Monarch Money vs. Rocket Money: Which Is Right for You? | The Motley Fool (2024)

Here are the features you can look forward to using with each of these budget apps.

Viewing all your accounts

Both Monarch Money and Rocket Money let you connect all your financial accounts (bank accounts, credit cards, brokerage accounts, etc.) to the app so you can see all your money and debt at a glance. This lets you manage your finances in a holistic way, and stay on top of recent transactions and upcoming bills due to be debited out of your checking account.

Subscription and billing help

Rocket Money is the winner here -- Monarch Money will not help you cancel unwanted subscriptions. Rocket Money shows you a list of your active subscriptions, making it easy to tell what you're paying for. And if you decide you want out, Rocket Money can reach out on your behalf.

Similarly, Rocket Money also offers a service to negotiate your bills, such as internet or cellphone service. You'll be charged a percentage of the savings (you choose between 35% and 60%) as a success fee, and if Rocket Money can't save you money, you won't be charged at all.

Sign up for a Rocket Money account

Both apps allow more than one person to access household finances in the app with separate login credentials. This feature is only available with the paid (Premium) tier of Rocket Money. This is really handy if you want to collaborate with a partner to whip your finances into shape and get better at budgeting.

Automated savings

Automating your savings contributions is a good way to ensure they happen without your direct intervention. Monarch Money does not offer this service, but Rocket Money does.

You set up a savings plan through the app (offered by a third-party bank with FDIC insurance), and can opt for either regular contributions from your linked checking account or let Rocket Money's AI tool Smart Savings analyze your finances and arrange small transfers every few days.

If you use this function, it's a good idea to transfer those contributions to an outside high-yield savings account to earn as much interest as possible.

Credit monitoring

Monarch Money doesn't offer credit score monitoring, but Rocket Money does. This may or may not be a crucial feature for you -- it's certainly convenient to have access to more of your financial life within a single budgeting app. But the odds are good you already have access to free credit score monitoring via a bank or credit card account.

Monarch Money offers a clean and ad-free interface (since this is exclusively a paid app; more on that below). This makes it incredibly easy for even beginner users to find the information they need quickly. It also has a useful search function to help you find a particular account or expense easily.

Rocket Money's free tier user interface is pretty basic -- the most flashy features are paywalled. You'll still be able to manage your budget with the free version. If you're hoping to use the app to save money, you'll want the paid membership tier.

Reviewers report that Rocket Money's app performance can be pretty slow to respond when you need to complete a task.

Sign up for a Monarch Money account

Only one of these apps has a permanent free tier. You can get a free seven-day trial of Monarch Money, but if you decide to keep the app after this period, you can expect to pay $14.99 a month if you opt for a monthly subscription, or $99.99 upfront for a full year (a savings of nearly $80). There is no free option, but this may not be a dealbreaker for you, especially given the clean ad-free interface of Monarch Money.

Rocket Money has a free option, but it is pretty basic. You'll be able to link your accounts and use some simple budgeting tools, but to access the cooler features and also share finances with another user, you'll need to spring for the Premium version of the app. You also get a free seven-day trial, and then you'll be able to choose a monthly cost between $6 and $12.

So Rocket Money will likely end up cheaper to use than Monarch Money, unless you opt to pay for a full year of Monarch Money upfront and would've paid more than $8.33 per month for Rocket Money.

Monarch Money offers a dashboard that you can rearrange, change, or add to. Don't like a certain widget in a certain place? Rearrange things. You'll be able to put your recent spending, budget, net worth, and other measures of financial status to work, in the way that's most helpful for you.

Rocket Money is less customizable than Monarch Money, but still lets you manually categorize your spending. You can create goal trackers to keep abreast of your progress, and the app will make suggestions to streamline your budget and calculate more accurate expected monthly costs in different categories.

You have two great options for budgeting apps with Monarch Money and Rocket Money. There's some overlap between the two (and both can help you give every dollar a job), so it's best to consider your own specific needs to pick the right option for you.

If you're hoping to knock out recurring subscriptions, stay on top of your credit, and perhaps pay less for some of your bills, Rocket Money is likely the better fit for you (the Premium tier, that is -- the free tier is of limited utility for anything beyond basic budgeting).

But if you've got a good handle on your payments and instead want to easily track your net worth and create custom budgets for different scenarios and goals, Monarch Money could be your pick.