The Best Monarch Money Alternatives in 2026 (6 Apps Compared)

July 2, 2026 · 7 min read · by the Trace team

When Mint shut down, Monarch Money became the default place everyone told you to go — and mostly deserved it. It's polished, syncs your accounts automatically, and handles couples and net worth better than the app it replaced. But it's also a real subscription: $99.99 a year for the Core plan, and in 2026 Monarch moved to a two-tier model with a $199-a-year Plus option on top. That price shift is exactly why so many people are now hunting for Monarch Money alternatives. Below are six honest options — from free budgeting apps to a simpler money-and-habit tracker — so you can find the one that fits.

What Monarch Money does well

Credit where it's due. Monarch is one of the best-built personal finance apps around, and if the price doesn't bother you, it's hard to fault. Automatic bank sync pulls transactions from thousands of institutions so your ledger stays current without typing anything. The couples and household dashboards are genuinely good — shared budgets, joint goals, and per-person visibility that most rivals fumble. It tracks investments and net worth alongside spending, projects forward cash flow so you can see what's coming, and layers an AI assistant on top for quick questions. As a single bank-syncing command centre for a household, it earns its reputation.

Why people look for a Monarch alternative

So why go looking for alternatives to Monarch Money at all? A few honest reasons:

• Price and the two-tier plan. Monarch Money pricing starts at $14.99/month or $99.99/year for Core, and the new $199/year Plus tier made some longtime users feel the app was drifting upmarket.
• They want something free. Plenty of people just want a free alternative to Monarch Money and are fine trading a few features for it.
• They want simpler. A full net-worth dashboard is overkill if you mostly want to see what you spent and what's due.
• They want manual or private. Not everyone is comfortable linking every bank account to a third party. Manual entry is slower but yours.
• They want habits and money in one place. Some of us track daily routines and finances together, and would rather not run two apps.

The best Monarch Money alternatives in 2026

Copilot — the design-forward, Apple-first pick

Copilot is the alternative people reach for when they loved Monarch's polish but want something even more native to Apple. It's a paid app, iOS and Mac focused, with automatic bank sync, clean categorisation, and some of the nicest visual design in the category. If you live in the Apple ecosystem and want a beautiful, syncing tracker, this is the closest spiritual sibling to Monarch.

Rocket Money — free tier plus bill-wrangling

Rocket Money takes a different angle: it's less a budgeting dashboard and more a money-management assistant. It has a free tier plus a premium plan, and its headline features are subscription cancellation and bill negotiation — it finds recurring charges you forgot about and can help lower or cancel them. Good if your main pain is runaway subscriptions rather than detailed budgeting.

Empower (Personal Capital) — free net worth and investing

Empower, formerly Personal Capital, is free and leans hard into investments and net worth rather than day-to-day budgeting. If your priority is tracking portfolios, retirement, and overall wealth — the investing side of what Monarch does — this covers it without a subscription. Its budgeting tools are lighter, so it's a net-worth tool first and a spending tracker second.

Quicken Simplifi — forward-looking cash flow

Quicken Simplifi is a paid app built around a forward cash-flow view: it projects your spending plan and shows what's left to spend after bills and goals. It's one of the better modern budgeting apps 2026 has to offer for people who want automatic sync and planning without the heaviness of full desktop Quicken.

Actual Budget — free, open-source, envelope-style

Actual Budget is the pick for hands-on budgeters who want control and privacy. It's free and open-source, built around zero-based, envelope-style budgeting where every dollar gets a job. You can self-host it or run it locally, which appeals to the privacy-minded. It's more involved to set up than a syncing app, but nothing beats it on the "your data, your rules" front.

Trace — free money and habits together

Trace comes at money from a different direction: it's a free web app that tracks your habits and your money in one place. Entry is manual, not automatic — you log what you spend — but in exchange you get things the big bank-syncing apps rarely bother with, like true multi-currency accounts and daily habit tracking side by side. More on where it fits below.

Monarch Money alternatives compared

Where Trace fits (and where it doesn't)

Let's be straight about what Trace is, because it isn't trying to be Monarch. It's a free web app — no card required — that tracks habits and money together, and it's built around a few things the big syncing apps usually skip:

• Multi-currency accounts done properly. USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD, LKR — each currency keeps its own total, and they never merge into one fake number. Transfers convert at your real bank rate, not a mid-market guess.
• Manual entry, on purpose. You log what you spend, which means no bank linking and no third party holding your credentials. Slower than auto-sync, but entirely yours.
• Receipts on every expense. Attach an invoice or photo to any transaction — handy when tax season arrives.
• Subscriptions and credit-card due dates. Track recurring charges and statement dates so nothing surprises you, the way a dedicated money tracker should.
• Habits alongside the money. Daily habits with streaks and a 365-day heatmap live on the same screen as your spending — one app for how your days and your finances are going.

It's best for freelancers and solo workers who want money and habits in one place, especially across currencies, without paying a subscription — the same crowd we wrote our expense tracker for freelancers guide for. But here's the honest boundary: Trace is not a bank-syncing investment or net-worth tool. There's no automatic transaction import and no portfolio tracking. If automatic sync and investment dashboards are non-negotiable for you, Monarch or Empower will fit better. Pick the philosophy that matches how you actually want to work.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best alternative to Monarch Money?

It depends on what you need. Copilot for Apple-first design polish, Empower for free net-worth and investment tracking, Actual Budget for free hands-on envelope budgeting, and Trace for a free money-and-habit tracker with multi-currency support. There's no single winner — the best alternative is the one that matches how you actually want to track your money.

Is there a free alternative to Monarch Money?

Yes. Empower and Actual Budget are free, and Trace is free to use with no card required. Rocket Money has a free tier alongside its premium plan. Monarch itself only offers a 7-day free trial, after which it's paid.

How much does Monarch Money cost in 2026?

Monarch's Core plan is $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year. In 2026 Monarch added a Plus tier at $199 per year with extra features. There's a 7-day free trial, but no permanent free plan.

Why are people switching from Monarch Money?

Mostly price. At $99.99 a year for Core — and now a $199 Plus tier — Monarch is a real recurring cost, and the move to a two-tier plan pushed some users to look around. Others simply want something free, simpler, or manual-entry rather than a full bank-syncing dashboard.

What is the best budgeting app in 2026?

There's no single best budgeting app in 2026 — pick by what matters to you. Choose automatic bank sync (Monarch, Copilot), free net-worth and investment tracking (Empower), free envelope-style budgeting (Actual Budget), or money and habits together in one place (Trace).

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