Emma was launched in London in 2018 and is a mobile app that calls itself “your best financial friend”. Like Hardbacon, the app enables you to manage your daily budget. Hardbacon, for its part, is a Canadian fintech founded in 2017 that not only allows its users to budget, but also plan according to their financial goals and identify their investments’ strengths and weaknesses.
Emma: the advantages
Emma is present particularly on the Canadian, American and UK markets. Therefore, the app is compatible with many foreign financial institutions, which is useful if you have accounts in multiple countries. The app has a somewhat childish design and gamification features, which makes it easy to approach, but also more limited in functionality. The app differs in how it budgets, as it is designed around pay cycles and not a monthly budget, as is Hardbacon.
Unlike Hardbacon, Emma allows you to monitor your cryptocurrency balances through links with Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, and Bittrex. Finally, Emma has provided a really cool feature to their premium users: the ability to export the data into an Excel file.
Emma: the disadvantages
Unlike Hardbacon, Emma's focus is mostly on spending, not personal finance as a whole. For example, very few canadian investment accounts are supported. Furthermore, you can only see the balances of your investment accounts and not the securities within those accounts, as is possible with the Hardbacon app. It goes without saying that, unlike Hardbacon, Emma does not offer any tools for portfolio analysis or portfolio tracking.
Emma helps you learn more about the state of your finances… in the past. In fact, unlike Hardbacon, Emma does not proactively alert you when current consumption habits may cause you to exceed your budget. Also, unlike Hardbacon, Emma does not offer a planning feature, so you cannot see your progress against your financial goals.
How much does it cost?
Both apps have a free version. Emma's allows you to keep track of your expenses and income. You can also rename your transactions. The Hardbacon version does the same thing, including adding financial goals, a feature not offered by Emma.
The premium version of Emma is very similar to that of Hardbacon Premium, at a cost of $9.99 per month compared to $12.99 per month (or $ 99.99 per year) for Hardbacon.
The premium version of Emma, however, is not much different from the free version. The additional features are relatively straightforward, such as the ability to rename a transaction, split a transaction, export data from the app, and add emojis.
On the Hardbacon side, the premium version stands out in terms of investment. With Hardbacon Premium, you can see what is hidden in your investment accounts: you will be able to see your portfolio’s weaknesses, compare your portfolio’s performance to that of others, obtain stock market data, and access yield calculations and thematic lists of stocks and ETFs as well as portfolio models.
Is Emma available in Canada?
In Canada, the Emma app is available on the App Store and Google Play. Hardbacon, being Canadian, is obviously available on the App Store and Google Play as well.
Emma or Hardbacon?
Emma is a good app for those who want to manage their budget in a very basic way. The biggest advantage of using Emma over Hardbacon is being able to link accounts from multiple countries. If a user has only Canadian accounts and wants to take control of their overall finances, it is better to choose Hardbacon, especially because beyond budgeting, Hardbacon offers great planning by goals and portfolio tracking features that are very useful to those wishing to enrich themselves.
If you liked this article, you'll definitely like Hardbacon's mobile app, which links to your banking and investing accounts, helps you plan your financial goals, budget, and invest better. The basic version of the app is free, but you can do more with Hardbacon Premium. As a loyal reader of our blog, you can get 10% off any Hardbacon Premium subscription. To take advantage of this promotion, use promo code BLOG10 when subscribing through our website.
Not sure where to start?
Start by creating an account on Hardbacon, a free app that will allow you to budget easily.
Let's budget!
About The Author: Edouard
Edouard is a financial analyst at Hardbacon. He is responsible for compiling lists of securities that our users can find in the "Explore" section of the application.
More posts by Edouard