TAIGA FINANCE$90 / yr or $12 / mo. $60 / yr for founding members, held at renewal
MONARCH$99.99 / yr or $14.99 / mo. Plus: $199.99 / yr
Taiga Finance vs Monarch
Monarch tracks budget, cash flow, investments and net worth in one app, and most people use it on their phone. It is the most recommended all-in-one money app in 2026, and a good default if your finances are simple.
Taiga Finance connects the same accounts and is built for more complicated ones. It models stock grants with the cost of exercising, tracks home equity over time, projects retirement, college, mortgage and debt payoff from your real balances, and lets you build your own reports. Those numbers each come with a chart, a scenario and the math behind them. Two people share one plan, and either can keep an account separate. Everything is in one price; there is no higher tier. It is built by a small independent team with no investors. The trade-offs: Monarch has native phone apps, and Taiga Finance works with US banks and US dollars only.
Price
Trial
TAIGA FINANCE14 days free, card required
MONARCH7 days, card required
Business model
TAIGA FINANCESubscription only. No investors, ads or referral fees
MONARCHSubscription. Venture-backed
Couples
TAIGA FINANCEPartner included. Each account is Separate, Balance only or Joint
MONARCHHousehold and advisor logins. Nothing hidden
Bank connections
TAIGA FINANCEPlaid
MONARCHPlaid, MX and Finicity; 13,000 institutions
Mobile
TAIGA FINANCEBrowser, on any device; phone apps planned
MONARCHFull iOS and Android apps
Where Taiga Finance is different.
Taiga FinanceMonarch
Price
One plan, every feature
Planners, reports, equity comp, real estate and a partner are all in the one price.
Two tiers
Projections and scenarios, fund analysis and gains and losses cost $100 a year more in Monarch Plus.
Equity compensation
Models each grant, including the cost of exercising
ISOs, NSOs, RSUs and ESPP. Vesting, exercise cost, the spread at exercise and its tax character (ordinary income for an NSO; an AMT preference item for an ISO, labeled only when the grant's $100,000 yearly limit is proven), and when the exercise window ends after you leave.
Tracks grants and vesting, not exercises
Grants, schedules, vested and unvested value. No exercise cost.
Long-range planning
Five planners on your real balances
Retirement with a simulated range, college, mortgage payoff, debt payoff and home purchase savings.
Projections in Plus only
Core forecasts cash flow month by month; retirement and life-event scenarios are Plus.
Reports
Build your own
Seven topics, grouped by date, merchant, category, account, recurrence or person, against the previous period. Save the ones you reuse.
Preset views with filters
Spending, income and cash flow by category, merchant, account or owner, plus Sankey diagrams. Saved.
Couples
Share some accounts, keep others separate
A Separate account reaches your partner only as a hidden rollup, so the household totals still add up. Balance only shows the balance and not the transactions.
Everyone sees everything
Mine, partner's and shared labels filter the view; they don't hide anything.
Real estate
Home equity as a line over time
Value, mortgage, equity month by month, and a HELOC counted against the equity.
Home value from Zillow
A Zillow estimate, with the mortgage as a separate linked account.
Your data
Read-only, fully exportable
Taiga Finance never moves money. Any table exports as CSV, the whole account as an archive or JSON, and a Google Sheet can stay in sync.
Read-only, CSV export
Transactions and balances.
Both track investments, crypto, net worth over time, savings goals, recurring bills and debt payoff (avalanche or snowball), connect through Plaid and import CSV. Monarch details from its public pages, help center and pricing, checked September 2026.
Where Monarch is stronger.
Taiga FinanceMonarch
Mobile
Browser only, for now
Taiga Finance runs in the browser, on a phone too, and every page carries its data, reports and planners. Native phone apps are planned, Android first.
Full native apps
iOS and Android. Reviewers rate it the best phone app in the category.
Bank connections
One aggregator
Plaid. Taiga Finance is new and has no coverage number to quote yet.
Three aggregators
Plaid, MX and Finicity. About 13,000 institutions.
Investment returns
No rate of return
Allocation by asset class, drift against a target, and the gain or loss on each holding. No return figure and no index comparison.
Return vs the S&P 500
In Core.
Cash-flow forecast
This month only
Spending pace against the plan, and the recurring charges coming up.
Projects months ahead
Expected income and planned expenses, month by month.
Advisors and other countries
Two logins, US only
Owner and partner. US banks, US dollars.
Advisor login; Canada too
A read-only login for an advisor or accountant.
Choose Monarch if…
You do most of your money management on your phone.
You want a rate of return and a benchmark on your portfolio.
You want a financial advisor or accountant to have their own login.
Your bank is in Canada, or Plaid doesn't cover it.
Choose Taiga Finance if…
You want every feature in one price, with no higher tier.
You hold options, RSUs or ESPP shares and need to know what exercising will cost.
You share money with a partner and want some accounts kept separate.
Your house is your biggest asset and you want its equity tracked like any other account.
You want to build your own reports.
Early access opens this autumn, with 14 free days.
Switching from Monarch.
Two CSV files.01
Connect
Link your banks and cards first so the Monarch files have accounts to land in.
02
Export
In Monarch, download transactions and balance history as two CSV files.
03
Import
Import balances first, then transactions. Taiga Finance matches accounts and asks you to confirm each category once.
04
Plan
History in place, duplicates skipped. Set up this month, then the planners.
Asked often.
You do, by subscription. Taiga Finance has no investors, runs no ads and takes no referral fees. It reads your accounts and never moves money.
Yes. One plan. Planners, reports, equity comp, real estate and a partner login are all in it. There is no premium tier.
Transactions and balance history, yes, as two CSV files. Tags and budgets don't transfer. Investment holdings come from your brokerage, by connection or file.
Not as a way of working. Taiga Finance plans the month from expected income: investments and savings first, then spending by category, with rollovers. That's the same approach as Monarch. A line can carry its unspent amount into next month, but the app isn't built around envelopes. If strict envelopes are how you work, YNAB is the better fit.
There isn't one yet. Taiga Finance runs in the browser, on a phone too, and every page carries its data, reports and planners. Opt-in alerts for a first charge at a new merchant, a missing paycheck, RSU vesting dates, bill increases, card fees and connection problems arrive as browser notifications. Native phone apps are planned, Android first. If you live in an app on your phone, Monarch is stronger today.
Your own numbers, when you ask it a question. It reads your data, writes nothing, and describes rather than advises. Your partner's Separate accounts and private rows are never sent to it. It's on by default; one switch turns every AI feature off.
Everything exports: any table as CSV, the whole account as an archive or JSON, or a Google Sheet kept in sync.
One price. Everything's in it.