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Are you looking for a good money app and debit card for your kids?
Which one is the best, Greenlight, FamZoo, GoHenry or BusyKid?
Greenlight Vs FamZoo
So, what is the difference between Greenlight and FamZoo?
Greenlight is a financial technology company that facilitates banking services through Community Federal Savings Bank.
Your Greenlight debit card is issued by Community Federal Savings Bank (which is a member of FDIC) and supported by Mastercard.
Every Greenlight account is FDIC-insured up to $250,000.
On the other hand, FamZoo is a virtual family “banking” software designed to help you teach your kids to earn, save, spend, and give money wisely.
You can manage your kids’ funds in either IOU accounts, or prepaid card accounts (subject to eligibility), or a combination of the two.
IOU accounts are a good option for tracking kids’ spending, savings and rewards if your kids are not ready to use cards.
So, how does FamZoo work?
After opening account, your kids can sign in separately to monitor their own spending, while you control through a shared online dashboard.
Below is a screenshot of the online dashboard.
As you can see, you can easily track everything in one place.
Here is what FamZoo can help you save time and teach your kids about finance:
- Instant/Scheduled money transfer to your kids
- Alerts on all your kids’ transactions
- Lock/Unlock card
- Automate and track requests for money with a text-message based approval process
- Automate and track reimbursement of family expenses with a text-message based approval process
- Set savings goals, make savings projections, and track progress
- Parent-paid interest
- Schedule chores and odd jobs tied to rewards or penalties
- Schedule automated debits to charge kids for their share of recurring family expenses
- Track the repayment of money loaned to kids with a parent-defined loan interest rate
What about FamZoo prepaid cards?
FamZoo prepaid cards are MasterCard reloadable card offering designed specifically for families.
It’s linked together and accessed online through FamZoo’s Virtual Family Bank software.
The parent card serves as the automated funding source for allowance, chores, odd jobs, ad-hoc transfers, reimbursements, interest payments and etc.
Lastly, there is also FamZoo App to give you an easy access to accounts, transactions, money requests, reimbursements, and checklists.
Now, how does FamZoo compare with Greenlight?
With Greenlight, everything is done through its Greenlight App where kids and parents have their separate login.
Its Greenlight app interface is also much more intuitive, easy to use and feature-rich.
With the Greenlight app and debit card, kids can earn money through chores, set savings goals, spend wisely and invest.
As a parent, you can set flexible controls and get real-time notifications every time their kids spend money.
So, where can you use Greenlight Debit Cards?
Your kids can use it (online and offline) anywhere Mastercard is accepted.
Is it safe for kids to use debit cards?
There is no need to worry about this because you are covered by Mastercard’s Zero Liability Protection and your kids’ debit cards are FDIC-insured up to $250,000.
What if they lose it?
You can go to the Greenlight app, report the loss of the card and order a replacement card to be mailed to you.
Once you have done that, the debit card will be automatically turned off right away and become unusable.
If you are worried about irresponsible spending, you can set the spending limit on each category such as grocery, ATM, gas stations and restaurant.
In fact, you can even limit the Greenlight debit card use to certain stores such Amazon and Target.
If you want to turn the card off, you can also do that easily via the app.
Here is another amazing feature of Greenlight app.
You can use Greenlight app to track and manage chores and rewards for your kids.
For example, you can set up recurring chores such as making bed every day or one-time chore such as wash the car.
Lastly, if you want to teach your kids about investing, Greenlight can help your kids research, explore and learn about the world of investing.
There are more than 4,000 stocks and ETFs for you and your kids to research together in the Greenlight app.
You approve every trade from your app.
Moreover, your kids can start buying fractional shares from as little as $1!
So, which is better, Greenlight or FamZoo?
Personally, I prefer Greenlight because its app has so many more powerful features and it’s very user-friendly.
It’s very convenient and time-saving.
On the other hand, with FamZoo, you need to log in to its website to access the dashboard and manage all the settings and you can only use the FamZoo app for limited functions.
For me, I would prefer to do everything from just one place.
Pricing wise, FamZoo has four different pricing plans:
- Monthly: $5.99 (automatically renew)
- 6-Month: $4.33/month
- 12-Month: $3.33/month
- 24-Month: $2.5/month
On the other hand, Greenlight has 3 pricing options:
- Greenlight: $4.99/month
- Greenlight + Invest: $7.98/month
- Greenlight Max: $9.98/month
On top of that, there is no hidden fees:
- No ATM fees
- No overdraft fees
- No minimum spend
- No trading fees
- No commission
Yes, Greenlight is very transparent about this.
There is just one flat monthly fee.
For the basic Greenlight plan, the pricing is quite affordable.
It gives you debit card up to 5 kids and 2 adults.
You also have all the easy-to-use tools for saving, spending, earning and giving, all the parental control features and 1% Greenlight savings reward.
With Greenlight +Invest, your kid can learn how to invest and actually start investing from young with parental approval.
On top of that, you can also use your Greenlight app to invest for your kids’ futures (e.g. college, first car, etc )with as little as $1 and take out your investments whenever you’d like and use them however you’d like.
Now, what is Greenlight Max?
Greenlight Max offers you everything that is included in Greenlight+Invest plus more:
- 2% savings rewards every month
- 1% cash back on your monthly purchases
- Greenlight Black Card
- Priority customer support
- Identity theft protection
- Cellphone protection
- Purchase protection
If you would like your kids to learn about investing from young, then Greenlight would be the better choice because FamZoo does not offer investing for kids.
