Our Verdict
When it comes to taking control of your finances, Monarch Money is your top choice if you’re looking for a comprehensive and collaborative solution. Imagine having all your financial planning tools in one place—detailed budgeting, investment tracking, and goal-setting features.
It is designed to meet your needs, whether you’re managing finances with a partner, advisor, or on your own. Monarch Money’s extensive features and integrations give you a powerful, all-encompassing view of your financial landscape, making it ideal if you want to dive deep into your financial strategy. Plus, with a significant discount on the annual plan, you get premium tools at a great value.
On the flip side, if you prefer simplicity and automation, Rocket Money is a great fit. It’s perfect if you want to effortlessly manage your finances without dealing with complex details. Features like subscription tracking, bill negotiation, and automated savings make it easy for you to streamline your financial management with minimal effort. Rocket Money is an excellent choice if you value a straightforward, user-friendly experience.
Ultimately, if you want a feature-rich, all-in-one financial tool, Monarch Money is the way to go. For a more automated, hands-off approach, Rocket Money offers a convenient alternative.
Why Choose Rocket Money
Who Rocket Money is best for
Rocket Money is ideal for you if you:
- Want to streamline your financial management with minimal manual input
- Struggle to keep track of recurring subscriptions and expenses
- Have a hectic schedule and prefer tools that handle financial tracking and savings automatically
- Want to save money but find it challenging to set aside funds consistently
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Who Rocket Money isn’t right for
Rocket Money might not be a good choice for you if you:
- Prefer a hands-on approach to tracking and managing your finances and enjoy manually categorizing and reviewing every transaction
- Require highly customizable financial planning tools and detailed reporting tailored to very specific needs
Why Choose Monarch Money
Who Monarch Money is best for
Monarch Money is a good fit for:
- Couples managing shared finances
- Financial advisors who need a comprehensive tool to oversee clients’ financial health
- Financial coaches who require a tool to help clients with budgeting, goal setting, and financial management
- Employers aiming to improve their employee benefits programs with financial wellness tools
Who Monarch Money isn’t right for
Seek an alternative if you:
- Are looking for a simpler budgeting app with fewer features and lower complexity
- Need highly specialized investment tracking and analysis
- Prefer a hands-on approach to managing your finances with manual tracking and detailed oversight
Rocket Money vs Monarch Money Budgeting App: Main Differences
| Rocket Money | Monarch Money |
Ideal for | ● Individuals seeking a straightforward, automated approach to managing finances. | ● Ideal for couples, financial advisors, and coaches who require detailed budgeting, investment tracking, and goal-setting features. |
Pricings | ● Offers a freemium model with basic features available for free. Premium features such as bill negotiation and autopilot savings are accessible through a subscription. | ● Yearly Plan: Discounted Price: $69.99 per year (about $5.83 per month) with the WELCOME30 promo code. Regular Price: $99.99 per year. ● Monthly Plan: Price: $14.99 per month. Note: Not eligible for the WELCOME30 discount. |
Integration | ● Connects with various bank accounts, credit cards, and financial institutions for tracking transactions. | ● Supports a wide range of integrations with banks, investment accounts, and financial institutions, providing a comprehensive view of financial data from multiple sources. |
Support | ● Provides support via email and an in-app help center. Includes a knowledge base and FAQs for self-service assistance. | ● Offers extensive support options including email, live chat, and a detailed support center. Known for responsive customer service and a comprehensive knowledge base. |
Mobile app | ● Features a user-friendly mobile app designed for ease of use. | ● Provides a robust mobile app with a focus on detailed financial management and collaboration |
Rocket Money vs Monarch Money Budgeting App: Stand Out Features
Rocket Money
- Manage Subscriptions
Rocket Money’s Manage Subscriptions feature automatically detects recurring payments by scanning your linked financial accounts for subscriptions, memberships, and auto-renewals. This gives you an easy way to track where your money is going each month. You can view all your subscriptions in one place and cancel any unwanted services directly from the app with just a few clicks. This saves you the hassle of contacting companies individually, ensuring you don’t waste money on services you no longer use.
