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  • Strategist
  • Spender
  • Saver
  • Scrambler

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Priceless Tay
Find My Money Type

AI money tools comparison

Acorns vs Actual Budget

Updated

Acorns logoAcornsInvesting app
Actual Budget logoActual BudgetAI money tool

Priceless Tay may earn a commission from some links on this page, and that never changes how we compare apps.

Full disclosure: Taylor Price, who runs Priceless Tay, owns Fifecta, so keep that in mind as you read this comparison.

Short answer

Acorns is an investing app and Actual Budget is an AI money tool. Acorns has three monthly plans: Bronze at $4 a month, Silver at $8 a month, and Gold at $12 a month. We checked Acorns on Oct 24, 2026, but we haven't verified the price for Actual Budget yet, and the table below shows every fact with its source.

Acorns vs Actual Budget at a glance

Acorns is an investing app and Actual Budget is an AI money tool. This page puts what each company's official pages and app store listings say side by side, with the date we checked every fact. The table below has 9 rows, and any row we couldn't verify says so.

Price and fees

Acorns has three monthly plans: Bronze at $4 a month, Silver at $8 a month, and Gold at $12 a month. We haven't verified this for Actual Budget yet, so check the official site for Actual Budget before you decide. We checked Acorns on Oct 24, 2026.

APY or rate

Acorns lists a 3.59% APY on Emergency Savings and a 2.33% APY on Mighty Oak Checking, stated as of Sep 22, 2026. Acorns says the rate is variable. Acorns says there is no minimum opening deposit or minimum balance for these accounts. We haven't verified this for Actual Budget yet, so check the official site for Actual Budget before you decide. We checked Acorns on Oct 24, 2026.

Protection

Brokerage products come from Acorns Securities, a member of FINRA and SIPC. Acorns Checking balances are FDIC insured up to $250,000 per depositor through the partner banks. We haven't verified this for Actual Budget yet, so check the official site for Actual Budget before you decide. We checked Acorns on Oct 24, 2026.

Bank syncing

Actual has built-in bank syncing through goCardless in the EU and UK and SimpleFIN in the US and Canada. We haven't verified this for Acorns yet, so check the official site for Acorns before you decide. We checked Actual Budget on Oct 24, 2026.

App store rating

Acorns has 4.7 out of 5 on the App Store from 959,943 ratings. We haven't verified this for Actual Budget yet, so check the official site for Actual Budget before you decide. We checked Acorns on Oct 24, 2026. Store ratings are a dated snapshot from each listing, not our score.

Acorns and Actual Budget, side by side

Rows marked “Differs” are where the two official sources say different things.

Swipe the table sideways to see both apps.

Acorns compared with Actual Budget. Each cell shows the date it was checked and links to its source.
FieldAcorns logoAcornsInvesting appAcorns is an automated investing app that bundles investing, retirement and banking tools into monthly subscription plans.Visit Acorns's siteActual Budget logoActual BudgetAI money toolActual Budget is an open source, local-first budgeting app built on envelope budgeting that you can self-host.Visit Actual Budget's site
Price and feesAcorns has three monthly plans: Bronze at $4 a month, Silver at $8 a month, and Gold at $12 a month.As of Oct 24, 2026. Source: acorns.com/pricingNot verified yet.
Free trialNot verified yet.Not verified yet.
APY or rateAcorns lists a 3.59% APY on Emergency Savings and a 2.33% APY on Mighty Oak Checking, stated as of Sep 22, 2026. The rate is variable.Acorns says there is no minimum opening deposit or minimum balance for these accounts.As of Oct 24, 2026. Source: acorns.com/pricingNot verified yet.
Opening and balance minimumsNot verified yet.Not verified yet.
ProtectionBrokerage products come from Acorns Securities, a member of FINRA and SIPC. Acorns Checking balances are FDIC insured up to $250,000 per depositor through the partner banks.As of Oct 24, 2026. Source: acorns.com/pricingNot verified yet.
PlatformsNot verified yet.Not verified yet.
Bank syncingNot verified yet.Yes. Actual has built-in bank syncing through goCardless in the EU and UK and SimpleFIN in the US and Canada.As of Oct 24, 2026. Source: actualbudget.org
FeaturesNot verified yet.Not verified yet.
App store ratingAcorns has 4.7 out of 5 on the App Store from 959,943 ratings.As of Oct 24, 2026. Source: App Store listingNot verified yet.

App store ratings are a dated snapshot from each store listing, not our score. “Not verified yet” means we don't have a current official source for that line. Spotted a change? Tell us if something changed.

What the app looks like

Acorns

  • Acorns App Store screenshot 1 of 4, as of Oct 24, 2026
  • Acorns App Store screenshot 2 of 4, as of Oct 24, 2026
  • Acorns App Store screenshot 3 of 4, as of Oct 24, 2026
  • Acorns App Store screenshot 4 of 4, as of Oct 24, 2026
Screenshots: Acorns on the App Store, as of Oct 24, 2026.

Which fits your Money Type?

There are four Money Types: Strategist, Spender, Saver and Scrambler. Each card matches one type to what the sources say about these two apps.

  • Strategist

    Neither app's sources confirm a feature we match to this type yet, so the quiz is the better place to start.

    First fix: Save the Raise.

  • Spender

    Neither app's sources confirm a feature we match to this type yet, so the quiz is the better place to start.

    First fix: Sleep on It.

  • Saver

    Acorns lists an APY on deposits. That fits a Saver, whose first fix is putting saved money to work.

    First fix: Put It to Work.

