Tiller vs Monarch Money: Price, Features and Quicken Data

Tiller is better if you enjoy spreadsheets and want complete control over how your budget is built, and Monarch is better if you want a finished app that two people can use from their phones. The cost is almost identical at $99 against $99.99 a year, so the real question is whether you want to build your system or use one someone else designed.

A quick self test: think about the last time a budgeting app annoyed you. If the complaint was "it will not let me see the numbers the way I want," you are a Tiller buyer. If it was "I stopped opening it after two weeks," Monarch's app, nudges and weekly review screens will do more for you than an empty spreadsheet ever will.

Tiller is cheaper by one cent a year at list price: $99 against $99.99 for Monarch Core. In year one Monarch can be cheaper, because its WELCOME code takes 30% off the first annual Core year for new members who buy directly from Monarch, which works out to about $70. Monarch monthly at $14.99 costs $179.88 over a year, and Monarch Plus is $199.99.

Over five years, with list prices held flat, Tiller comes to $495 and Monarch Core to about $470 with the first year discount or $499.95 without it. Those are close enough that price should not decide this. The trial should. Tiller gives 30 days and charges the card when it ends; Monarch gives 7 days and asks for a payment method up front. Seven days is short for a budgeting tool, because you need at least one pay cycle and one credit card statement to see whether categorization holds up. If you start Monarch, connect every account on day one.

Yes, but not directly into either one. Tiller's own comparison says it does not have a direct Quicken import, and Monarch's manual import takes CSV only. You export each Quicken account to a file, convert that file to CSV, and load the CSV through Tiller's CSV Importer or Monarch's web importer. Your balances and old transactions come across; the Quicken data file itself does not.

The steps that lose the least: in Quicken Classic for Windows, open File, File Export, QIF File, and export one account at a time with the full date range. Run each QIF through the converter above and download the CSV. In Tiller, use the CSV Importer to append the rows to your Transactions sheet. In Monarch, open the account on the web and upload the file there. Our Quicken to Monarch Money guide covers the Monarch side in detail, and Tiller vs Quicken covers the Tiller side.

Quicken for Mac is different: it has no QIF export, so on a Mac you export registers or reports to CSV and clean out the title and subtotal rows before uploading. Also know what does not travel. Quicken categories are not a separate column in our CSV, so both tools will recategorize imported rows with their own rules. Split transactions arrive as one summed amount. Investment lots and cost basis do not move into either tool through a transaction file.

Tiller pulls up to 90 days of transactions from most institutions when you first connect an account, and anything older has to come from a file. Monarch does not publish a single figure; the history you get on connection depends on what each bank shares. For someone leaving a program that holds ten or fifteen years, both tools start with a short window, which is why the file import above matters.

A practical approach: pick a cut over date, let the bank connection handle everything after it, and import older history from the QIF export up to the day before. That avoids duplicates, which both importers handle with less care than Quicken did.

No. Tiller's FAQ says it does not offer a dedicated smartphone app, and you use the Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel app on your phone instead. Monarch has native apps for iPhone, Android and iPad as well as the web. If quick categorizing and checking budgets on a phone is part of your routine, Monarch is the stronger buy.

Monarch is better for most couples, because each partner gets a login at no extra cost and sees the same accounts, budgets and goals in a phone app. Tiller shares the way any spreadsheet does, through Google or Microsoft permissions, which works well for two people who both like spreadsheets and poorly when one partner does not want to open one.

Monarch also lets you give a financial professional read-only access, which is handy if a planner or CPA looks at your accounts once a year. With Tiller you would share the file itself, so decide which tabs you are comfortable exposing before you do.

Monarch Plus can, within limits: its pricing page lists tracking business income and expenses, P&L reports and tax-prep exports, at $199.99 a year. Monarch Core does not list those features. Tiller can track anything you can build in a spreadsheet, so a sole proprietor can keep a Schedule C style sheet, but you design the categories and the reports.

Neither is bookkeeping software. If your side business has a CPA, payroll, sales tax, or a lender asking for financial statements, the business accounts belong in QuickBooks, and the household accounts can go to Tiller or Monarch. A Quicken Home & Business user splitting a file this way exports the business accounts as QIF and converts them to QBO, the Web Connect format QuickBooks imports, with the same converter above. Our Quicken to QuickBooks Online guide walks through that half.

Only partly. Tiller brings in balances and transactions from investment accounts, and its Foundation Template and community templates add net worth views, but holding level analysis is something you build yourself. Monarch tracks investment accounts in the app, and Monarch Plus adds what its pricing page calls advanced investment analysis. Neither replaces Quicken's per security cost basis and capital gains reports.

If per security records matter for taxes, keep a copy of your Quicken data before you cancel. Quicken's Data Access Guarantee lets Deluxe and higher members view, edit and export their data after the subscription lapses, so you keep a working record even while your daily budgeting moves to Tiller or Monarch.

Export your transaction history from Monarch as a CSV, write down your category list, then start Tiller's 30 day trial and connect your accounts. Tiller's own advice for Monarch switchers is exactly that: export the CSV and note the categories. Load the older rows with Tiller's CSV Importer and rebuild your categories in the sheet before AutoCat rules start sorting new transactions.

Going the other way, from Tiller to Monarch, is the same move in reverse: your Transactions sheet is already a table, so save it as CSV with date, amount and account columns and upload it account by account on Monarch's web app.

Buy Tiller if you already keep a budget spreadsheet, like writing SUMIFS formulas, and want your data in a Google or Microsoft file you control. Buy Monarch Core if you want a polished app for two people, mostly on phones, with budgets and goals ready on day one. Pay for Monarch Plus only if you need its business income, P&L and tax-prep features or its longer range planning.

If you are coming from Quicken, sort out the data before the purchase, not after. Export QIF for every account while Quicken still runs, convert what you want to keep to CSV for Tiller or Monarch, and send any business accounts to QuickBooks as QBO. Then the choice between Tiller and Monarch is only about how you like to budget, which is the part that should decide it.