Monzo Plus: Is It Worth It?

UK neobank Monzo introduced Monzo Premium as its new top-tier plan late last year, turning the £5 a month Monzo Plus plan into its mid-range offering. With a mix of features heavily geared towards power users wanting to make the most of their banking app, Monzo Plus faces stiff competition in the UK market, competing with the likes of Monese and its Monese Classic accounts, as well as two plans from Revolut, Revolut Plus and Revolut Premium.

Monito is here to review Monzo Plus: What does Monzo Plus have to offer? How does it stack up against competitors? Is it worth it? 

Price and Minimum Duration

Monzo Plus belongs to what could be called the mid-range tier of neobank accounts, offering a few more features than the basic free accounts, while remaining significantly cheaper than the most expensive premium accounts, which offer the most sought after conveniences. Monzo Plus, like most of these accounts, is aimed at power users who don’t necessarily need a lot of travel-oriented features but still want to enjoy as much functionality as possible in their banking app.

At £5 a month, it is priced a bit more expensively than Revolut Plus, at £2.99 a month, and though it is at first glance cheaper than the £5.95 Monese Classic account, it doesn’t offer the same yearly offer as both plans: a year of Monzo Plus will cost you £60, compared to £29.99 for Revolut Plus and £45.95 for Monese Classic. Monzo Plus does offer more features than either of these accounts, but its price point is close to the more full-featured Revolut Premium account, which costs £6.99 a month or £72 a year, and offers the likes of travel or purchase insurances.

Monzo Plus does, however, have an edge over Revolut when it comes to minimum duration: you only need to commit for three months at a time, while its competitor’s plan is on a yearly basis even if you pay monthly. Monese is better than both on this score, as its plans don’t have a minimum duration, but they are more expensive if you don’t commit for a year.

Budgeting Features

The theme that Monzo pushes most for its Plus account is that of “full financial visibility”: the idea is that you’ll be able to have the clearest overview of your money, from where you earn it to how you spend it, and thus be able to make better, fully informed decisions.

This starts with the integration of all your financial data: your Monzo app can automatically sync with all your third-party bank accounts and credit cards – as long as your provider is supported. Not only does this mean that you have an easy way to check all your balances and transactions easily, but you can also initiate transfers to move your money directly from your other accounts!

This then ties in with the powerful budgeting features that Monzo Plus has to offer, which not only categorize your spending automatically, but also allow you to create your own custom categories, divide your transactions between categories, and even automatically export your data to Google Sheets, if you want to get into more advanced spreadsheet-based budgeting techniques. What’s more, you can also rely on Monzo Plus’s automated roundups to set aside the spare change – or even a multiple of it – of each transaction to make sure that you save as you spend.

Though other neobanks also offer budgeting features, Monzo Plus’s integration of your other bank accounts really set it above the budgeting fray: if you are not already using a third party budgeting app that also allows you to sync your accounts, it might be worth the price of admission alone.

Interest on Account

Another of the most prominent features of Monzo Plus is its 1% yearly interest on balance, something that is almost never offered on a neobank current account, and never at that rate even on a savings account. There is a catch, of course: you only accrue interest on up to £2,000, so at most, if you always keep at least as much money on your Monzo account, you can expect to make £20 a year at most. That may not be that much in the grand scheme of things, but it is enough to cover four months of Monzo Plus fees, bringing the yearly cost of your account down to £40. 

If you want to save more money, Monzo also offers several options with variable interest rates, though they are available to all accounts and not only to the paying tiers. Other neobanks generally don’t offer interest on balance, but both Monese and Revolut do offer savings accounts with interest to all their customers as well.

Withdrawals Abroad and Deposits

Unlike its competitors, Monzo offers unlimited spending in any currency without fees, and Monzo Plus obviously benefits from this – Monese Classic only lets you spend up to £9,000 a month in foreign currencies, and Revolut Plus is even more limited, capping you at £1,000 of no-fee currency exchange, while the more expensive Revolut Premium doesn’t have any limit either.

Additionally, Monzo Plus automatically comes with unlimited withdrawals within the UK and the EEA, and £400 a month of fee-free ATM withdrawals abroad – with a 3% fee charged beyond this. Revolut and Monese’s withdrawal fee is lower, at 2%, but their monthly withdrawal allowances also apply to the UK and the EEA – at £900 for Monese Classic, at a measly £200 for Revolut Plus, and at £400 for Revolut Premium.

Finally, Monzo Plus also lets you deposit cash into your account at PayPoints in the UK, with one free deposit per month andany top-up beyond this costing £1. This isn’t unlimited, though: you can only deposit up to £300 at once, and a maximum of £1,000 per rolling 180 days, so Monzo is not a good option if you handle a lot of cash. Revolut doesn’t offer anything comparable, but Monese is much better at it: your Monese Classic ATM allowance can also be used for free cash-top ups, even outside the UK. Monese charges a 2% fee beyond this allowance, and sets a monthly limit for top-ups at £2,500, so if you do intend on handling a lot of cash, the £14.95 Monese Premium plan, which lets you top-up with cash for free up to this limit, is the best offering on the market.

Card Design and Virtual Cards

Most neobanks visually differentiate their tiers by the look of the corresponding debit card, and Monzo is no exception: the Plus tier upgrades the classic coral red Monzo card into a nice blue gradient. 

Monzo Plus also allows you to create up to nine virtual cards, which can make your online shopping both easier to manage and also safer. This is something that’s offered by the competition, and generally for free: all Revolut users can create several virtual cards, including a “disposable” one which changes its number with each transaction, and all Monese users can also create one virtual card per account.

Discounts and Benefits

Finally, Monzo Plus also comes with a host of discounts and partnerships. For example, you can get 15% off on plant and pots orders above £50 at Patch, £15 off your first four Hello Fresh recipe boxes, or 50% off Busuu Premium language learning plans. Both of Monzo’s main competitors also have a similar feature. Revolut also offers discounts with select partners, as well as rewards and cashback based on your usage of the app – even on the free basic tier. On the other hand, Monese doesn’t offer any discounts, but allows you to link your card to your Avios account and earn points with your purchases, which you can put towards discounts and air miles, even if you’re a free customer.

Is Monzo Plus Worth It?

There is no doubt that Monzo Plus is a solid offering very much in line with comparable offerings from other app-based banks. That being said, Monzo Plus covers much of the same ground but doesn’t have any must-have features that really set it above the competition. In fact, even the free Monzo account has the valuable benefit of fee-free foreign currency spending, and, if you use it as your main bank account, on unlimited UK and EEA cash withdrawals.

Instead, the real value of Monzo Plus lies in its powerful financial data integration: if you already have other bank accounts and credit cards in the UK and intend on keeping them active while using your Monzo account as your main one, a Plus subscription allows you to easily centralise them in a way that no other neobank really would. 

On the other hand, if you’re only going to be using one bank account, it might make more sense to stay on Monzo’s free tier, or, if you’re after a more full-featured offering and don’t intend on withdrawing a lot of cash, to spring for Revolut Premium, which is only slightly more expensive.