  • Scrambler

    Actual Budget lists bank syncing. Seeing every account in one place helps a Scrambler pay bills first.

    First fix: Bills First.

Not sure which one you are? Take the free Money Types quiz. It takes about two minutes.

Full disclosure: Taylor Price, who runs Priceless Tay, owns Fifecta, so keep that in mind as you read this comparison.

Another option: Fifecta

If neither Acorns nor Actual Budget feels right, here is one more option to look at. Fifecta gives every paycheck a plan with FUNDS, and it starts from your Money Type, so the plan matches how you already handle money.

Try Fifecta free

What real users say

These are other people's opinions, not Priceless Tay's. We quote public reviews and posts word for word, link each one and show its date, but we haven't checked the claims in them. A post counts toward a theme when it uses one of that theme's keywords, so a mention can be praise or a complaint.

What Acorns users say

Based on 500 App Store reviews, 3 Reddit posts and 1 YouTube video dated Nov 2025 to Oct 2026, read Oct 2026. We collected the Reddit and YouTube data with Apify, a scraping service, on Oct 24, 2026.

  • Of the 504 reviews, posts and videos we read, 78 mention the price, fees or the subscription.
  • Of the 504 reviews, posts and videos we read, 75 mention how easy or hard the app is to use.
  • Of the 504 reviews, posts and videos we read, 52 mention deposits, transfers or getting paid.

Positive

“Great investing app for beginners. Acorns makes saving and investing simple with automatic deposits and round-ups.”
App Store reviewer on the App Store, . See the App Store reviews. Apple doesn't give single reviews their own link, so this opens the app's reviews.

Positive

“Acorns. I love that app. I have it set to like $20 a week and then 3x round up...”
u/Yikes_big_oof in r/budget on Reddit, . Read it on Reddit.

Critical

“This place just kept charging me a monthly fee even though the account had been closed.”
App Store reviewer on the App Store, . See the App Store reviews. Apple doesn't give single reviews their own link, so this opens the app's reviews.
Where these come from
  • Acorns reviews on the App Store, read Oct 24, 2026. The public feed returns the 500 most recent US reviews. We kept every one dated inside the window.
  • Hacker News search for Acorns, read Oct 24, 2026. Public search of comments and posts. 5 named the app; we kept 0 where the writer shares their own use of it.
  • Reddit search for Acorns, collected Oct 24, 2026. Collected with Apify (harshmaur/reddit-scraper) on Oct 24 2026: a keyword search for "Acorns app", posts and comments from after Oct 24 2025. It returned 84, most of them about something else. We kept 3 where the writer shares their own use of the app or a clear opinion of it. We left out moderators, bots, company accounts, referral posts and people promoting their own apps.
  • YouTube search for Acorns, collected Oct 24, 2026. Collected with Apify (streamers/youtube-scraper) on Oct 24 2026: a search for "Acorns app review" from the past year, up to 8 videos. It returned 7. We kept 1 and left out the app's own channel, sponsored videos, videos with affiliate or referral links and videos about a different product. We count themes from each video's title, description and captions, but we don't quote videos, because the captions we have carry no timestamps.
  • u/Yikes_big_oof in r/budget on Reddit, Oct 23, 2026.
  • u/LewisRyan in r/acorns on Reddit, Oct 21, 2026.
  • u/DAT4korrupt in r/povertyfinance on Reddit, Oct 12, 2026.
  • "I'm Leaving Acorns Investing..." by Keep Going on YouTube, Nov 12, 2025.

What Actual Budget users say

Based on 3 Reddit posts, 7 YouTube videos and 24 Hacker News posts dated Nov 2025 to Oct 2026, read Oct 2026. We collected the Reddit and YouTube data with Apify, a scraping service, on Oct 24, 2026.

  • Of the 34 posts and videos we read, 11 mention syncing or connecting accounts.
  • Of the 34 posts and videos we read, 7 mention the price, fees or the subscription.
  • Of the 34 posts and videos we read, 7 mention how easy or hard the app is to use.

Positive

“Actual Budget is incredible. Happy (now free since it's gone FOSS, formerly paying) customer...”
pcchristie on Hacker News, . Read it on Hacker News.

Mixed

“Switched from ynab4 (used some version since 2011) to Actual Budget a few month ago. Some tiny ux issues, but improvement in many more areas.”
Semaphor on Hacker News, . Read it on Hacker News.

Critical

“Without rollover the app generates a balance that I never entered... an app that does not reflect my real-world balance.”
u/teink0 in r/actualbudgeting on Reddit, . Read it on Reddit.
Where these come from

FAQ

How much does Acorns cost?

Acorns has three monthly plans: Bronze at $4 a month, Silver at $8 a month, and Gold at $12 a month. We checked this on Oct 24, 2026.

What APY does Acorns list?

Acorns lists a 3.59% APY on Emergency Savings and a 2.33% APY on Mighty Oak Checking, stated as of Sep 22, 2026. Acorns says the rate is variable. Acorns says there is no minimum opening deposit or minimum balance for these accounts. We checked this on Oct 24, 2026.

What is Acorns's app store rating?

Acorns has 4.7 out of 5 on the App Store from 959,943 ratings. That's a snapshot from the store listing on Oct 24, 2026, not our score.

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Keep comparing

Full disclosure: Taylor Price, who runs Priceless Tay, owns Fifecta, so keep that in mind as you read this comparison.

Want a plan built on your Money Type?

Fifecta gives every paycheck a plan with FUNDS, so you know where each dollar goes.

Try Fifecta free
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Sources and dates

This is education, not financial advice.