Cleo Review 2026

Cleo is the app to open when you will actually talk to it, and the one to skip when you want a ledger your partner can edit. The sticker on Plus is the small number, and the decision is an advance plus a secured card, or a budget you will still open in March.

The prices below were verified on each vendor's own pricing or help page in September 2026. Toolradar data: the September 2026 personal finance ranking evaluated 59 tools.

Cleo has its own product page on Toolradar, and a wider AI money list lives on Toolradar's AI personal finance guide when you are still choosing a category.

How we compared: five products, vendor pages only, no paid placement, and no hands-on account opening for this review.

A general chatbot can talk about a budget and still cannot see your transactions, so it cannot flag a real balance. That split is why Cleo is a different product from the tools in our AI chatbot guide.

Cleo is a conversational money app. You link accounts, then ask what you spent, set a budget, and, on a paid plan, request a cash advance or look at a credit score.

The company page says Barney Hussey-Yeo founded it in London in January 2016. The same page, using internal figures dated December 2025, lists 1.1 million paying subscribers and 4.9 billion messages.

The founder bio says the business has surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue, so the paid plans are a real business.

The US plans on the pricing page are Plus, Pro, and Builder, and that name is what you are buying. Cleo is not a bank: Thread Bank holds the savings account, WebBank issues the card, and Equifax supplies the credit score, so the deposit and the card sit with those partners.

Accounts link through Plaid, and Cleo says a bank can connect and still be ineligible for a cash advance, which means the chat can work while the advance does not.

People shopping for a Mint replacement will not find the old app. Intuit's Mint site now points transaction review, spending, and net worth to Credit Karma and calls Mint reimagined there.

Cleo does not replace that dashboard, and a model such as ChatGPT or Claude can explain a budget category, and it still cannot debit you for an advance or open this card.

You create an account and connect a bank through Plaid. The free tools in the US terms cover spending insights, budgeting, saving goals, and spending challenges, with no subscription fee. Day to day you type, and Cleo's company page says 1.4 million users have been roasted and 841,000 have been hyped, so leave if you do not want that tone.

An advance is a separate action from the chat, so nothing moves until you confirm it. On a paid plan you open Request, see an amount if you qualify, pick a repayment date between 3 and 14 days, and choose standard delivery or express.

Standard is free and quoted at 3 to 4 days, which avoids the fee. Express is same-day, and the fee is charged when you repay, not when the money arrives. You can email [email protected] and ask for an advance with no subscription, but you still have to qualify.

The US terms call this earned wage access and non-recourse, meaning those terms say you have no legal obligation to repay. That is not a gift, because Cleo may refuse a later advance if one is unpaid. It will try to debit the linked account from midnight Eastern on the date you chose.

An empty account can still produce a bank overdraft, and Cleo says it tries to check the balance first and does not promise that fee will not hit.

Cleo says it shipped Cleo 3.0 in July 2025, with voice, Debt Reset, and Money IQ. Pro is where voice chat and conversation memory are listed, so that newer assistant is paid.

That is closer to an agent that can move money than to a prompt in a blank chat, which is the split in our agentic AI explainer and the AI agents guide.

Cleo publishes Plus, Pro, and Builder on its pricing page, checked September 2026. Plus is the only plan with an annual option: the January 21, 2026 help article lists $44.99 a year against the monthly Plus price.

Pro is $8.99 a month and does not have an annual plan. Builder is monthly only, and the help center says there is no longer an annual Builder option.

The US terms also list Plus, Pro, and Builder "with Mobile," at $48.99, $53.99, and $54.99 a month plus local taxes, for the app plus a partner's mobile service. Those mobile bundles are non-refundable after you subscribe, and they are a much higher bill than the chat, so skip them if you only wanted the app.

There is a 27-day refund, and it ends if you use the paid product. Cancel inside 27 days of first signup, by typing "cancel" or emailing the team, and Cleo says it refunds the fee within four working days. Opening the card, taking an advance, or deleting the account ends that window, and after that the subscription fee is non-refundable.

The October 15, 2025 help article says an email to the team can take up to 7 days, and Ask Cleo inside the app is the faster path.

Rocket Money set out these prices on January 19, 2026. It is free for subscription tracking and up to two custom category budgets, enough for a few forgotten charges, not a full budget.

Premium is typically $7 to $14 a month, your choice, with a 7-day trial. Premium+ is $15 a month and adds Rowan, which can start a cancellation.

Bill negotiation is open on every plan, but Free and Premium take 35% to 60% out of savings in the first year, and Premium+ drops that fee. Rocket Money says it uses Plaid, lists over 12,000 banking partners, and usually takes 2 to 10 days to cancel.

Monarch offers the first week free and says it does not sell financial data. Subscription help lists Core at $99.99 a year, or month to month at the same sticker as Builder.

Plus is $199.99 a year on the pricing page, with a 7-day trial, forecasting, a freelancer business view, and Morningstar fund analysis. That is a side-business upgrade, not a second budget. Website promo codes apply to Core trials, not to Plus, monthly, or store billing.

Copilot prints $95 billed yearly, shown as $7.92 a month, with a monthly toggle and a free test drive before you link a bank. The page lists iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web, and it does not list Android, so anyone on that phone is out.

The May 6, 2026 help article says most institutions connect through Plaid, with Mastercard, MX, and Akoya as backups, plus direct links for Apple, Capital One, Public, and Coinbase. Copilot says it does not store bank logins, and deleting an account deletes its balance history.

YNAB's annual price is $109, shown on the page as $9.08 a month, or the higher month-to-month rate in the table. The trial runs 34 days with no card if you start on YNAB's site, and one subscription covers up to six people.

A college student with proof of enrollment can get 365 days. Direct import covers a select set of banks in the US, Canada, the UK, and the EU, and the page identifies YNAB as an agent of Plaid.

Buy Plus if you will use the chat every week and you want the credit score and a possible advance without the card. Buy Pro if the savings account and voice chat are the point, and you have checked the rate inside the app, because the public pages do not print one number.

Buy Builder only if you will fund the secured card and you can direct deposit enough to matter. Skip all three if you will not open a chat, because the product is the conversation.

Skip Cleo when the household needs one shared budget. Monarch is built for that shared ledger, and YNAB is the stricter method when every dollar needs a job.

Skip it when the mess is subscriptions: Rocket Money will cancel them, for a fee unless you are on Premium+, and that fee comes out of the savings.

Skip it on Android if you wanted Copilot, because Copilot publishes Apple and web apps and does not publish an Android app.

A research question about a tax form still belongs in Perplexity, not in a cash-advance chat. The AIpresso brief is where the next plan change shows up. Subscribe free if you want that in the inbox.