Monarch Money

Monarch Money is a subscription personal finance app that combines budgeting, spending tracking, investment and net worth monitoring, and goal planning in one dashboard. It rose to prominence after Intuit shut down Mint in early 2024, and it is now one of the most recommended Mint replacements for people who want a polished all-in-one view rather than a single-purpose budgeting tool. It links to banks, credit cards, loans, and investment accounts (primarily through Plaid and additional aggregators), then auto-categorizes transactions so you can follow cash flow, budgets, and total net worth over time. It is built for individuals and couples who want a shared financial picture; household access for two people is included in the base plan, which is a common reason couples pick it over single-user apps. On pricing, verified against Monarch's pricing page and several 2026 reviews in August 2026: the standard Core plan is $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year (about $8.33 per month when billed annually). In 2026 Monarch added a higher Plus tier at $199 per year, aimed at power users and investors, layering deeper investment reporting, more advanced planning and scenario tools, and priority support on top of Core. A 7-day free trial is available, and Monarch frequently offers first-year discount codes (for example 30 to 50 percent off the annual Core plan), so many users pay well under list price in year one. Strengths that appear consistently in reviews: a clean, modern, ad-free interface, flexible budgeting (both traditional category budgets and a Flex approach that groups fixed, non-monthly, and flexible spending), solid goal tracking, and genuinely useful couples features. Honest limitations: it is a paid app with no free tier, and the most frequent complaint is bank-connection reliability. Because it leans on Plaid, large national banks tend to sync well while some credit unions, smaller regional banks, and most non-US institutions reconnect often or are unsupported. Investment performance data can also be incomplete, and the monthly budgeting model fits predictable income better than highly variable freelance income. The new Plus tier and periodic price increases have drawn some pushback from long-time users.