Comparing Rocket Money vs. YNAB

Key takeaways

• Rocket Money provides in-depth spend tracking, savings and budgeting tools to help users save money and invest in their financial future.

• Rocket Money offers subscription cancellation and bill negotiation services; YNAB doesn’t include either feature.

• Automated savings tools (like Financial Goals) are included with Rocket Money, whereas YNAB uses much less automation, making the customers do more of the work.

• Rocket Money’s net worth tracking is streamlined and ties well with its other budgeting features. YNAB only offers a basic report with unreliable syncing of assets.

• Rocket Money uses a pay-what-you-want model ($7-14/month) versus YNAB’s fixed $14.99/month. YNAB also lacks a free plan after the trial period.

Introduction

The way we spend and save money is becoming more complicated, and reshaping how you manage your finances can be intimidating. Where do you start? This is where a financial app can help get you started, and two popular options are Rocket Money and YNAB. Both apps claim to help users better save and manage their money but take very different approaches.

Rocket Money not only includes a comprehensive financial overview for its users but offers several helpful features designed to put money back in your wallet. Whether it is tracking your expenses, canceling unwanted subscriptions for you, negotiating lower rates on your bills or its practical tools like net worth tracking and Financial Goals, Rocket Money makes personal finance simple and easy to use.

YNAB, on the other hand, provides a highly specialized budgeting system that may be overwhelming for non-experts, while also leaving out many useful features like subscription cancellation. The app also relies heavily on the user to do much of the work - whether they’re tracking expenses, creating goals or setting up budgets - instead of making the process easier and more intuitive.

Whether you’re financially savvy or a beginner trying to get better control of your money, picking the right app to manage your expenses is an important step. Let’s jump into what each finance app can offer and discover which one helps you the most in your financial journey.

Subscriptions and bills

There have never been more subscriptions or recurring payments than today, and it’s no surprise that many people are losing money every month without realizing it. According to a yearly survey by CNET, the average US adult spends almost $200 on subscriptions they don’t even use.
Recurring payments aren’t just frustrating to track but can also be extremely time-consuming to cancel. Many subscription service providers force you to jump through multiple hoops and even make you cancel in person. Rocket Money eliminates this by automatically detecting and tracking all recurring charges linked to your financial accounts. You can check how much you’re spending on subscriptions and get alerts from the app before the charges even happen.

Let’s say the app shows you these subscriptions and there’s one or more you don’t want. Rocket Money's premium users can cancel it directly in the app with a few clicks. This prevents those lengthy customer service calls and tedious live chats that no one should have to endure. Through subscription cancellation and other features, Rocket Money has already saved over 2.5 billion dollars for its users.1

Rocket Money also offers bill negotiation as a key feature, saving you the hassle of sitting on hold with customer service for hours. Their specialists contact providers like cable companies, internet carriers, and cell phone companies to negotiate lower rates. Many of our bills increase year after year, and Rocket Money works to bring them back down to competitive rates. This service has helped people save hundreds of dollars annually without the users having to dial a single phone number or talk to anyone. The setup is simple, and it actually delivers results; 31% of users who link an account lower a bill, cancel a subscription, create a budget, or set a financial goal in their first month with Rocket Money.2

In contrast, YNAB will not track or cancel your subscriptions for you nor will it negotiate or even track your bill payments. By leaving these features out YNAB provides only a limited scope of your finances, and forces you to either track these metrics yourself or use a secondary resource to fill in the blanks.

Budgeting features

According to a survey by Bankrate, more than one-third of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. As a result, many Americans feel financially vulnerable and unsure what they can afford after their baseline expenses. To combat this, Rocket Money includes intuitive spend tracking as a main feature. The app automatically sorts all your transactions into categories the moment they hit your accounts, so you can see in real time how much you're spending on everything from rent to food delivery to shopping to many others. This provides instant visibility into your spending patterns and helps you identify specific trends before setting a budget. The categorization isn't rigid either. You can recategorize expenses with a simple swipe and create custom categories to organize your finances any way you please. It's gamified and quite satisfying to use, so you might find yourself checking in weekly to keep things dialed in.

