GoHenry Review 2023

Who is GoHenry suitable for?

Kids grow up fast and as a caregiver it’s tough to balance keeping your children safe with the need to prepare them for the big bad world at the same time. This is doubly so when it comes to finances, and this is what makes GoHenry so great in my opinion, since it provides a working financial product, complete with debit card, that children can use in the real world and, at the same time, the controls of the parent account to keep them safe.

Put simply, a GoHenry account is a parental account that is linked to a child’s account. The parental account is used to top up the child’s linked account and parental controls can be applied to help limit their spending habits. The child’s account is where children can view their balance and spending limits, and comes with a Mastercard prepaid debit card that can be used for online and in-store purchases and for cash withdrawals at ATMs.

There is a monthly fee for using this service and so you may be wondering why a parent wouldn’t just choose to register their child for a regular bank account, which are available for free, and where they can even earn interest on their savings. However, these accounts lack the tools, features and parental controls that will help you to nurture good financial habits in your children.

Go Henry has multiple features, which I will go through in more detail in this GoHenry review, and which I hope will help you, as a guardian, decide whether this is a good fit for you and your child, or children. Certainly, research has indicated that setting up good financial habits at a young age can help children grow into becoming financially responsible adults. GoHenry is a useful asset that can help you nurture good financial habits in a fun and easy way.

Who are GoHenry?

GoHenry is an educational financial product that launched in the US in 2018, in partnership with Mastercard. It is designed to help kids learn financial skills from an early age to help them in their future financial wellbeing. At the same time, the GoHenry app gives parents complete control over their child’s spending habits.

As well as letting guardians pay out a regular weekly allowance, the app also comes with a debit card for kids that allows them to spend and withdraw money.

As GoHenry says; “We’re on a mission to help millions of kids be good with money. We’re strongly against telling young people what they should be doing when it comes to money. Instead, we’d rather help kids learn the ropes for themselves.”

Who owns GoHenry?

GoHenry was founded in 2012 by parents Louise Hill and Dean Braue, and includes investors such as Edison Partners, Revaia, Citi Ventures, Muse Capital, and a network of Angel investors. In 2018, GoHenry GoHenry raised $8.1 million, including $3 million from their own customers.

Again though, I should warn you in my GoHenry review, that there is no interest on any funds in the savings account. That said, the range of features designed to give children a solid financial education that I highlight in my review, certainly helps compensate for this.

How does GoHenry work? Children and their guardians have their own unique version of the app, with different tools and functions designed to help each of them manage their finances, namely:

GoHenry Parent App

This is the parental side of things where you, as a guardian, will be given complete control over your child’s finances and spending via the GoHenry Parent app. During my GoHenry review, I found that the parental app is a well thought out piece of kit. Most important of all, it’s easy to use and navigate, and links to your child’s accounts on the home page.

Parent App features

• Ability to view available funds on both the parent account and any relevant children’s accounts (you can register more than one child on your account, if applicable)
• Quickly and easily transfer money into any children’s accounts
• Timetable weekly allowance transfers for a child’s pocket money
• Share account-guardian responsibilities, including setting spending limits, notifications and management of chores
• Complete breakdown of all transactions
• Incentivize good behavior by setting up chores where children can earn extra pocket money
• Set savings goals and track savings
• Instant money transfers and ability to load money into the parent account
• Child’s spending notifications
• Spending limits and controls
• PIN retrieval
• Ability to block/unblock the GoHenry debit card
• Fingerprint and facial recognition for added security.

GoHenry child app

The kids mobile app can be downloaded onto your child’s phone or tablet. From their account, your child is able to check their balance and can also see if there are any outstanding chores left for them to complete. Using their app, children can set their own savings goals, a great feature, which I think helps encourage your child to manage their own money from an early age.

The child mobile app is very streamlined and kid friendly, even young users have little difficulty in navigating their account, and it really is a great way for youngsters to learn about money management. At the same time it helps empower your little ones, and don’t be surprised if they start to act like a grown up and talk about their budgets.

