10 Best Banking Apps for Kids & Teens [Kid + Teen Banking]

Kids and teens these days are more savvy with technology than we ever were as children, so it’s not surprising that they are using banking apps. But how do you know if your child or teen is ready to handle their own banking? It can be hard to balance the teaching of responsibility with a desire for independence.

This article discusses banking apps for kids, teens and minors including some tips on what questions parents should ask themselves before letting their kids bank on their own.

Best Banking Apps for Kids & Teens—Top Picks

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What Are the Best Banking Apps for Minors?

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Have a look at the best banking apps to consider for kids and teens (minors interested in saving money and managing it with debit cards for kids or debit cards for teens).

 

1. Capital One MONEY (Best Free Teen Checking Account)

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• Available: Read our review and sign up
• Price: Free (no monthly fees)

Capital One MONEY Teen Checking is one of Young and the Invested’s top choices for parents who want to financially empower their kids at an early age. Yes, this free checking account is predominantly aimed at teenagers, but it’s actually available to kids as young as 8 years old.

This joint checking account offers flexibility for kids and a touch of tranquility for parents. Kids get a Mastercard debit card that they can use at millions of merchants across the U.S., as well as in roughly 210 countries and territories worldwide. Your teen also enjoys access to one of the largest fee-free ATM networks among kids debit cards—more than 70,000+ Capital One, MoneyPass, and AllPoint machines. They can also send and receive money via Zelle, receive direct deposits from employers, and even cash paper checks by snapping a couple photos within the highly rated Capital One app.

Parents, meanwhile, can also pay their kids a regular allowance, or make one-time payments as gifts or rewards. They also can monitor their teens’ transactions, lock and unlock their child’s card, and control their kid’s access to (and transfer limits within) Zelle.

To learn more about the account, read our Capital One MONEY Teen Checking review. Or you can sign up today by clicking “Get Started” above.

Related: 10 Best Money Apps for Teens [Invest, Spend, Budget + Pay]

2. Greenlight (Best Paid Debit Card for Kids and Teens)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: Core: $5.99/mo. Max: $9.98/mo. Infinity: $14.98/mo. (All plans include cards for up to 5 children)

The Greenlight debit card allows kids to begin spending, but provides parents with peace of mind by giving them control over where their kids can spend money. Parents also can choose to receive alerts that tell them when, and how much, money is spent on the Greenlight debit card.

Greenlight works like a prepaid debit card, allowing you to transfer money onto the card for your child to pay for expenses at approved locations. You can choose how much money to load onto the card, and your child will be cleared to make approved purchases so long as a money balance backs up the card.

If your child asks for extra money to get added to the card, you can have them take a photo of the purchase they want to make and receive your approval. This gives you control and allows you to have discussions with your child about why a purchase might be a good or bad idea.
And if your child has a job, they can add their own funds to the card as well.

Each monthly Greenlight subscription includes debit cards for up to five kids. Replacement cards cost $3.50 each but are free the first time. If you need to replace your card quickly, you can get express delivery for $24.99. The company also offers a personalized card, with your own photo or design, for $9.98 per year.

Greenlight boasts numerous other features, too. For instance, parents can open an investment account for kids to get their children investing in stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the first time.

Greenlight also offers monthly savings rewards based on your tier: 2% per annum for Core members, 3% per annum for Max, and 5% per annum for infinity. You may set up “Parent-Paid Interest” between you and your child. This allows you to foot the bill and pay interest on accounts for up to five kids.

The Greenlight debit card is a good choice for parents looking to teach their kids the importance of saving money and making prudent financial decisions. This financial product can be an effective learning tool for helping kids to understand why saving should be a priority and how to simplify paying an allowance or tracking chores.

Greenlight has no minimum age requirements but recommends starting at age 6 or older.

Read more in our Greenlight Card review or sign up today.

Related: 8 Best Allowance and Chore Apps for Kids [Easier Family Life]

3. Modak: Debit Card for Kids Without Monthly Subscription Fees

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: No monthly subscription fees*

Modak is a feature-rich debit card for kids that not only provides minors with a safe and secure way for minors to learn about financial management, but also plenty of motivation—in the form of rewards.