But if you are just looking for a money app and debit card for kids to teach them about saving, spending, earning and giving, then both Greenlight and FamZoo can do the job.
FamZoo might be slightly cheaper than Greenlight if you go for the 6-month or 12-month plans.
Personally, I would still go for Greenlight because it is more user friendly and saves me a lot of time and trouble.
Try Greenlight Debit Card For One Month Free Now
Greenlight Vs GoHenry
So, what is the difference between Greenlight and GoHenry?
Which is better for you and your kids, Greenlight or GoHenry?
Greenlight is a fintech company based in US while GoHenry was started in UK and now offer its services in the USA.
With GoHenry, you and your kids can do a lot of things through its app and prepaid debit card such as:
- Easily set up weekly transfers
- Set savings goals and plan together for future purchases
- Set tasks and kids get paid when it’s done
- Instantly send money to your child
- Get updates whenever your child uses their card, and an alert if it’s ever declined
- Easily monitor spending, track purchases and get notified when kids use their card
- Decide where and how much kids can spend
- With Giftlinks, family & friends can send money straight to your child’s GoHenry card
- Teens with jobs can get their paychecks straight to their GoHenry account using Direct Deposit
- Easy to send & receive payments between GoHenry accounts in the app
- Lock/Unlock the card via app
Below is the screenshot of parent’s and kid’s app dashboard.
Basically, both Greenlight and GoHenry allow you to monitor and track your kids’ spending, transfer money to your kids and set limits on purchases.
Both also help your kids track their spending, set savings goals and earn money from doing chores.
However, there are a few differences.
Greenlight allows you to set limit on specific categories and even specific in-store purchases.
On the other hand, GoHenry only allows you to set limits on more broad areas such as online and ATM.
Another difference is that Greenlight has the option of teaching your kids to learn about investing from young while you don’t have this option with GoHenry.
Also, I feel the Greenlight app interface design is much better and more user friendly than GoHenry app.
In terms of debit card customisation, Greenlight allows your kids to upload any selfie for the card design while GoHenry does not have this.
Lastly, let’s compare the pricing plans of Greenlight and GoHenry.
GoHenry has a flat fee of $3.99 per child account.
On the other hand, Greenlight costs $4.99/month for up to 5 kids and 2 adults.
So, if you have two kids or more, it is much cheaper to go with Greenlight.
On top of that, Greenlight has no ATM fees while GoHenry charges ATM fees.
All in all, it’s very obvious that Greenlight is a better choice than GoHenry.
Try Greenlight Debit Card For One Month Free Now
Greenlight Vs BusyKid
Lastly, let’s compare Greenlight with BusyKid.
Both Greenlight and BusyKid offer money apps and debit card for kids.
So, what is the key difference between them?
Which is a better choice for your family?
Let’s first take a look at BusyKid app.
BusyKid app is easy to use and allows you to do the following:
- Set “Auto-Allowance” for your child to be paid every Friday or twice a month (1st & 15th) with no chores required
- Parents control how much allowance goes into the Save, Share and Spend areas
- Parents send cash reward to kids
- Parent approval for any money moving outside the system for cash, donations or shopping on a BusyKid Spend Card
- Kids can donate to various charities through the app with parental approval
- Kids can earn money by doing chores
- Kids can invest their savings in stocks via the app with parental approval
- Get access to an instant detailed history of all chores, paydays and transactions
- Help your child grow savings faster by matching what is saved each week
- Funds inside the BusyKid app are FDIC insured
- You are protected with Visa ® Zero Liability Policy
Below is the screenshots of the BusyKid app interface.
Both Greenlight app and BusyKid app allow your kids to save, earn, donate and invest.
However, there are a few differences.
Greenlight doesn’t charge any ATM fees and also it’s zero commission for investing in stocks.
On the other hand, there is a $1.50 fee to use any ATM for BusyKid.
Buying stocks through BusyKid is free, but there is a small fee for selling stocks through BusyKid’s partner Stockpile.
Another difference is that it’s very easy for family or friends to instantly send money to a child’s BusyKid account.
You simply share the QR code and the money rolls in.
For Greenlight, parents can send money to their kids, but there is yet an option for other people to transfer money to a child’s Greenlight account.
Now, what about Greenlight debit card and BusyKid prepaid card?
Greenlight debit card allows your kids to spend anywhere Mastercard is accepted while The BusyKid Visa Prepaid Spend Card gives anyone the freedom to spend anywhere Visa is accepted.
Both allow you to track the card spending inside the app.
Also, both Greenlight and BusyKid include debit cards for up to 5 kids in their subscription plans.
The only difference is that Greenlight gives you the option of personalising your debit card design with an upload of any selfie photo while BusyKid does not have this cool choice.
Pricing wise, BusyKid charges a monthly fee of $3.99/month.
On the other hand, Greenlight has 3 pricing options:
- Greenlight: $4.99/month
- Greenlight + Invest: $7.98/month
- Greenlight Max: $9.98/month
Greenlight might look slightly more expensive than BusyKid, but there are no other hidden fees such as ATM fees.
If your kids need to withdraw cash from ATM at least once a month, then it would make sense to go for Greenlight instead of BusyKid.
Plus, there is also 1% saving reward for your kids.
If you are thinking about teaching your kids how to invest from young, Greenlight+Invest is also a better choice because it provides valuable investing education resources as well as zero trading fees.
Personally, I also like Greenlight more because it gives me a better user experience and it’s super easy to use.
Try Greenlight Debit Card For One Month Free Now
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