Monese Review UK: Is the £0 Plan Worth It Once You Count the Fees?

Monese is an e-money account with a Mastercard debit card, run from an app. It is not a bank. Monese Ltd (company 08720992, London) is authorised by the FCA as an electronic money institution (firm reference 900960), and it launched in 2015 for people the banks turn away, such as newcomers without a UK credit history.

Your money is safeguarded: Monese must keep it separate from its own funds, in an account at an authorised bank or covered by insurance. That is not the same as deposit protection. Monese's terms say the account is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), that money could take longer to come back if Monese failed, and that the insolvency practitioner can deduct their costs, so you might get back less than your full balance. The terms also say the law doesn't let Monese pay interest.

Since December 2024 Companies House has listed Pockit Limited, another UK fintech for people underserved by banks, as owning 75% or more of Monese Ltd. Pockit announced the deal in October 2024, subject to FCA approval.

Pay As You Go has no monthly fee, but nearly everything costs something: £0.99 for each bank transfer in, £1.29 for each transfer out, 2% to top up from a debit card and 3% on card spending in a foreign currency. Card spending in pounds, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Direct Debits are free.

Everyday (£2.95 a month or £29.95 a year) makes transfers in free, gives two free UK transfers out a month (then £1 each) and cuts foreign card spending to 2%. After your first monthly fee, Monese doesn't charge the monthly fee in a month when your account is empty.

Cashback (£7.95 a month or £79.95 a year) pays 0.5% on up to £500 of purchases per monthly cycle, so at most £2.50 a month, with some merchants excluded. That is under a third of the fee; what you are really buying is 10 free transfers out, 0.5% on foreign spending, and £300 of free ATM withdrawals and £100 of free cash top-ups a month.

Premium (£14.95 a month or £124.95 a year) removes the foreign card fee and the fee for sending money abroad, makes debit-card top-ups free, and includes 200 transfers out, £1,500 of ATM withdrawals and £1,000 of cash top-ups a month, plus priority support. You pay one plan fee however many Monese currency accounts you hold.

You get UK account details, so wages and benefits can be paid straight in by bank transfer (£0.99 each on Pay As You Go). You can also top up from a debit card (2% on Pay As You Go, 1% on Everyday and Cashback, free on Premium), or pay cash in at the Post Office or PayPoint for 3.5% (£3 minimum) unless your plan includes a cash allowance. Monese doesn't take cheques.

Spending in pounds by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay is free on every plan, and so are Direct Debits and instant transfers to other Monese customers. Cash machines cost 2% per withdrawal on Pay As You Go and Everyday, and the pricing page adds another 2% when the withdrawal is in a foreign currency.

The limits on a GBP account: a maximum balance of £40,000, card payments of up to £4,000 each and £7,000 a day, £300 a day from cash machines, and Post Office cash top-ups of £250 per transaction and £500 a day. Debit-card top-ups start at £10, with at most £3,000 and 10 top-ups a month.

Alongside the GBP account you can hold EUR and RON accounts in the app. Converting money between Monese currency accounts costs 1% on Pay As You Go, 0.5% on Everyday and Cashback and nothing on Premium.

Here is what the plan choice means in pounds. Spending the equivalent of £500 abroad by card costs £15 on Pay As You Go, £10 on Everyday, £2.50 on Cashback and nothing on Premium. Sending £1,000 abroad costs at least £20 on Pay As You Go or Everyday, as the fee starts from 2%, and at least £30 between Friday 4pm and Monday 6am GMT. On Cashback it starts from £5, and on Premium Monese converts at the wholesale rate with no fee. The app shows the exact fee before you confirm.

Monese's optional service for receiving payments from abroad costs £10 a year plus 2% per payment (£3 minimum) on Pay As You Go and Everyday. On Cashback and Premium there's no yearly fee and the charge is 1.5% or 1%.

Monese's home page still says spending abroad and Faster Payments come with no fees. The UK fee schedule says otherwise; go by the schedule.

Pots let you set money aside, with an optional round-up on purchases, but they earn no interest. A joint account with another Monese customer has no monthly fee and its own fee list, including free debit-card top-ups and 50 free UK transfers out a month.

Cash Advance is credit from Steadypay (FCA firm reference 789333), offered in the Monese app. To qualify you need at least £300 a month of salary or benefits paid into Monese for three months, regular use of the account and Steadypay's suitability checks. The fee is £4.99 for £50, £9.99 for £100 or £19.99 for £200, with representative APRs of 9.98%, 9.99% and 47.2%. A missed repayment can be reported to the credit reference agencies.

Monese's invite page says you and the person who invited you each get £5 once you have ordered the physical card and made your first card transaction, and £5 each again once you have spent £500. The referral terms set out the stages in more detail. Stage 1: receive and activate the physical card, then make one card payment of any amount; the terms say the virtual card counts for that payment. Stage 2: spend the amount shown in the app, currently £500, on card purchases. Payments to other financial products, such as credit card bills or PayPal, don't count towards either stage.