Kids get a Modak Debit Card—a physical Visa® debit card that they can use anywhere Visa® is accepted. They can use MoCard to make purchases at both brick-and-mortar and virtual vendors, and they can also add their card to the Apple Pay and Google Pay digital wallets. Spending is limited to whatever funds are in the account; if the account is shy, you won’t face an overdraft fee—the purchase simply won’t go through.

And there’s a wealth of options for getting money into a kid’s account. Modak allows parents to fund their kids’ accounts through bank accounts (ACH transfer), debit cards, and credit cards. However, kids can also receive funds through direct deposit if they have a job, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and even Mobucks (or MBX)¹—one of the app’s multiple rewards programs:

• MBX: This is an in-app reward system that can be redeemed for actual cash. Kids earn them by completing financial learning challenges, reading lessons, even walking 5,000 steps in a day².
• Scratch ’em All: Every purchase made with a MoCard unlocks a digital “scratch,” which when scratched reveals a number of rewards, from financial tips and small digital tokens, to MBX, to even AirPods³.
• Referral Program: You can earn $10 for every person you refer to the app, up to eight referrals⁴.

Kids can even create their own payment link, which they can then send to anyone who wants to fund their account. That not only works great for parents and friends who want to send money for Christmas, birthdays, and other occasions, but it’s also a way kids can get paid for their side hustles.

Meanwhile, parents will love safety and control features such as biometric security measures (fingerprint and facial recognition) for the app, the ability to lock and unlock the child’s card, and spend monitoring. They can also teach financial responsibility through allowance and chore features, as well as through personalized and trackable savings goals. And Modak is a rarity in that it offers 24/7 support (as well as Spanish-language support during business hours) via phone, chat, and email.

The app itself charges no monthly fees* and has no minimum deposit; however, Modak does charge a small fee for certain services, such as for loading a Modak card using a debit or credit card.

A parent can sign up to five children ages 17 and younger. To get started, sign up with Modak today.

Modak is a financial technology company and not a FDIC-insured bank. Checking account and the Modak Visa® debit card issued by Lewis & Clark Bank, Member FDIC.

Related: 10 Best Investing Apps for Teens

4. Acorns Early / GoHenry (Best for Customer Service)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: Acorns Early: $5/mo. for 1 child. $10/mo. for 2-4 children. Acorns Gold: $12/mo., includes Acorns Early for up to 4 children.

A longtime player in the kids’ debit card/financial app space has a new name and a new face: GoHenry, which was acquired in 2023 by Acorns, has officially become Acorns Early. 

Many reviewers have long painted Acorns Early/GoHenry as just a way to spend. However, I see it as a real financial solution for minors—a debit card, yes, but also an app-based ecosphere that provides education and experience for the child, as well as ways for parents to keep their kids safe and teach them responsibility.

When you open an Acorns Early account, each child receives an Acorns Early Mastercard debit card that can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted (so, millions of vendors), online, in stores, and even in ATMs. An Acorns Early account also allows kids to set savings goals, which they can fund manually or via autosave. And it also hosts educational materials to help children and teens alike develop good money habits.

This FDIC-insured account also enjoys a variety of safety features, including chip and PIN protection, secure PIN recovery, and Mastercard’s Zero Liability Protection, which means your child won’t be liable for fraudulent purchases as long as they take care in protecting your card from theft and you promptly report any fraudulent activity.

Acorns Early also offers parents additional peace of mind by providing a number of controls, including:

• Real-time spending notifications
• Card lock/unlock
• Savings goal lock/unlock
• Adjustable spending limits on a per-transaction and per-week basis
• Card category block/unblock for in-store purchases, online purchases, and ATM withdrawals
• Adjustable spending block/unblock at stores that sell age-restricted goods such as firearms and alcohol

Also, kids can only spend whatever money is available on the card because it’s a prepaid debit card. That means parents don’t have to worry about costly overdraft fees or their kids running up a debt.

