Rocket Money alternatives: Actual Budget, Firefly III, Empower Personal Dashboard, Goodbudget and 3 more. Prices and licenses checked October 25, 2026.
•4 min read•Personal Finance & Investing
Verdict:Rocket Money's free plan is more generous than it looks: it tracks subscriptions, shows upcoming bills, offers bill negotiation (35% to 60% of first-year savings, only if it succeeds), and gives a total budget with up to two custom categories. Premium is pay-what-you-think-is-fair, typically $7 to $14 a month. Leave it if the nudges to upgrade annoy you, or if you want full budget categories without paying. The free replacements split into two kinds. Actual Budget (MIT) and Firefly III (AGPL-3.0) are self-hosted, cost nothing, and give you complete control over categories, but you run the server and you lose cancellation and negotiation services. Empower's dashboard is free and covers net worth and investments, though it is weaker at budgeting. Goodbudget's free plan is manual envelope budgeting with 10 envelopes and one account. If you will pay, YNAB costs $14.99 a month, Monarch $14.99 a month and Copilot $7.92 a month, all with trials and no free plan. The trade-off: none of these replace the thing Rocket Money is best known for, which is negotiating a bill or cancelling a subscription for you. Keep the free Rocket Money plan for that and pair it with Actual Budget or Empower for everything else, if you only want to drop Premium.
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual Budget | Free (Open-source app you host yourself; the repository lists no paid tier) | Web (self-hosted) | Self-hosted budgeting with no subscription | Docs only |
| Firefly III | Free (Open-source personal finance manager you host yourself; no paid tier in the repository) | Web (self-hosted) | Detailed tracking you control | Docs only |
| Empower Personal Dashboard | Free (The dashboard experience and financial tools are free; separate advisory services charge fees based on assets managed) | Web | Free net worth and investment view | Docs only |
| Goodbudget | Free (Free plan: 10 regular and 10 'more' envelopes, 1 account, 2 devices, 1 year of history); paid from $10 per month (Premium; $80 billed annually) | Web, iPhone, Android | Envelope budgeting for free | Docs only |
| YNAB | Paid from $14.99 per month, billed monthly ($109 per year billed annually; 34-day free trial) | Web | Budgeters who want a method | Docs only |
| Monarch Money | Paid from $14.99 per month, billed monthly ($99.99 per year billed annually) | Web | Couples tracking budgets together | Docs only |
| Copilot Money | Paid from $7.92 per month ($95 billed yearly; 1-month free trial) | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Web | Apple users who want a polished app | Docs only |
| Quicken Simplifi | Paid from $3.99 per month, billed annually ($6.99 also shown) | Web browser, iOS, Android | Personal Finance | Docs only |
| PocketGuard | Paid from $6.25 per month, billed yearly at $74.99 ($12.99 monthly; $149.99 lifetime) | iOS, Android, Web browser | Personal Finance | Docs only |
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Rocket Money today: Free (Free plan: subscription tracking, bill negotiation (35% to 60% of first-year savings, only if it succeeds), transaction history, a total budget plus up to two custom categories; mobile app only); paid from $7 per month (Premium, pay-what-you-think-is-fair, typically $7 to $14; Premium+ is $15) (Rocket Money pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Rocket Money's free tier shows subscriptions and upcoming bills, but cancelling a subscription through its team, unlimited category budgets, net worth tracking, CSV export and desktop access need Premium, which it prices on a pay-what-you-think-is-fair scale of $7 to $14 per month. Bill negotiation costs 35% to 60% of the first year's savings on Free and Premium; Premium+ at $15 per month removes that success fee. Rocket Money says the Premium range is subject to change.
Compared with Rocket Money: MIT-licensed budgeting app you host yourself, with no paid tier in its repository. You give up Rocket Money's bill negotiation and one-tap cancellations, and gain full control; bank syncing needs a separate billed service.
Price: Free (Open-source app you host yourself; the repository lists no paid tier) (Actual Budget pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web (self-hosted). MIT (open source).
