PocketGuard Review: Pros, Cons, And Alternatives

PocketGuard is a budgeting platform that allows you to view all of your accounts in one location, and track your income, spending, and net worth.  

But how does PocketGuard compare to other leading budgeting apps, such as YNAB and Monarch Money. 

In this PocketGuard review, we explore the app's different features and pricing, to help you decide ifPocketGuard is the right tool for your financial situation.

What Is PocketGuard?

Launched in 2014, PocketGuard is a budgeting tool that allows you to link your accounts, and track your income and expenses so you can closely monitor your financial situation. This includes scheduling and tracking your recurring bills, and tracking your net worth. PocketGuard is available on your desktop or as an iOS or Android mobile app.

Although the two sound similar, Pocket Guard isn’t related to PocketSmith in any way. PocketSmith is a different financial management platform, which you can learn more about in our full review. 

What Does It Offer?

Let’s take a closer look at what PocketGuard has to offer.

Link Your Financial Accounts

With PocketGuard, you no longer need to manually record your banking transactions. Once you connect your checking, savings, and credit card accounts, PocketGuard will begin tracking your income and spending.  

If you're uncomfortable with connecting your bank accounts to PocketGuard, you still have the option of manually logging your transactions. However, it takes away from some of the core features offered by PocketGuard, including the convenience of automated tracking.

‘In My Pocket’ Breakdown

If you want help understanding how much you can safely spend, the ‘in my pocket’ feature is especially useful. PocketGuard will take your income, bills, recurring expenses, and savings goals into account to determine how much you have left over to spend on extras each month.

This tool is especially handy for anyone with a tendency to overspend. Instead of swiping your card, you can check to see if you have enough margin in your monthly budget to support the purchase. With that, you can make more informed spending decisions.

Spending Pie Chart

As you spend money, PocketGuard will categorize your purchases. You can easily visualize the breakdown by analyzing your spending pie chart.

While you can allow PocketGuard to automatically categorize your purchases, you’ll have the option to further delineate your purchases through hashtags.

For example, let’s say you take a vacation. The purchases you make could span grocery stores, gas stations, hotels, and more. You can pull these purchases into a single category with a hashtag, like #Madrid to more accurately assess where your funds are going.

Savings Goals

Savings goals are a key part of a solid financial plan. Through PocketGuard, you can set savings goals and track your progress along the way. In addition to savings goals, PocketGuard offers a personalized debt repayment planning tool, which allows you to forecast and visualize your debt payoff journey. 

Cut Unnecessary Spending

Most of us spend on things that we don’t really need, but PocketGuard helps you trim these unnecessary expenses out of your budget. This includes helping you cancel unwanted subscriptions and find shopping rebates that can give you more room in your budget. 

Are There Any Fees?

PocketGuard offers a free version, but its functionality is limited. If you want access to features such as unlimited bank connections, savings goals, and budget categories, access to a debt payoff plan, and the ability to export transaction data, then the paid version, PocketGuard Plus, may be the better option.

PocketGuard Plus offers a free 7-day trial. After that, you can pay $74.99 one-time to own the paid version for life. Or you can pay $7.99 monthy, or $34.99 per year. 

How Does PocketGuard Compare?

Most of us take a slightly different approach when it comes to managing our money. Luckily, there are tons of budgeting apps to choose from. Here’s how PocketGuard stacks up.

YNAB, or You Need a Budget, is a top budgeting platform that follows a zero-based budgeting approach to help you break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. With YNAB, you assign every dollar a job and get honest about your true expenses. As you get into the flow, the goal is to age your money, which means spending money that is at least 30 days old. If you enjoy diving into the details, YNAB might be the right budgeting app for you. It costs $14.99 per month or $99 per year, after a 34-day trial period. For more details, check out our YNAB review.  

Monarch Money is a robust financial platform that tracks your expenses, net worth and financial goals. The ability to customize your dashboard means you can stay on top of what matters most to you right now. For example, if you are focused on reining in your spending, you can move your monthly spending plan to the front and center of your dashboard. Monarch Premium is $14.99 monthly or $99.99 per year, after a 7-day free trial. Learn more in our Monarch Money review.  

How Do I Open An Account?

When you decide to open a PocketGuard account, you will be asked to provide an email address and add a password. You’ll also be asked to choose a free account or enter your credit card information for the paid version. From there, you can begin to connect your accounts to PocketGuard and set your recurring bills.

You can also choose to use the app without connecting your bank accounts. If you do, you can still choose to connect your bank accounts at a later date. Once everything is connected, you're ready to check your budget using PocketGuard's "In My Pocket" feature.

If you have the paid version, you have access to all of PocketGuard's features, including custom categories, exporting and importing of transactions, unlimited savings goals, and more. 

Is It Safe And Secure?

PocketGuard uses bank-level 256-bit encryption to protect your personal information. When using the app, you’ll be asked to set up a code or biometric authentication to confirm it’s you before you can do anything within the account. 

How Do I Contact PocketGuard?

If you want to get in touch with PocketGuard, you can email [email protected]. The platform has a positive reputation, with thousands of 5-star reviews in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. The positive reviews indicate you’ll likely have a good experience with the app. 

Is It Worth It?

PocketGuard is a valuable tool for budgeters who want to closely monitor their spending without the need to manually enter all of their transactions. While many users will choose to upgrade to the paid version for the larger range of features, the free trial gives you a way to test drive the app before committing to a payment.

But if you already have your spending under control and are more focused on your long-term financial goals, PocketGuard might not be the right fit. Instead, you might prefer an app like Empower, which offers budgeting tools but is more focused on monitoring your investment portfolio.

If you don’t think that PocketGuard is the right fit for your needs, check out our list of the best budgeting apps.  

Check out PocketGuard here >>

PocketGuard Features