Tiller vs Monarch Money: Spreadsheet or App

Pick Tiller if you want the budget in a Google Sheet or an Excel file you keep, and you will type the category amounts yourself. Pick Monarch Money if you want that budget inside an app, with phone apps and separate logins for a household, and you will pay Core or Plus. Price, the trial, bank sync, platforms, budgeting style, sharing, and AI are the split. FYN (our product) is a short third option at the end, for receipt scanning and asking questions about your money.

Features and pricing checked October 28, 2026. Tiller figures come from Tiller's pricing page, Tiller's AI page, and the help articles in Sources. Monarch figures come from Monarch's pricing page and the help articles in Sources. FYN's numbers are from our pricing page. If a vendor cell was not on those pages, it says Not documented.

People land here from two searches. One is Tiller or Monarch, usually because a spreadsheet feels more open than an app. The other is leaving Monarch, and wondering if the next step is a sheet instead of another subscription app. Tiller feeds bank transactions into a spreadsheet. Monarch is the app. The file you can keep is the reason to pick Tiller. The budget, the household, and the phone apps are the reason to stay on Monarch, or to pay for it.

Tiller vs Monarch Money

Checked Oct 28, 2026.

Disclosure: we build FYN. This page is on FYN's site. The FYN column is a third option for receipt scanning and asking questions. It is not a claim that FYN wins Tiller vs Monarch Money. Scroll the table sideways on a phone. Prices are US list prices. Monarch says an App Store or Google Play checkout can differ from the web price. Tiller's getting-started FAQ says tax is added where the state requires it.

Price and the free trial

Tiller publishes three yearly plans on the pricing page, read on October 28, 2026. Essentials is $59 a year: 1 connected institution, 1 linked spreadsheet, automatic bank and card refreshes, the template library, and US-based human support. Core is $99 a year, and the page calls it recommended: everything in Essentials, unlimited connected institutions, 5 linked spreadsheets, 1 on-demand refresh a day, and 1 secondary user. Pro is $149 a year: everything in Core, 5 on-demand refreshes a day, 20 linked spreadsheets, 5 secondary users, and weekly office hours and webinars. The comparison table also puts daily automatic refreshes, AutoCat, the Hello, Money daily email, and a CSV importer on all three. The headline under the trial says that after 30 days, Tiller is $99 a year. A monthly price: Not documented.

Each plan card says Start Your Free Trial. The page says your card is not charged until the end of the 30-day trial, and that you can cancel. It also says you then get another 30 days backed by a full refund, which it calls up to 60 days risk-free. A bullet on the same page says your data is never sold.

Two older help articles do not match that table on the spreadsheet cap. The getting-started FAQ, July 2, 2026, says you can link up to 5 spreadsheets, and that the card on file is charged the $99 annual fee plus tax when the trial ends. If you cancel during the trial, you are not billed, and you still get the 30 days. The Excel FAQ, July 14, 2025, also says the annual subscription includes up to five spreadsheets. Five matches Core. It does not match Essentials (1) or Pro (20). This page uses the pricing table for the plan caps, because that is the plan page. What a trial started on Essentials or Pro bills at the end: Not documented. The July 2 FAQ only names $99.

The how-it-works article, May 22, 2026, lists what the trial includes: Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, up to 5 spreadsheets, daily transaction and balance updates, human support, and the Tiller Community. Whether a Pro trial includes the 20 spreadsheets on the pricing table: Not documented.

Monarch has no free plan. On October 28, 2026 the pricing page showed Core at $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, displayed as $8.33 a month when billed yearly. Plus was $16.67 a month, billed $199.99 annually. The page's structured data says those prices are in US dollars, plus tax where it applies. Both plan cards say "Free 7-day trial, then" the plan price, and "Payment method required." Cancel in settings before the trial ends. The FAQ also offers a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee and does not say how long that window is. The pricing help, updated March 3, 2026, says subscriptions are monthly or yearly, billed in USD, and subject to tax where it applies. It also says Monarch will notify you at least 30 days before a price change. Monarch recommends checking out on the web rather than in the Apple or Google store.

The same pricing page showed code WELCOME for 30% off Core for one year. The footer says the discount is for new users only, valid for the annual Core plan only, cannot be combined with other offers, and may expire or be deactivated at any time.

On a yearly bill, Tiller Core at $99 and Monarch Core at $99.99 are almost the same. The difference is the product, not a few dollars. Tiller Essentials is the plan if one institution and one spreadsheet are enough. Monarch is the plan if you want to pay month to month, at $14.99, instead of a year up front. Plus is a different product: forecasting and the deeper investment tools, on desktop, at $199.99 a year.