Many of us struggle with staying on top of our spending without constantly checking our accounts. Rocket Money solves this with spending alerts sent straight to your phone when something potentially serious is on the horizon, like when you approach budget limits you've set or when you're close to overdrafting on your account. This keeps you proactive, rather than reactive, with your finances.

Along this line of planning ahead, Rocket Money also offers Watchlist, a customizable tool that helps you monitor habitual spending at specific places. It feels easier than ever to let one online order turn into ten, or order a big meal from UberEats so quickly it’s almost automatic. If there are vendors where you tend to accidentally overspend, you can add them to your Watchlist and set spending limits. When you're about to hit the limit you've set, Rocket Money will alert you before you swipe. You don't need to set up a budget to use this feature, and it is invaluable for anyone who wants to limit particular expenses but doesn't know where to start.

YNAB uses a zero-based budgeting system that forces you to assign every dollar you have to a specific purpose. This may be useful for those with expert financial knowledge who want to closely monitor a complex financial framework, but can be complicated and rigorous to use for many other people. It has a steep learning curve to use, requiring much manual intervention for the customer. The app also lacks any Watchlist feature. Since YNAB’s budgeting does not account for upcoming funds like paychecks, it is isolated to your present while Rocket Money uses automation, alerts and sophisticated tools to help you build for the future.

Saving automations

For many people, saving for retirement or a down payment on a home feels less like a goal and more like a fantasy. According to a study by Goldman Sachs, 42% of younger working Americans claim to not have savings after paying their base expenses. Rocket Money addresses this exact problem with intuitive methods that make savings easy to start and maintain, even when money feels tight. One of Rocket Money's features is Financial Goals, which includes the Smart Savings tool. Smart Savings analyzes your income and spending patterns to find the right moments in the month to set aside small amounts that won't affect your essential expenses. The app then automatically moves that cash to a separate savings goal, so you're saving without feeling the pinch or lifting a finger. You maintain complete control and can adjust or cancel transfers at any time.3,4

While Smart Savings works in the background, you can use Rocket Money's Financial Goals to actively save for specific purchases. For example, if you want to go on vacation next summer, you can create that goal in the app. You set the target amount and when you want to reach it, and Rocket Money shows you a target completion date and how much to save each month. You can customize the amount and frequency of deposits, track your progress with a visual graph and savings history, and see what percentage of your income goes toward your goals. The app keeps you motivated with milestone badges as you progress, and you can adjust your goal anytime. This creates a realistic and tangible path to achieve long-term goals that may have seemed out of reach before.

Like many of its features, YNAB’s savings tools rely less on automation and convenience and more on manual work by the user. You can set up financial targets in the app and move increments of money every month but it is a fully manual process. YNAB also falls short in giving you useful data on these targets. Your goals are shown only as a basic progress bar. You can’t view the trajectory of these goals nor does the completion date adjust for any changes.

While Rocket Money offers two automated ways to save (small amounts you won't notice through Smart Savings and recurring contributions toward specific goals), YNAB makes you handle your savings yourself, without visual help or expanded features to get you started or motivate you to keep your savings going.

Net worth tracking features

Net worth is, in short, what you own minus what you owe. And being able to easily monitor that number is the first step to growing it.

Both Rocket Money and YNAB offer tools to track your net worth, but they take significantly different approaches. Rocket Money takes all of your financial accounts, investments and other funds that make up your net worth and condenses them into one easy-to-read dashboard. You can see your wealth grow or spot trends in real time, and use that data in tandem with other financial goals in the app.

YNAB’s net worth tracking boils down to a basic report, without investment details or growth metrics. The app does not alert you of noteworthy changes to your net worth and many of the assets require you to update manually. Users have also reported syncing issues between net worth tracking and their bank accounts, having to resync them when errors arise. Paradoxically, YNAB’s net worth tracking tool doesn’t offer much in terms of net worth or tracking.

