YNAB vs Monarch vs Copilot vs Subgrove: 2026 Pricing & Verdict

If you're weighing YNAB vs Monarch vs Copilot, you're looking at three of the most respected personal-finance apps of 2026 — and three different philosophies about what "managing your money" should feel like. They also cost real money, none of them is a bargain, and they're all trying to do far more than most people actually need. This post compares them head-to-head on price, platforms, and bank-linking, tells you honestly who each one is for, and then adds a fourth option — Subgrove — for the specific case where all you really wanted was to keep an eye on your subscriptions.

Let's start with the number most people are actually deciding on.

YNAB vs Monarch vs Copilot: pricing compared at a glance

Here's where each app lands as of this writing. Prices change, so confirm on each site before you buy.

App	Monthly	Yearly	Free tier	Platforms
YNAB	$14.99/mo	$109/yr	None	iOS, Android, web
Monarch (Core)	—	$99.99/yr	Trial only	iOS, Android, web
Monarch (Plus)	—	$199/yr	Trial only	iOS, Android, web
Copilot	$13/mo	$95/yr	Trial only	iOS, macOS only
Subgrove	$1.99/mo	$10/yr (or $15 lifetime)	Free up to 5 subs	iOS, Android, desktop (PWA)

Read down that table and the shape of the decision is clear: the three budgeting suites cluster around $95–$199 a year, while Subgrove sits an order of magnitude below them. But that gap exists for a reason, and it's only a fair comparison once you know what you're giving up. The three big apps are full budgeting platforms. Subgrove tracks subscriptions and nothing else. Keep that in mind as you read on.

YNAB: the method, if you'll do the work

YNAB (You Need A Budget) isn't really a tracker — it's a budgeting method with software wrapped around it. The core idea, "give every dollar a job," asks you to assign all your money to categories before you spend it. People who commit to it often describe it as the thing that finally changed their spending, not just recorded it.

That commitment is the catch. YNAB rewards active, hands-on budgeting; if you don't engage with it weekly, it becomes an expensive spreadsheet. At $14.99/mo or $109/yr with no free tier, it's the priciest monthly option here and the one that demands the most from you. It links to banks for transaction import, and it runs on iOS, Android, and the web.

Best for: people who want to actively change their spending behavior and will put in the weekly effort. If you want something that just watches your accounts in the background, YNAB is the wrong tool. It's also worth saying that YNAB is the app people are most likely to either love intensely or abandon within a month — there's not much middle ground, and the price makes an abandoned subscription sting.

Monarch: the Mint replacement with a partner mode

Monarch became the default landing spot after Mint shut down, and it earned it. It's polished, it connects to just about every financial institution, and it pulls your whole financial life — accounts, investments, net worth, budgets — onto one clean dashboard. Its standout feature is genuinely good household support: shared budgets and collaboration with a partner.

Monarch's pricing is annual-first: Core is $99.99/yr and Plus is $199/yr, with Plus adding features like more advanced investment tracking. There's a trial but no permanent free tier, and it relies on bank linking to do its job. It's available on iOS, Android, and the web.

Best for: couples and households who want a shared, complete financial dashboard and don't mind paying around $100+ a year for it.

Copilot: the beautiful one, if you live in Apple's world

Copilot is the design-lover's pick. Its interface is the best-looking of the group, its automatic transaction categorization is sharp, and it leans on machine learning to make sense of your spending with less manual cleanup. If aesthetics and a smooth day-to-day experience matter to you, Copilot is hard to beat.

The hard limitation is platform. Copilot is iOS and macOS only — no Android, no web app — so if anyone in your household is on Android or you want to check things from a Windows machine, it's out. Pricing is $13/mo or $95/yr, and like the others it links to your accounts.

Best for: all-Apple users who value design and automation and don't need cross-platform access.

Where Subgrove fits — and where it doesn't

Here's the honest pivot. YNAB, Monarch, and Copilot are full budgeting suites. They track every transaction, every account, your net worth, your investments. If that's what you want, one of them is your answer, and Subgrove is not — it doesn't do budgeting, it doesn't track spending, and it will never try to.

What Subgrove does is one narrow job well: it tracks your subscriptions. A lot of people sign up for a $100-a-year budgeting app and, six months in, realize the only thing they ever open it for is the recurring-charges view — the "what am I paying for every month, and when does it renew?" question. If that's you, you're overpaying for surface area you don't use.

Subgrove is a privacy-first, manual subscription tracker delivered as a progressive web app. You add subscriptions by hand — about two minutes for ten — and because there's no bank linking, there are no credentials to share and no broken connections to fix. It shows your subscriptions in list and calendar views, normalizes weekly, monthly, yearly, and custom billing cycles into one true monthly cost, and sends push reminders before each renewal with per-subscription timing (from the renewal day up to two weeks ahead). The same app installs to the home screen on iPhone, Android, and desktop, and works fully offline. On iPhone, push notifications need iOS 16.4+ and a home-screen install.

Pricing is where the contrast is sharpest: free for up to 5 subscriptions, then $1.99/month, $10/year, or $15 once for lifetime access. No subscription-to-track-your-subscriptions guilt with the lifetime option.

The trade-offs are real and worth stating plainly. Subgrove won't detect charges automatically, won't build you a budget, and won't show your net worth. It requires manual entry. If you want any of those things, buy one of the big three. If you don't, you can stop paying for them.

So which should you pick?

• Choose YNAB if you want to actively reshape your spending and will do the weekly work.
• Choose Monarch if you want a complete, shared financial dashboard for a household.
• Choose Copilot if you're all-in on Apple and design and automation matter most.
• Choose Subgrove if what you actually need is subscription tracking — cheaply, privately, without linking a bank.

Plenty of people even pair them: a budgeting app for the whole-money picture, and a dedicated tracker for renewals so nothing sneaks through at $10 or $15 total. If you want to dig deeper into any one matchup, we've written more on Monarch alternatives, a YNAB alternative focused on subscriptions, and Copilot alternatives.

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheapest — YNAB, Monarch, or Copilot? Of the three budgeting suites, Copilot's annual plan ($95/yr) is marginally the cheapest, with Monarch Core just above it ($99.99/yr) and YNAB the priciest ($109/yr). Subgrove is far below all of them at $10/year or $15 for lifetime, but it only tracks subscriptions, not your full budget.

Do any of these have a free tier? Not really. YNAB has no free tier at all; Monarch and Copilot offer trials but require payment after. Subgrove is free for up to 5 subscriptions with no time limit.

Which one works on Android? YNAB, Monarch, and Subgrove all work on Android. Copilot is iOS and macOS only, so Android users should rule it out. Subgrove, as a progressive web app, also runs on desktop and Windows.

Can I use one for budgeting and another for subscriptions? Yes, and many people do. A budgeting app like Monarch or YNAB gives you the whole-money picture, while a dedicated tracker like Subgrove handles renewal reminders and true monthly subscription cost for a few dollars a year.

Do these apps require linking my bank account? YNAB, Monarch, and Copilot all rely on bank linking to import transactions automatically. Subgrove deliberately does not — you enter subscriptions manually, so there are no banking credentials to share and nothing to breach.

If your finances genuinely need a full budgeting platform, one of the big three will serve you well and the price will be worth it. But if you got here because subscriptions are the part you actually keep losing track of, you don't need a hundred-dollar app to solve a subscription problem.