Transfers abroad count towards the £500, but the two pages disagree on which: the invite page says money sent outside the EU/EEA, while the terms count transfers to non-Monese accounts in any currency except GBP, EUR or RON. Card spending in pounds is the simpler route. Stage 2 comes after stage 1, so to be safe, count your £500 from after the first payment.

You have one year from opening the account to complete both stages. Each £5 is paid into your Monese account once the transaction settles, which can take up to 72 hours. The amount is whatever the app shows on the day you qualify, and Monese can change or end the programme without notice; the page only says it runs for a limited time. The terms describe the bonus paid to the person who invited you, so if your own £5 matters, check the app shows it before you order the card. You can't combine codes, the programme covers people living in the UK, Germany, Lithuania, Belgium and Italy, and you must be 18 or over.

Two more limits. Each invite pays for at most 15 invited people, and every sign-up uses one of the 15 places even if it never qualifies; after that Monese says no bonuses are paid. Our current invite is full and a new one is coming: the offer box on this page shows its status. Monese can also refuse anyone a place in the programme without giving reasons, and withhold or reverse bonuses where it suspects abuse or the commercial or paid promotion of codes.

Disclosure: the invite on this page is GetQuids' own, so we receive the inviter's £5 for each stage you complete.

The bonus is the only money Monese pays you, as there is no interest, so the question is how much of it the fees eat. We assumed a new Pay As You Go customer who adds money in a single bank transfer (£0.99) and spends only in pounds, which is free.

Stage 1 alone, adding £100: £5 minus £0.99 leaves about £4.01 if the card delivery is waived. Monese's pricing page says delivery is free with a £100 first deposit, but the fee schedule lists £4.95 and doesn't mention the waiver. If you are charged, stage 1 alone leaves you 94p down.

Both stages, adding enough in one transfer for the first payment plus £500 of spending you would make anyway: £10 minus £0.99 leaves about £9.01, or £4.06 if delivery is charged. Every £1.29 transfer out to empty the account, and any debit-card top-up at 2%, comes off that, so spend the balance down where you can.

Upgrading to Everyday for the bonus doesn't pay: the £2.95 monthly fee is more than you would save on a £0.99 transfer in and a £1.29 transfer out.

Card delivery: £4.95 for the first physical card and for a lost or stolen replacement (Premium gets one free replacement a year), or £25 for express delivery. Expired cards are replaced free.

Inactivity: on Pay As You Go, if no payment goes in or out for 12 months in a row, Monese charges £1 a month until the account is used again. An account you have stopped using quietly costs money, so close it instead.

Other charges: recalling a payment costs £20, and repaying a Cash Advance costs £1.29 a time on Pay As You Go. The fees above come from the UK personal fee schedule dated 2 March 2026, in force since 4 May 2026.

On 11 October 2026 the Monese app was rated 4.7 from 78,982 ratings on the UK App Store and 4.4 from 116,404 ratings on Google Play, where it was last updated on 19 September 2026. On Trustpilot it scored 4.3 from 54,472 reviews: 70% five-star and 16% one-star, with Monese replying to almost every negative review.

The low-rated reviews repeat a few themes: accounts or money frozen during compliance or ID re-checks, sometimes with requests to post original ID; support that leans on chatbots and template replies and is slow; the Pay As You Go fees for money in and out, which Monese confirmed in a Google Play reply in May 2026; inactivity fees that came as a surprise; card fees for cards that didn't work; delayed transfers; and trouble adding the card to Apple Pay.

You must be 18 or over and a UK resident, or have clear and demonstrable links to the UK, and you can only hold one Monese account (it can have several currencies). You apply in the app with an email address, a phone number, a driving licence or passport and a video selfie. There's no credit check, and you don't need proof of address or a fixed income.

To leave, close the account in the app; closing is free. Move or spend your balance first, remembering that each transfer out costs £1.29 on Pay As You Go. If money is left over, you can ask Monese for it for six years after closing, though it may charge a fee if you ask more than a year later. Annual plans renew automatically and can be refunded in full within 14 days of choosing or renewing them. Monese can close your account with 90 days' notice.

Complaints go through Monese first, which says it will reply within 15 days, or 35 in exceptional cases. After its final response you have six months to take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Consider it if you have just moved to the UK or can't pass a bank's checks yet and need account details for wages, if you add money in a few large transfers rather than many small ones, or if you want to pay in cash at the Post Office. The referral adds up to £10 if you were going to spend £500 by card anyway.

Skip it, or keep only a small balance, if you can open a bank account: at a bank such as Monzo or Starling, eligible deposits are covered by the FSCS. If spending or sending money abroad is what you need, compare Wise and Revolut first. And skip it if you receive lots of small payments, because on Pay As You Go each one costs 99p.