A Monarch Money alternative without bank sync: Sorayli vs Monarch

Monarch Money and Sorayli start from opposite ends. Monarch connects to your bank, card and investment accounts and builds your budget, net worth and reports from what those accounts send it. Sorayli never connects to a bank. It starts from the receipt: you scan or type what you spend, and it saves each item on a receipt as its own transaction with its own category.

Everything said here about Monarch comes from Monarch's own website and help center, read on September 28, 2026, with its prices and plan features checked again on October 6, 2026, and each point is listed under Sources at the end with the day we read it. Monarch changes its plans, so check its pricing page before you decide. Sorayli is not affiliated with Monarch.

01Monarch Money alternative at a glance

02Feature by feature

03One receipt, two ways of recording it

The difference is clearest on an ordinary grocery run, here with a coupon that takes $3.00 off the whole order.

In Sorayli, this receipt becomes eight transactions, one per line. The coupon is spread across the items in proportion to their prices, so the lines add up to the $37.58 you paid. Before you save, the review screen lets you change the shop, the date and each item's name, amount and category.

Monarch's help center describes a different flow. You scan, upload or email the receipt, and its AI pulls out the merchant, amount and date. On a scan you can review the subtotal, tax, tip and line items. Where a receipt covers more than one category, Monarch can split it into transactions grouped by category, with Groceries and Household as its own example. It then looks for the matching card charge by amount, date and merchant name. When it finds one, it tags the transaction, adds notes and attaches the image without changing the amount.

So on this receipt, Monarch would give you one transaction per category group it assigns, such as food and household goods, tied to the $37.58 charge from your card. Sorayli gives you eight, one per item, and the receipt itself is the record. Monarch's page does not say how a coupon is shared out between the groups, so we have not worked its split to the cent.

04Where Monarch Money is the better choice

• You want your accounts to update without you. Monarch pulls in transactions and balances, so a card charge shows up whether or not you kept the receipt.
• You want your net worth, investments and long-range plans in one place. Core tracks net worth and investments; Plus adds forecasting, business tracking and deeper investment analysis. Sorayli tracks none of these.
• You and a partner want one shared picture. Monarch puts the household on one subscription with one dashboard and one budget. Sorayli's Family plan keeps each ledger private. More on how Sorayli's Family plan works.
• You want the app to find your subscriptions. Monarch scans synced transactions for recurring charges. Sorayli counts only the charges you mark yourself.
• You use an iPad. Monarch has an iPad app; Sorayli runs on the web, iPhone and Android.

05Where Sorayli fits better

• You do not want any app connected to your bank. Monarch can run on manual accounts, but it is built around connecting them. Sorayli has no bank connection at all. Our guide to tracking expenses without linking your bank sets out a weekly routine.
• You want to know what went on groceries, not just what a store charged. Sorayli files every line of a receipt under its own category, so a supermarket run that includes shampoo does not count as $37.58 of food.
• You spend in more than one currency. Monarch's help center says it does no currency conversion and that mixing currencies can produce misleading totals. Sorayli converts each purchase at a daily rate for its date.
• You want to start free, or pay less for one person. Sorayli Free includes 10 receipt scans and 10 spending questions a month and 2 budgets, with no card needed to sign up. A year of Pro is listed at $69.99, against $99.99 for a year of Monarch Core.
• You pay cash often. In Monarch, every transaction has to belong to a synced or manual account, so cash means setting up a manual Cash account. In Sorayli, a cash receipt is scanned like any other.

06What each costs

Listed US prices on September 28, 2026. Monarch's pricing page also shows a code for 30% off a first annual Core year for new users, which is not included below.

For a couple, the sums change. Monarch Core covers both of you for $99.99 a year with one shared view. Sorayli Family covers you both for $129.99 a year, but as two separate ledgers. If a joint budget is the point, Monarch is the better buy. If each of you wants a private record under one bill, see Sorayli's plans.

07A 20-minute test before you pay for either

You can settle this with last month's paperwork and no app at all.

1. 1Gather last month's receipts and your card statement. Count the receipts that mix kinds of spending, such as food with household goods. If most do, item-level categories will change your totals, which favors Sorayli.
2. 2Mark every charge that repeats monthly or yearly. If some surprised you, an app that looks for them helps, and Monarch does. If you already know your list, marking them in Sorayli takes minutes.
3. 3Check the currency of every charge. If any are in something other than US or Canadian dollars, Monarch's own help center says your totals can mislead.
4. 4Decide who else should see the numbers. One shared household view points to Monarch. Separate private records under one plan points to Sorayli Family.
5. 5Decide whether you will give an app access to your bank. If yes, look up your bank on Monarch's public connection status page first, since its help center says some institutions are hard to keep connected.
6. 6Try the one that is left with a week of real receipts. Monarch's trial is 7 days and needs a payment method; cancel at least 24 hours before it ends to avoid a charge. Sorayli Free needs no card.

08Moving from one to the other

Monarch exports the transactions behind a report as a CSV file on the web. Sorayli's CSV import reads its own layout, with columns such as Date, Title, Amount, Currency and Category, so rework Monarch's file in a spreadsheet first: rename the columns to match, make spending amounts positive, add a Type column that marks income, and use year-first dates. The iPhone app's importer shows what will happen before anything is saved and takes up to 1,000 rows. Columns Sorayli does not recognize are ignored, a row with no date is dated the day you import it, and importing the same file twice adds the rows twice. Receipt photos do not travel in a CSV file.

Going the other way, Sorayli Pro and Family export transactions as CSV on the web. Monarch imports CSV files on the web only, maps the columns by keyword, and warns that an import cannot be undone, so try a small file first.