Short answer: pick Copilot if you want a polished, bank-connected app that tracks transactions for you and you’re happy to pay a yearly subscription. Pick Monthly if you want a free plan built around one number, your real free money, that works on any device and never asks for bank credentials.
Copilot users shopping around usually hit the same wall: the one-month trial is ending and a $95 yearly charge is next. Both apps answer “where is my money going and what can I spend?”, but from opposite directions. Copilot starts with your accounts and builds a picture from the data that flows in. Monthly starts with a few numbers you type in and builds the picture from those. Neither is wrong, but they suit different people, and the differences show up in price, platform and privacy.
How this comparison was done
This article is published by the Monthly team, so treat it as a vendor comparison, not an independent review. We looked at Copilot’s own website for pricing and platforms and compared it with Monthly’s actual features. We didn’t run a long-term test of Copilot, and we’re not claiming either app helps you save more. Where we couldn’t confirm a Copilot detail on its official site, we left it out. Prices and plans change, so check copilot.money before you decide.
Two different ideas of “budgeting”
Copilot is built around a connected feed. According to its site, accounts are “automatically tracked”, and the app is available on iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web. The value is convenience: transactions show up without you typing them, and the app organizes them for you.
Monthly is built around a plan. You enter your take-home income, your fixed expenses (rent, utilities, insurance, phone, subscriptions, card payments), and a weekend reserve for going out and delivery. The app subtracts the fixed expenses and the reserve from income and shows the remainder as real free money. If you log daily expenses, those reduce the number too. Investments can be kept as manual notes, and the app also tracks money other people owe you. There is no transaction feed, so nothing appears unless you put it there.
That single design decision explains most of the rest of the comparison.
Side by side
| Criterion | Monthly | Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Core idea | Income minus fixed expenses and weekend reserve equals real free money | Connected accounts with automatic tracking |
| Price | Free core workflow | Paid; the site lists $95 per year ($7.92 per month shown on the yearly toggle) after a one-month trial |
| Platforms | Mobile-first web app, works in any modern browser | iPhone, iPad, Mac and web per its site; no Android app mentioned there |
| Bank connection | None, by design | Core to how it works |
| Setup | A few minutes of typing | Linking accounts, then reviewing what comes in |
| Ongoing effort | Update numbers when something changes | Mostly review and categorize |
| AI features | AI assistant for personal finance questions | Check its site for current features |
The Copilot figures come from its public pricing page at the time of writing and can change. We’re deliberately not describing Copilot features beyond what its own site states.
Price: free versus a yearly subscription
Copilot’s pricing page shows a yearly plan at $95, which it presents as $7.92 a month, plus a one-month free trial and a note that there are no ads. After the trial there is no free tier on that page. For someone who will use the automatic tracking every week, that can be a fair price. For someone who mainly wants to know what’s left after rent and bills, it’s a recurring cost for a feature they’d rarely open.
Monthly’s core workflow is free: income, fixed expenses, weekend reserve, investments, money owed to you, and the free-money calculation. There’s no trial clock. If cost is your deciding factor, see our roundup of budgeting apps with no subscription fee.
Platform: iPhone-first versus any device
Copilot’s site lists iPhone, iPad, Mac and web. That’s a good set if you live in Apple’s ecosystem, and the web version means you aren’t strictly tied to an Apple device. But it does not mention Android, which matters if your household or partner uses one. If that’s you, confirm in the Google Play Store before you build a habit around it.
Monthly is a mobile-first web app. You open it in the browser on an iPhone, an Android phone or a laptop and sign in. It isn’t a native app and doesn’t have an app store listing, which some people will see as a downside. The upside is that it behaves the same on whatever device is in your hand.
Privacy: what you hand over
A connected app needs access to your accounts through a data-aggregation connection, and that’s a trade-off many people accept happily. The question to ask of any app is what it stores, who it shares it with and how you revoke access. Read the provider’s privacy policy rather than assuming.
Monthly never asks for bank credentials, so there’s no bank data to expose in the first place. That doesn’t mean everything stays on your device: Monthly uses cloud providers to store and sync what you enter. Details are in the privacy policy. The difference is the type of data. You decide which numbers to type; the app can’t see anything you didn’t enter.
A worked example
Suppose someone takes home $3,400 a month. Their fixed expenses are rent of $1,350, utilities and internet of $190, car insurance of $120, phone of $60, a student loan payment of $210 and $45 in subscriptions. That’s $1,975. They want a $300 weekend reserve.
In Monthly they enter the income, the six fixed items and the reserve, and the app shows real free money of $3,400 - $1,975 - $300 = $1,125. If they log a $60 grocery run, it drops to $1,065. Those amounts are hypothetical, not a typical budget.
In Copilot the same person would link their accounts, and transactions for rent, groceries and subscriptions would appear on their own and be categorized. They’d get a clear history of where the money went, but the “what’s genuinely free this month” answer would come from reading categories and budgets, not from a single subtraction they set up on payday.
Both routes end with an informed person. The Monthly route takes five minutes on payday. The Copilot route takes less typing but more trust in the connection.
Already on a Copilot trial and curious what the same month looks like as a single subtraction? Type in your take-home, your six biggest fixed bills and a weekend number, then compare Monthly’s total with Copilot’s category view →
Setup and daily use: what the first week looks like
With Copilot, the first session is about connecting accounts and letting the app pull in history. After that, daily use is mostly review: glancing at new transactions, fixing a category when the app guesses wrong, and checking how you are doing against whatever budgets you set. The effort is front-loaded and then light, as long as the connections keep working. Connections can occasionally need re-authorizing, which is normal for any app that relies on a link to a financial institution.
With Monthly, the first session is typing: income, fixed expenses, weekend reserve. It takes a few minutes, and after that the habit is a short payday update, plus logging daily expenses if you want them reflected. Nothing breaks if you skip a week, because nothing depends on a connection, but nothing updates itself either. If you know you will forget to enter things, that’s a real reason to prefer an automatic tool.
The honest summary is that Copilot trades your attention for your data, and Monthly trades your data for your attention.
Who should choose Copilot
- You want transactions imported and categorized without typing.
- You’re comfortable linking bank accounts to a third-party app.
- You use iPhone, iPad or Mac, or you’re fine with the web version.
- You value a polished interface and don’t mind a yearly subscription.
Who should choose Monthly
- You’d rather not link a bank account under any circumstances.
- You want one number, free money after commitments, instead of a transaction history.
- You or your household use a mix of Android, iPhone and laptops.
- You don’t want to pay a subscription for budgeting.
- You want a lightweight payday routine: update income, fixed expenses and reserve, then see what’s left. Our step-by-step monthly budget guide walks through it.
What you give up with Monthly
Honesty matters here. Monthly won’t show you a history of everything you bought, won’t alert you to unusual charges and won’t pull in a card statement. If you often wonder “where did all my money go?” and want the app to answer without effort from you, a connected tool like Copilot answers that better. Monthly answers a forward-looking question: after what you’ve already committed to, what’s left?
How to test both with your own numbers
- Write down your real income and fixed expenses for one month.
- Enter them in Monthly and note your real free money. Read how to calculate real free money if the formula is new to you.
- Use Copilot’s free trial, linking accounts only if you’re comfortable, and see what the app tells you about the same month.
- After two weeks, ask which one you opened voluntarily.
The best budgeting app is the one you’ll still open in month three. If Copilot’s trial ends and you realize you only ever looked at the “what’s left” screen, rebuild that one screen in Monthly before your card is charged $95. This comparison is informational and isn’t personalized financial advice.