Which Budget Apps Have an MCP Server
Checked . Competitor claims come from each company's own pages. FYN claims come from the MCP reference, pricing, and the official MCP Registry entry fyi.fyn/finance. If a page did not say it, it is not here.
Short answer. Monarch Money has an official MCP connector on Core and Plus. Copilot Money has a read-only connector, and its October 27, 2026 post says it is available to everyone. YNAB does not publish an MCP server. Its ChatGPT app cannot see your plan, and the community servers on the YNAB API page are unsupported. Actual Budget does not publish one. Its community page lists three servers Actual does not maintain. Plaid's MCP servers are for developers of a Plaid integration, not a household budget. Era, Finlynq, and Opula also ship finance connectors, and they are a different job than those budgeting apps. FYN publishes a read-only personal finance MCP server, registry name fyi.fyn/finance. Agents connect to FYN, never your bank.
What a personal finance MCP server is
MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or another client call a server you approved. A personal finance MCP server is that door for balances, transactions, a budget, and sometimes receipts or net worth. The assistant does not get a bank password. It gets what the server returns under the permission you granted. Read-only, optional write, a developer console, and a server you run yourself are four different products. The table keeps them apart.
Who has an MCP, and what it can do
| Product | Official MCP | What an assistant can do | Writes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monarch Money | Yes. Core and Plus. api.monarch.com/mcp | Monarch data the connector returns. Finicity accounts are left out. | Read by default. Write if you approve it. Monarch cannot undo it. |
| Copilot Money | Yes, for every customer as of October 27, 2026. mcp.copilot.money/mcp | Accounts, investments, transactions, categories, budgets, recurrings, tags, goals. | Read-only. Help says writes are not supported. |
| YNAB | No. The official ChatGPT app cannot see your plan. | Unsupported community servers can read the API. Some can change the plan. | Depends on that server. YNAB does not support it. |
| Actual Budget | No project server. Three community servers are listed. | Read a budget on a server you run. Writes exist in those projects. | Optional. Actual does not maintain them. |
| Plaid | Yes, for Plaid developers. Not a household budget. | Item debug, Link analytics, usage, teams. A local server covers sandbox and docs. | Not a consumer budget connector. |
| Era Context | Yes. context.era.app | Accounts, holdings, transactions, rules, other scoped Era data. No bank password to the assistant. | Reads on a basic scope. Moving money between your accounts is a private beta, approved each time. |
| Finlynq | Yes, for the app you run. The guide example is localhost. | Balances, budgets, net worth, transactions, plus recording and bulk edits. | Read and write scopes. Destructive tools preview, then confirm. Tool counts disagree, so none is listed. |
| Opula | Yes, for Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP clients. | Net worth and projections from what you record. No bank connection. | Records what you ask. Cannot move money or place a trade. |
| FYN (our product) | Yes. fyi.fyn/finance on the official registry. mcp.fyn.fyi | Transactions, budgets, cash flow, net worth, investments, itemized receipts. 36 tools. | Read-only. Agents connect to FYN, never your bank. Agent Activity logs the ask. |
Monarch Money
The help article, updated October 29, 2026, uses https://api.monarch.com/mcp. Sign in and choose read, or read and write. Supported clients are Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and ChatGPT on the web for Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Education. Grok, Muse, and Perplexity are not officially supported. Write can create or edit transactions, tags, and rules, including the help example of recategorizing Uber rides. Monarch cannot undo that. Some clients can skip the confirm prompt. Finicity accounts are omitted, which can affect brokerage connections, including some Fidelity ones.
Usage resets weekly. Plus gets more than Core, with no weekly write cap aside from misuse safeguards. A November 2 update says the connector is available to everyone and describes unlimited use through October 31. That window is closed, so the help article is the limit to plan around. Settings shows each tool, when it was authorized, last active time, and scopes. There is no customer log of each request. Revoke cuts access off immediately. For Plaid-provided data, Monarch shares the app name, access time, and a user ID with Plaid, not the transactions. Monarch does not retain prompts or replies. The assistant's own terms apply after that.
Copilot Money
Copilot opened a read-only beta with a waitlist on May 15, 2026. The October 27 Dispatch says the MCP, and the separate iPhone Money Assistant, are available to everyone. Current help does not mention a waitlist and says writes are not supported. The tool can see accounts, investments, transactions, categories, budgets, recurrings, tags, and goals, and it cannot move money or change Copilot data. The URL is https://mcp.copilot.money/mcp, OAuth, so the password stays out of the assistant. Clients listed: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex CLI. More clients wait on Copilot's data providers. The May 15 post still says beta. The October 27 post matches the help page. The in-app assistant can propose edits you approve. That is not this connector.
YNAB
The official ChatGPT app (July 2, 2026) shows articles and a debt calculator when you type @ynab. It cannot see accounts, categories, or transactions, and you do not sign in to YNAB. The API is separate. A personal access token is for the account owner, and YNAB says to treat it like the password. The API page lists community apps YNAB does not support, including Avenir-mcp (local, read-only unless you turn changes on) plus "Local MCP Server for YNAB" and "MCP for YNAB." None of those is an official URL. A write there changes your plan without YNAB standing behind the server.
Actual Budget
Actual's API docs say there is no HTTP API. The official client, @actual-app/api, runs on a local copy because the server does not analyze or modify the budget. The community page lists three MCP servers it does not maintain. actual-budget-mcp can read and can create, edit, or delete transactions, with an optional read-only mode. actual-mcp is read-only unless you pass a write flag. actual-mcp-server covers a wide slice of the API, locally or over HTTP. You point them at a server you run. This summary follows Actual's directory. Repository READMEs were not re-tested, so anything only in a README is left off.
