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The best budgeting apps of 2026: prices, free plans and which ones need your bank
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The best budgeting app in 2026 depends on one question: are you willing to hand over your bank login? If you are, Monarch and Copilot Money are the most complete, at around 100 dollars a year. If you are not, the field narrows sharply: only YNAB works fully without a connection, and it costs 109 a year with no free plan. AI Money is the one option in this list that combines a permanent free plan, a complete ledger and no requirement to link an account.
Transparency: this article is published by AI Money, and AI Money is one of the seven apps compared. That is why the list is in alphabetical order rather than by preference, every app has a section saying where it wins, and the AI Money section also says where it loses. Every price was checked on 12 August 2026 against the company’s own pricing page. Where a figure could not be confirmed, it says so instead of guessing.
Almost every roundup of budgeting apps assumes something that is not true for a lot of people: that you will connect your bank account. In the United States that connection mostly works. Outside it, coverage is patchy or absent. And even where it works, plenty of people simply will not do it.
So this comparison puts that question at the centre, alongside the two things roundups usually get wrong: what each app actually costs, and what its free plan really includes.
Quick comparison, in alphabetical order
| App | Free plan | Monthly | Annual | Free trial | Needs a bank connection |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Money | Permanent | 3.99 USD | 32.99 USD | Not needed | No |
| Cleo | Yes, limited | 5.99 USD | 44.99 USD | Not published | Yes |
| Copilot Money | No | 13.00 USD | 95 USD | 1 month | Yes |
| Empower Personal Dashboard | Yes, no paid tier | — | — | — | Optional |
| Monarch | No | 14.99 USD* | 99.99 USD | 7 days | Not verified |
| Rocket Money | Yes, permanent | 7 to 14 USD** | Not offered | 7 days | Yes |
| YNAB | No | 14.99 USD | 109 USD | 34 days, no card | No |
* Apple’s in-app purchase listing shows both 14.99 and 15.99 for Monarch, and its pricing page renders in JavaScript. Treat the monthly figure as approximate; the annual ones are solid.
** Rocket Money Premium is “pay what you think is fair” between 7 and 14 dollars a month. Quoting a single number would be inaccurate.
4 of 7 apps in this list have no permanent free plan at all: you either subscribe or you run out a trial. And of the three that are free forever, only AI Money gives you a complete transaction ledger without asking you to connect an account.
The seven apps, one by one
AI Money
Free, and not as a trial: the free plan never expires and includes unlimited transactions, unlimited categories and unlimited budgets, with no card required. Pro is optional at 3.99 a month or 32.99 a year, with local pricing in every country.
It is the only app here that does not require a bank connection, and it is built entirely around that: if there is no automatic sync, logging an expense has to be effortless. So it accepts seven ways in. By hand, by voice, by photographing a receipt, by messaging a WhatsApp bot, and on Android by reading bank SMS and payment notifications. On iPhone it captures Apple Pay purchases through a Shortcut.
Here is the part people usually misread: no bank connection does not mean typing everything in. When a purchase SMS arrives or an Apple Pay payment is recorded, the app recognises the bank, the amount and the merchant, and creates the account and the transaction on its own. You see Bank of America or Chase in your account list without having given anyone your credentials, because that information came from a message already on your phone.
The ledger lives on the device. Cloud backup exists, is optional, and is one of the things Pro unlocks. It also has a shared fund for couples where personal accounts stay private, debts with real interest accrual, more than fifty currencies, and it is available in English, Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese.
Where it loses: if you do not use any of the automatic channels, transactions will not appear on their own. The AI assistant, receipt scanning and voice extraction all need a connection, because the processing happens server side. And it does not do bank aggregation, credit scores or bill negotiation.
Cleo
A conversational assistant with a personality that talks to you about your money by chat. Free tier plus Cleo Plus at 5.99 a month or 44.99 a year, and a Builder tier at 14.99 a month.
Where it wins: tone. It is the one that keeps people engaged who find personal finance boring. Where it loses: English only, focused on the United States and the United Kingdom, it requires a Plaid connection, and a large part of its business is cash advances, which is a different product from tracking your money. Its help centre also notes that prices vary by signup cohort.
