch will automatically predict and verify your monthly income as well as frequent expenses. Then, you can choose between a “Flex Budget” or “Category Budget.”

“Flex Budgeting” is a simpler approach to budgeting that allows you to focus solely on the amount of flexible cash you have each month (after set expenses and goals). According to Monarch Money, this type of budget is best for people who haven’t had success with traditional budgeting, who don’t want to get into the details of their spending, have big goals to save for and varying spending habits each month. You can learn more about setting up a Flex Budget on Monarch’s website.

Alternatively, “Category Budgeting” offers a more traditional approach. You’ll be able to assign a budgeted amount to every expense category including set expenses. According to Monarch Money, this type of budget is best for people who want to learn about and manage their spending, who are actively trying to cut overall spending and those who prefer cash envelope-based budgeting. You can learn more about setting up a Category Budget on Monarch’s website.

Other Features

Once you’ve completed all the steps to get started with Monarch Money, you can fully take advantage of all the available features. Here are a few that stood out to me while testing Monarch Money: 

• Cash Flow: Click the “Cash Flow” tab to see an overview of your income, expenses and savings by month, quarter or year. You can also see a breakdown of expenses by category, group or merchant.
• Recurring Expenses: If Monarch notices new recurring expenses or deposits, it will ask you to verify the amount and frequency to better predict your budgeting in the future. For me, it noticed that I signed up for Sling last month and had two new “recurring” charges.” This tab will then show you any upcoming recurring expenses each month as well as those that have already been paid. 
• Investments Portfolio: You can add investment accounts to analyze your portfolio performance across all of your holdings. Monarch allows you to easily track ETF, stock and cryptocurrency. 
• Your Household: Under “Your Household” (“Settings” from the desktop version), you can manage trusted household members to view and modify your household’s budget. This is a great way to manage your budget with a partner or financial planner.

3. How To Get the Most Out of Monarch Money

If you’re just getting started with Monarch Money, I recommend checking out this Getting Started guide on the company’s website. You’ll find a detailed article and video on how to set up your account in order to get the most possible benefit from the app or website.

After signing up for Monarch Money myself, here are my top five tips:

1. Follow Monarch’s “Getting Started” Checklist. When you first log into Monarch Money, you’ll see a “Getting Started” checklist on your dashboard. Set aside at least an hour to complete all four tasks. While it takes some time to set everything up, your monthly budget will be much more accurate after you do. Plus, this will lead to less manual adjustments after you start budgeting. 
2. Link As Many Accounts As Possible. This is the best way for Monarch to get the most accurate picture of your finances. You will have to log in to your bank accounts for this and give them permission to share data with Monarch. However, your login information is not stored and only grants Monarch “read-only” access. You can learn more about Monarch’s privacy and security practices here. 
3. Review Transactions Regularly. When Monarch pulls your income and spending data, it automatically categorizes the transactions based on the preferences you made while setting up your budget. However, it may make mistakes. For this reason, it’s important to regularly review your transactions and make sure they’re categorized correctly. You can learn more about reviewing and editing transactions on Monarch’s website.
4. Track Cash Spending. If you budget with cash, you can track your transactions manually with Monarch. This is a great way to get a complete picture of your spending habits and cash flow. You’ll need to add a manual “Cash” account to do so. You can learn more about managing cash transactions with Monarch here.
5. Customize Your Alerts. Whether you’re using the Monarch app or using Monarch’s website to track your budget be sure to set up notifications and alerts. This is a great way to get the most out of linking all your accounts in one place. Plus, Monarch makes it easy to customize your notifications.

For even more ways to get the most out of Monarch Money, visit the company’s website. There, you’ll find a huge selection of Product Feature Guides that cover lesser-known features and options. When I checked out the Product Feature Guides, here are a few that I found most helpful: 

• Transactions and Rules Tips & Tricks
• Tracking Recurring Expenses and Bills
• Understanding Your Budget in Monarch
• Budgeting for Couples
• Using Goals
• Manual Investment Holdings

You can check out all of Monarch Money’s Product Feature Guides here.

