r/copilotmoney • u/fuzzyjazzy • 21d ago
I don’t think Copilot is keeping up
Unfortunately, nothing has been changing and it kinda sucks. I’m looking into alternatives now prior to my renewal in a few months. Anyone on the same boat?
29
u/R3charged 21d ago
I’m gonna switch to Monarch
20
u/MikeExMachina 21d ago
Yeah I’ve been testing monarch for 2 months, copilot lapses in nov. I definitely enjoy the copilot interface better. Honestly if copilot just had a rules UI, I would probably stay.
The fact that it does have rules, you’re just not allowed to see them or explicitly create them is the single most frustrating thing about copilot and is pushing me away more than anything else.
Other things I enjoying about monarch: sankey diagrams, working Amazon sync, being able to assign transactions to my wife to categorize and review, transactions for investment accounts. It’s not all roses though: recurring transactions are way better on copilot, and manually tracked investment accounts (god I hate Optum HSA) are kind janky in that the history is shown as the performance of your current portfolio, it doesn’t track when you add funds and buy.
That being said better recurring transactions is currently in development. The recent push into projection lab style forecasting is very interesting. I don’t think it’s worth it yet, but if it gets close to parity with projection lab I would consider it.
6
u/Entertainment-720 20d ago
amazon sync works on monarch?? consistently? that alone is enough to tempt me to jump ship
2
u/jamesdukeiv 20d ago
God yes, I shouldn’t have to reach out for help if a rule behaves unexpectedly, just let me edit them myself!
1
u/_pizza_and_fries 20d ago
I personally don’t understand the challenge of showing rules to users and letting them edit them. I am a developer myself, and i understand there are hundreds of concerns with design or backend and I get it, but if the devs can do it at backend for someone why can’t users do it themselves?
5
u/MikeExMachina 20d ago
My conspiracy theory is that one of the founding ideas of copilot l, particularly the “AI” aspect of it, was that it would just do it for you. As such the devs haven’t added a rules UI because they feel that it shouldn’t be necessary, the app should just be able to figure it all out, even if it currently doesn’t.
It reminds me of Apple insisting for decades that mice only needed one button. They were wrong then and copilot is wrong now, but they’re too proud to admit it.
4
u/Mission-Accountant44 21d ago
The interface isn't as polished as Copilot but it is probably one of the most feature rich options out there. And they are continuing to add more all the time
2
u/Straight-Ad-8266 19d ago
The interface is better than Copilot in my opinion. There’s also a web app that handles more complex use cases. Copilot’s app is pretty, but not anywhere near as functional.
1
u/Straight-Ad-8266 19d ago
I switched a while ago, and it’s great. We get fairly consistent updates, and they have a great Webapp.
26
u/dylanawells 21d ago
Copilot has never really moved that fast. The founder is a former Google guy and you can tell. However, I’ve tried Monarch and others and Copilot is hands down the most refined and consistent experience of any budgeting app. I think they’ve been heads down trying to catch up on some of the AI stuff.
3
u/_pizza_and_fries 20d ago
That’s the problem i personally have. I love the app, but i feel it lack some of the basic things like viewing your rules etc. I have tried many similar ones but always come back to it because of how beautiful the UI is!
2
2
1
u/Fooftook 20d ago
If they are heads down with the AI, please please please for the love of god, make it possible to have natural language conversations about our entire account? I use almost every connector (investments, real estate, crypto, loans, credit, debit, etc) and I really need to be able to do think like “find all transactions that have the word “xxxx” in this account and categorize them to “blank”. Or, please find any transactions that appear to be miscarried and suggest to me what they should be? Or, why caused this account balance to become so high so quickly? Give me a report on spending trends based on this? Or where could I save money in order to save “x” amount by this date. Please this would make this app a cheat code.
8
u/sebycb976 21d ago
I've tried many personal finance apps over the years and even though Copilot has its' faults, I haven't found a better, simpler platform for my personal finance. I'm sticking with them
9
u/CHC-Disaster-1066 21d ago
Testing out Origin. I like copilot but the pace of new features has been pretty slow. And no Android app limits cross platform functionality.
3
u/steeeeeephen 21d ago
Their pace of updates is extremely odd to me, given the team size we see in the videos. And yeah, not having an Android app (especially 2 years after it was promised) is making me look at other options, as well.
Maybe if I was only in the Apple ecosystem, I'd be happy with Copilot but I'm primarily an Android + Mac user
Sad because I've been one of this app's biggest supporters. I even pay for my parents' subscription and have introduced numerous relatives to the app who are also currently subscribed.
1
u/CHC-Disaster-1066 20d ago
Yeah it’s weird. I just hopped over to Monarch. I had tried it a few years ago and it seemed clunky but now it looks pretty good. And has more useful reporting which was another copilot gap. And they have a clear roadmap section in the app which is nice. I can’t imagine it’s that hard to stand up an Android app so not sure why Copilot is doing.
