Greenlight vs GoHenry: GoHenry Is Now Acorns Early

GoHenry is not a US product anymore. It became Acorns Early, announced on GoHenry's own blog on 18 November 2024. If you are comparing the two today, you are comparing Greenlight against Acorns Early.

That matters more than it sounds, because the prices moved. Comparison pages still quoting GoHenry at $4.99 or $5 a child are quoting a tariff that no longer exists. Everything below was checked against the companies' own pages on 17 August 2026, and every figure says where it came from.

What happened to GoHenry

Acorns acquired GoHenry in 2023. In its own words: "Acorns acquired GoHenry in 2023, and Acorns Early is the U.S. version of that product today." (acorns.com, checked 17 August 2026.)

The rebrand was announced on 18 November 2024. GoHenry's post opens "GoHenry has always had a mission to make every kid smart with money." For existing customers it said: "Don't worry, parents don't have to download the app right now if they don't want to, everything will continue to work as normal." (gohenry.com/us, checked 17 August 2026.)

Today gohenry.com/us serves a page titled "Debit Card for Kids | Acorns Early", describes itself as "Acorns Early (formerly GoHenry)", and every "Get started" button points at signup.acornsearly.com. There is no GoHenry-branded signup path left in the US.

This page is about the US product only and makes no claim about the UK operation.

Side by side: plans and prices

Greenlight rows from greenlight.com/plans; Acorns rows from acorns.com/early and acorns.com/pricing. All checked 17 August 2026.

Three things worth knowing before you read that table as a like-for-like:

• Greenlight's "Savings Reward" is not interest and not an APY. It is a rewards programme with its own rules, covered below.
• Acorns Gold is not a kids' plan. It is the parent's full Acorns investing subscription with the kids' product bundled into it. The 3.35% APY Emergency Savings and the IRA with a 3% first-year match (acorns.com/pricing, checked 27 August 2026) are parent products. Comparing Gold to a Greenlight tier compares two different purchases.
• "Up to 4 debit cards" is Acorns' own phrasing, which is not quite the same claim as "up to 4 kids". Greenlight says "up to 5 kids".

Acorns Early is for ages 6–18. Both vendors currently contradict themselves on their own sites, which is worth knowing because it explains why other comparison pages disagree with each other: Greenlight's rewards page still names retired plans and lists only 2% and 3%, while its plans page shows the current four tiers; and the Acorns Early promo-terms page still quotes legacy GoHenry pricing of "$5 per child per month or $10 per month for families with up to 4 children" while the product and signup pages both say $8 and $12. The figures above come from the current plan pages in each case.

On trials: Acorns Early advertises a free trial period of 1 month, under a promotion running to 23:59 EDT on 31 December 2026. Greenlight doesn't advertise a fixed trial length at all — it bills the first monthly fee seven days after registration, and that first fee is refunded if the account is closed before that billing date (greenlight.com/plans, checked 27 August 2026). Both are "new customers only" and subject to verification.

What it costs per child

Subscription prices are per family, so the useful number is the annual cost divided by the number of children on the plan. annual = monthly × 12.

Two things fall straight out of the arithmetic. Greenlight's entry tier is cheaper per child at every family size than either Acorns tier. And the gap widens at the fifth child, because Acorns caps at four cards and Greenlight covers five for the same price. Neither observation settles anything on its own — the tiers are not feature-equivalent, and Gold bundles a product for the parent that Greenlight doesn't sell at all.

The savings reward, and the number nobody prints

This is where the comparison actually gets decided, and it is missing from every page currently ranking for this query.

Greenlight's reward is capped. Its rewards page says families "can earn monthly rewards of 2% per annum … on an average daily savings balance of up to $5,000 per family" (greenlight.com/rewards, checked 17 August 2026). Per family, not per child. Balance above $5,000 earns nothing.

