At about $100/year, five years on Monarch costs roughly five hundred dollars.
Monarch Money Alternative
The Monarch Money alternative without the subscription.
Monarch is a polished, bank-syncing dashboard—and it costs about $100 a year, forever, with your data on its servers. Simply Finance is the private, no-subscription alternative: free to use, no bank connection, and your data encrypted on your own device.
- ✓Free to use
- ✓No subscription, ever
- ✓No bank sync needed
- ✓End-to-end encrypted
One unlock. No renewal. Same price in year five as on day one.
Different by design
Monarch optimizes for an automated, all-in-one dashboard. Simply Finance optimizes for privacy, speed, and staying free. Pick the trade that fits you.
Monarch Money vs Simply Finance
Both help you see your money clearly. The difference is whether you rent that clarity month after month and hand over a bank connection to get it.
| Simply Finance | Monarch Money | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free / $4.99 extras | $99.99/year |
| Subscription | None | Required |
| Bank connection | None | Optional |
| Works offline | ||
| No signup needed | ||
| End-to-end encrypted | ||
| Data stays on device | ||
| Investment tracking | Manual | Automatic |
| Shared household | Single owner |
Monarch pricing verified March 2026 from official sources ($14.99/month or $99.99/year). The last two rows are areas where Monarch does more—included for an honest comparison.
Why people switch from Monarch
- The subscription never ends. ~$100 a year, indefinitely, to track money you already earned.
- Bank sync is a liability and a chore. Connections drop, transactions get miscategorized, and your full history sits on a server.
- Privacy. They would rather their finances never leave their device in readable form.
- They want less, not more. A fast tracker beats an elaborate dashboard they rarely open.
What is different by design
Simply Finance is intentionally lean and private. You log spending manually in under three seconds—no bank connection to break and nothing to reconcile. On top of the basics you get plain-language answers—how long your money would last and where your balance is heading—the answers that actually reduce money anxiety.
And because there is no aggregator cost to cover, the whole thing is a single $4.99 payment instead of a recurring bill.
When Monarch is the better choice
Stay with Monarch if…
You want automatic bank and investment syncing across many accounts, live net-worth and portfolio tracking, or a shared household workspace with separate logins for you and a partner. Simply Finance is manual-first, single-owner, and deliberately simple—we would rather you pick the right tool than churn.
How to switch in an afternoon
Install and add your accounts
Download free, then add checking, savings, cards, and cash with their current balances. No bank login required.
Set a few category budgets
Start with the three or four categories you actually care about. Refine later—there is nothing to configure first.
Log spending as it happens
Amount, category, done. Within a week the habit sticks and the app starts answering questions worth asking.
Cancel the subscription
Once your balances match, cancel Monarch. The $4.99 unlock is the last money this app ever asks you for.
FAQ
Do you sell my data?
No—but that is the low bar, and the wrong question. “We don’t sell your data” still means a company can read it: your full history sits on their servers, one breach or subpoena from exposure. Simply Finance can’t sell what it can’t see. Your data is end-to-end encrypted on your device, and the sync relay only ever holds scrambled ciphertext—no readable balances, merchants, or amounts. Nothing to sell, nothing for an employee to peek at, nothing legible to leak.
Is Simply Finance free?
Yes. The app is free to use; a single optional $4.99 in-app purchase adds sync across your devices and detailed reports. There is no monthly or annual subscription, unlike Monarch Money.
Does Simply Finance sync with my bank like Monarch?
No. Simply Finance has no bank connection by design. You log transactions manually in a few seconds, which means no aggregator fee, no broken feeds, and nothing readable on a server. If automatic bank sync is essential to you, Monarch is the better fit.
Does it track investments and net worth like Monarch?
Simply Finance focuses on day-to-day money: accounts, budgets, recurring bills, and forward-looking answers. It does not pull live investment data the way Monarch does. You can track investment account balances manually, but deep portfolio tracking is not the goal.
Can my partner and I share a budget?
Simply Finance is single-owner. You can sync across your own devices, but it does not offer Monarch's shared household workspace with multiple logins. If joint budgeting with separate accounts is a must-have, Monarch suits that better.
Is my financial data private?
Yes. Your data lives on your device and is end-to-end encrypted before any sync, with no account required. Sync servers only ever see ciphertext they cannot read.
Stop renting your money dashboard
Free to use, with your data on your own device, and never see a renewal notice again. Switch from Monarch today.