- Autopilot Savings
With the Autopilot Savings feature, Rocket Money helps you set aside money effortlessly by automatically transferring small amounts into a savings account based on your spending habits. You can customize this feature by setting specific savings goals—such as building an emergency fund or saving for a vacation. The app intelligently adjusts how much it saves, ensuring that the process doesn’t interfere with your regular cash flow. This hands-off approach makes saving money feel seamless and manageable, even for those who struggle to set aside funds manually.
- Spending Insights
The Spending Insights feature helps you gain a clear understanding of your spending habits by automatically categorizing your transactions. Rocket Money tracks your expenses in categories such as groceries, dining out, utilities, and entertainment. This breakdown enables you to see exactly where your money is going and provides insights into your spending patterns over time. By visualizing these trends, you can make informed adjustments to your spending, optimize your budget, and work toward achieving financial goals more effectively.
- Credit Score Monitoring
Rocket Money includes Credit Score Monitoring to help you stay on top of your credit health. It provides free access to your credit score and delivers timely notifications when there are changes, such as a drop or improvement in your score. Along with these updates, Rocket Money offers insights into the factors affecting your credit score and provides tips on how to improve it. This feature ensures that you’re always aware of your credit standing, helping you maintain or boost your score for future financial opportunities.
- Bill Negotiation
Rocket Money’s Bill Negotiation feature works on your behalf to help lower recurring bills, such as cable, internet, or phone services. By negotiating with service providers, the app aims to secure better rates for you. If the negotiation is successful, Rocket Money takes a small percentage of the savings as its fee. If they don’t manage to lower the bill, you don’t pay anything. This feature is a simple way to potentially reduce your monthly expenses without any extra effort on your part, helping you save money on everyday services.
- Net Worth Tracking
Rocket Money also offers a Net Worth Tracking feature, which helps you get a clear picture of your overall financial health. The app calculates your net worth by taking into account your assets (such as bank accounts, investments, and property) and liabilities (like debts and loans). By tracking this over time, you can see how your financial situation is evolving. This feature provides valuable insights that can guide your long-term financial planning, helping you understand the broader context of your personal wealth and progress toward your financial goals.
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Monarch Money
- Net Worth
Monarch Money’s Net Worth feature gives you a comprehensive view of your overall financial health by tracking your assets and liabilities in one place. The app connects to your bank accounts, loans, investments, and other financial sources to calculate your net worth. This real-time tracking allows you to see how your wealth evolves over time, making it easier to gauge your financial progress. With clear visualizations, Monarch Money helps you understand your financial standing at a glance and identify areas where you can improve.
- Budgeting
Monarch Money’s Budgeting tool helps you create personalized budgets that align with your financial goals. You can set limits for various spending categories like groceries, dining out, or transportation. The app automatically tracks your spending in real-time, ensuring you stay within your allocated limits. Monarch Money provides insights into your spending habits, offering recommendations for how you can better manage your finances. The app also adapts to changes, making adjustments to your budget based on your financial circumstances, so you can remain flexible while staying on track.
- Recurring Expenses
With Recurring Expenses, Monarch Money helps you monitor subscriptions, bills, and other recurring payments. It identifies and tracks these transactions, ensuring that you know exactly what you’re paying for on a regular basis. By keeping tabs on these expenses, Monarch helps you avoid unnecessary charges and provides reminders to ensure that all your bills are paid on time. This feature also allows you to adjust or cancel subscriptions that no longer serve your needs.
- Investments
Monarch Money’s Investments feature provides detailed tracking of your investment accounts, allowing you to monitor the performance of your portfolio over time. The app consolidates information from your various investment accounts, showing how your stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other assets are performing. Monarch Money gives you insights into market trends and portfolio growth, helping you make informed decisions about your investments. By integrating investment tracking with your overall financial picture, Monarch ensures that you see how investments contribute to your long-term wealth.
- Transactions
Monarch Money’s Transactions feature organizes all of your purchases, deposits, and payments into a single view. The app automatically categorizes these transactions, making it easy to see where your money is going. You can manually adjust or recategorize any transactions, ensuring that your financial data is accurate and tailored to your needs. Monarch also allows you to search through your transactions, helping you quickly find specific payments or purchases when you need to review them.
- Collaboration
The Collaboration feature allows you to share your financial dashboard with others, such as a spouse, financial advisor, or family member. This is particularly useful for joint financial planning, where multiple people need access to the same information. Monarch Money provides permission controls so you can decide how much information others can see or edit. Collaboration ensures that everyone involved in managing finances is on the same page, fostering better communication and joint decision-making.
