Monarch is a tracker: it connects your banks, sorts spending into categories and shows net worth. Budgetfold is a plan you make before you spend. If you came to Monarch from Mint and still overspend, the envelope method is the piece that was missing. Your Monarch transactions import in one file.
No account needed to preview your file. Free plan: this month's budget, 2 accounts and 100 transactions. Plus is $39 a year.
| Monarch Money | Budgetfold | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year | $4.99 a month or $39 a year |
| Free option | 7-day trial ("Your first week is on us") | Free plan with no end date: this month's budget, 2 accounts and 100 transactions |
| Approach | Tracking: connect accounts, review categories, net worth | Zero-based: assign income to envelopes before spending |
| Bank connection | Yes, the core of the product | No. CSV, OFX, QFX or QIF import from any bank |
| Moving your history | Transactions CSV from Settings → Data | Reads the Monarch CSV; categories and accounts created on import |
| Export your data | Transactions CSV | Yes, every plan: a zip of CSVs plus JSON |
Monarch price and trial from monarch.com/pricing; export path and the 10,000-row limit from Monarch's help center. Read October 23, 2026.
A tracker tells you after the month what happened. A zero-based budget decides before the month what will happen: rent, groceries and the car fund are funded first, and the leftover is the money you can actually spend. Budgetfold rolls unspent money forward in each category, so irregular bills build up instead of surprising you. It costs less because there is no bank connection to maintain.
Every transaction with its date, merchant, category, account, notes and amount. Monarch does not export budgets or goals, so you assign your first month in Budgetfold, which takes about ten minutes. If your file's columns differ from what we expect, the importer still reads any date, amount and merchant or description columns.
Yes. Download transactions from Monarch under Settings, Data, and upload the CSV to Budgetfold Import. Accounts and categories are created to match.
No. The preview runs without an account and shows what will import. Saving it asks for a free account.
No. You type purchases or import your bank's CSV, OFX, QFX or QIF download. That is the main trade-off for the lower price.
Plus lets up to six people share one budget, each with their own login, for $39 a year in total.
Monarch Money is a trademark of its owner. Budgetfold is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by it; the name is used only to describe what our importer reads. Prices and features change; tell us at [email protected] if something here is out of date. General information, not financial advice.
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Budgetfold