The GoHenry account also has the option of letting extended family, grandparents, and even friends gift money directly into your child’s account and even leave a message with their deposit, should they so desire. Don’t worry, you will also get a notification on the parent app regarding any such deposits, just in case they added an extra zero to their gift by accident.

Another neat feature, which is sure to be appreciated by slightly older users, is the ‘Split the Bill’ feature. This handy little tool allows young-adults to easily split the bill, or other such payments, when they are out and about enjoying themselves with friends.

GoHenry Card

Whilst there is a free card that comes as standard when you sign up for a GoHenry account, there is also the option to order a custom card. The custom card can feature almost any picture, photo or exciting design that your child decides on.

The cost of these cards is $4.99, but be warned, your child can pay for it from their own account if they want to!

In most cases though, I am sure the free version of the card will be more than adequate, especially as things always seem to go missing, become misplaced, or get out-right lost with most children. That said, should your child lose their card, the process of getting a replacement card is quick, easy, and free.

The ability to block and unblock your child’s GoHenry card in such situations is vital, luckily using the parent app in such circumstances makes the process almost instantaneous.

GoHenry Money Missions

This is a new product from the GoHenry team, designed to help children save money and learn good money habits. Money Missions is a series of in-app gamified videos and quizzes where children can earn points and badges while learning money basics, such as investing, saving, compound interest, borrowing, giving, and more.

Best of all, the handy Money Missions tool is available for free to all basic account holders.

Set Chores and Savings Goals

This is a neat feature that, as a parent, I particularly like. Using the parents’ app, you can set tasks for your kids. The chores pop up on the child’s account and once they complete them you can pay your kid. Another neat feature is the ability to set up savings goals for your child, although, as I already mentioned, their savings will earn no interest.

If you want to incentivize and reward them for managing money and saving, it will have to come out of your own pocket.

Give to Charity

This is another feature that I think is really great, as not only does GoHenry encourage important money management skills, it can also encourage children to help others. Using their app, they can donate small sums of money to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

• Call 1-877-372-6466 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET seven days a week.
• Visit GoHenry‘s website to chat with a representative seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.
• Send an email to [email protected].
• If you have a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube account you can also message them there.
• By snail-mail at 54 W 40th St, New York, NY 10018.

The customer service experience is not the best rated. In fairness to GoHenry, most customers tend to contact customer service when they are experiencing a problem, and as such, are already dissatisfied with their experience.

GoHenry customer reviews

GoHenry TP Review

GoHenry have a rating of 4.2 out of 5 on Trustpilot. A quick glance through just the negative reviews reveals that this is largely due to technical hiccups and the poor customer support.

“Their support teams are unresponsive.”

“Their support teams are unresponsive.” “Their online chat ghosted me every time,” and “their email support never responded,” are some of the negatives. While I understand that technology can be unreliable at times, when the people supporting it are also unreliable, that’s usually a huge red flag to steer clear.

That said, the vast majority of the feedback and reviews are extremely positive. Some of the poor reviews may be justified, and it is certainly true that the customer service experience could be improved, however, some 65% of those who took the effort to leave feedback on Trustpilot, gave GoHenry a 5 out of 5, with customers leaving comments such as:

“Easy to use and creates positive financial understanding.”

“I’ve been really impressed by the simplicity of the tool for ease-of-use without it becoming gimmicky. My daughter is able to use it and, through the educational component, is gaining an understanding of money. I’m really impressed with GoHenry.”

“This card is great.”

“This card is great. My kids love the GoHenry card and they are having a great time doing the missions, and learning how to use and save money. I love this card too. It’s so easy for me to give them money when they need it. The best part is that I love that GoHenry doesn’t sell yours nor your kids’ info.”

And some even praise the customer service experience;

“Great customer service.”

“Great customer service. They go above and beyond to help. I appreciate their kindness.”

In order to open an account, you will need some basic information, such as your name, email address, and mobile number. You will be asked the choose a password to protect your account, and once this is done you can add each child to the account with their personal details.

