Is Monzo Pro Worth Paying For?
What is Monzo Pro?
Monzo Business is one of the Being Freelance Community’s recommended banks for UK freelancers.
But in May 2025 it increased its ‘Pro’ subscription to £9 a month. Almost doubled from its previous £5!
So, it’s a good question: is Monzo Pro worth it?
What do you get with Monzo Pro?
You can see a full list of features on the Monzo Business pricing plan comparison page but let’s pick out those that really benefit freelancers.
Integration with accounting software
This means your business bank transactions are accessible directly via the likes of Xero and FreeAgent.
BUT this is a free option with business banking from Starling and Mettle. So if this is the only feature you benefit from, then the £9 a month is definitely not worth it for Monzo Pro.
Automatic Tax Pots
My favourite feature of Monzo. You can set it to take a % of every bit of money that comes into your business account, and put it into a ‘pot’ for safe keeping.
Not just one pot either but multiple pots.
So every time money comes in it could be split into VAT (if you pay it), Tax, Profit (or anything of your choosing).
Is this worth £9 a month?
Well, knowing money is set aside for tax on auto pilot is a huge relief. So for me, yes.
However, if you don’t have many incoming payments, like if you have a couple of clients sending you money per month, that isn’t hard to deal with yourself manually.
But if you run a shop, or a membership (like I run the Being Freelance Community) for example, then you could get a lot of payments every month. If you have retainer clients, likewise. Then the time saved soon adds up.
Virtual Cards
These are brilliant. You can assign ‘virtual cards’ to your various pots to pay for things online. This keeps your money more secure and you in control. You might have a pot for ‘memberships’, another for ‘Instagram ads’, another for ‘Events tickets’, or ‘Travel’.
I actually had the situation recently where a retailer was trying to charge my virtual card and the payment failed because I had no funds in that pot. It wasn’t a legitimate payment. I could argue with the retailer and put a stop to future charges. If that had been to my main bank card, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed.
So, again, if you do a lot of online payments for your business, the ability to protect your money with virtual cards is a great feature worth paying for.
Business Savings Account
I take the money I’ve set aside for tax and put into a Monzo Business Savings account. All visible within the app.
The interest is effectively what Monzo Pro costs me. Starling don’t offer a Business Savings account. Mettle do, but the Monzo interest rate is currently marginally better (Monzo 1.5% compared to Mettle 1.1% as I write this).
Make money with Monzo referrals
This may also be applicable without the Pro account, but you can earn £50 when you refer a new business and they’ll get £50 for joining Monzo too!
We can put that to the test - if you still think it’s worth joining Monzo, here’s the Being Freelance Monzo referal link. 👀
You’ll apparently get £50 🙌
Should I pay for Monzo Pro?
You can try Monzo Pro for free for the first month.
As freelancers, we’re a company of one, doing everything ourselves. So having things that save us time (and time is money) or prevent us from being defrauded or upsetting the tax authorities - those things are valuable.
But see if it makes sense for your freelancer business.
Do you have lots of incoming payments that need splitting?
Do you make lots of online payments?
If not, Monzo Pro may not be for you. As with everything it’s worth reflecting over time to make sure what you’re paying for works for you as a freelancer. For my business, for now at least, I’ve decided it’s worth it.
One more thing though…
The biggest lesson from Monzo Business Banking ‘Pro’ price increase
They call it ‘Pro’.
Do you consider yourself a pro?
Well then, take a lesson from Monzo.
They just nearly doubled their rate.
And their reason in their emails to their customers?
“Increasing the price… to better reflect the value of the plan”.
Wow. How about that for a reason?
Do you value yourself too? Could you near-double your rates to your freelancing clients?
The secondary lesson to this: if we only put out rates up every few years, we have to make a bigger % increase, which could feel steep to the client. Whereas a smaller % increase each year will psychologically seem fair and be less likely to make them feel disgruntled.
Disgruntled is a fun word to say, but not to feel.
Does Monzo have free business banking?
Yes it does. But it doesn’t integrate with your accounting software - a massive negative.
If you’re after free business banking in the UK, check out Starling and Mettle. We have an article listing the business banking choices for UK freelancers.
This article is written by me, Steve Folland - the freelance podcast & video creator behind ‘Being Freelance’. It’s intended to be helpful and is accurate at time of writing in May 2025. This is not a paid promotion or advert.