The best personal finance app in Canada depends on what you want it to do. If you hold accounts at several banks and brokerages, in CAD and USD, and want one net-worth number, the answer is an aggregator that handles both currencies and both sides of your money: that is what I built Mozaic Finance for. If you want to change how you spend, YNAB. If you want a polished budgeting app and keep everything in Canadian dollars, Monarch. If your money is already at Wealthsimple, its free net-worth tab may be all you need.
This article compares six apps that work for Canadians in 2026 and two that no longer exist. None of the links are affiliate links. Every competitor price and feature below comes from that company's own page, checked in October 2026, and the sources are listed at the end. (Disclosure: I built Mozaic, one of the apps on this list. Where another app fits you better, I say so.)
A sister article covers the best personal finance app in Québec, where a French interface narrows the field. This one is for the whole country.
The short version
- Several banks, at least one brokerage, CAD and USD, and you want one accurate total → Mozaic Finance. Free for manual tracking, $99 CAD a year when you want accounts to sync on their own.
- You want to change your spending habits with envelope budgeting → YNAB. Nothing else on this list is built around that method.
- You want a budgeting app with a strong mobile experience, and your accounts are all in CAD → Monarch. Billed in USD, and it does not convert currencies.
- Most of your money is at Wealthsimple → Wealthsimple's net-worth tab. Free, and it can add outside accounts as balances.
- You want a Canadian-built budgeting tool with an API and multi-currency budgets → Lunch Money.
- Your focus is investments and capital-gains reports, not day-to-day spending → Wealthica.
What to check before you pick
Six things decide whether an app works for a Canadian household:
- Bank coverage. Most apps reach Canadian banks through Plaid. Check that your bank is in the catalog before you pay. For Mozaic, the supported institutions page lists what syncs today, and there are walkthroughs for RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC, National Bank and Desjardins.
- Brokerage coverage. Wealthsimple, Questrade and Interactive Brokers hold a large share of Canadian self-directed money. An app that sees your chequing but not your TFSA at Questrade shows you half the picture.
- CAD and USD. The moment you hold a US stock or a USD savings account, the app has to convert, not add the two numbers together.
- Registered accounts. TFSA, RRSP, FHSA and RESP are Canadian account types. A US-built app may sync them but treat them as generic investment accounts, with no idea of contribution room.
- What is free, and what the paid plan costs in CAD. A USD subscription moves with the exchange rate and most Canadian cards add a foreign-transaction fee on top.
- Where your data lives. A read-only connection and a clear statement of the data region are the minimum.
Six apps side by side
Green is a strength, grey is a limitation. Prices are as listed on each company's pricing page in October 2026.
| App | Canadian bank sync | Investments | CAD + USD | Free option | Paid price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mozaic Finance | Plaid: big six, Desjardins, Tangerine and more | SnapTrade: Wealthsimple, Questrade, IBKR, per holding | Converted daily to your base currency | Manual tracking, no time limit | Free; sync is $99 CAD / yr or $12.99 CAD / mo |
| Wealthsimple | Outside balances; may need a manual refresh | Its own accounts in full, others as balances | Not covered in its help article | Free, no fee to link | Free |
| Monarch | Yes; Monarch says to confirm yours during the trial | Investment transactions in beta | No conversion; CAD and USD added together | 7-day trial, payment method required | US$99.99 / yr or US$14.99 / mo |
| YNAB | Plaid and MX; Canadian banks "more challenging" | Budgeting only | One currency per plan | 34-day trial, no card | US$109 / yr or US$14.99 / mo |
| Lunch Money | Plaid: most Canadian banks | No investment transaction import | Multi-currency budgeting | 30-day trial | $10 / mo, or $60 to $150 / yr you pick |
| Wealthica | Own Canadian connectors plus Plaid and Yodlee | Holdings, capital gains, performance reports | Currency gains on capital-gains report | No free plan listed | $50 to $250 / yr (currency not stated) |
The rest of the article explains each row.
Mozaic Finance
Verdict: built for Canadians with several banks and brokerages who want one net-worth number in CAD and USD.
Disclosure: I built this. Here is what it does well and where it stops.
