More and more of us turn to tools like Claude and ChatGPT to think through big questions. They’re smart, but they only know what you tell them. When the conversation turns to money, that usually means exporting spreadsheets, pasting in numbers, or settling for generic answers.
Monarch is where your whole financial picture comes together. Every account in one place, organized with your categories, budgets, goals, and years of history. The Monarch MCP lets you bring that picture into the AI tools you already use, so every conversation about your money starts from your real numbers.
Many of you tried the MCP earlier this year and shared some really creative ways you used it. We had to pause it for a bit but we’re happy to announce today…the MCP is back!
So…what is the Monarch MCP?
MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, the technical term for a universal connector between AI tools and the other apps you rely on for specific things (like tracking your finances). The Monarch MCP securely connects to tools like Claude and ChatGPT, so you can ask questions about your accounts, transactions, budgets, investments, and net worth history, using live, up-to-date data.
What our early testers did with it
We asked beta members how they were using the MCP, and their answers were creative, practical, and impressive. Here’s a sampling:
- Getting more from credit card perks. One member with 20 credit cards compared each card’s benefits with their actual transactions to see which perks they’d used and which they’d missed.
- Prepping for an advisor meeting. Members pulled together a clear summary of every account to bring to their annual meeting with a financial advisor.
- Thinking through a big purchase. One member used their real savings and cash to settle on a car budget they felt good about. A month later, they bought the truck.
- Splitting payments with the paperwork. One member shared their mortgage statement and had their AI tool split the payment in Monarch into interest, property tax, and principal. Another split a monthly insurance charge between home and auto.
- Planning ahead for open enrollment. One family combined their benefits guide with last year’s childcare costs to decide how much to put in their dependent care FSA each paycheck.
- Pressure testing your portfolio. One member pulled holdings from every account into a single view. They found a big chunk of their savings tied up in one employer’s stock and made a plan to diversify.
- Tracking down reimbursements. One member matched reimbursements to the expenses they covered so nothing slipped through the cracks.
- Running a household money meeting. One couple built a routine that gathers their latest Monarch data and turns it into an agenda for their regular money check-in.
- Mapping a runway after a layoff. One member figured out how long their savings would last, where to cut back, and how to put idle cash to work.
- Splitting shared costs. Partners totaled up shared expenses and worked out who owed what, without a separate spreadsheet.
- Getting organized for tax season. Members gathered HSA-eligible expenses and other records their accountant would ask for, straight from their transaction history.
How to get started
Setup takes just a few minutes, and most tools don’t require any coding.
- Copy the Monarch server URL: https://api.monarch.com/mcp
- Add it as a custom connector in your AI tool. We support Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini CLI, and Cursor.
- Sign in to Monarch when prompted and choose your permissions. Read lets your AI tool answer questions. Read and write also lets it make changes, like recategorizing transactions or creating rules.
- Start asking questions.
You can see and remove connected tools anytime in Settings → MCP Connector Our help center guide provides more detail on the setup and help with any troubleshooting.
Prompts to try
Not sure where to start? Copy one of these as is, or swap in your own details.
Bring in what lives outside Monarch
- Look up the credit cards benefits for my Chase Sapphire card. Compare them with my transactions from the past year and show me which perks I’ve used and which I’ve missed.
- Here’s my company’s benefits guide. Based on what we spent on childcare last year, help me decide how much to put in my dependent care FSA.
Get ready for an important conversation
- I’m meeting with my financial advisor next week. Pull together a summary of my accounts, balances, and net worth over the past year, and suggest questions worth asking.
- Put together an agenda for a money check-in with my partner, using our accounts, goals, and any big purchases from the past month.
Work through a decision
- We’re thinking about buying a car. Based on our current cash and savings goals, what price range would we feel comfortable with?
- My partner and I split shared costs 60/40. Total up last month’s shared expenses and show who owes whom.
- I’m weighing a job offer that pays 15% less. Show me what our next 12 months of cash flow would look like.
Put it to work (requires write access)
- Find merchants that show up under more than one name in my transactions, and suggest how to merge them. Show me the list before you change anything.
- Here’s my mortgage statement. Split my monthly mortgage expense in Monarch into principal, interest, and escrow. Show me the split before you save it.
- Tag every work expense from my trip last month as “reimbursable” so I can make sure I get paid back by my employer.
- We’re starting a side business. Create categories for it, and tag this year’s expenses that belong there. Check with me before making changes.
Share what you build
Some of the best ideas from the beta came straight from members, and we know there are many more out there. If you build something useful, or ask a question that surprises you, share it with us on r/MonarchMoney. We’d love to see it.
