YNAB vs Monarch vs Rocket Money: Prices and Verdicts

YNAB ($109 a year) is the pick for a zero-based budgeting method that changes how you spend, Monarch ($99.99 a year) for an automated overview of every account shared by the whole household, and Rocket Money for subscriptions, which its free tier tracks; Premium is pay-what-you-choose, typically $7 to $14 a month.

Mint shut down in March 2024, and Monarch is its closest replacement. For couples, YNAB covers up to six people on one plan and Monarch the whole household. Empower's dashboard for net worth and investments is free.

YNAB, Monarch, Rocket Money, Empower and MFFT compared

Prices from each vendor's pricing page on October 15, 2026; MFFT's are in euros. The yearly row is the monthly price times 12, so paying monthly costs $70.88 more a year for YNAB and $79.89 more for Monarch.

YNAB vs Monarch

Paid yearly, YNAB costs $109 and Monarch Core $99.99; both charge $14.99 if you pay month to month. YNAB is a zero-based budgeting method in which you give every dollar a job before you spend it. Monarch pulls your accounts into budgets, cash flow, goals and net worth on both Core and Plus, and Plus adds forecasting, investment analysis with tax lots and estate planning for $199 a year, billed annually only, per The Penny Hoarder's review; the Empower vs Monarch comparison covers that investment side in more depth. Up to six people share one YNAB Together subscription, with no stated limit on Monarch's household plan. Outside North America, YNAB's direct import covers select US, Canadian, UK and EU banks and falls back to file import everywhere else.

Monarch vs Rocket Money

Monarch is a full money hub with budgets, net worth and investments for $99.99 a year. Rocket Money's free tier covers subscription tracking, budgeting and bill reminders, with budgets capped at two custom categories and recurring charges shown in one list. Premium adds unlimited budgets, net worth tracking and a second login for a partner. Monarch has a 7-day trial instead of a free tier.

Rocket Money vs YNAB

Rocket Money finds your recurring charges automatically, lists your subscriptions on day one for $0 on the free tier, and offers to negotiate bills for a share of what it saves you. YNAB's method forces a decision on every dollar, and its 34-day trial with no card is long enough to see whether you keep that up.

How much Rocket Money costs

The free plan costs $0. Premium is a sliding scale where you choose your price, typically $7 to $14 a month ($84 to $168 a year) after a 7-day free trial, according to Rocket Money's cost article. Premium+ costs $15 a month and drops the bill-negotiation fee. On the other plans, bill negotiation costs 35% to 60% of the first year's savings, charged only when the negotiation actually saves you money.

In a 2021 West Monroe survey, respondents spent an average of $273 a month on subscriptions, up from $237 in 2018; nearly 90% underestimated their own total, and 66% were off by more than $200.

Rocket Money alternatives

• Monarch: $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, with the whole household on one subscription (pricing).
• YNAB: $109 a year, a 34-day free trial and up to six people on one plan (pricing). It has no subscription tracking; for free options in the same style, see YNAB alternatives that are free.
• Copilot Money: $95 a year or $13 a month after a one-month trial, with a "Spot subscriptions" feature, on Web, iPhone, iPad and Mac with no Android app listed (pricing).
• PocketGuard: $12.99 a month or $74.99 a year after a 7-day trial, with no permanent free tier; you cancel subscriptions yourself rather than through a concierge (PocketGuard's own comparison).
• Empower: a free dashboard with budgeting, cash flow and transactions, but nothing that cancels subscriptions (tool list).

Empower's Personal Dashboard is free and covers net worth, budgeting and cash flow, a retirement planner, portfolio analysis and transactions. The company earns from its advisory service, Personal Strategy, which needs more than $100,000 invested and charges 0.89% a year under $1M, tiering down to 0.49% above $10M. At the minimum, 0.89% of $100,000 is $890 a year.

What about Mint?

Mint shut down on March 23, 2024, and Intuit moved its users to Credit Karma, which offers net worth tracking and spending monitoring. Among the apps here, Monarch is the closest like-for-like replacement, with automatic account sync, budgets and net worth in one app. Of the free options, Empower's dashboard covers investments and Rocket Money's free tier covers subscriptions.

Is a paid budgeting app worth it?

Often not at the start, because Rocket Money's free tier already covers subscription tracking, basic budgets and bill reminders, Empower's dashboard is free, and a spreadsheet costs $0. A paid app is also one more recurring charge, $99.99 to $109 a year here, added to a subscription total that nearly 90% of the West Monroe respondents underestimated.

The fee buys a weekly zero-based routine in YNAB and, in Monarch, one shared household view in place of separate bank apps, with trials of 34 days and 7 days before the first charge.

Where My Financial Freedom Tracker fits

Disclosure: I build My Financial Freedom Tracker (MFFT); it is a product of Family Compass s.r.o.

In MFFT you upload your bank statements as PDF or CSV, and the app extracts and categorises the transactions; there is no Plaid, no screen-scraping and no aggregator with access to your bank accounts. Investments can come in through an optional broker connection that uses a report-only token, revocable at the broker. On top sits FIRE planning, a target number and an estimated date, which none of YNAB, Monarch or Rocket Money offers. After a 14-day trial that needs a payment method, it costs €49.90 per year, €4.99 monthly or a one-time €299 for lifetime access (pricing). There is no free tier, but the read-only demo runs on sample data without sign-up.

MFFT has no automatic bank sync, so transactions don't appear by themselves the way they do in Monarch. The product pages also list no subscription detection, no couple sharing and no mobile app. The net worth tracker page shows how statement upload works, and tracking net worth without bank linking compares it with the alternatives.

Which one to start with

For subscriptions, install Rocket Money's free tier and go through the recurring-charges list. For the budgeting method, start YNAB's 34-day trial and run one full month on it. For a household overview, start Monarch's 7-day trial and connect every account you and your partner hold in the first two days.