Watch Monito's Video comparing Monzo vs Revolut

Monzo is a fully featured bank account, whereas Revolut functions more as a prepaid debit card that has additional benefits. This means, unlike Monzo, Revolut’s banking services are more of an added benefit, rather than their main proposition. 

Both companies overall have scored highly on our Monit score. We ranked Revolut an 8.6 and Monzo a nine. So to make the comparison today I'll be breaking down why we scored them this way and how these four subcategories compare and affect their overall scores.

This is the first question we must ask ourselves when comparing Monzo and Revolut. And in order to answer this, we've looked at these four sections within our trust and credibility category. Revolut only scored higher on our trust metrics because they're a larger company with over 16 million customers globally. Revolut is far larger than Monzo, which has around 5.5 million customers and only in the UK.

The only major difference here is that in the UK, Revolut is not yet a licensed bank, while Monzo is. This doesn't necessarily make Revolut any riskier. It does mean they don't offer deposit insurance in case of bankruptcy. Monzo, on the other hand, is a licensed bank and is FCA protected meaning deposits are insured up to £85,000. On a side note, and something that's quite interesting, neither company has drawn a profit and they're both still reporting annual losses.

Don't consider this a major drawback, though. If you're using Monzo, you are completely secure as long as you hold less than £85,000. With revolut deposits in the UK are not FSCS-insured, but if you do wish to go with Revolut just use them as a secondary account.

To decide this we have our next category, Service and quality. Both ranked pretty highly and rightfully so because they really are excellent platforms. Monzo offers you a fully fledged current account, a debit MasterCard with no foreign transaction fees, international money transfer service through Wise and a range of other benefits. Revolut provides you with an online account, a debit card, access to international money transfers, multi-currency balances, and several other innovative offerings including commodities, crypto and stock trading.

Now, Monzo claims to be a replacement for a traditional bank account and through their partnership with the Current Account Switching Service, they offer an easy solution to replacing your bank account. The cards offered by Monzo and Revolut come with almost identical features, including contactless payments as well as Google and Apple Pay. And as far as I know, Monzo provides a MasterCard debit card, while Revolut users may receive either a MasterCard or Visa.

I have a Visa, and according to Revolut this is dependent upon your location and card design. Mobile apps from each provider also allow you to block and unblock your debit card if it goes missing. And Revolut also offers virtual cards, whereas Monzo doesn't with their free standard account. These savings spaces are essentially like a separate account where you can put money aside.

Revolut has saving Vaults and Monzo has saving Pots. Both offer a round-up tool where your transactions can be rounded up to the nearest pound and the difference deposited into your savings space and both Vaults and Pots can earn interest. With Revolut through their standard account you can earn 0.15% annual interest on money that's deposited in a vault. 

Monzo has a variety of savings products available through third party banks, for example, right now with Monzo and Charter Savings Bank with a £500 deposit, you can .70% on a six month fixed savings pot.

In our opinion, Monzos Pots are better. Not only do they offer greater interest rates, they are generally more advanced and have greater flexibility and budgeting features. Finally, for anyone that likes to bank on their desktop, unfortunately, Revolut is only available through a mobile app, whereas Monzo provides an app and a website. 

Although they're starting out in the US Monzo is really only currently available in the UK and offers accounts in British pounds. Revolut offers more local currency options, including accounts in GBP, NOC, OKN and EUR. So if you're from the EU or you live in Poland or Norway, it's very likely Revolut will be the better choice. 

This is where Revolut really outperforms Monzo, account holders will have the option to trade shares, purchase gold or silver, and buy crypto also within the app. You can read news updates on stocks, crypto and commodities as well as set up notifications when something you own hits a particular price. While the app is really smart and convenient for trading, it is possible that the fees Revolut charge through their standard free account may exceed those of other trading platforms.

For example, Revolut charges a 2.5% fee on crypto, which is quite high as most platforms charge less than 1%. So if you're thinking about using Revolut for this service, I definitely recommend you shop around first just to make sure you won't end up paying too much in fees. Monzo offers cash, cheque and bank transfers for topping up an account, although cheques do need to be posted and can take up to six weeks to process.

To deposit cash into your Monzo account you just need to visit any of the 28,000 PayPal locations in the UK and deposits will incur a fee of £1. While Revolut does not offer cash or cheque deposits, they do enable you to top up your account with a debit card or credit card as well as a bank transfer. And while this is more convenient, if you are someone who gets paid in cash or cheque, then Monzo will be your only choice.

When comparing the fees we found, Monzo came out on top and we scored them a 9.8. Although free account holders of either Monzo or Revolut do receive an impressive number of services for very low fees or nothing at all. For example, neither charge you to open or hold an account, and both allow you to send money internationally for very low fees.

However, when it comes to pricing in general, Monzo does take the lead over Revolut as they have lower overall fees and don't charge for providing you with a debit card, whereas Revolut does charge a shipping fee to receive their card. Although if you click the link in the description box below to sign up for Revolut, you'll receive your first card free. It's also an affiliate link, so by using it you'll be supporting Monito and helping us make more videos like this one. 

When it comes to withdrawing cash overseas outside of the EEA, Monzo gives you a fee-free limit of £200 every 30 days, but charges you 3% of the amount withdrawn after that. While inside the European Economic Area, it's always free to withdraw £400 per day, with Monzo. Withdrawals with Revolut are fee-free for the first £200 per month, and after that you'll be charged 2% of any amount withdrawn. 

Monzo provides currency exchange services through a partnership with Wise who are a popular money transfer provider. With Monzo and Wise, you'll pay a fee of .35% to 2.85% of the amount you're transferring, and this will vary depending on the currency. When exchanging currency with Revolut, you'll receive the real exchange rate and the standard account comes with up to £1,000 a fee-free currency exchange. Although the fee-free amount only applies to currency exchanged on a weekday, this is where Revolut’s pricing can be more complex and potentially more expensive. 

What matters is that if you are going to exchange currency and send money internationally with Revolut, you really should do it during the week. On the weekends when the markets are closed, regardless of your fee-free allotment, you will incur an exchange rate markup fee. So if you exchange currency during the week and remain within your fee-free allotment it is possible you will pay less than with Monzo and Wise as you'll always incur a fee with that.

In terms of customer satisfaction and feedback, both Monzo and Revolut are relatively equal, and they have millions of customers between them and many reporting overwhelmingly positive feedback. And that's why we see this category as a draw. With no clear winner between the two. 

On the one hand, Monzo scores slightly higher than Revolut on Trustpilot with a 4.5, while Revolut has a 4.4. On the other hand, Revolut scores come from a much larger pool of reviews with over 100,000 compared to Monzo. 20,000. In the end, though, I think both really satisfy and impress their customers. 

Generally speaking, whether Monzo or Revolut is the better service for you will depend entirely on your needs and preferences. If you're looking for a fully fledged bank account with low fees, especially on overseas transactions as well as excellent savings capabilities and basic banking services such as loans and savings interest, then Monzo will provide you with better value than Revolut.

On the flip side, if you're already happy with your primary bank account and you're only looking for a spending tool to enable you to hold and spend multiple currencies at a low cost, then we recommend Revolut, as Monzo doesn't offer any multi-currency functionality. 

If you'd like to delve deeper into either Monzo or Revolut, then do check out these video reviews that we made. And if you do want to sign up for either Monzo or Revolut, please click the link to the description box below. At the end of the day, whoever you choose, I think there's a high chance you'll end up more than satisfied with your decision. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.