Acorns Early doesn’t allow kids to invest. However, an Acorns Gold subscription comes with not only a free Acorns Early account for up to four children, but also the ability to open an Acorns Early Invest custodial account, which you can use to invest toward your kids’ future.

GoHenry really stuck out to us as one of the best prepaid debit cards for kids because of their outstanding customer service. Good news there: Acorns Early users should expect a similarly high level of customer support, including seven-day-a-week phone service from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT, as well as 24/7 live chat support.

Acorns Early has no minimum age requirements but recommends starting at age 6 or older. Sign up for an Acorns Early account or Acorns Gold to get started today, or read our Acorns Early review to learn more.

A note for current GoHenry users: For now, your app, features, and cards will continue to work as normal. However, if you want all of the latest features, you’ll need to download the Acorns Early app from the iOS App Store or Google Play.

Related: Acorns Early (Formerly GoHenry) vs. Greenlight

5. Copper Card (Best for Teen Independence)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: 30 days free. Copper $4.95/mo., Copper + Invest: $7.95/mo.

Copper Banking was founded on the belief that kids and teens should have equal access to financial education and should be empowered to learn by doing. Now, the company is on a mission to help children gain real-world experience by giving them access to their money in a way that traditional banks can’t.

The Copper app and debit card teaches your child how to make smart financial decisions by creating a platform where parents and their kids can connect. With the Copper app, you get easy snapshots of your accounts. And with the Copper Debit Card, it’s easy to shop in-store or online, including with Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Plus, users get exclusive access to engaging advice curated by a team of financial literacy experts who provide tips on how to take control of their financial future.

The basic Copper account includes the above banking features. With Copper + Invest, your child also gets access to automatically curated smart portfolios built with their preferences in mind. Your child is given a questionnaire that helps Copper determine a portfolio based on their age, income, net worth, investment objective(s) and investment horizon. Copper then recommends one of three ETF portfolios—Moderately Aggressive, Aggressive, and Extra Aggressive—made up of thousands of stocks. Parents can review the portfolio to ensure it matches with not just your child’s preferences, but your family’s. (Portfolios can be changed later on by accessing the Support chat.)

Your child can begin investing for as little as $1, then add more contributions down the road. Copper will automatically rebalance the portfolio as needed to make sure it always keeps up with your child’s investment preferences.

Copper is available to kids 6 years and older.

Read more in our Copper Banking review.

Related: How to Open a Custodial Account for Your Child

6. Axos Bank First Checking (Best Free Debit Card for Teens at an Online-Only Bank)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: Free (no monthly fees)

First Checking by Axos Bank is the ultimate starter checking account for teens, and it comes with a debit card.

The world of banking can be a little scary, but not with the simplicity and power of Axos’ First Checking Account. It works as a joint checking account between a parent or guardian and their teen, allowing for easy-to-set, customizable parental controls with a debit card dashboard.

Parents and teens can manage almost every part of the banking experience through a convenient mobile app or through the online desktop portal. Perfect for modern families who always find themselves on the go.

The First Checking account from Axos Bank gives teens their first taste of financial independence by giving them their own checking account (which pays interest!) and free debit card for teens. But it also provides safeguards against teens getting carried away with the money held in their account, such as daily limits on cash transactions ($100) and debit transactions ($500).

Further, you can receive up to $12 in domestic ATM fee reimbursements per month, and you avoid any monthly maintenance, overdraft, and non-sufficient funds fees—essentially making the account free! Meanwhile, users can also earn a modest 0.10% APY on any balance—lower than the national average rate, but fair for a simple teen checking account and debit card product.

The account carries the highest level of security through biometric authentication techniques like fingerprint readers, voiceprints and facial recognition (pending smartphone feature availability).

The product has a minimum age requirement of 13 and is recommended for ages 13 to 17. It will convert to an Axos Checking Account after the minor reaches the age of majority.

Read more in our Axos First Checking Account review.

Related: Best Prepaid Debit Cards for Kids & Teens [Reloadable]

7. FamZoo (Best for Financial Education)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: Free trial. Then $5.99/mo., $25.99/6 mos., $39.99/12 mos. or $59.99/24 mos. (all per family)

FamZoo is another service for parents interested in opening prepaid debit cards to manage their children’s spending.

