Emma vs Roqqett

Overview

The money app with the best money insights to help you keep track of finances and take care of spending habits.

Best for:
‍
Tracking | Insights | Payments

Connects with most UK Banks & major credit card companies.

100% Free 🤩

Just another budgeting app that helps you track spending and subscriptions, while setting up budgets.

Best for:
‍
Budgeting | Saving

Connects with most UK Banks & major credit card companies.

Free | Paid Plan 🙃

Roqqett

Connecting with major banking providers across the UK, Roqqett allows you to have full visibility of all your transactions across your accounts in real-time, saving you time and energy from having to check your individual banking apps.

To complement this is Roqqett's Money Insights feature. Essentially, Roqqett automatically categorises your spending over time by category or merchant, while still giving you the freedom to re-categorise any transaction to your liking, for FREE. No added costs, like our purple friend in the next section 👀

To top it off, Roqqett offers a multitude of ways to pay and get paid instantly by friends and family, whether they have Roqqett or not, without sharing any bank details... ever!

Keep reading to discover all the amazing benefits Roqqett has to offer:

Accounts

Connect your bank and credit card account(s) using Open Banking technology. Not only will this allow you to have full visibility of your money together in one place! But you can also move your money between your connected accounts instantly in just a few taps.

App & User Interface

Roqqett has been designed to be extremely intuitive, as it prides itself for its clean and minimalist aesthetics. With great design at its core, Roqqett is as simple as possible but no simpler. Beautiful to behold and a delight to interact with.

Money Insights

To start with, Roqqett shows your total spend according to your preferred time-frame. You can see how much you spend in a month, 3 months or in a year.

Along with the time-filtering, Roqqett breaks down your spending by category or merchant. This can help bring awareness to your spending habits by identifying your more & least expensive areas, as well as help you discover your favourite brands.

100% Free

Unlike other money apps that monetise via a subscription model (*heads turn to Emma*)... Roqqett is 100% FREE!

All of Roqqett's features and benefits are free to use from the moment you decide to graciously download it on your mobile phone. No need to pay for another 'wasteful' subscription, as we believe everyone deserves the best insights at 0 costs.

Payments

You can pay and get paid by anyone without sharing bank details. These include payments via:

1. QR Code - Ideal for when you are together with your friends. All they have to do is scan your QR code with their phone camera and they can pay you on the spot. ⁠

2. Unique Payment Link - Ideal for every situation, where all anyone has to do is tap the link and confirm the payment in their banking app! They don't even need to have the Roqqett in order to pay you! ⁠⁠

3. Bluetooth - Ever tried airdropping your money? With Roqqett's nearby payments feature, you can instantly pick up or start a nearby payment request to pay or get paid by your friends!⁠⁠

Privacy & Security

The Roqqett app uses bank-grade security measures including 256-bit encryption and biometrics to protect you and your data. So not one, but TWO layers of protection.

With strong beliefs in keeping personal info private, all user data is tokenized on Roqqett servers which means even the Roqqett crew can’t read it.

To top it off, Roqqett is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ensuring that it is held to your highest standards.

Although Roqqett has bank-grade security, Roqqett isn't a bank. This means that your account can’t be breached, and the money in it can’t be touched.

Get Roqqett

Pros

Free
Daily balance update
Useful & effortless money insights
Intuitive design for ultimate simplicity
Full visibility of all accounts in one place
Instant payments to and from anyone
Wide range of UK banks & card providers

Cons

No cashback offers*
No savings suggestions*
No budgeting tools*

* Yet... The Roqqett Crew is hard at work to roll-out more of these benefits soon 🚀

Emma

Like Roqqett, Emma shows your spending transactions from all of your different accounts in its one app, to help you stay on track. However, Emma is much slower in connecting these accounts than Roqqett, simply due to their slower Open Banking API provider 🥱 A minor detail, but worth mentioning if you really want to compare.

Now sure, Emma also allows you to set budgets for each category, but unless you keep checking these yourself (most people tend to keep it top level) then the app itself isn't THAT much different from Roqqett.
‍
Want to export an Excel spreadsheet of your finances? Have offline accounts or customise your categories & transactions? With Emma you have to pay for all these extra features, because unlike Roqqett, it monetises with its two (Pro and Plus) subscription plans. Considering the app focuses on helping you save on “wasteful subscriptions”, it is ironic that it charges you for extra features with its paid plans. Keep reading below to see what these extra paid features are.

Accounts

Very similar to Roqqett, as you connect your bank and credit card accounts together, with the main drawback being speed.

With Roqqett, your balance updates in real-time, whereas for Emma it takes longer, unless you have "Turbo" updates, which are part of the paid plans.

Budgeting Tools

Emma allows you to:

Sync and set budgets
See a list of all your subscriptions and detect any price changes over time
Receive "saving" tips such as recommending you to switch providers (can get annoying when its the same suggestion every time #JustSaying)
Earn "cashback" on specific branded deals promoted within the app (Handy if 1-5% means big savings to you, but redunant when its the same deals and the same notifications)

Analytics & Reports

As part of Emma's Analytics feature, the app shares with you a weekly report around your spending.

Within it, you'll find personalised insights, which are similar to Roqqett's, just more frequent. Which to some may be a bit of an over-kill.

Paid Features

Pay £4.99/month for Emma Plus OR £9.99/month for Emma Pro.

Cashback & Turbo Updates
Bank Transfers & Bill reminders
Customise Categories & Transactions
Offline accounts & Exporting of Data

Did we already mention that Roqqett is completely and 100% Free? Yes? Cool just thought we should remind you 😏

Payments

Like Roqqett, Emma allows for peer-to-peer payments via QR codes, bank transfers and payment links. However, there’s no match when it comes to comparing speed and seamlessness of payments, as Roqqett is and will always be the fastest one in the space.

Privacy & Security

Like Roqqett, Emma is authorised and regulated by the FCA. They use TLS 256-bit encryption technology to protect your data. As so, they don’t store your banking credentials and can only access your data in read-only mode.

Pros

Weekly spending insights report
Budget settings
Saving suggestions
Cashback offers
Track subscriptions

Cons

UI and app design is an acquired taste...

(let's just say it's less sophisticated and more playful... so perfect for kids)
Need to pay for extra features, which are free in other money apps...
A lot of notifications... Emma basically tries to sell you offers, as part of their third party referrals to generate revenue, which can get annoying over time.
Slower connections without the Paid Plan