4. How Does Monarch Money Compare?

Compared to other budgeting apps, I found that Monarch Money provides the most customization when it comes to your monthly budget. While it takes some time to set up any budget, I found that Monarch Money was very simple to set up with a straightforward checklist of how to get started and how to get the most out of the service. Plus, as a paying subscriber, you’ll have access to all of the app/website’s premium features.

Still, it’s far from the only personal budgeting tool available. If you’ve been searching for the best budgeting tools, you’ve probably also come across competitors like Empower, Quicken, PocketGuard, YNAB and Honeydue.

Here’s a quick highlight of what to know about the features available with each of these budgeting tools: 

	Empower	YNAB	PocketGuard	Honeydue	Quicken	Monarch Money
Best for	Investments	Budgeting	Avoiding overspending	Budgeting with a partner	Premium features	Customization & Ease of Use
Free to use	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
Ad-supported	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Track spending	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Monthly budget planner	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bill payment alerts	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free credit score	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
Retirement planner	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Investment tracking	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes

As you can see, all six budgeting apps offer a variety of different features that help you track your spending and net worth to build a practical budget. But they each specialize in different areas of your finances. 

Quicken is one paid alternative to Monarch Money that offers premium features focused on personal budgeting and investments. It’s slightly cheaper than Monarch Money at regular rates ($5.99-$7.99/month, billed annually) plus you can frequently find deals on your first year of service.

YNAB, like Monarch Money, is a paid option. YNAB has similar pricing: $14.99 monthly or $109 annually ($9.08/month). It’s an excellent resource if you need a strict monthly budgeting tool, though you’ll find far more features with Monarch including bill payment alerts, retirement planning and investment tracking. 

If you’re mostly focused on watching your investments or planning for retirement, Empower may be enough to meet your needs. Plus, unlike Monarch Money and Quicken, Empower is free to use.

For free alternatives, consider PocketGuard or Honeydue. PocketGuard automatically sets up a budget for you and categorizes your transactions in real-time. If you’re budgeting on your own and need these automated features to avoid overspending, PocketGuard may be a great free alternative for you. To manage your finances with a partner for free, I recommend trying out Honeydue.

5. Final Thoughts: Should You Pay for Monarch Money?

Budgeting is essential if you’re serious about reaching your financial goals, and Monarch Money provides everything you need to take control of your money. While you will have to pay for this personal finance tool, the features may be worth it. 

Before you subscribe to Monarch Money, here are a few questions to ask yourself first to help you determine whether or not it’s worth the price: 

1. Have you tried a free budgeting method? Whether it’s pen and paper, cash envelopes or a free budgeting app like Empower, PocketGuard or Honeydue, there are several ways to budget for free. However, not all of these methods include the premium features that you’ll get with Monarch. If free budgeting methods aren’t working for you, it may be time to pay for a premium budgeting tool like Monarch Money.
2. Are you willing to pay for a budgeting tool? Monarch Money offers a risk-free 7-day trial with full access to the software’s features. If you decide to keep the subscription once your trial ends, you can expect a monthly or annual charge. Monarch Money costs $14.99/month or $8.33/month when billed annually. However, if the budgeting tool is truly helping you manage your spending and savings, it can easily pay for itself.
3. Are you willing to invest time in setting up the software? Monarch Money includes a lot of great features to help you manage your finances, and compared to other budgeting tools, it’s very easy to use. However, if you don’t link your bank accounts, create goals, customize categories and set up your budget with intention when you get started, you won’t be able to use the software to its full potential. While you can always make changes later, taking the time to set up your Monarch Money account effectively will pay off in the long run!

If you can answer “yes” to each of these questions, Monarch Money is likely going to be worth the cost. Fortunately, new customers are eligible for a 7-day free trial before committing to a subscription.

If you do decide to start a free trial with Monarch Money, I recommend checking out the company’s excellent online resources including this getting started guide and these product feature guides to get the most out of the software.

Do you use Monarch Money or another personal finance tool to stay on budget? Tell us about your experience in the Clark.com Community.

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