Budgeting style

This is the product split. Tiller is a spreadsheet with a budget sheet. Monarch is a budget in an app.

Tiller's Foundation Template budgeting help, May 7, 2025, has you open the Categories sheet and type a budget amount for each category. Each later month is filled with that amount. If you change one month, the months after it inherit the new number. The Monthly Budget sheet shows planned versus actual spending and income, and what is remaining. The Yearly Budget sheet is a 12-month view. The Foundation Template starts with default categories you can overwrite. The categories help, August 6, 2026, allows a maximum of 200 unique categories in 20 groups. The supported types are Income, Expense, and Transfer. A custom type breaks the template.

Envelope budgeting is a known question, and Tiller's own Excel FAQ answers it. The Foundation Template does not support envelope or zero-sum budgeting at this time. The article points people who want that method at community workflows for Excel. The YNAB import help says the same thing in practice: the Foundation Template has a monthly and yearly budget, and it does not calculate a category's surplus or deficit from one month into the next. If you are leaving a give-every-dollar tool, Tiller will not run that method for you. The head-to-head for that method is YNAB vs Monarch Money.

Categorizing is mostly your job. The July 2 getting-started FAQ says Tiller does not auto-categorize, because it does not want to guess the intent of a purchase, and that AutoCat is the tool for rules you write. AutoCat is on Essentials, Core, and Pro. The categories article, newer than that FAQ, says some randomly selected Google Sheets customers are in an experiment that fills data already categorized. That is not the documented default. On Google Sheets you can also turn on AI Suggest, which proposes a category after your rules run. Excel uses AutoCat rules. The Excel FAQ says AutoCat works there too.

Monarch's budget help, updated October 22, 2026, offers two types. Flex budgeting is the default: one flexible bucket, plus fixed and non-monthly groups. Category budgeting assigns an amount to each category. The first budget is filled from the average of the last six months, and you can recalculate it. The budget is monthly cash flow: expected income, then expenses and savings. Monarch says you can still run an envelope or zero-based style if income equals expenses plus savings. It is not required. The help mentions about 60 category options, plus custom groups and categories. Transactions are categorized as they come in. There is no free plan, so the budget sits on Core or Plus.

Bank sync

Tiller's how-it-works article says it links bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments through two providers, Yodlee and Plaid, and that between them they support over 10,000 institutions. Once connected, Tiller checks for new transactions and balances every day. For most institutions the pull is automatic. The article says Tiller currently supports U.S. customers only, in U.S. currency and date formats. The getting-started FAQ adds that a U.S. customer can connect some banks outside the U.S., that Tiller does not escalate problems on those international banks, and that EU and UK banks are not offered because of open-banking rules.

The same FAQ says there is no specified limit on the number of accounts, and that some people hit refresh problems above 100 accounts. The pricing table is the limit that is written as a plan cap: Essentials connects 1 institution, and Core and Pro say unlimited institutions. Account types named there include mortgages, loans, credit cards, retirement, checking, and savings. Insurance, bill pay, and utilities are not pulled in for transactions and balances, even if they show up in the connection window. Pending charges stay out until they clear. History is typically up to 90 days, and that varies by institution. You can also skip the bank and import or track by hand.

Which of Yodlee or Plaid Tiller picks first, and how you switch: Not documented. The getting-started FAQ has a heading about the default aggregator. The answer was not on the page that loaded for this check.

Google Sheets often fills on its own after the daily refresh. Some sheets still need a Fill click. Excel always needs Fill in the add-in sidebar after a refresh. The getting-started FAQ says those transactions and balances are pulled into Tiller's databases about once a day. The Excel FAQ says Tiller does not see or store your bank login credentials.

Monarch's data-provider article, June 9, 2026, names three providers: Plaid, MX, and Finicity. Monarch suggests the provider with the stronger history for that institution, and you can switch. The article says connections can still break, that some institutions are hard to keep synced, and that Monarch never sees your login. Some connections are OAuth, so you log in at the bank. Older ones pass the login to the data provider. The download page limits the product to the United States and Canada.

Platforms

Tiller is the spreadsheet, not a phone app. The how-it-works article and the pricing page both name Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, and one subscription covers both. The Excel FAQ says the feeds add-in and the Foundation Template work with Excel from a Microsoft 365 subscription, or with Excel Online. A work or school Microsoft account cannot be the Tiller login. A personal Microsoft account can, and that login does not itself require a Microsoft 365 subscription. You still need a supported Excel to use the Excel side.

