Reviewed by the Penny Time editorial team
Part of our Allowance hub.
Free vs Subscription Kids' Money Apps: What a Monthly Fee Actually Buys You in 2026
Are paid kids' money apps worth it, or is free enough?
A monthly fee mostly buys one thing: a real debit card for your child, which needs a bank partner, parent KYC checks, fraud monitoring, plastic, and postage. The chore list, allowance math, and savings goals behind the fee are cheap software you can get for free. So skip the subscription if your child is under 8 and still learning with coins and jars, if you pay allowance in cash, or if your teen already has a fee-free bank account.
Pay when the card itself earns its keep: a child who spends online or in shops without you and needs per-merchant limits, three or more kids whose reimbursements you want automated, or custodial investing you would rather not set up through a brokerage yourself. Most families land in the middle: a fee-free teen bank account for the card, a free app for the allowance, and a printable chart for the chores, so nothing is paid in between.
Every well-known kids' money app charges a monthly subscription. Greenlight, Acorns Early (formerly GoHenry), BusyKid, FamZoo, and Modak all bill somewhere between $2.99 and $19.98 a month. That is $36 to $240 a year to track an allowance most families hand over in cash. For one example, here is how much Greenlight costs across its four plans, or see our Greenlight vs GoHenry (now Acorns Early) comparison for the paid-vs-free three-way. Our guide to the best allowance apps for kids ranks every major option by price and age range, and the 7 best Greenlight alternatives covers the cheaper cards.
Our bias, stated up front: Penny Time is free. We do not issue a debit card and we do not take a cut of your child's spending, so we have an obvious interest in you deciding you do not need a paid app. Read the price table, then read the section on who genuinely should pay. Some families should.
What the paid apps charge in 2026
Prices below are the published family-plan rates as of early 2026. Every one of these is billed monthly or annually per family, not per child, unless noted.
| App | Monthly price | Kids included | Debit card |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greenlight Core | $5.99 | Up to 5 | Yes |
| Greenlight Max | $10.98 | Up to 5 | Yes, plus investing |
| Greenlight Infinity | $15.98 | Up to 5 | Yes, plus location alerts |
| Greenlight Family Shield | $19.98 | Up to 5 | Yes, plus identity and credit monitoring |
| Acorns Early (was GoHenry) | $8 (Acorns Early Lite) or $12 (Acorns Gold) | Up to 4 | Yes |
| BusyKid | $4, billed annually ($48 a year) | Up to 5 | Yes, optional Visa |
| FamZoo | $5.99, or $4.99 a month prepaid for a year | Unlimited | Yes, prepaid |
| Modak | Free tier plus paid card plans | Varies | Yes |
| Penny Time | $0 | Unlimited | No |
Check each provider's own pricing page before you sign up. These companies reprice, and GoHenry's absorption into Acorns Early in 2025 moved a lot of families onto a different plan structure than the one they originally bought.
What the fee actually pays for
The subscription is not paying for the chore list. Chore tracking, allowance math, and savings goals are cheap software problems that have been solved a hundred times over. Three real costs sit behind the fee.
1. Issuing a physical debit card
This is the big one. A card for a 9-year-old requires a bank partner, a card issuer, KYC checks on the parent, fraud monitoring, plastic, and postage. Kids' cards also generate almost no interchange revenue because the average transaction is a $4 snack. Under the Durbin amendment's exemption for small issuers the app keeps roughly 1 to 1.5 percent of spend, which on a kid spending $30 a month is about 40 cents. The subscription covers the gap.
2. Custodial investing
Greenlight Max and Acorns Early both let a parent buy fractional shares in a custodial account. That requires a registered broker-dealer relationship, tax reporting, and compliance staff. It is a genuine service and it is genuinely expensive to run.
3. Support and a company that stays alive
When money is involved, families expect a human on the phone. Free products rarely staff a call centre.