You will need to link your bank account to your GoHenry account in order to credit your account with funds by means of a bank transfer. As with the account opening process, however, this too is a quick and easy process.

Once your account has been credited with funds, your child’s debit card will be ordered and it should arrive in the post within 5-7 days. Once the prepaid debit card arrives, your child simply needs to activate it by making their first purchase on ‘their very own debit card’ using their PIN code.

That said, the company is not a bank and, therefore, not subject to the same degree of oversight as a traditional bank would be, but you can rest easy, as you, your child, and most importantly, your money are safe, because GoHenry cards are issued by the Community Federal Savings Bank (“CFSB”), which is a federal savings bank chartered under the Federal laws of the United States, and is a member of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Any funds held in your GoHenry account are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for up to $250,000. In the unlikely event of GoHenry going bankrupt any money held in your account is insured and should be safe.

The prepaid debit cards that your children will be using come with the standard chip and pin protection, bank-level encryption, and, via the parental app, you have the ability to block and unblock spending at any time.

On top of this, since Mastercard is the provider of the debit card, it comes with Mastercard’s Zero Liability Protection.

This means that if the card were get lost or stolen, in the unlikely event of any unathorized transactions taking place, the financial institution that issued your Mastercard wouldn’t hold you responsible.

The app itself employs 256-bit encryption which protects against hackers. On top of which, the parental app provides complete control over your child’s account and makes keeping your children safe a breeze.

Real-time notifications let you monitor your kid’s spending habits, and a handy regular breakdown of spending helps you and your child identify where their money is going.

As the guardian, you can set restrictions on spending via the parent app, be it how much they can spend, or where they can spend it, on top of features, such as the ability to immediately block lost cards, and also unblock them should they be found.

Overall, I believe that the security features and level of protection provided by GoHenry to be more than robust. Most important of all, however, is the fact that the app provides a safe financial platform for you and your children.

GoHenry Limits

As this is a product aimed at children, there are certain limits in place when it comes to funding and also spending on the GoHenry kids debit card. I have outlined them below, but for most kids and parents these limits shouldn’t be a deal breaker:

• Maximum balance for parent and child accounts: $6,000
• Maximum number of loads per day: 3 (up to $500 per day for parent accounts)
• Number of purchases per day: 10 (up to $2,500 in spend per day)
• ATM withdrawals: Up to $120 per day (up to 3 daily withdrawals)

After the initial one month free trial, all account holders can expect to incur the following charges:

GoHenry has a 30-day free trial, after which you will either pay for the Family Plan or an individual child plan, both of which are billed on a regular monthly fee.

The individual child plan is $4.99 per month and is great for those with an only child.

For those with more than one child, the family plan is my recommendation, as the monthly fee is just $9.98 and, on top of the parental account, lets you set up to five kids linked accounts.

Other fees

• ATM withdrawals: $1.50
• Foreign transaction fees: 0%
• Customized card designs: $4.99 per card
• Standard card designs: $0

However, I think that for older children and teens, a regular bank account with a normal high street bank may be a better fit, especially as banks provide these accounts for free, which avoids the monthly subscription fee.

GoHenry vs Alternatives

There are several alternatives to GoHenry that you may want to consider. Be aware that they may not have all the individual features you will find at GoHenry.

Banking AppFeesMinimum Age

Greenlight$4.99/mo (up to 5 kids)None

CopperNone13 years

Famzoo$5.99/mo per familyNone

Some of these alternatives may represent better value, especially if you have more than one child to consider.

Useful Information

This section contains useful information to make your experience at GoHenry as seamless as possible.

How do I contact GoHenry?

The best way to contact GoHenry is via the chat function from within the parent app. Each time I have used this my query has been answered in under 5 minutes.

How does my child withdraw money from their GoHenry savings account?

Your child’s card can be used at any ATM, just like a normal debit card. As a parent you will receive an instant notification when they use their card.

How do I close my account at GoHenry?

To close your account with GoHenry you need to call or email the customer support team. Given the long response times to email, this could be considered a negative aspect of GoHenry.