Project activity: 29.8k GitHub stars · latest release v26.10.0 (Oct 2, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Self-hosted budgeting with no subscription.
Compared with Rocket Money: AGPL-3.0 personal finance manager you run yourself, free of charge. It has no subscription cancelling or bill negotiation like Rocket Money, and it asks you to manage a server and back up the database.
Price: Free (Open-source personal finance manager you host yourself; no paid tier in the repository) (Firefly III pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web (self-hosted). AGPL-3.0 (open source).
Project activity: 25k GitHub stars · latest release v6.7.9 (Oct 11, 2026) · last commit Oct 26, 2026
Best for: Detailed tracking you control.
Worth knowing: Self-hosted, so you run the server and back up the database yourself. The repository describes it as a personal finances manager.
Compared with Rocket Money: The dashboard and financial tools are free, aimed at net worth and investment tracking. Budgeting is thinner than Rocket Money's, and it has no cancellation or negotiation service.
Price: Free (The dashboard experience and financial tools are free; separate advisory services charge fees based on assets managed) (Empower Personal Dashboard pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Free net worth and investment view.
Worth knowing: Reviews describe it as stronger at net worth and investment tracking than at detailed budgeting.
Compared with Rocket Money: Free plan gives 10 regular and 10 extra envelopes, 1 account and 2 devices. It is manual envelope budgeting; automatic bank sync (US banks) costs $10 a month, so it replaces Rocket Money's budgets, not its subscription tools.
Price: Free (Free plan: 10 regular and 10 'more' envelopes, 1 account, 2 devices, 1 year of history); paid from $10 per month (Premium; $80 billed annually) (Goodbudget pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web, iPhone, Android. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Envelope budgeting for free.
Worth knowing: Automatic bank sync is US banks only and sits on the paid plan.
Compared with Rocket Money: $14.99 a month or $109 a year after a 34-day trial, no free plan. More expensive than Rocket Money's typical $7 to $14, but a budgeting method rather than a bill-saving service.
Price: Paid from $14.99 per month, billed monthly ($109 per year billed annually; 34-day free trial) (YNAB pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Budgeters who want a method.
Worth knowing: No ongoing free plan; the trial needs no credit card when you sign up directly.
Compared with Rocket Money: $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year with a first-week trial and no free plan. Pricier than Rocket Money's Premium range, with a focus on budgets and net worth rather than bill negotiation.
Price: Paid from $14.99 per month, billed monthly ($99.99 per year billed annually) (Monarch Money pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary.
Best for: Couples tracking budgets together.
Compared with Rocket Money: $7.92 a month or $95 a year with a one-month trial, on iPhone, iPad, Mac and web. Priced near Rocket Money Premium but it has no Android app.
Price: Paid from $7.92 per month ($95 billed yearly; 1-month free trial) (Copilot Money pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Web. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Apple users who want a polished app.
Compared with Rocket Money: Simplifi lists $3.99 a month billed annually ($6.99 also shown) and no free plan, against Rocket Money's free tier with a total budget and two custom categories. The page mentions no trial.
Price: Paid from $3.99 per month, billed annually ($6.99 also shown) (Quicken Simplifi pricing, checked 2026-10-25).
Compared with Rocket Money: PocketGuard is $74.99 a year ($6.25 a month) or $12.99 monthly, after a 7-day trial. The paid tier lists unlimited category budgets, rollover budgeting and subscription cancelling, where Rocket Money's free plan stops at two custom categories.
Price: Paid from $6.25 per month, billed yearly at $74.99 ($12.99 monthly; $149.99 lifetime) (PocketGuard pricing, checked 2026-10-25).
Docs-only for Actual Budget, Firefly III, Empower Personal Dashboard, Goodbudget, YNAB, Monarch Money, Copilot Money: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from Rocket Money. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Based on official pricing and product pages checked between 2026-10-22 and 2026-10-25: Rocket Money, Actual Budget, Firefly III, Empower Personal Dashboard, Goodbudget, YNAB, Monarch Money, Copilot Money, Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.