Parents can fund a FamZoo account through numerous routes, including bank transfers, Direct Deposit, even cash. Typically, parents will load their primary funding card, then they will transfer those funds onto their kids’ cards. But you do have the option of directly funding kids’ cards.

There are plenty of safety features, too. And there’s no risk of having your bank account information stolen from FamZoo—because FamZoo never asks for it. Adults can monitor transactions, you can temporarily lock and unlock cards, and you can set up real-time alerts for card activity and remaining balances.

After a free trial, this app costs $5.99 per month, but the price goes down if prepaid in advance.

However, FamZoo rates as our top education choice because of its robust financial education library. Many of the functions have financial literacy in mind, too. For instance, payment checklists teach kids the value of a dollar by tying chores and odd jobs to rewards and penalties.

Spend, Save, and Give accounts separate funds into different purposes. And with “Parent-Paid Interest,” you can teach your kids the power of compound interest over time.

FamZoo has no minimum age requirements but recommends starting earlier rather than later.

Related: Greenlight vs. Famzoo

8. Revolut <18 (Best for Parent-Paid Bonuses)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: No monthly fees

Revolut <18 is a prepaid debit card for kids designed to teach them money skills for life. Aimed at building healthy money habits from an early age, the unique, customizable card empowers parents to have full insight into their kids’ card activity through providing instant spending alerts and parental controls.

You can choose to freeze the card, set controls on how they use the cards online and with contactless payments through your Revolut app. Further, you can set spending limits on how much your child can use with the prepaid card.

Parents use the card and accompanying app to teach kids about earning, budgeting, saving and even investing money (depending on the plan chosen). You can also use the card to manage chores and allowance, set savings goals as a family and help your children manage their money.

And if your child did something deserving of a reward? You can send parent-paid bonuses when they complete specific tasks. Simply add money to their digitized piggy bank through the app. You can send and receive money in seconds through Revolut’s Payments feature, which allows instant transfers between account holders and also global transfers at transparent rates.

Of note: You must have a personal Revolut account before you can open a Revolut <18 account for your children. You can add up to five Revolut <18 accounts per parent account.

IMPORTANT: You must have a personal Revolut account before you can open any Revolut <18 accounts. When you click our link, you will be directed to a page that will allow you to sign up for a personal Revolut account. Once you have done so, you can begin opening Revolut <18 accounts for your children. You can add up to five Revolut <18 accounts per personal account.

To learn more about Revolut <18, consider visiting their site and opening an account for yourself and your child.

Related: Roth IRA for Kids: Can I Open a Custodial IRA for a Child?

9. Current (Great No-Monthly-Fee Teen Card)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: Free (no monthly fees)

Current is a banking app designed for families; it offers both parent and teen accounts, with the latter acting like prepaid debit cards that parents load for their children. The Current app allows you to track your teen’s spending in real-time, set limits on how much your children can spend, and even block specific merchants on its Visa-enabled debit cards. You also get the peace of mind that comes with knowing your children’s money is safe because it’s not cash—no temptations, just a tool parents can use to help teach teens financial responsibility.

Among Current’s features:

• No minimum required balances, no fees on transfers to other Current accounts, and no hidden fees.
• Create Savings Pods, or Giving Pods, that allow you to save up for various goals.
• Round-Ups allow you to round up purchases to the nearest dollar amount and store the difference in Savings or Giving Pods.
• Buy and sell 27 different cryptocurrencies with zero trading fees.

Teens will love easy allowance deposits, a card they can use in stores or online, instant gas hold removals when buying gas, and access to more than 40,000 fee-free Allpoint ATMs nationwide. They’ll also have the opportunity to learn about financial responsibility and financial independence through Current’s Budgets feature, which allows them to track their spending and even receive alerts when they get too close to (or exceed) a predetermined limit.

The product has no specifically stated minimum age requirement, but the marketing suggests teens are the target audience. However, you might be able to open an account for a younger child.

Read more in our Current review.