The mobile help, read October 28, 2026, says Tiller does not have a native mobile app. You can add the Tiller Console to an iPhone or Android home screen, and from that browser view you can see transactions, edit descriptions, categorize, refresh accounts, and check balances. You can also open the file in the Google Sheets or Excel mobile apps. If the sheet is Excel, Fill still happens from the add-in on a computer. For an iPad, Tiller recommends a browser, and on Google Sheets you request the desktop site so the add-on menu is there. A native iPad app: Not documented, because the mobile article does not name one.

Monarch's download page lists web, iPhone, iPad, and Android, in the United States and Canada. The Plus article, August 31, 2026, says Plus features are on desktop web, with only parts of business tracking on mobile. Full mobile support for Plus may come later.

Sharing

Monarch's household article, updated October 20, 2026, invites one or more people onto a single subscription. Each person has a login and can add accounts. The household shares one dashboard and one budget. You cannot hide a bank account or a transaction once someone is invited. You cannot invite an email that already has a Monarch account. Roles are an admin (the owner), a member, and an optional professional for an advisor. The Plus article says Plus covers the whole household, the same way Core does.

Tiller documents two different ways to share, and they are not the same thing. The shared-expenses article, December 23, 2025, says you share the spreadsheet with Google Sheets or Excel collaboration, so each person can edit and categorize. An Excel file has to live on OneDrive or SharePoint. A file on the computer cannot be shared that way. If both people need the console, and you do not want to share one Google or Microsoft password, the article says to use a shared login or a secondary user.

Secondary users are the login. The pricing table shows none on Essentials, 1 on Core, and 5 on Pro. The secondary-user article, May 22, 2026, says you can add up to 5, which matches Pro, and it does not repeat the Essentials and Core caps. You invite by email. They join at the secondary-user link in Google Chrome. Other browsers do not work for that step, and they do not get an email. They can refresh accounts when that button is on the plan, run the feeds tools, and open sheets you have shared with them. They cannot change billing, add a financial institution, remove one, import a CSV, or add another secondary user. Whether an account can be hidden from a partner or a secondary user: Not documented.

AI features

Tiller's AI page, read October 28, 2026, says AI is optional. You can budget, categorize, and build reports without it. Tiller does not train AI on your data. You keep the spreadsheet if you cancel. The page's answer to "Does Tiller work with Claude?" says Tiller has an MCP server, Tiller MCP for Claude is in Claude's connector directory, and the Tiller subscription covers it. Claude reads transactions and categories in Google Sheets and can update categories and notes after you allow the action. Claude also works in Excel through Anthropic's add-in.

ChatGPT, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are described as tools inside the spreadsheet, not as a Tiller-hosted connector. ChatGPT works in Google Sheets and Excel on ChatGPT plans from Free to Enterprise, with limited use on Free and Go, and it can edit the sheet from a plain-language request. You review the cells. Gemini works in Google Sheets on eligible Google plans. Copilot works in Excel on eligible Microsoft 365 plans. A Tiller MCP client for ChatGPT: Not documented on that page. The ChatGPT answer there is the spreadsheet integration.

AI Suggest is the in-sheet helper. The AI page says it is an optional AutoCat feature for Google Sheets with Direct Fills, that Tiller uses Gemini for it, and that it proposes categories for transactions your rules did not catch. You review the suggestions. The categories article says Excel users run AutoCat rules, and it does not put AI Suggest on Excel.

Monarch's AI article, updated October 27, 2026, describes three uses. Categorizing, merchant names, and recurring charges run in the background. The AI Assistant answers questions about spending, cash flow, and net worth. It cannot move money, pay bills, or make trades, and it asks before it changes anything in the account. A third pass looks for savings and insights. The MCP article, updated October 22, 2026, is a separate connector on Core and Plus for Claude, ChatGPT on a paid web plan, Cursor, and Gemini CLI. Read-only is the default. Write is granted only if the tool asks and you approve. Data from Finicity is left out, which can affect some brokerage accounts. Grok is not an official client. Weekly usage is higher on Plus. Monarch does not offer a customer-facing log of each request.

Who should pick Tiller, and who should pick Monarch Money

Pick Tiller if the job is a spreadsheet you control. The Foundation Template is a category budget with planned versus actual, and the file stays in Google Drive or in Excel. AutoCat is on every plan. AI Suggest and Tiller MCP for Claude are there if you want them, and the AI page says you can ignore both. Accept the limits Tiller's pages state: no envelope or zero-sum budget in the Foundation Template, no native phone app, U.S. customers, and a yearly bill. Core at $99 is the plan the pricing page leads with. Essentials is the one-institution plan at $59. Pro is the plan for 20 spreadsheets and 5 secondary users. Do not pick Tiller for a month-to-month price. That price was Not documented. Do not pick it because you want Monarch's flex budget and a household inside the app.