Plaid
Plaid's docs describe two MCP servers for people building on Plaid. The Dashboard server, https://api.dashboard.plaid.com/mcp/, needs Production access. Tools: plaid_debug_item, plaid_get_link_analytics, plaid_get_tools_introduction, plaid_get_usages, plaid_list_teams. Tokens use the mcp:dashboard scope and expire after 15 minutes. Plaid calls the server actively developed. The local server, in the AI coding toolkit, covers mock data, docs search, Sandbox tokens, and webhook simulation. Neither answers a household grocery question. Community wrappers that use Plaid for a personal account are not Plaid's product.
Era, Finlynq, and Opula
These three rank for the same search. Each publishes a connector. A number that shows up on a competitor's comparison is left out unless the company's own page says it.
Era help (May 2, 2026) gives https://context.era.app, Streamable HTTP, OAuth 2.1. The assistant can see accounts, holdings, transactions, categories, rules, and other scoped data, and it does not receive bank credentials. The product page says moving money between your own accounts is a private beta, approved on every transfer, and cannot pay bills or place trades. An Era article says connections go through MX and that Era does not store bank credentials. Tool names were not listed out for this check.
Finlynq's guide is a first-party server for the open-source app. The Claude example is http://localhost:3000/api/mcp. No separate public URL was on that page. Scopes are mcp:read and mcp:write. Asking for neither grants both, shown on the consent screen. Destructive calls preview, then need a confirmation token. Finlynq pages disagree on the tool count, so none is repeated here.
Opula is a connector for Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP clients, with Google sign-in. Claude installs evan-moon/opula-plugin, then you connect it. Other clients take a pasted URL that was not in the section checked here, so it is not printed. Opula reads and records what you enter and cannot move money or trade, because there is no bank or brokerage link. Its blog describes entry as telling the assistant, a CSV, or a screenshot.
What to check before you connect
- Who does the assistant connect to? The app, a server you run, or a bank login. Refuse the bank login.
- Can it write? Read-only cannot change the books. Write can recategorize a year of transactions. Monarch says it cannot undo that.
- What is left out? Monarch skips Finicity accounts. A free FYN account does not sync a bank, so those tools stay thin until Pro.
- Can you see the ask? Monarch lists connected tools and does not log each request. FYN Agent Activity does.
FYN setup is in Connect your money to ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI agent. Why the password stays out of the model is in Banks, AI agents, and a third party. Builders want the agent API guide.
Where FYN fits
FYN is the read-only personal finance MCP server in that table. The official registry name is fyi.fyn/finance, version 1.1.0, status active, updated November 2, 2026, at https://mcp.fyn.fyi. The reference lists all 36 tools. The only scope is fyn.read. Those tools read transactions, budgets, cash flow, net worth, investments, and itemized receipts. They do not create, change, or delete those records, and FYN never moves money.
The assistant signs in with OAuth and connects to FYN. It does not connect to your bank, and it does not receive a bank password. Revoke it under Settings, then Agent access. Agent Activity is the record of what connected apps asked for, kept for 90 days.
Start free. Free includes the connection, 500 tool calls a day. Pro is $9.99 a month, with bank sync and 10,000 tool calls a day. Add https://mcp.fyn.fyi, sign in, and ask about your own records. ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and Claude Code are on fyn.fyi/agents.
FAQ
What is a personal finance MCP server?
A personal finance MCP server lets an assistant you already use, such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor, call a finance app for your own numbers. You approve the connection. The assistant receives what that server returns. It does not receive your bank password. Some servers are read-only. Some can change transactions if you allow it. Some are developer tools that never see a household budget.
Which budgeting apps have an official MCP connector?
Checked November 3, 2026. Monarch Money publishes one for Core and Plus: read by default, and write if you approve it. Copilot Money publishes a read-only connector, and its October 27, 2026 post says it is available to everyone. FYN publishes a read-only server listed on the official MCP Registry as fyi.fyn/finance. YNAB and Actual Budget do not publish an official MCP server. Both have community servers those projects do not support or maintain.
Does YNAB have an MCP server?
YNAB does not publish one. Its official ChatGPT app, documented July 2, 2026, cannot see your plan, accounts, or transactions. The YNAB API page lists community MCP servers, including Avenir-mcp, and says YNAB does not support those third-party apps. A personal access token for that API should be treated like your YNAB password and should not be shared.
Is the Plaid MCP server a way to ask about my budget?
No. Plaid documents two MCP servers for developers of a Plaid integration. The Dashboard server covers item debugging, Link analytics, usage, and teams. The local server covers mock data, docs search, Sandbox tokens, and webhook simulation. Neither one is a household budget. Community servers that wrap Plaid for a personal account are not Plaid's product.
Can an assistant move money through FYN?
No. FYN MCP tools are read-only. The only scope is fyn.read. The assistant connects to FYN, not to your bank, and FYN never moves money. Agent Activity shows what the connected app asked for. You can revoke the app under Settings, then Agent access. The reference is at fyn.fyi/docs/mcp.
Sources
Checked . The table and the FAQ point at these pages.
- Monarch, help updated October 29, 2026: MCP connector. Announcement. November 2, 2026 update. Privacy notice, effective October 28, 2026.
- Copilot Money: May 15, 2026 beta, October 27, 2026, setup, product page.
- YNAB: ChatGPT app, July 2, 2026, API and unsupported community apps.
- Actual Budget: API, community MCP servers.
- Plaid: Dashboard MCP and local server.
- Era: product, docs, MX, in Era's article.
- Finlynq: MCP guide.
- Opula: home, pricing, how you enter holdings.
- FYN: MCP reference, connect, pricing. Registry
fyi.fyn/financeversion 1.1.0, updated November 2, 2026: official MCP Registry.