Mozaic connects to banks through Plaid and to brokerages through SnapTrade. Plaid's catalog has 196 Canadian institutions, including the big six, Desjardins and Tangerine. On the brokerage side, Wealthsimple, Questrade and Interactive Brokers Canada sync per holding, and TD Direct Investing is in beta. A few are not reachable today: Scotia iTrade, National Bank Direct Brokerage, Qtrade, Disnat and RBC Direct Investing. You can still track those by hand. The supported institutions page lists every one, rebuilt from Plaid's and SnapTrade's live catalogs.
Every account is converted to your base currency with daily exchange rates, so a USD brokerage account and a CAD chequing account add up correctly. TFSA, RRSP and RESP are first-class account types, and TFSA, RRSP and FHSA contribution room is tracked against the CRA limits. One gap on the free plan: an FHSA shows up as an account only through a brokerage connection, though tracking FHSA room by hand is free.
It has budgets, goals, cash flow and category rules, but it is not a zero-based budgeting tool. If you want every dollar assigned before you spend it, YNAB is the better fit.
On security: connections are read-only, data stays in Google Cloud's Montréal region, and sensitive fields are encrypted under a per-user key. The security page has the details.
Pricing: the free plan covers manual tracking of every supported account type, CSV import, budgets, goals and net worth in every currency, with no time limit and no credit card. Premium is $99 CAD a year or $12.99 CAD a month and adds automatic bank and brokerage sync plus AI categorization for what your rules miss. The 14-day trial starts when you connect your first account, not at sign-up. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
Pick Mozaic if: your money is spread across institutions and currencies and you want the total to be right. You can start on the free plan and add connections later. The head-to-head pages compare it with Monarch, YNAB, Wealthsimple, Wealthica and Lunch Money.
Wealthsimple
Verdict: the free starting point if most of your money is already there.
Wealthsimple's app now has a net-worth tab that goes beyond its own products. Its help centre says you can link external investment and bank accounts, add assets and debts by hand, and share a household view with a partner. It says there is no limit on how many institutions you link and no fee for linking.
Two limits matter. First, Wealthsimple's own help article says that because open banking is not yet in place in Canada, external balances "may not update automatically", and you refresh them by signing in to each institution again. Second, its spending insights cover Wealthsimple chequing, credit card and payment activity only, with history back to January 2025. Spending at your other bank does not show up there.
Pricing: free.
Pick Wealthsimple if: it already holds most of your accounts and you want a free total with a few outside balances added. If you need transactions and holdings from several institutions kept current, an aggregator does more. Mozaic vs Wealthsimple goes line by line.
Monarch
Verdict: a mature budgeting app that works in Canada, as long as everything you hold is in Canadian dollars.
Monarch is a polished budgeting and cash-flow app with a solid mobile experience. Its Canada page invites you to use the 7-day trial to confirm your institutions connect reliably, which is good advice for any app on this list.
The Canadian catch is currency. Monarch's help centre says the app "does not perform any currency conversion": a 10,000 CAD account and a 10,000 USD account show as a $20,000 net worth. It recommends against mixing currencies and says it has no plans to expand currency support soon. If you hold anything in USD, the totals will be wrong.
Investment transactions are not synced by default; Monarch's help centre lists that sync as a beta in its Early Access settings.
Pricing: US$14.99 a month or US$99.99 a year for Core, and US$199.99 a year for Plus, which adds forecasting and deeper investment tools. All plans are billed in USD. The 7-day trial requires a payment method.
Pick Monarch if: your accounts are all in CAD, budgeting is your priority, and USD billing does not bother you. Mozaic vs Monarch has the full table.
YNAB
Verdict: the app for changing how you spend, not for tracking what you own.
YNAB (You Need A Budget) is built around one method: give every dollar a job before you spend it.
Bank sync is optional. YNAB's help centre says it uses Plaid and MX, and that Canadian institutions are among the more challenging to keep connected. Many users enter transactions by hand on purpose. For CAD and USD, YNAB recommends a separate plan for each currency. Investment tracking is out of scope.
Pricing: US$14.99 a month or US$109 a year. The 34-day trial needs no credit card when you sign up directly with YNAB.