Copilot Money
The most carefully designed app in the group, with automatic categorisation that learns from your corrections. It costs 13 a month or 95 a year.
Where it wins: it is the nicest to use, by some distance. Where it loses: there is no Android app at all, it is Apple-only and English-only, and a couple needs two subscriptions, so 190 a year. You will often see it quoted at 7.92 a month; that is the annual plan divided by twelve, not a real monthly rate.
Empower Personal Dashboard
Free, with no paid tier, and linking accounts is optional. Worth knowing that this free dashboard is a separate product from Empower’s paid wealth advisory service.
Where it wins: it is genuinely free and strong at net worth and investments. Where it loses: it is a net worth dashboard, not an expense ledger. If what you want is to know where the money went this month, it is not the right tool.
Monarch
The most cited in English roundups and the most complete if you have many accounts: net worth, investments, budgets and goals in a customisable dashboard. Core is 99.99 a year and Plus is 199, annual only. The annual plan covers a household rather than one person.
Where it wins: depth. If you hold investments and several accounts in the United States, nothing else here comes close. Where it loses: a hundred dollars a year, English only, no Mac app, and without a bank connection there is little point paying for it.
Rocket Money
A permanent free tier plus Premium on a “pay what you think is fair” model between 7 and 14 dollars a month. Best known for cancelling unwanted subscriptions and negotiating bills.
Where it wins: it will actually cancel a subscription for you, which none of the others do. Where it loses, and this is the part most comparisons leave out: bill negotiation carries a one-off fee of 35% to 60% of the first year’s savings, it is not covered by the subscription, and it applies to free-tier users too. The web app and the iOS widget are Premium only.
YNAB
More a method than an app: give every dollar a job before you spend it. It costs 14.99 a month or 109 a year, with a 34-day trial that does not ask for a card.
Where it wins: for people who commit to the method it changes their relationship with money, and none of the others manage that. It is also the only other app here that fully supports working without a bank connection. Where it loses: it is the most expensive, English only, has no free plan, and demands a discipline most people abandon within three weeks.
How to choose
If you will link your bank and you are in the United States, pick between Monarch and Copilot and ignore the rest. You will pay around a hundred dollars a year and never type in a transaction again.
If you want the method more than the software, YNAB. Take the 34-day trial seriously; it is long enough to tell whether the method fits you.
If you only want a net worth picture and nothing else, Empower is free and does that well.
If you would rather not hand over your bank login, the field is two apps wide. YNAB at 109 a year, or AI Money free. And if you hold money in more than one currency, or you want the app in a language other than English, that field narrows to one, because the other six are domestic US products.
One last thing: be sceptical of “free” with no explanation. A finance app that charges nothing is living off something else, usually selling you financial products or selling your data. Empower is upfront that the dashboard feeds an advisory business, and that is the right way to do it. If an app does not tell you, ask yourself why.
YNAB and AI Money both work fully without a bank connection. YNAB costs 109 dollars a year with no free plan. AI Money has a permanent free plan and adds automatic capture through receipt photos, voice, WhatsApp and, on Android, bank SMS and payment notifications. Copilot, Cleo and Rocket Money all require a linked account.
Three of the seven here. Empower Personal Dashboard is free with no paid tier but is a net worth dashboard rather than an expense ledger. Rocket Money has a permanent free tier with the web app behind Premium. AI Money has a permanent free plan with unlimited transactions, categories and budgets. Monarch, Copilot and YNAB offer trials only.
As of August 2026: YNAB 109 dollars, Monarch Core 99.99, Copilot Money 95, Cleo Plus 44.99 and AI Money Pro 32.99. Empower is free. Rocket Money does not offer an annual plan and prices Premium between 7 and 14 dollars a month on a pay-what-you-think-is-fair model.
All of them except Copilot Money, which has no Android app and is available only on iPhone, iPad, Mac, web and Apple Vision. Monarch has no Mac app. Cleo is mobile only, with no iPad, Mac or full web version.
Only AI Money, which is available in English, Spanish, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese. Cleo, Copilot Money, Empower, Monarch, Rocket Money and YNAB are English only and built for the United States market.
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