Related: Best PayPal Alternatives for Kids

10. Step Banking (Best for Building Credit)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: Free (No monthly fees)

The free Step Visa Card is a unique “hybrid” spending card that functions like a debit card, but also boasts some of the features of a Visa credit card—including the ability to build your child’s credit history. In our overall review of the best cards for kids, this option truly stuck out as a one-of-a-kind product worth mentioning in this article despite it not technically being a debit card. When we personally tested the product, we found it to be a powerful option to set up teens for a strong financial future.

Parents add money to this FDIC-insured account and can determine how their child can spend. A regular Step account allows a child to have both a physical spending card as well as a virtual card in the Step app, while a Parent Managed Account only allows the child to spend via a physical card. Either way, they can use their card anywhere Visa is accepted. Children can also use their cards to withdraw money from more than 30,000 ATMs for free.

And parents needn’t fear that their child will overdraft—they can’t spend any money they don’t have.

Further, the Step Card comes protected by Visa’s Fraud Protection and Zero Liability guarantee. That means if your teen’s card gets lost or stolen, or misplaced and fraudulent charges crop up, you can dispute the charges within a certain time frame to avoid liability for paying.

The Step Card also comes with fantastic savings benefits. Users earn 5% annually—compounded and paid monthly—on up to $250,000 saved in their Savings Goals. Like with your average savings account, Step’s savings yield can change depending on movements in the Federal Funds Rate, but if that happens, Step will give you 30 days’ notice before it happens.

To qualify, the user must have a direct deposit of at least $500 per month, and the benefit extends for as long as the direct deposits continue. So even if your teen just holds down a summer job for three months and meets the qualifying direct deposit, they can still enjoy three months of high interest. (Other perks of making a qualifying direct deposit? Bonus points on dining, food delivery, charitable donations, specific merchants—and you can get paid up to two days early.)

You can further boost your savings potential with Savings Roundup. With this feature, small purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar figure, and that extra money is put toward a Savings Goal. For instance: Let’s say your child buys a cup of coffee for $2.75; Step rounds up to $3.00 and puts 25 cents toward a goal.

Step even features an “invest” function that allows children age 13 and older to buy and sell Bitcoin for a small transaction fee. They can also earn Bitcoin (or cash) rewards when they opt into offers from companies like Hulu, Chick-Fil-A, CVS, and The New York Times. The app is not a pure crypto wallet, however—your kids currently can’t spend Bitcoin directly at vendors.

One of the most unique and powerful features of the Step card is its ability to build your child’s credit history. With this optional feature, Step will report the past two years’ worth of information—transactions, payment history, and more—to the credit bureaus when your child turns 18. That can greatly improve their chances of starting adult life with a better credit score, which can help lower the cost of things like student loans and auto insurance.

Lastly, Step is absolutely free: No monthly fees, no subscription fees, no account minimum fees, and no ATM fees within Step’s network of 30,000+ ATMs.

Read more in our Step review.

Related: Best Teen Credit Cards for Building Credit

What Are Banking Apps for Kids and Teens?

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Many kid-focused banking apps come with debit cards that are personalized for you.

Mobile banking apps for minors make it easy to manage money and teach kids the value of spending and saving. However, these are not your traditional bank accounts.

Rather than visiting a branch, account holders can manage their money right from their phone. Many of the apps are kid-friendly and easy-to-use with parents or guardians.

How Do Teen Banking Apps Work?

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These money apps for kids work similarly to the ones parents use themselves. Both children and parents have online account access but these apps allow children to log into their own sub-accounts, like an authorized user on a credit card.

These sub-accounts carry fewer features than the adult version because you can set specific limits on how funds get spent, managed and saved.

These banking apps come with prepaid debit cards for teens that have parents control and allow you to fund money through transfers from existing checking accounts. Grown-ups can monitor, limit and pick specific locations where cards can get used.

These apps for kids also help with letting your kids save money in what has become their virtual piggy bank.

Do I Have an Account at an Actual Bank?

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These platforms work with or are actual banks, just not in the traditional sense of having established real estate to enter when needing to use a bank’s services.

