Monarch Money Review

Our Verdict

Monarch Money is the best modern Mint replacement.

GetASearch Score: 8.5/10

Rating: 4.5/5 (1234 reviews)

Score Breakdown

What is Monarch Money?

Monarch Money is a modern personal finance dashboard that unifies budgeting, investment tracking, and net worth monitoring into a single, elegantly designed application. Founded in 2019 by Val Agostino (previously at Mint and Intuit), Monarch was built specifically to address the shortcomings of legacy personal finance tools - cluttered interfaces, unreliable bank connections, and limited investment visibility. The platform connects to over 11,000 financial institutions via Plaid and MX, aggregating checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, investment portfolios, loans, mortgages, and cryptocurrency holdings into a unified dashboard. Transaction categorization combines machine learning with user-defined rules, and custom categories can be created without restriction. Recurring transactions are automatically detected and tracked, providing a clear picture of fixed monthly obligations. Budgeting in Monarch is flexible - users can set monthly or custom-period budgets per category, track spending against targets with visual progress bars, and roll over unused budget amounts to subsequent months. Unlike YNAB's strict zero-based approach, Monarch accommodates multiple budgeting styles, from envelope budgeting to simple spending limits, making it accessible to users who find rigid methodologies intimidating. Investment tracking is where Monarch particularly excels over competitors. The platform displays portfolio allocation, individual holdings performance, dividend income, and historical returns across all connected brokerage and retirement accounts. Users can see their complete investment picture - 401(k), IRA, taxable brokerage, HSA - in one view without logging into multiple platforms. The net worth tracker provides a comprehensive longitudinal view of financial health, charting assets minus liabilities over time with breakdown by account type. This high-level perspective helps users understand whether they're making progress toward financial independence, and the "Sankey" cash flow diagram visually maps income sources through spending categories. Collaboration is a core feature. Monarch supports household accounts where partners can share financial data, budgets, and goals while maintaining individual account access. This makes it particularly appealing for couples managing joint finances - a use case poorly served by most alternatives. Monarch costs $14.99/month or $99.99/year, positioning it as a premium tool. The company does not sell user data or display advertisements, relying entirely on subscription revenue. The platform is available on iOS, Android, and web, with a clean, modern interface that emphasizes data visualization and actionable insights over raw transaction lists.

The Complete Financial Picture

Monarch's biggest advantage over YNAB is the holistic financial view. Your checking account, savings, credit cards, investments, mortgage, and crypto are all in one dashboard.

Built for Couples and Families

Monarch's collaboration features are the best we've tested for couples. Both partners get full access to the same dashboard.

Monarch Money Features

Monarch Money Pricing

$14.99/mo or $99.99/yr

Best For

• Mint refugees
• Couples managing finances

Not Ideal For

• Zero-based budgeting purists
• Free-tool seekers

Final Verdict

Monarch Money is the best modern Mint replacement.

Visit Monarch Money

Frequently Asked Questions