Pick YNAB if: you want a budgeting method and are ready to use it every week. If you mostly want to see where your money is, it is more than you need. See Mozaic vs YNAB.
Lunch Money
Verdict: a Canadian-built budgeting tool for people who like to customize.
Lunch Money describes itself as Canadian-built. It syncs most Canadian banks through Plaid, supports multi-currency budgeting, and has a developer API that its users build on. It offers annual plans priced in CAD.
The limit is investments: its help centre says automatic import of transactions for investment and loan accounts is not supported.
Pricing: $10 a month, or an annual price you choose between $60 and $150 ($100 by default). The pricing page can show figures in CAD, USD or EUR. There is a 30-day trial.
Pick Lunch Money if: budgeting across currencies is the job and you like a tool you can script. Mozaic vs Lunch Money compares the two.
Wealthica
Verdict: an investment-first aggregator with strong reporting.
Wealthica is the closest thing on this list to a portfolio back office: holdings and transactions across institutions, a capital-gains report with currency gains and losses, and income, fee and performance reports. It connects Canadian institutions through its own connectors, with Plaid and Yodlee for more, and lists US institutions as a beta.
Its Canadian pricing page, checked in October 2026, lists no free plan. The cheapest plan, Connect, covers 3 Canadian institutions. Budgeting is listed as a feature, but day-to-day spending is not where Wealthica puts its weight.
Pricing: Connect $50 a year (3 institutions), Unlimited Connect $75, Premium $150 (or $19.99 a month) and Prestige $250. The page does not name the currency. Paid plans start with a 14-day trial.
Pick Wealthica if: investments are most of your net worth and you want detailed reports. Mozaic vs Wealthica covers the overlap.
Gone: Mint and Hardbacon
Mint. Credit Karma's Canadian support site says service for Mint Canada ended on March 23, 2024. Intuit moved Mint's features to Credit Karma, which offers no budgeting replacement here. If you still have a Mint CSV export, most apps above can import it. The Mint alternatives guide and Mozaic vs Mint go further.
Hardbacon. Founder Julien Brault announced on August 15, 2024 that Hardbacon's operations were suspended and the company would declare bankruptcy. BetaKit reported in January 2025 that Plutera Capital bought the assets, and hardbacon.ca now runs as a financial-product comparison site with no budgeting app. The Hardbacon shutdown guide and Mozaic vs Hardbacon cover what former users moved to.
Free versus paid
Bank connections cost the app money every month, which is why so few apps offer free automatic sync. In 2026 the free options for Canadians are:
- Wealthsimple's net-worth tab: free, with outside balances you may have to refresh by hand.
- Mozaic's free plan: every supported account type, tracked by hand or by CSV import, with no time limit.
- A spreadsheet: still a reasonable choice if you update it monthly.
Everything else on this list is a paid subscription after a trial. Compare annual prices in CAD: Mozaic stays free by hand and is $99 CAD a year to sync; Monarch's US$99.99 and YNAB's US$109 are billed in USD, so the CAD cost depends on the exchange rate and your card's foreign-transaction fee.
How to choose
If your money is in one place, start with that institution's own app.
If you hold accounts at two or more institutions, at least one brokerage, or anything in USD, pick an app that syncs both banks and brokerages and converts currencies. That is the case Mozaic is built for, and you can try it free before you connect anything.
If you want to change how you spend, YNAB. If you budget in CAD only and want the most polished app, Monarch. If investments are most of what you own and you want detailed reports, Wealthica.
Sources
Checked on October 16, 2026:
- Monarch: pricing, Monarch in Canada, International Accounts and Currency, Turning on Investment Transactions
- YNAB: pricing, How Direct Import Works, Using Multiple Currencies in YNAB
- Lunch Money: pricing, Lunch Money for Canada, Automatic Imports
- Wealthica: Canadian pricing
- Wealthsimple: Track your individual and household net worth, Track and categorize your spending
- Mint: Credit Karma Canada, What will happen to my Canadian Mint account?
- Hardbacon: The End of a Chapter for Hardbacon, BetaKit, January 27, 2025
- Mozaic: pricing, supported institutions, security
Prices and features change. If you spot something out of date, or a Canadian app that deserves a place here, email me at laurent.risser@mozaicfinance.com.