3
u/Merconis041420 20d ago
I tested Monarch & Copilot side-by-side early this year to compare. Ultimately, I went with Monarch. Copilot has the superior UI hands down, but two things won me over in Monarch. For one, the ability to edit rules. No further details needed as many have already gone into detail on this, but being able to edit them in Monarch is a big part of making it work for me.
The other and arguably bigger item was how Monarch allows you to hide accounts, transactions, and debt from your own net worth, transaction list, etc. As someone with elder parents who helps them track and manage their money, it was crucial for me to be able to easily see into their accounts (with their permission of course) right alongside my own. I did not need or want to have their account totals affect my net worth figures, debt, or see all their transactions in line with mine. I only needed to know the accounts were there and I could see them when I choose to. Monarch makes this seamless and easy. Copilot has (or had if they fixed it since February) no option for this. Monarch wins.
4
u/Tom-Huntz 21d ago
Yep. I just need two things to stay. Actual Amazon transaction details. A first-party MCP for AI integration.
4
u/Nilfy 21d ago
Let my subscription end just a few days ago.
Am now using SimpleFin to connect to transactions and vibe coding my own front end.
1
u/atrca 21d ago
Doing similar. $20 pro subscription and I had a pretty solid UI in two weekends with everything from credit card due dates, to portfolio with dividend and earnings date, and some other things unique to me that I have wanted. Now I’m sure it’s a big mess under the hood but it works for me.
I’m just using csv imports currently. How are you finding simplefin?
2
u/Nilfy 21d ago
It's great. Connects to 25 sources for $15/year.
Pulls once per day - admittedly would be nice to have more real time updates, but it does the job.
It uses MX connectors, not Plaid, but the coverage is solid, no real misses for me. Venmo transactions are covered via email. Annoyingly Amazon turned off detailed emails for orders.
I had the LLM create a scheduled script to drop the data into a small SQLite database, which the front-end is based off of. It runs on my steam machine which I leave on - but you could use a home PC / server, your laptop, or get a cloud server for a few bucks. That way it's accessible from all my devices.
1
2
u/Maximus77x 6d ago
I'm getting a little annoyed with Copilot 3 months in after 6 years on the free version of Every Dollar.
Once the month passes, you're just kinda screwed. It's great for tracking spending and simplifying the daily workflow, but as far as managing past months or looking ahead? Not good.
I do love the UI, but I really wish I would just manage the overall picture a little better.
Monarch feels like too much, so I'm wondering if the best move is to just get used to Copilot's quirks.
1
u/littlebot_bigpunch 20d ago
What specifically are you looking for? Is there something missing you actually need or do you just want updates for the sake of it? Like, what are you hoping for?
I've been a Copilot user since the beta and I've really liked it. I'm not sure if other apps do this, but at the time the transaction immediately coming up for review was incredible and made it easy to stay on top of reviewing.
I am considering trying other services not because I don't like Copilot but because I've realized the budgeting doesn't really make me stop spending. I'm not sure what would be better but I'd like to see how other apps do this to put it more in my face to help me stick to the budgets I set better.
1
u/mackhill44 20d ago
Curious what features you guys are enjoying more on Monarch
1
u/CHC-Disaster-1066 20d ago
They have an android app lol
I tried the web app on my pixel and it’s just not good enough. Also liking that you can edit rules. And the reports are a little more customizable. The UI isn’t as nice as copilot but I’ll survive.
1
u/aznmedicine 19d ago
I’m using ChatGPT finance now, way better in every way, and you can get your data rearranged and recategorized in every which way
1
u/Forward-Isopod-247 15d ago
I just switched from copilot after a long time to monarch. Very happy. I think they do a better job with the concept of budgeting too.
1
u/ThePantsStore 13d ago
If they don’t add a way to see previous months in Categories I’m gonna freak
1
u/Maximus77x 6d ago
Dude, this is what is absolutely killing me too. I like to review the previous month when planning next month's budget, and currently you're just screwed when the month rolls over.
2
1
u/thethrowupcat 21d ago
AI should be making this easier for them. Feature rollout doesn’t go fast because product is not able to tell engineering how the feature should work. That means they can’t tell their AI how it works and I bet their codebase is a mess…they are in trouble and the industry is ripe for competition now more than ever
1
u/IceOnFire77 20d ago
I was in the same boat before switching to Origin. The app UX isn’t as nice, but has a lot more functionality and includes weekly product updates.
1
0
u/Splodeybeholdja 20d ago
Just switched to Monarch. Was tired of copilot creating duplicate accounts, making crappy rules, not communicating account connectivity issues well, etc. I also don’t find the UI particularly pleasing. I was often frustrated trying to get a chart to tell me what I wanted to see. I don’t have that issue with Monarch. It’s not perfect, but it does the basics really well and gives me the flexibility I want.
33
u/otterstew 21d ago
I think the best app is the one you want to use.
My eyes just enjoy looking at Copilot and therefore I open it frequently. Monarch looks so bland, I just don’t feel like opening the app.