Review contents
GoHenry is a card and money app for kids. It’s designed to help teach money skills by letting them manage their own money. Parents can manage pocket money, one-off payments and even set chores to be completed first. Kids can then spend, save and even give to charity.
Created by a group of parents in 2012, they had one important mission ‘Make every kid smart with money’. And it’s certainly doing that.
Children learn fast when they are young, yet there’s little education about money management at school. New technology like this can really help pave the way for them to have more financial security in the future.
The app and debit card teaches children the difference between ‘wants’ and ‘needs’. Once they’ve spent their money, it’s gone! A hard lesson to learn but a valuable one.
They will soon learn that they will have to save if they want that big ticket item (like a new computer game).
Children love the app. It gives them the independence and empowerment they crave while teaching them how to manage their money.
The chore feature is a game-changer for parents. You set chores for your kids to complete before they can get their pocket money, or even add one-off chores for extra money. Get them learning that hard work pays off, a good life lesson, and best of all, get your house cleaned!
Parents no longer have to manage their kids' spending. They no longer have to be the ‘bad guy’ if their children want more sweets or an extra go on an arcade game. Just sit back and watch your children become better with money than you ever were. Sounds good right?
The app itself is rated 4.6 out of 5 on the App Store (27,000+ reviews) and 3.7 out of 5 on Google Play (22,000+ reviews).
If you’re keen to sign up, visit GoHenry¹ today. You’ll get a free trial too. Want to learn more? Keep reading!
GoHenry is for children aged 6 to 18.
It’s great to start kids learning about money as young as 6, but why not start even younger?
Another similar company called Rooster Money¹ lets children learn about money from the age of 3. They will still need to be 6 to get the debit card, but from age 3 you can reward them in stars. Treat them to something, when they have earned enough stars (maybe an ice-cream!). Learn more with our Rooster Money review.
GoHenry has an app for parents and an app for the kids too – both linked so you can monitor and control your kids app. Let’s run through both.
Here’s where you’ll set everything up, so you decide how much their pocket money is (called a weekly allowance), set their chores, set savings goals, and decide where and how much they can spend.
You can also block and unblock the card too. Plus, send one-off payments if you’re feeling nice, or if they need cash for something special or perhaps just lunch!
You’ll be notified of all the spending, and you can even add another parent so you can manage things together.
There’s a few more features too, we’ll cover these below.
If your child has their own phone they can download the app and manage their finances without using your phone.
They will be able to:
There’s a bunch of features to help children with the money, here’s a few of the best.
We’re a site about financial education so we have to put this feature top!
Here children can learn about personal finance. Depending on their age it ranges from simple money tips right the way through to investing, credit and more.
The lessons are fun and engaging, where kids can earn XP (credits) or actual money (set by you of course).
Get instant notifications to your phone every time your child spends money.
Decide where your kids can spend the money (online, in-store or ATM withdrawals), and how much they can spend. It’s easy to change the amount as and when you need to. You can also block and unblock the card, kids love to lose things!
GoHenry have partnered with the NSPCC (UK’s leading children's charity) to help a well deserved charity and also help teach children about being charitable with their money.
Give account access to another parent or guardian.
Allows your children to split the bill with their friends when they are out.
There’s also lots of free articles to help teach your children about money including lots of tips and tricks to save and manage money better.
It’s nice to see a company going above and beyond to help parents and their children.
The GoHenry card is a VISA debit card and it comes in over 45 custom card designs.
It’s a prepaid card, meaning you can’t spend money you don’t have (like you can with a credit card or debit card with an overdraft). Which is a very good idea when your kids have the power to spend money!
Having their own card makes children feel independent, which is a great thing. And you can set restrictions on spending (a sensible thing to do in our opinion). For example, spending limits, and how they can use it (in-store, online or getting cash out of an ATM).
The card can even be used abroad but there’s additional fees for this (just like most debit and credit cards). If you’re after a card that is cheap for spending abroad check out Currensea¹ (here’s our Currensea review), it’s only for adults though.
You can also set up a Junior ISA. A great idea.
A Junior ISA is a savings account that’s in your child’s name, and they’ll only be able to access it when they turn 18.
They’re pretty great because all the money you make within the account, such as interest payments or growth in investments, is completely tax-free! This means the money will grow much faster.
These aren’t unique to GoHenry, they’re available from various savings and investment companies, and you can learn lots more with our guide to Junior ISAs.
The base price for GoHenry is £2.99 per month per child.
We think this is a pretty reasonable price for the service they provide. Your children will learn so much through this app.
However, there are similar services at a better price. Rooster Money is only £1.99 per month for its premium service. Learn more with our Rooster Money review. And they have a free plan with a pocket money tracker too, if that’s all you’re looking for.
To get a custom card with GoHenry (they are pretty cool) is £4.99, and this will have your kids name on and a fun design.
There is a hidden fee – you can only add money to your account once per calendar month. For more deposits there’s a charge of 50p. Try to plan ahead, you can add money and then transfer it over to your kids as and when.
GoHenry’s customer service is pretty good.
If you’re having technical issues there’s a great help section on their website. You can email them or call them 8am - 8pm, seven days a week.
Annoyingly, you can’t cancel through the app. You’ll have to email or call them. Very cheeky!
Money is actually held within a separate bank account to GoHenry, so if they were to go out of business your money would still be safe.
However, it’s not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), like a lot of financial companies, which would protect your money up to £85,000 if something happened to GoHenry. However GoHenry don’t necessarily need it as they don’t hold your cash, it’s with a separate bank.
GoHenry are regularly audited by VISA to make sure they are safe to look after customers' money. And the app has bank-level encryption (which means they have top level security).
Trustpilot, a popular review site rates them 4.2 out of 5 from over 7,000 reviews. That’s pretty good.
Many reviews mention how easy the app is to use and how great it is at helping children with their finances.
However, there’s a lot of customers complaining about cancelling the subscription. It can be challenging as you can’t do it within the app. You have to email or phone them. For this main reason their score isn't as high as Rooster Money (4.7 out of 5).
We’re big fans of anyone who is helping the UK learn more about money, especially children.
The app itself is easy to use for the parents and children and the kids seem to love the independence and confidence it gives them.
On their website they claim “92% of parents say their kids are more money confident since joining GoHenry” and we can believe this.
However, it’s not the only company to do this and it falls short of Rooster Money¹. Rooster Money has better app ratings, a better Trustpilot score, and in our opinion it’s slightly better to use too. You can also start using their app when your child is only 3 (giving out stars is a great idea). On top of all that they are cheaper and if you change your mind it’s easier to cancel.
For this reason we’re giving GoHenry a ‘well done’ 4 stars. If you’re still keen to sign up visit the GoHenry website¹. If not, read our Rooster Money review. Either way, get your kids learning about money – it’s a great investment!
This article was written by the team at Nuts About Money, and fact-checked by 2 independent reviewers. You’re in safe hands.
