Splitt
← Try for free
Splitt
← Try for free
Quick answer: For couples who need to track shared expenses and see who owes what, Splitt is the best free Monarch Money alternative. It's free, works globally, and never asks for bank access — the opposite of Monarch's $14.99/month US-only model.
Monarch Money in 2026: Monarch Money costs $14.99/month ($99.99/year). It requires linking US bank accounts and is designed primarily for individual wealth management — net worth tracking, investment portfolios, retirement planning. For couples who just want to track shared expenses, it is significantly overbuilt and overpriced.
Monarch Money is a comprehensive personal finance platform that absorbed many former Mint users after Mint shut down in early 2024. It does a lot: net worth tracking, investment monitoring, multi-account budgeting, retirement projections, and bill tracking. For someone building a complete financial picture, it's a genuinely powerful tool.
What it is not: a shared expense tracker for couples. The "couples" use case — who paid the electricity bill, what's the running balance between partners, let's settle up at the end of the month — is not what Monarch was built for.
| Feature | Splitt | Monarch Money |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $14.99/month |
| Built for couples' shared expenses | Yes — only for 2 people | No — individual wealth management |
| Bank account required | Never | Yes, US accounts only |
| Works outside the US | Yes — 7 languages, global | No |
| Who-owes-who balance | Core feature, real-time | Not a feature |
| Setup time | Under 2 minutes | 30+ minutes (bank linking) |
| No app download | Yes (PWA — browser only) | App download required |
| Investment tracking | No | Yes |
| Net worth dashboard | No | Yes |
The last two rows matter: if investment tracking and net worth monitoring are your main goal, Monarch Money is worth considering. But for shared expense tracking between two partners, it's the wrong tool entirely.
THE PROBLEM
When your partner pays for dinner and you pay for groceries, Monarch records each transaction in the account of the person who paid. There is no built-in mechanism to calculate the running balance between two people. You'd need to manually export transactions and calculate the difference — the same spreadsheet problem couples have been trying to solve for years.
THE PROBLEM
Tracking who owes who $47 for the grocery run is not a $180/year problem. Monarch's pricing is justified for its investment and net worth features. But if you're subscribing just to track shared expenses, you're paying premium rates for a tool that wasn't designed for your use case.
THE PROBLEM
Monarch's bank connections, currency support, and financial product integrations are built for the US market. Couples outside the US — or couples where one partner has a non-US account — are essentially excluded from its core functionality.
Splitt shows who owes what, in real time, in 7 languages. No bank account required.
Open Splitt — freeSplitt focuses on one problem: shared expenses between two people. No investment tracking, no net worth dashboard, no retirement projections. Just the question that comes up every week between couples: who paid what, and what do we owe each other?
If you are a US-based individual who wants a complete financial picture — investments, net worth, budgets across multiple accounts, retirement tracking — Monarch Money is worth the $14.99/month. It's genuinely excellent for that use case.
If you're a couple looking to split shared expenses, track who paid what, and settle up at the end of the month, Monarch is the wrong tool. Use Splitt for that, and optionally Monarch for your individual finances alongside it.
← All articles