Basis Budget vs Monarch Money

Both apps do budgeting, bank sync, and net worth tracking. They are built for different people and priced very differently. Here is how they compare on price, budgeting style, privacy, and everyday use.

Pricing

Basis Budget is one plan: $4.99 a month, with a one month free trial. There is no second tier and nothing held back for power users, because there isn't a power-user tier. Monarch has two paid tiers. Core is $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year. Plus is $199 a year and adds Morningstar-powered fund analysis and long-range forecasting. Monarch's trial is 7 days.

Side-by-side

Budgeting approach

Monarch uses Flex budgeting. You set targets, it tracks against them, and you can mostly let it run. That fits people who want to see where money goes without committing to a method.

Basis Budget ships two modes and lets you move between them without losing data. Zero-Based gives every dollar of income a job before you spend it, the envelope approach. Spending Limits sets a monthly cap per category and tracks against it. Zero-Based is for strict discipline, Spending Limits for lighter guardrails. Most apps in this space lock you into one of these. Basis Budget doesn't.

Partner and household

Monarch gives each partner a separate login into the same household. Basis Budget is built around one account, so partners who want to share data share a login. If separate per-person logins are a hard requirement for you, Basis Budget doesn't do that today.

Investments

Basis Budget tracks investment balances as part of net worth, across cash, credit, investments, loans, and manual assets like a home or car. It is balance-focused, not a performance or analysis tool. Monarch offers deeper investment tracking, including Morningstar fund analysis on the Plus tier. If detailed portfolio analysis is the core of what you want, Basis Budget isn't built for that.

Privacy and where your data lives

Both apps say they don't sell your data and don't run ads. The difference is what sits on the server.

Monarch encrypts in transit and at rest, which is standard for SaaS. They hold the keys, so the data is readable on their side when it needs to be, and a breach would expose it in readable form.

Basis Budget encrypts your records on your device with AES-GCM before they are sent. Each user has their own key, and our servers store only ciphertext. Basis Budget does not claim zero-knowledge: the key sits in a protected server-side vault so your data can sync across your devices. But the difference from a normal cloud database is real. A breach of Basis Budget's servers exposes ciphertext, not your transaction history.

Platforms

Monarch has native iOS, native Android, and web. Basis Budget has iOS and web. The web app runs in a mobile browser, but there is no native Android app today. On iOS, Basis Budget connects to Apple Wallet, so Apple Card and Apple Savings link without going through Plaid.

The short version

Basis Budget is for people who want real budgeting, zero-based or simple spending caps, or the freedom to switch between them without losing data, on a single plan that costs a third of Monarch's, with their financial records encrypted before they leave the phone.

It does not do native Android or separate per-partner logins. If those are hard requirements, it is not the right fit yet. For most people who just want to budget well without paying $14.99 a month, it is.