Disclosure: This article contains a referral link for Monarch. If you sign up through it, this site may earn a commission, at no cost to you. My wife and I use Monarch to run our own household budget. Full affiliate disclosure here.
Quick answer: Monarch Money is a paid budgeting and net-worth dashboard (around $139 a year) that is genuinely excellent for couples and for anyone whose money is spread across several institutions. My wife and I use it to run our household. It earns its cost if you actually plan with it and coordinate as a couple. If you keep everything at Wealthsimple and only want to see where your money went, the free built-in tracking is probably enough, and you can skip this.
Most budgeting apps are reviewed by people who tried them for a week to write the review. This is not that. My wife and I run our actual household budget on Monarch, we both log in, and the planning layer is part of how we make decisions. So this is a review from the inside, including the parts I would change.
Here is the honest picture.
What Monarch does well
It is built for two people. This is the feature that matters most in a marriage, and the one most tools get wrong. Both my wife and I have our own login and see the same budget, the same accounts, and the same goals. In a marriage, money is a running conversation as much as a set of numbers, and a tool that assumes one person quietly manages everything works against that. Monarch assumes a couple. That alone puts it ahead of the free bank-built trackers for a married household.
It pulls the whole picture together. You connect your bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, even a mortgage or other assets, and Monarch gives you one view of your entire financial life. Net worth over time, spending by category, cash flow, the direction things are moving. For a household that banks in more than one place, which is most of us, that single dashboard is the point.
It plans, it does not just record. This is the real dividing line in budgeting apps. Some tools only show you what already happened. Monarch lets you assign money a job before the month starts and then tracks reality against that plan. That planning layer is what actually changes behaviour, because a budget is an audit and a target.
It is calm to look at. The interface is clean and pleasant, which sounds minor until you remember that the best budgeting app is the one you will actually open. A tool that feels like a chore gets abandoned by February. Monarch is nice enough to live with.
What it costs, and the main knock against it
Monarch runs about $139 a year, or more if you pay monthly. There is no permanent free tier, just a trial. That is the fair criticism: free options exist, including Wealthsimple's built-in Spend Insights and the tracking built into most Canadian banks. If you will not use the planning and coordination features, you are paying for a dashboard you could get for nothing.
I do not think $139 is expensive for a tool a household genuinely runs its money on. One good financial decision it surfaces, one forgotten subscription it helps you cancel, one month you stop overspending because you saw it coming, and it has paid for itself. But the value is entirely conditional on using it. Buy it, ignore it, and it is $139 wasted, same as a gym membership.
Where Monarch is the wrong tool
If all your money is already at Wealthsimple. If you invest, bank, and spend inside one ecosystem and you only want to see where your money went, Wealthsimple's free Spend Insights covers that. I have compared the two in detail in Wealthsimple Spend Insights vs Monarch and YNAB. Do not pay for what you already have for free.
If you want strict envelope budgeting above all else. Monarch does budgeting well, but a zero-based purist who wants every dollar assigned with military discipline may prefer YNAB, which is built around that method first. Monarch is a dashboard that budgets; YNAB is a budgeting system that also shows you things.
If you know you will not maintain it. No budgeting app fixes a man who will not look at his money. If the honest truth is that you will connect your accounts, feel productive for a week, and never return, the problem is not the tool, and a paid one will not solve it. Start with a single honest hour and a free tool, and earn your way to a paid one.
Who it is for
Monarch is for the household, usually a couple, that wants to run its money together, banks in more than one place, and will actually use a planning tool. That is exactly my situation, which is why we pay for it and why it sits on the recommended products page rather than in a drawer.
It is not for the solo Wealthsimple user who wants free spending visibility, and it is not a magic fix for an avoidance problem. Be honest about which of those you are before you pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Monarch Money cost in Canada?
Around $139 a year, or a higher monthly rate if you pay month to month. There is no free tier beyond a trial, which is the main knock against it when free tools exist. For a household that genuinely uses it to plan and coordinate, the cost is easy to justify. For someone who will not open it after the first month, any price is too much.
Is Monarch good for couples?
This is where it is strongest. Both spouses get their own login and a shared view of the same budget, accounts, and goals. If you and your spouse want to run one household budget together rather than one person managing it alone, Monarch handles that better than most tools, and better than the free bank-built trackers that assume a single user.
Monarch or Wealthsimple's built-in tracking?
Different jobs. Wealthsimple Spend Insights reviews the spending that already happened, for free, inside the Wealthsimple app. Monarch is a planning tool that assigns money a job before you spend it and pulls together accounts from many institutions. If all your money is at Wealthsimple and you only want to see where it went, the free tool may be enough. If you plan ahead or bank in several places, Monarch does more.
Does Monarch work with Canadian banks?
Yes. Monarch connects to major Canadian banks through aggregators, and coverage has improved a lot in recent years. As with any budgeting app, test your specific bank during the free trial before you commit, since connection quality varies by institution.
The verdict
Monarch is the budgeting app I actually use, and I recommend it honestly for the household it fits: a couple who want to plan together and see everything in one place. If that is you, start a Monarch trial and test it with your real accounts and your spouse before the trial ends.
If you are a solo investor with everything at one institution, keep your money and use the free tools. And if the real issue is that you avoid looking at your finances at all, no app is the answer to that. The first honest hour is, and everything else is just the tool you pick up afterward.
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you sign up or purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I personally use. Full disclosure.
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