Did you make New Year’s resolutions that involve budgeting or saving money in 2026? Not to be pessimistic, but the chances of following through on them aren’t great. According to a recent survey, 83% of Americans failed to stick to some or all of their financial resolutions in 2025.
One way to better your chances of success? An effective financial software and services strategy. “Personal finance and budgeting apps can absolutely keep you accountable to your goals, but you have to commit to using them consistently over the long term,” says PCMag managing editor Ben Moore. “They do a great job of collecting all your financial activities in one place, but their real value is in their insights that should inform your future money decisions.”
But how to choose software and services—including money managers, digital wallets, payment/cash apps, and stock-trading tools—you can trust with your personal finances? That’s where our Readers’ Choice survey on personal finance apps and services can help.
Since this survey began in 2024, PCMag readers have been remarkably consistent in their choices for the best finance-tracking and trading services, underscoring their confidence in their picks. Read on to see what our audience has to say this year.
Curious about tax prep apps and software? We have a Readers’ Choice story for that. Meanwhile, we’re already running a new survey on tax apps. Complete it by April 28 for a chance to win s $250 Amazon gift card.
The Top Personal Finance Apps and Services for 2026
After four decades, Quicken has built up tremendous brand loyalty. For the second year in a row, budgeting software Quicken Classic earns the top rating for satisfaction, just ahead of its sibling Quicken Business & Personal. (Quicken Simplifi didn’t make our list this year.) Even when averaged together, Quicken’s Classic and Business & Personal products score higher in overall satisfaction than Credit Karma from Intuit. (Yes, Intuit once owned Quicken’s software, but hasn’t for years.)
(Note: Click the arrows in our interactive charts to view various elements of our survey results.)
Quicken Classic has the highest scores in almost every subcategory on our survey, including likelihood to recommend, trustworthiness, security, and its desktop/web-based interface.
“I’ve been using Quicken for 30 years,” says one respondent. “I love that I can enter transactions as they happen, and Quicken will match them up with cleared transactions from my financial institutions. It’s a great way to monitor credit card and bank account activity for fraud.”
“No other personal finance service we’ve tested goes quite as deep as Quicken Classic, especially in terms of planning and investment tools,” PCMag’s Moore says. “It’s the app to choose if you want to drill down into every last aspect of your finances/ The software’s reporting features are also quite flexible, with the ability to generate visualizations based on the questions you likely have about your money.”
Meanwhile, Credit Karma maker Intuit takes the Readers’ Choice award specifically for credit monitoring for the second year in a row. Credit Karma also scores well for cost (it’s free) and its mobile app.
“Your credit score has massive implications on your ability to borrow money, sign up for credit cards, and much more,” Moore says. “Credit Karma not only lets you check your score every day, but it also explains all the factors that go into it, so you can try to make improvements.”
For our expert take, read our full reviews of The Best Personal Finance and Budgeting Apps.
The Top Stock Trading Apps for 2026
For the second year in a row, Fidelity ranks as the top service for stock trading and overall brokerage. Fidelity has quite a few scores above 9.0 out of 10; in particular, it has great numbers for likelihood to recommend, support, stock trading, desktop/web access, and investment tracking.
Vanguard, however, is a very close second—it ties Fidelity on several measures, including overall satisfaction, ease of use, security, trustworthiness, and financial account integration. It even outscores Fidelity on reliability and financial advice. Nevertheless, Fidelity’s high likelihood-to-recommend score puts it over the top.
Our readers are full of praise for Fidelity. “I’ve used many brokers,” says one. “I recently moved my accounts from Vanguard and Schwab over to Fidelity. I’ve started using them for cash management, too.”
“Several years ago, I decided that nobody cared about my money as much as I did,” notes another respondent. “I took the time to educate myself and have managed my investments ever since. The tools provided by Fidelity have enabled me to build a well-diversified portfolio that has served me well.”
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Schwab falls from third place to fourth this time around, despite an increase in its overall satisfaction. That’s because, remarkably, ETrade jumped up a full point in satisfaction from the previous year. Both brands score above 8.8 on almost every measure, meaning they’re very strong runners-up.
The Top Mobile Wallets for 2026
Paying with your mobile devices has come a long way. Juniper Research reports that 60% of the world will use tap-to-pay digital wallet options this year.
For the third year in a row, Apple Pay is the top-rated way to pay using your mobile phone. Apple has incredible scores on almost every measure and even increased its overall satisfaction number from last year. The one area where Apple Pay falls short: desktop and web-based access. That’s not surprising, since it’s primarily used as a mobile solution for iOS devices.
In our Editors’ Choice award-winning review covering the combo of Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Apple Pay, PCMag senior writer Gabriel Zamora notes that “Apple Pay has paved the way for cash-free, card-free shopping, and it gets better with every iOS iteration.”
“One time, I forgot my actual wallet at home and didn’t realize it until I was already at the checkout,” says one survey respondent. “Apple Pay saved me from having to run back or cancel the purchase. That moment kind of sold me on it. I’ve been using it ever since.”
Recommended by Our Editors
But not everyone has embraced the Apple ecosystem—only iOS and macOS devices support this mobile wallet—so we like to offer an alternative. Like last year, the best option for non-Apple users (or as a backup for Apple devotees) is PayPal.
PayPal ties Apple for ease of use and ranks higher for making payments on a desktop. To use PayPal as a mobile wallet for touchless payments, it has to be integrated with built-in options—specifically, apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Google Pay comes in third, taking the top score for financial account integration and tying Apple on value.
The Top Cash or Payment Apps for 2026
Payment apps are a lot like mobile wallets, but geared more toward sending or receiving money than on-the-spot transactions. Naturally, they overlap (the average user probably doesn’t distinguish Apple Cash from Apple Pay, for example).
This year, we have a tie for first place between Apple Cash and PayPal. They earn the same scores for our most important measures: overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend.
“I like that Apple Cash is built into my iPhone, so I don’t have to download anything extra or remember another password,” says one respondent.
Another reader, meanwhile, hails PayPal’s ubiquity: “PayPal has a good customer base of people using it, which is what you need in a payment app.”
Last year, Zelle—the payment option found on many banking systems—shared the top honors with Apple. Zelle’s overall satisfaction score is the same as in our last survey (8.6 out of 10), but PayPal’s satisfaction score increased enough to pull ahead this year. The favorite among younger users, Venmo, remains in fourth place.
For our in-depth reviews, read The Best Mobile Payment Apps.
Full Results
The PCMag Readers’ Choice survey for Personal Finance was in the field from Oct. 6, 2025, to Jan. 5, 2026. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read our methodology.
PCMag Readers’ Choice: How Our Surveys Help You Find the Best Products
About Our Expert
Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
Experience
I’ve been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers’ Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).
I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it’s not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I’d have a future.
In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST (“an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale,” according to Publishers’ Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.
I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.
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