Notice what is not on this list: the tracking itself. If you are paying $10.98 a month and your child never uses the card, you are paying for infrastructure you are not touching.
Who genuinely does not need to pay
Skip the subscription if any of these describe you.
- Your child is under 8. Kids this age learn money through physical coins and visible jars. A card abstracts away the exact thing you are trying to teach. Start with a chore chart and cash.
- You pay allowance in cash. A card app with no card loaded is a $72-a-year spreadsheet.
- Your teen already has a bank account. Chase First Banking, Capital One MONEY, and Alliant all offer teen accounts with debit cards at no monthly fee. You get the card without the app subscription.
- You want the teaching, not the plumbing. The conversations do the work. Sitting down to split a $20 birthday cheque into save, spend, and give is the lesson. Our birthday money calculator runs that split in about a minute.
- You are testing whether allowance works at all. Do not commit $180 a year before you know your kid will engage. Run three months free first.
Who should pay
Paid apps earn their fee in three situations. First, if your child spends online or at shops without you, a controlled card with per-merchant limits is worth real money. Second, if you have three or more kids and are constantly reimbursing each other, automated transfers save arguments. Third, if you want custodial investing and do not want to open a brokerage account yourself, Greenlight Max or Acorns Early does it in about ten minutes.
One more case: divorced or separated parents splitting allowance. FamZoo's multi-funder structure handles this better than anything free.
The middle path most families end up on
You do not have to pick one. A common setup that costs nothing: a fee-free teen bank account for the card, a free app for the allowance, and a printable chart for the chores. You get the spending controls from the bank and the teaching layer from the app, without a subscription in between.
If you want to run the numbers before deciding, start with what you would actually pay out. Our allowance calculator sets an age-appropriate weekly amount, and the kids' budget planner splits it across save, spend, and give. If your child is at the stage of asking for everything in the shop, the wants vs needs sorter is a better $0 spend than any subscription.
The honest summary: a monthly fee buys a debit card and the regulated machinery behind it. If your child needs a card, pay for it and pick the app whose card rules fit your family. If your child does not, you are subscribing to a chore chart.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes. Penny Time is free with no subscription and no card, covering allowance tracking, story-based quests designed to teach how money can grow, and a balance each kid can track and cash out. It does not track chores. Modak also offers a free tier. Most other well-known options, including Greenlight, Acorns Early, BusyKid, and FamZoo, require a paid plan because they issue a debit card.
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Greenlight publishes four family plans: Core at $5.99 a month, Max at $10.98, Infinity at $15.98, and Family Shield at $19.98, each covering up to five children. Max adds custodial investing, Infinity adds location and safety alerts, and Family Shield adds whole-family identity and credit monitoring. Check Greenlight's pricing page directly, since plan names and prices have changed more than once since 2023.
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Interchange revenue on children's cards is too small to cover costs. A typical kid transaction is a few dollars, and the issuer keeps roughly 1 to 1.5 percent of it, so a child spending $30 a month generates around 40 cents. The subscription covers card issuing, the bank partner relationship, fraud monitoring, and compliance.
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GoHenry was acquired by Acorns and rebranded as Acorns Early. Existing families were moved into the Acorns plan structure, which bundles the kids' product with Acorns' adult investing tiers rather than pricing it standalone. If you signed up under the old GoHenry pricing, check what plan you are currently billed on.
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Yes. Chase First Banking, Capital One MONEY for Teens, and Alliant Credit Union all offer teen accounts with debit cards and no monthly maintenance fee, subject to their own age minimums and parent account requirements. Pair one of those with a free allowance app and you get card controls plus the teaching layer at no monthly cost.
Raise kids who understand how money works
Download the app, add your child, and connect their phone or tablet by scanning a code. About a minute, no email needed for kids.
How setup works for you and your child →
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Put this into practice this week
Add your child in Penny Time and, on their own phone or tablet, they can watch a real balance grow, take on quests, and ask for cash-outs you approve. Free for the whole family.