Rocket Money vs Monarch Money Budgeting App: Pros & Cons
Rocket Money
- Pros
- Excels at identifying and managing subscriptions, which can help you track and cancel services you no longer use
- Tracks your spending by categorizing your transactions and providing insights into where your money is going
- Has a straightforward and intuitive design, making it easy to navigate and use the app’s features without a steep learning curve
- Has a free version of the app that provides basic functionalities, which can be suitable for users who need essential budget and subscription management tools without committing to a subscription
- Cons
- Lacks more advanced budgeting features found in other apps
- Free version may include ads or promotions for premium features, which can be distracting or intrusive for some users
Monarch Money
- Pros
- Allows you to manage all aspects of your finances in one place
- Allows you to set financial goals, such as saving for a vacation or paying off debt, and tracks your progress toward them
- Offers features to monitor and track your investment portfolio alongside your day-to-day financial accounts
- Supports collaboration, allowing you to invite family members or partners to your account to manage finances together
- Cons
- May come with a bit of a learning curve, especially if you’re new to personal finance apps
- Its range of third-party app integrations is somewhat limited compared to competitors
Rocket Money vs Monarch Money Budgeting App: Competitors
- Mint
Mint helps you manage your budget, track expenses, and keep an eye on your financial health. By aggregating information from all your financial accounts—like checking, savings, credit cards, and investments—into one dashboard, Mint provides a comprehensive view of your finances. You can set up budgets, categorize expenses, and get alerts for bills and unusual spending. Mint also offers free credit score monitoring. If you’re looking for a user-friendly way to see and manage your entire financial picture, Mint is a solid choice.
- PocketGuard
PocketGuard simplifies budgeting by showing you how much disposable income you have after covering bills, goals, and necessities. It connects to your bank accounts, automatically categorizes transactions, and helps you see what’s left in your “PocketGuard” after accounting for all your expenses and savings goals. This app is great if you want a straightforward way to manage your daily finances and avoid overspending without getting bogged down in complex features.
- EveryDollar
EveryDollar, created by financial expert Dave Ramsey, also follows a zero-based budgeting method. You’ll plan and track your spending by assigning every dollar a role. The app includes features for creating monthly budgets, tracking expenses, and setting financial goals, along with educational content on financial management. There’s a free version with basic features and a paid version with more advanced capabilities, like bank account syncing. If you’re interested in a budgeting approach backed by financial education, EveryDollar might be worth considering.
Rocket Money vs Monarch Money Budgeting App: Customer Reviews
Rocket Money
Rocket Money has garnered positive feedback from users, reflected in its ratings across various platforms. On Trustpilot, it holds a rating of 4.4 based on over 4,000 reviews, indicating a generally favorable reception. Users appreciate its user-friendly features and automation. Additionally, on Google Play, it has a rating of 4.3 from nearly 61,000 votes, reflecting broad user satisfaction with its performance and functionality.
Monarch Money
Monarch Money has received high praise from users, reflected in its impressive ratings across several platforms. It holds a 4.5 rating on Forbes, a 4.7 rating from over 5,700 votes on Google Play, and an outstanding 4.9 rating from more than 26,000 reviews on the Apple Store. Users appreciate Monarch Money for its comprehensive financial management features, collaborative tools, and user-friendly interface.
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Pro Tips
- Make it a habit to review your budget and spending regularly
- Properly categorize your expenses to get a clearer picture of where your money is going
- Use features like automatic expense tracking, bill payments, and savings goals
- Enable alerts for budget limits, bill due dates, and unusual transactions
- Utilize the app’s reporting and analytics features to gain insights into your spending patterns and financial health
- Ensure that your financial data, goals, and preferences are up-to-date within the app
Recap
When choosing between Rocket Money and Monarch Money, consider what fits your financial needs best. Rocket Money is perfect if you want an easy, automated way to manage your finances. With features like subscription tracking, bill negotiation, and automated savings, you can streamline your financial life effortlessly.
On the other hand, Monarch Money is ideal if you’re looking for a detailed, collaborative approach. It offers comprehensive budgeting, investment tracking, and goal-setting tools, making it great for couples and financial advisors. With a significant discount on annual plans, you get extensive features and integrations for a thorough financial overview.
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