Credit score tracking

Your credit score is like a financial name tag, one simple label that banks, apartments and other institutions can quickly look at in order to evaluate you. Rocket Money includes your credit score as one of its features and keeps a visual timeline of your credit score, letting you track progress over months or even years. You can view a full credit breakdown at any time and see what events have shaped your credit score. Rocket Money’s features are all about integration: one intuitive package of tools rather than separate ones to individually manage. This includes its credit score tracking. Not only can you easily gauge your credit score alongside bill payments, net worth and other metrics but credit score is integrated with Rocket Money’s alerts feature. When your score changes in any significant way, Rocket Money sends push notifications to your phone, keeping you aware of your progress.

YNAB lacks credit score tracking or any integration of it with its budgeting features. This is yet another instance where you would need to pair YNAB with other apps or tools in order to get a full picture of your finances.

Pricing Comparison

Rocket Money and YNAB offer starkly different pricing plans for their services.

Rocket Money offers a “pay what you think is fair” model for its Premium services that usually runs $7-14 per month.

YNAB does not have a free plan. After a 34-day trial period (or a year for verified college students) YNAB only offers a premium plan set at $14.99 a month or $109 annually. This is a significantly pricier option, without the freedom of a free plan or the abundance of features Rocket Money can provide.

Why Rocket Money is the Budgeting App for You

There are many reasons so many customers have chosen Rocket Money, not just that the app has saved over 2.5 billion dollars for its users.1 Tracking expenses has only become more complicated, between multitudes of subscriptions, fluctuating bills, and daily spending temptations. Rocket Money is the right budgeting app for you because it goes beyond simply tracking your cash and actively provides ways to save money and build a stronger foundation for your future.

Rocket Money and YNAB both provide you an overview of your expenses and ways to build a budget. However, Rocket Money shines much brighter in its ease of use and sheer amount of practical features. Its subscription cancellations keep you from wasting money on things you don’t need, and its Smart Savings and Financial Goals help you build funds in the long term. Rocket Money’s credit score and net worth tracking are simple and intuitive. Rocket Money’s use of automations in its spend tracking and categorization ensures a hands-off experience that still provides freedom for customization. YNAB not only lacks many of these tools entirely, but offloads the heavy-lifting onto you, forcing frequent manual intervention rather than automated convenience. Rocket Money has more features on an easier dashboard for less money, and is the best road for you to start saving money and planning for a more prosperous future.

1. 1. $2.5 billion in savings represents savings from bill negotiations after fees, subscription cancellations on an annualized basis, and deposits in smart savings. The total represents a gross figure and may not reflect the net savings of individual members. This calculation is based on internal data and has not been independently verified.
2. Where possible, we are referencing dim_users for the first time a user did something (based on the minimum date record). For bill negotiations and cancellations, we are specifically looking at when they achieved their first successful ticket. Based on H1 2025 new users who have FLA'd.
3. Rocket Money is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by nbkc bank, Member FDIC.
4. By utilizing the services, your beneficial funds may be held at nbkc bank (“Bank”) in an omnibus custodial account (“Omnibus Account”). In its ordinary course of business, Bank may deposit your funds into a network of other FDIC-insured depository institutions (each a “Network Bank” and together, the “Network Banks”) through a deposit network program administered by a third-party service provider (“Deposit Network Administrator”) and held in custody by a third-party custodian (the “Custodian Bank”) (a “Deposit Network Service”). To facilitate the placement of these funds, you appoint nbkc bank as your agent with respect to the Deposit Network Service, further authorizing nbkc bank to appoint a Deposit Network Administrator. At any given time, all, none or a portion of the funds deposited into your Omnibus Account may be placed into a Deposit Network Service and held beneficially in your name at Network Banks. You are not required or permitted to take any action with respect to the Deposit Network Services. The use of the Deposit Network Services will not create a direct relationship between you and: (i) any of the Network Banks, (ii) the Deposit Network Administrator or (iii) the Custodian Bank. The Deposit Network Administrator, as agent of Bank, maintains records of the balance of each depositor beneficially held at each Network Bank.
5. $2.5 billion in savings represents savings from bill negotiations after fees, subscription cancellations on an annualized basis, and deposits in smart savings.