The mechanics, from Greenlight's help centre: rewards are "paid at the beginning of each month, based on the average daily savings balance of the previous calendar month", computed by multiplying that balance by the annual percentage and dividing by 12. It requires the primary account to be in good standing and funded from a bank account rather than a debit card, Venmo or PayPal.

So two numbers follow directly:

break-even balance = annual fee ÷ reward rate
most the reward can ever pay = $5,000 × reward rate

You need roughly $3,600 to $4,400 held in savings all year before the reward covers the subscription, and the most it can ever pay is $100 to $300 a year.

Three caveats belong with that table, and they are what keep it a computation rather than a verdict. The reward is calculated on an average daily balance, so this is money that has to sit there all year, not peak there once. The cap is per family, so a second and third child do not raise it. And the table ignores every non-monetary feature — which is most of what the higher tiers are actually selling. Nobody buys Family Shield for the six percent.

For scale: the average 12-year-old's allowance is $10.37 a week, or $539 a year (Greenlight's own 2025 allowance data, checked 17 August 2026). Reaching a $3,594 average daily balance out of allowance alone is not the ordinary case. You can run any balance through the compound interest calculator to see what a given rate returns on it.

Fees beyond the subscription

Greenlight publishes an itemised fee schedule. Acorns does not, and that asymmetry is itself a finding.

Greenlight rows from its help centre, checked 17 August 2026: replacement cards — "Greenlight offers one free replacement card per family, per calendar year" and "Any subsequent replacement cards are $5.99 each"; foreign transactions — "there are no international fees or any foreign transaction fees"; ATMs — "Greenlight does not charge or collect these fees" and "Greenlight will never add an additional fee on top of the ATM operator's fee." Note that the free replacement card is per family, not per child, and that stated withdrawal limits include any operator fee.

For Acorns Early, the only official statement found is on the Acorns comparison page: "With both apps, there are no hidden costs or extra transaction charges on top of your monthly subscription." That is a general assurance covering both products rather than an itemised schedule. The cells above are marked "not published" rather than filled with GoHenry-era figures, because the GoHenry-era figures no longer describe the product.

What the subscription costs across a childhood

Ten years, ages 8 to 18, at today's price. The right-hand column compares it against the total allowance that passes through a child's hands across the same years — $6,379, computed from the same per-age allowance series used in money skills by age.

Assumption stated plainly: prices held flat for ten years, which they will not be — both companies have already changed them at least once. Treat the right-hand column as a sense of scale, not a projection. It is also a one-child comparison; across three children the same subscription splits three ways while the allowance triples, which moves every percentage down sharply.

If you don't want a subscription

A family bank run on a spreadsheet or a free tool costs nothing and carries no card. It also does none of the things a card does: no independent spending, no merchant controls, no ATM access, and no way for a teenager to buy something without you present. That is the actual trade, and it is a real one in both directions.

The tools on this site are free and need no account — the allowance calculator, the savings goal calculator and the chore rate calculator cover the tracking side of it, and how to run a family bank covers the ledger. If you are weighing a card for the investing feature specifically, the custodial account tax calculator is the more relevant starting point, since the tax treatment matters more than the app.

If you want the same arithmetic across the rest of the market rather than these two products, every kids’ debit card fee, totalled over ten years covers thirteen providers, including the six that cost nothing a month.

The short version

• GoHenry US is Acorns Early, since 18 November 2024. Any page still pricing GoHenry separately is out of date.
• Greenlight is cheaper per child at every family size, from $71.88 a year for up to five kids, and covers five where Acorns covers four.
• Acorns Gold is a parent subscription with the kids' product inside it. It is not a like-for-like alternative to a Greenlight tier.
• The savings reward is capped at a $5,000 family balance, so it pays at most $100 to $300 a year and needs $3,600 to $4,400 held all year to cover the fee. Buy these plans for the features, not the reward.

And if the features are what you are paying for, what each Greenlight plan costs to replace breaks the four tiers into the things they gate and prices each one separately — including the two tiers nothing else in the market replaces.