Learn → Allowance apps compared: GoHenry, Greenlight, Rooster Money or no card
Allowance apps compared: GoHenry, Greenlight, Rooster Money or no card
Three card-based pocket money apps and the no-card alternative, side by side: who each one is for, what it needs from you, and when the card is worth it.
Type “allowance app” or “pocket money app” into a search box and you get three names more than any others: GoHenry, Greenlight and Rooster Money. All three are good at what they do. All three are also, at heart, a prepaid card for your child with an app wrapped around it — which is a different thing from a chore chart that keeps score, and the difference decides which one your family should use.
This is a comparison written by the people who make the no-card option, so read it with that in mind. We have tried to be fair, including about when the card apps are the better choice, and we have not quoted prices, because they change and because a wrong number on a page like this is worse than none. Every row was checked against each company’s own pages on 1 October 2026; the pages are listed under the table.
Two different kinds of product
A card product moves money. You load it, the child spends from it, the app shows you the transactions, the company is paid a subscription for the card, and a bank or e-money issuer behind it holds the balance. It is regulated like a financial product, which is why each one works in a specific country and, usually, from a specific age.
A tracker moves nothing. It records the jobs agreed, the prices set, the work approved and the total owed, and leaves the actual paying to you — cash, a jar, a transfer. Because no money passes through it, there is no bank behind it, no minimum age and no country list. Child Allowance is this second kind.
Most comparisons miss this and rank the two kinds against each other on features, which is like ranking a wallet against a notebook. The useful question is which problem you have.
Side by side
| What differs | GoHenry / Acorns Early | Greenlight | Rooster Money | Child Allowance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Prepaid debit card + app. Sold as GoHenry in the UK and as Acorns Early in the US | Prepaid debit card + app | Free pocket money tracker, with an optional prepaid card | Chore chart and allowance tracker |
| Money moves through it | Yes | Yes | Only with the card | No |
| Cost | Monthly subscription: per child or a family plan in the UK; per family in the US. No free tier | Monthly subscription, per family, up to five children. No free tier | Tracker free; the card is a subscription per card (free for some NatWest group customers) | Free for one child; Premium for bigger families and recurring jobs |
| Child age | Six to eighteen | No stated minimum | Tracker from five (star chart from three); card from six | None |
| Countries | UK (GoHenry); US (Acorns Early) | US residents only | UK only | Anywhere |
| Chores and approvals | Chore lists; a parent-approval step is not described | Yes: the child ticks, the parent approves and pays | Yes, on the card tier only; the free tracker has no chores | Yes, the whole point |
| Child’s details held by a financial company | Yes | Yes | Yes | No: a username and a PIN |
| Owned by | Acorns, a US investing app, since 2023 | Independent, venture-backed | NatWest, a UK bank, since 2021 | An independent team; no bank or card company |
GoHenry, and Acorns Early
GoHenry is the best-known of the three in the UK. A child gets a prepaid card with their name on it, a parent app sets spending limits by shop type and pays out for chores, and there is a strand of in-app lessons about money. Since 2023 it has been owned by Acorns, an American investing app, and in the US the product is now sold under the Acorns Early name rather than as GoHenry. The UK plans are priced per child, with one family plan covering several children; the US plans are per family.
Who it suits: a child of six or more who is starting to spend online or wants to pay in shops, with a parent who wants limits and alerts. Who it doesn’t: a family with a four-year-old, a family outside the UK or US, or a family that balks at paying a monthly fee on top of the allowance itself.
Greenlight
Greenlight is the American equivalent and the most feature-rich of the three: a prepaid debit card, chores with a parent-approval step, savings with parent-paid interest, and on higher tiers investing for children. It is priced per family, for up to five children, which can make it the cheaper of the card apps for a larger household, depending on tier. It states no minimum age for the card.
Who it suits: a US family, particularly with older children, that wants one product to carry a child from first pocket money to first paycheque. Who it doesn’t: anyone outside the US, since it requires US residency, and a family with young children who would be paying for a card and investing features they will not touch for years.
Rooster Money
Rooster Money is the closest of the three to the tracker approach, and worth singling out for it. Its virtual tracker — a pocket money record with pots, and a star chart for younger children — is free, from about five (the star chart from three). The card is an optional add-on with a subscription per card, from six, and it is the card tier that carries chores and approvals: the free tracker has none. Rooster Money has been part of NatWest, a UK bank, since 2021, and the whole product is UK-only; it was withdrawn from other countries in 2023.
Who it suits: a UK family that wants a free record now and the option of a card later from the same app, especially one that already banks with the NatWest group. Who it doesn’t: anyone outside the UK, families who want chores without paying for a card, and parents who would rather their child’s pocket money record didn’t sit inside a bank’s app at all.
Elsewhere: Australia and Canada
The same shape repeats in other countries, with a local name on it. In Australia the usual answer is Spriggy: a prepaid card and app on a family subscription, for six to seventeen year olds. In Canada it is Mydoh, from the Royal Bank of Canada: a prepaid card and app with no monthly fee, for six to eighteen year olds. Both are card products in the sense above, and both are one-country products; a family that moves, or lives anywhere else, is back to cash and a notebook — or a tracker.
A card product moves money and charges for the card. A tracker records what was earned and leaves the money to you. Ranking one against the other on features is ranking a wallet against a notebook.
When a card app is the right choice
Pick a card app when the child genuinely needs to spend where cash can’t go. That is usually from about eleven: an online game, a subscription, a school trip paid by card, a group of friends who split things on their phones. At that point a card with limits and a parent’s view is safer than the alternatives, and the fee buys something real.
Pick one too when you need to move money to a child remotely and often — separated parents, a child at boarding school, a grandparent who wants to send birthday money without posting a note. The card is the pipe, and no tracker can be one.
And pick one if you are in the country it serves and you are happy for the record of your child’s money to live inside a financial company’s app. Many families are, and that is a reasonable choice.
When a tracker is
Pick a tracker when the child is young — four to about ten — and the point of the allowance is learning, not purchasing. Cash and coins do the teaching at these ages; what the family lacks is a reliable record of who agreed what, who did it, and what is owed on Saturday. A tracker is that record. A child earning £3 a week in coins and watching the total climb on a screen they log into themselves gets the lesson from the coins and the motivation from the screen, and nobody pays a fee for a card that would sit in a drawer.
Pick one if you are outside the UK, the US, Australia or Canada, or if you move: there is no country list because there is no bank. Pick one if you have three children and a per-child card fee makes the allowance itself the cheaper part. And pick one if you want the record to be yours — a username and a PIN for the child, no account with anyone, nothing used for anything but the chart.
The two kinds are not rivals so much as stages. Plenty of families run a tracker through the primary years and add a card at eleven or twelve, keeping the chart for the jobs and the card for the spending. If that is the shape of your family, the guide on whether a child needs a debit card at all sets out the ages in more detail.