Best Budget App with Investment Trackings of 2026

Empower is the right pick if you want the deepest free investment fee analyzer in the lineup and you can decline the wealth-management calls. Originally Personal Capital, founded 2009 by Bill Harris, the former Intuit and PayPal CEO; acquired by Empower Retirement in 2020 for one billion dollars and rebranded in 2023.

The free dashboard ships net-worth tracking, an investment fee analyzer that scans every fund in your linked accounts and projects the fee drag over your investment horizon, a Monte Carlo retirement planner with savings-rate simulations, and cash-flow plus budget tools. The fee analyzer is the documented strength reviewers consistently call out: nothing else in the lineup surfaces expense ratio drag this clearly at any price tier.

The honest catch is the monetization. The free dashboard is a lead-generation funnel for Empower Personal Wealth, the in-house wealth-management firm. Sales calls start within two to four weeks pitching managed accounts at 0.89 percent annual under management, one hundred thousand dollar minimum. The 0.89 percent rate is roughly two to three times what Vanguard Personal Advisor Services charges at 0.30 percent.

Quicken Simplifi is the right pick if you want investment tracking inside the cheapest credible paid budget app. Launched 2020 by Quicken Inc as the modern mobile-first alternative to traditional Quicken; Quicken Inc spun out of Intuit in 2016 under Aquiline Capital and was sold to Eldridge in 2021.

The annual promo rate of thirty-five dollars and eighty-eight cents per year equates to roughly three dollars a month annual-equivalent. Standard renewal is forty-seven dollars and eighty-eight cents per year, which is four dollars a month equivalent. Investment tracking covers stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and 401(k) positions inside the Spending Plan and Watchlist features, with calendar integration for upcoming bills and apps across iOS, Android, and web.

The catch: the investment tracking is included but less polished than Monarch's read-only dashboard or Empower's fee analyzer. No crypto sync (Copilot wedge), no partner-free (Monarch wedge), and no zero-based philosophy (YNAB wedge). For cost-conscious solo investors who want a single cheap paid app for budgeting and basic portfolio awareness, Simplifi is the lowest-price credible pick.

Monarch Money is the right pick if you want investment tracking inside the closest one-to-one Mint replacement on the market. Founded 2018 in San Francisco by Val Agostino, the former Mint product lead who left Intuit explicitly to build a paid replacement; the founders saw Mint's deprecation coming years before the public announcement. Raised four point seven million dollars seed in 2021.

Premium runs fourteen dollars and ninety-nine cents a month on monthly billing or ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents per year, which is eight dollars and thirty-three cents a month annual-equivalent. Premium covers unlimited account aggregation via Plaid, custom budgets, bill tracking, an investment dashboard, and net-worth tracking. The partner-free wedge means a spouse or partner gets full access at no extra charge, where most competitors charge per user.

The catch: investment tracking covers stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and 401(k) positions but not crypto (Copilot wedge), and the dashboard is read-only versus Empower's investment fee analyzer. Pay Monarch when partner sharing matters and a basic investment dashboard is enough; default to Empower when investment fee analysis matters more.

Copilot Money is the right pick if you live in the Apple ecosystem and want investment tracking that includes crypto positions alongside ML-driven transaction categorization. Founded 2019 in NYC by Andres Ugarte, the former Google Maps PM; raised six million dollars seed in 2020; iOS and macOS native from day one. Android was added in 2024 but iOS-first remains the design wedge.

The annual rate of ninety-five dollars per year equates to roughly eight dollars a month annual-equivalent, the cheapest paid pick that ships ML categorization plus investment plus crypto. Investment plus crypto sync is broader than Monarch's investment-only tracking. The ML-driven transaction categorization learns merchant patterns faster than rule-based competitors, and two-way merchant disputes let you file a chargeback from inside the app.

The catch: no partner-free option (per-user pricing means couples pay double versus Monarch), no zero-based budgeting philosophy, and no investment fee analyzer (Empower's wedge). For solo iPhone-first investors holding both stocks and crypto, Copilot is the clearest pick in the lineup.