Several of these online-only institutions function just like real banks save the physical location you traditionally visited in the past. Some exceptions occur, with financial institutions like Chase and Fidelity both being banks with a physical presence.

Regardless of the physical vs. digital-only nature of these banks, kids can store their savings in these accounts and take advantage of a number of unique features.

Parents can use these tools to review money decisions weekly or monthly to develop a sense of the importance of budgeting and managing funds.

How Do I Deposit Money on Banking Apps for Teens?

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Banking apps for teens allow a parent or guardian to send money from their own account as one of the features for funding an account.

Likewise, teens can also direct deposit paychecks from their jobs, deposit checks virtually from birthdays, holidays or other celebrations, or even add their allowance earned from chores.

Are Money Apps for Kids Safe?

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Kids need to begin first by understanding the value of money and how it can be used to save for important spending decisions or spent on everyday necessities. For kids to get the full value for their money, they will also need to manage it and invest.

Doing so properly will help kids to develop financial literacy skills, have less fear of financial topics and set them on a better financial path. The previous apps are some of the best investing and money management apps for kids and teenagers.

These apps require a parent or guardian to open the account if the owner is a minor, but will transition to the account owner’s name after turning the age of majority (18 or 21 in some states for financial items).

These banking apps for minors come with cybersecurity controls, multi-factor authentication and banking integration through Plaid, a leading cybersecurity provider in the financial industry.

The money kept in these bank accounts carry standard FDIC insurance coverage. This type of insurance protects your deposits held in the account up to $250,000 in value in the event of a bank failure.

These apps offer a safe and secure experience for kids, teens and minors. However, as with any bank account, you should be aware of scams that can target children in general to take their money or add them on social media networks without the child’s knowledge.

Parents need to teach their children about safe money handling processes and how to be mindful of phishing scams or attempts by others to steal their money.

Are Kids and Parents Able to View These Accounts?

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Kids and parents can view these bank accounts and have access to the funds within them. These apps allow parents to establish certain controls over the money by limiting where kids can shop, withdraw money or invest money in stocks.

Parents usually have the power to sign on with kids’ accounts, it is important for parents and children to come up with a shared agreement when they plan to review and manage the money held in the bank account

These specific banking apps do the job of providing the ability for parents to monitor and control their children’s spending activity as well as build good money habits.

How Does a Virtual Bank Work?

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A virtual bank does not have any physical locations to hold your money. Instead, you only use your bank online.

These virtual accounts come with all the features you would find in a standard banking account, like:

• bill payments and deposits
• mobile app for managing your money on-the-go
• saving money
• using a linked debit card
• carrying FDIC insurance coverage
• having other financial products at your disposal should you have needs
• access to ATM machines (with fee reimbursement)
• ability to deposit checks from your phone

The only difference is that there are no tellers or branch locations to deal with when using a virtual, or online only bank.

Do Banking Apps for Minors Teach the Value of Money?

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Banking is a first step toward financial independence because it establishes an account with your money inside of your control.

Some banking apps offer tasks that teach kids about money. These included financial literacy resources can help kids understand money concepts and how teenage money management can be important.

However, understanding the value of money often comes from hands-on experience.

Therefore, it is important for adults to teach children how to budget their spending responsibly so they can become financially independent as soon as possible.

Some apps also offer an opportunity for kids and parents to interact with fun games and events with their money.

Other apps like Greenlight promote learning how to invest together as a kids investing app product in addition to the primary banking and debit card product.

Do These Money Apps Help With Money Management?

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These apps aim to teach kids how to be good with managing their money but also require interaction from parents. This ensures the apps provide guardrails but parents teach their kids how to manage their money wisely and what things matter most in life.

These apps give parents the tools to teach money management and a mostly controlled environment.

How Can Parents Manage How Kids Spend Money?

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Many of these apps come with spending controls tied to the debit cards. This means limiting where your kids can spend money, how they spend money, how much they spend as well as real-time alerts as your kids make a purchase.

This level of control can give you peace of mind knowing that your child spends money in a way you’ve mutually agreed is best for them.

Do These Apps Help With Monthly Chores and Allowance Payments?

