Monzo released the first version of Monzo Plus back in 2019, to a lot of controversy and seemingly small interest within their community.
This was quickly withdrawn, and Monzo said they would bring out a new version based on the community feedback.
I use Monzo as my main bank account, and I like their clever way of budgeting, so I felt as though I had to check their latest Plus offering.
Features
The Offers
Monzo Plus currently has 6 offers which are advertised as exclusive to the premium account.
Disappointingly, these have not changed or been added to since the launch of Plus in July.
The list are:
- Patch – 15% off orders of plants and plant pots of over £50
- Hello Fresh – £15 off each of your first 4 recipe boxes for new customers
- Naked Wines – £24.99 for 6 bottles of wine, with free delivery for new subscription customers
- Babylon Health – 20% off an annual virtual GP subscription
- Fiit – 25% off one home workout membership
- Busuu – 50% off paid memberships of a year or more
These offers are not very good for a premium bank account. For example, Hello Fresh has an offer through Save the Student (available here) in which you can get the same offer as Monzo as well as a £10 gift card!
In addition, the 25% Fiit discount is also available with code SEPT2025 or 50% off through Unidays if you are a student.
Similarly, the Naked Wines discount is similar to what is very regularly available from the retailer.
However, the Busuu and Babylon Health offers do seem good and I could not find better online.
Credit Tracker
The credit tracker for Monzo Plus is nicely done, however offers nothing new on the free products already available, and indeed is far more basic than most of these.
It only checks from Transunion, which is disappointing, I hope future updates will bring at least one more credit agency to the feature.
In addition, the in app checker does not have any option to view all the details which are helpful, such as list of the accounts or balances.
Instead, I would suggest that you use Credit Karma to check your Transunion credit report for free, with far more detail than Monzo and the option of easy use mobile apps.
Advanced Roundups
Roundups are the ability to round your card transactions above £1 to the nearest pound and put the change in a pot (a Monzo savings account).
Monzo Plus has added to this feature by allowing for roundups to be multiplied by 2, 5, or 10. E.g. a £1.80 transaction could be rounded to 20p and then multiplied by 2 so 40p would be saved.
This feature adds minimal value to me, and unfortunately for Monzo, Starling offers the exact same feature to everyone, for free.
Account Aggregation
Monzo Plus also allows you to add your bank accounts, saving accounts and credit cards from: American Express, Bank of Scotland, Barclaycard, Barclays, Capital One, First Direct, HSBC, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, MBNA, NatWest, Nationwide, RBS and Santander.
Currently, only transactions and the amount that they are for are shown in the app. As well as the account balance.
Unfortunately there is no merchant enrichment or anything to pretty up the transaction list.
However, a nice feature is the Add Money button on current accounts, which allows you to quickly add money to your Monzo account from the selected account.
This does require authenticating with your other bank, although is still a little faster than having to switch apps manually and pay your Monzo account through a manual faster payment.
Overall, the feature in its current state feels nice to have, but not something really useful enough to contribute much value to the paid package.
Virtual Cards
The virtual cards feature allows you to generate card numbers in app, which are linked to your Monzo account.
You can create up to 5 of these at a time, and there is a total limit of 100.
This feature is useful, I had mine setup for One Off Purchases, Subscriptions and one for my Curve Card (review).
However, virtual cards are a bit limited, as unlike the physical Monzo card, they can’t be frozen.
This would be an excellent feature, as you could ensure that only transactions you make online are charged to your account.
In its current form, I’m not sure it is much more useful than simply using a physical cards number online.
Custom Categories
Custom categories are a welcome addition to Monzo, with this being one of their most requested features for years on the Monzo Community.
These are implemented excellently, with a choice of custom colours, and icons to represent almost anything you could spend on.
You can even divide a transaction into multiple categories. For example, if you’re tracking your alcohol spend, but got some pizza and a cocktail at Wetherspoons, you can split your £13.50 bill into £7 on eating out and £6.50 on alcohol.
This is one of my favourite features of Monzo Plus, as it allows you to monitor your spending in a way that is far more personalised.
1% Interest
Monzo Plus gives you 1.00% AER/Gross (variable) interest on your account balance and regular pots, up to £2,000.
The interest is then paid into your account balance at the end of each month, and Monzo have a nice summary screen to show this.
This is a nice addition to Plus, and does have some value if you usually hold large amounts of cash in your current account.
Auto-export Transactions
This feature instantly updates a Google Sheet of your choice with your Monzo transactions as they happen.
It includes a lot of details about each transaction, meaning that you could create some detailed dashboards of your spending.
This is one of the most polished parts of the Plus experience, and if you are highly into data and analysis, then it may make the £5pm charge worth it alone.
1 Free Cash Deposit Monthly
Monzo usually charges £1 per cash deposit in PayPoints, so this is a saving of £1pm if you use this feature monthly.
However, if you were to do this then you would likely be better off using an account which allows you to do this for free at a Post Office, such as Starling or almost any other bank.
There are 28,000 PayPoints across the UK though, so the Monzo approach may still be more convenient for some.
Higher Fee-free Cash Withdrawals Abroad
The Monzo Plus account also doubles the fee free cash withdrawals abroad from £200 to £400 monthly.
This is a welcome addition, although unfortunately is beaten by a number of banks and finance providers, such as Starling or Dozens who both offer unlimited free cash withdrawals abroad.
The Holographic Card
Finally, the holographic card, is exclusive for Monzo Plus customers.
This is a nice looking card, and does feel a bit more premium than the standard card.
But Plus is advertised as “putting money in your hands”, paying for a premium card seems a bit against this to me, so I’m not sure this can be considered much added value.
So, is Monzo Plus worth it?
No, I am not sure who Monzo is targeting with their Plus account.
Too many of the features feel half done, such as the credit tracker which is too simplistic to be useful, and the account aggregation, which is done so much better on free apps.
I believe that Monzo Plus should really have been branded as Monzo Fan Edition as it feels as though you have to be very committed to wanting to do everything in your financial life on the Monzo app to want Plus.
There is also no joint account support for Monzo Plus, which is disappointing and likely will impact its mass appeal.
I would be onboard with this myself, if there were better executions of some of the features, so that they were (at least) on par with the free alternatives.
I do look forward to seeing how Monzo Plus progresses, and how it links to the rumoured Monzo Premium account. However, for now I do not think the service is worth it at £60 per year.