Cilantro vs Monarch Money
Both connect to your banks. The difference is what they ask of you. Monarch is a full budgeting and net-worth platform — you set budgets, categorize, and plan. Cilantro is observe-only: it watches the accounts you already have and tells you what changed — unusual charges, bill creep, auto-detected trip recaps — with nothing to set up.
| Cilantro | Monarch Money | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual price | $69.99/yr ($5.83/mo) | $99.99/yr (Core) |
| Monthly price | $8.99/mo | $14.99/mo |
| What you do to use it | Link accounts. That's it — no budgets, no tagging. | Set budgets, categorize, maintain a plan. |
| Budgeting | None by design | Flexible or category-based (its core) |
| Unusual-charge & anomaly alerts | ✓ Built in | Not a core feature |
| Auto-detected trip recaps | ✓ Across both cards, any currency | — |
| Subscription price-change tracking | ✓ | Recurring detection, less alert-focused |
| Partner / household sharing | ✓ One sub covers your household | ✓ Included free for couples |
| Investment & net-worth dashboards | Balances only | ✓ Deep (Plus adds Morningstar, forecasting) |
| Platforms | iPhone | iOS, Android, web |
When Monarch is the better choice
If you want to budget — assign every category, track net worth, follow investments and run forecasts — Monarch is a genuinely strong, mature platform, and its household sharing is excellent. If you need Android or a full web app today, Monarch has them and Cilantro doesn't yet. We'd rather you use the right tool than the wrong one.
When Cilantro is the better choice
If you've tried budgeting apps and quietly stopped maintaining them, Cilantro is built for exactly that. There's nothing to keep up: it watches your accounts, flags the unusual charge, the bill that crept up, and the trip you just took — and stays quiet otherwise. It's less money per year, and it's the only one of the two that recaps a trip across both partners' cards automatically.
Now on iPhone · 7-day free preview · one subscription covers your household.