Pick Monarch Money if the job is an app. Core is the tier for cash flow, a budget seeded from the last six months, and separate logins where nobody hides an account. The apps are web, iPhone, iPad, and Android. Pay for Plus if you want forecasting or the deeper investment tools, and plan to use them on the desktop site. The trial is a week, and the plan card says a payment method is required, so decide before it rolls into $99.99 or $14.99. The connector for Claude and ChatGPT is on Core and Plus. Do not pick Monarch for a free plan. There is not one. Do not pick it for a spreadsheet you own if you cancel. Tiller's AI page says you keep that file.

If you are leaving Monarch because the app feels closed, Tiller is the spreadsheet path on this page. If you are leaving because of price and you still want an app, start with Monarch Money alternatives. The cancel and export steps are on how to switch from Monarch Money. A price review of Monarch on its own is Is Monarch Money worth it?. The wider table is best budget apps in 2026. The narrower FYN page is FYN vs Monarch.

Where FYN fits

FYN (our product) is the third option, and it is last on purpose. Look here if you want receipt scanning, a free start, and a shared household on Pro. A spreadsheet budget: Not documented on the pricing page. We build it. The limits below are the ones on the pricing page.

The free plan does not expire and does not ask for a card. It includes receipt photos and emailed receipts, one combined count, 20 a month. Pro is $9.99 a month and raises that count to 200. Bank sync is Pro only: Plaid, up to 15 accounts. The free plan does not link a bank. Ask FYN is 20 questions a month on Free and 500 on Pro. The same page lists read-only MCP calls so assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT can read your FYN data. They do not get a bank password. Monarch also publishes a connector, on Core and Plus, read-only unless you allow write. Tiller publishes one for Claude. FYN's connector is one read-only option, not an exclusive one.

A spreadsheet budget or the Foundation Template: Not documented on the pricing page. The pricing page lists 1 household member on Free and unlimited household members on Pro. Everyone shares the plan's limits. A shared member can be an owner, a member, or view-only. FYN is free to start.

FAQ

Sources

Checked October 28, 2026. Vendor claims in the table and the FAQ point at these pages. A cell that says Not documented was not on the pages that loaded that day.

• Yearly prices, trial, plan caps, secondary users, AutoCat, and the refund window: Tiller pricing.
• Yodlee and Plaid, over 10,000 institutions, U.S. customers, and what the trial includes. May 22, 2026: What is Tiller and how does it work?.
• $99 trial charge plus tax, daily fills, cleared transactions, about 90 days of history, account types, and up to 5 spreadsheets. July 2, 2026: Most common questions when getting started.
• Category budget amounts and the Monthly Budget sheet. May 7, 2025: Budgeting in the Foundation Template.
• Up to 200 categories in 20 groups. Income, Expense, and Transfer. AI Suggest on Google Sheets. August 6, 2026: Customizing categories.
• Foundation Template does not support envelope or zero-sum budgeting. Excel needs Microsoft 365 or Excel Online. July 14, 2025: Tiller for Microsoft Excel FAQ.
• The Foundation Template does not carry a category surplus from month to month: How to get YNAB data into Tiller.
• Share the spreadsheet. Excel collaboration needs OneDrive or SharePoint. December 23, 2025: How to set up Tiller when you share expenses.
• Secondary users, what they can and cannot do. May 22, 2026: Add a secondary user.
• No native mobile app. Home-screen console. Excel Fill from a computer. Read October 28, 2026: Using Tiller on a mobile device.
• Tiller MCP for Claude, AI Suggest, and ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot inside the spreadsheet. Read October 28, 2026: Tiller and AI.
• Monarch pricing, trial, Plus price, and the WELCOME code: monarch.com/pricing.
• Subscription revenue, USD, and tax. Updated March 3, 2026: Monarch pricing help.
• Platforms, United States and Canada: monarch.com/download.
• Plus features, desktop, household coverage. August 31, 2026: Monarch Plus tier.
• Budget, flex and category, six-month average. Updated October 22, 2026: Creating your budget.
• Households. Updated October 20, 2026: Monarch for couples and households.
• Bank connections. June 9, 2026: Data providers and connections.
• In-app assistant. Updated October 27, 2026: AI in Monarch.
• Monarch connector, Core and Plus, read-only unless you allow write. Updated October 22, 2026: MCP connector.
• FYN plan limits: fyn.fyi/pricing.