11 financial experts reveal their favorite money apps

Acorns is my favorite money app, because it makes it simple and cheap to make small investments. It's a great "muscle builder" for creating a habit of putting away money.

Since my wife and I started using it, we've seen a total gain over around 12%. There is no excuse not to start when you can invest just $5 to get started.

— Lance Beaudry, blogger at Budget Ninja Blog

These days, fewer people carry cash, including me. Whether I owe someone money or they owe me, I find money transfer apps to be incredibly helpful. For instance, Zelle makes it fast, safe, and easy to send money from one bank account in the U.S. to another, typically within minutes when both parties are enrolled.

This is so much more convenient than trying to find an ATM (and potentially paying ATM fees), or mailing a check. You can also request money from people, taking the awkward moment out of asking someone to pay you back.

— Andrea Woroch, consumer expert

My favorite money-saving app is Qapital. I love it because it automates saving money for me. I set it up to round my purchases to the next dollar and then it transfers the money to a savings account.

I forget it is saving me money, and then when I log into my account, I am amazed at how much I saved. It makes saving money effortless: You spend five minutes setting it up, and it does all the work.

— Jon Dulin, personal finance writer and owner of CompoundingPennies

One of my favorite money apps is Betterment, which allows you to see a full picture of your finances. It allows you to link your financial accounts, including bank accounts, as well as loans and liabilities, so you can calculate your net worth in real time, and track your saving progress.

The app also uses its proprietary investing algorithm to put your money to use, investing in stocks, bonds, and other securities automatically, if you so choose. This "roboadvisor" will rebalance your portfolio automatically, and makes sophisticated investing accessible even for people with little financial experience.

— Logan Abbott, president of Wirefly, a cell phone plan and smartphone comparison site

I love the Rize app, because it makes saving money effortless. You can create multiple savings goals and set aside a specified amount toward your goals each week. Rize also lets you ease into saving by increasing your rate 1% every month — this gradual process helps you save more money without even realizing it.

And of course, you can also make one-time savings contributions whenever you have extra funds left over. It may not seem like much at first, but $2 here and $5 there starts to add up. Most people don't realize they have extra money they could be saving.

I started playing with this app as an experiment, and a month and a half later, I realized I had over $150 in my Rize savings. Clearly, I'd been missing out on some opportunities to save.

— Megan Robinson, business and personal finance writer at DollarSprout

TransferWise is my go-to app for sending and receiving money abroad. Their fees are much lower than most banks, and they exchange currencies at the real-time rate or "Google rate," which is the best rate you can get.

— Chad Tennant, financial blogger and author

My favorite money app is YNAB (You Need A Budget), which is an online tool that I recommend to my clients. It's not just software, it's also an overall system to proactively help track spending and help clients get to where they want to be at the end of the month (instead of me telling them where they overspent). It also works well for couples who wish to coordinate spending.

— Micah Porter, president and CEO of Minerva Planning Group

Digit is a great tool when saving for a trip or something fun that's a few months out — you will surprise yourself with how much you can save in small increments.

You can still go out to dinner and enjoy life, but maybe just remind yourself that the $10 movie popcorn or $8 dessert when at dinner would feel better in your bank account instead of in your belly.

— Krista Neeley, managing vice president of Appreciation Financial, a retirement services company

My favorite money app is Robinhood. I like it because there is no account minimum to start investing, nor are there any transaction fees. Removing these fees is revolutionary, empowering lower-income folks to use the incredible wealth-building tool that is the stock market.

— Fareed Raja, director of digital marketing at Jack Welch Management Institute

My favorite app for saving money is definitely Simple. Out of all the apps that I have tried, it is the easiest to create savings goals and stick to them. Simple automatically takes money out of your "safe to spend" (the amount that you can spend while still reaching your goals) to keep you on track for whatever you are saving for.

If you have a significant other, you can even start a shared account and have shared savings goals for things like large purchases or vacations. I set up auto withdrawals to my Simple account — it puts everything in the buckets for me automatically, and I never have to worry about if I’m saving enough or not.

— Austin Grandt, founder at Financial Toolbelt