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Some of these apps do come paired with an ability to pay for monthly chores and allowance payments.

In fact, some of them first started as a chores and allowance app but transitioned into a full banking app for minors as they saw a need for it from parents.

Some offer a direct feature while others offer the ability to make automated money transfers in amounts predetermined by parents and kids for chores they’ve done and allowance they’ve earned.

How Can These Money Apps for Kids Help With Savings?

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Banking apps for kids can assist them in learning the value of money. This means teaching kids to save money. They can be set up with targets for saving and the app will show them how much they have saved, what their target is, and when they’ve hit it.

Some apps teach children about budgeting by having a spending limit that parents approve before each purchase or an allowance amount based on age.

Some of these banking apps also provide financial literacy resources to teach kids about money. Further, banking apps can teach teens to save for certain expenses like summer camp, a prom dress or college tuition. These apps can allow the teen to set up teenager money goals with milestones and it will let them know when they’ve hit the goal in an easy-to-read pie chart layout that breaks down where their saved funds go.

Done consistently and through repetition, these apps can help kids with things to save up for as well as how to manage their funds for the long-term.

What Apps Can Kids Use to Make Money?

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When you’ve got money apps to handle your money, you naturally wonder how you can earn cash to keep track of in your virtual piggy bank.

Kids can use a number of apps and platforms to make money and add to their savings.

Kids can:

• sign up for eBay accounts and flip items they find at garage sales
• take surveys online through apps like SwagBucks
• complete tasks and sell their services through a platform like Fiverr
• create arts and crafts to sell through Etsy

Can Kids Also Invest with These Apps?

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Many of these apps also come paired with the ability to invest money. They allow you to open a brokerage account or custodial account and begin teaching your kids how to invest.

The better investing apps on this list carry over their banking limitation controls to investing by only allowing minors to invest in certain types of investments like index funds. Index funds represent a simple, diversified investment product suitable for teenagers to start investing or kids to begin learning about the market.

In short, index funds represent approachable stock trading risks kids can begin to understand before jumping into more complicated investment strategies later in life.

Greenlight and Acorns offer stocks in addition to index funds, but kids are protected by parental controls that require parents to sign off on any investments. (Note: Kids can’t directly invest through Acorns Early. However, parents who sign up for Acorns Gold can open a custodial account where they can save for their children and teach them about investing.)

Can a Kid Have Cash App?

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Per the rules of Cash App, minors cannot have their own Cash App account without receiving sponsorship from an adult, such as a parent or guardian. If a minor would like to use Cash App, it would need to be through their parents’ account as a sponsor.

Previously, Cash App didn’t allow for minors to use the service and children under the age of 18 using the platform violated the terms of service for the account. Now, you can request access to an account through a sponsor who’s age 18 or older.

What is the Best Allowance App for Kids?

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One great allowance app to consider for paying kids on a chore chart or other family tasks is through Greenlight.

The allowance app aims to teach kids about money and provides a free virtual tracker and can include a money card as your children age and want to manage their own money.

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Modak Disclosures

^* Fees for expedited or premium services may apply. Find out more in our Cardholder agreement.

¹ 100 MBX = $1 (as of June 2024). This is an approximation and not a guaranteed result. For more information on MBX, view Modak’s policy.

² Walking 5,000 steps a day gives users 10MBX (as of June 2024). This is subject to change at Modak’s discretion.

³ Modak Scratch ’em all Feature Terms and Conditions apply. 

⁴ Modak Referral Program Terms and Conditions apply.

Chase Disclaimer

* Chase Total Checking charges a $12 monthly service fee. However, that fee may be waived with one of the following, each monthly statement period: 1.) Electronic deposits made into this account totaling $500 or more, such as payments from payroll providers or government benefit providers, by using (i) the ACH network, (ii) the Real Time Payment or FedNow^℠ network, (iii) third-party services that facilitate payments to your debit card using the Visa® or Mastercard® network, OR a balance at the beginning of each day of $1,500 or more in this account, OR an average beginning day balance of $5,000 or more in any combination of this account and linked qualifying Chase checking, savings, and other balances.