Personal Finance Apps: Origin Financial vs. Copilot Money Comparison

If you're interested in tracking your spending and creating a budget, you might be overwhelmed by the number of apps out there. We get it. One frequently mentioned budgeting app is Copilot Money — so we wanted to break down how it compares to Origin Financial: what we share, and where Origin outperforms.

While Origin and Copilot both have strong spend tracking and budgeting functions, Origin goes well beyond that by helping users understand their money with AI-powered insights. That’s because Origin is the industry’s first AI financial advisor, meaning it combines the speed of a Google or ChatGPT response with the expertise of a financial professional and the details of your financial picture to produce hyper-personalized guidance. Origin’s suite of AI guidance, budgeting, and forecasting features are now part of the deep bench of financial offerings — high-yield cash accounts, no-fee index investing, estate planning, free tax filing, and one-on-one meetings with members of our Certified Financial Planner® team — that make Origin the only truly all-in-one financial management platform.

Plus, Origin is available across both mobile platforms (both iOS and Android) while Copilot is only available on iOS, and only in app form (that is, no web browser capabilities).

Let’s dig into the differences between Origin and Copilot a bit more.

Budgeting: Origin’s AI Budget Builder vs. Copilot’s Manual Budgets

Copilot’s budgeting feature is based on setting smaller budgets for various spending categories; it connects to your accounts to pull each transaction into the correct category. These appear together in the “categories” tab, which tracks your spending progress throughout the month. However, Copilot does not allow you to create a holistic monthly budget.

Origin gives you a much more streamlined and flexible budget-building process: Origin’s AI budget builder analyzes your past spending to instantly create a personalized, realistic budget. You’ll get a clear, data-backed budget recommendation that is fully adjustable and customizable to your lifestyle and goals. And if (and when) life changes, you can always get a new AI budget recommendation — or build your own manually if you prefer.

Origin also lets you create one-time budgets for holiday or travel-heavy months.

Beyond these larger differences, both Origin and Copilot let you create your own spending categories, and offer iOS widgets that allow you to view your progress at a glance.

Spend Tracking & Cash Flow: Both Apps Help — But Origin Adds AI Context

Both Origin and Copilot offer spend tracking, which is a crucial part of creating — and sticking to — a realistic budget. Both apps allow you to filter and sort through transactions; split them (so that, for example, you can slot items from a big Target order into different budget categories); edit every detail; and add any relevant notes in a memo section.

Both Origin and Copilot let you know when you’ve got upcoming bills or subscription charges, including credit card payments, and put your recurring subscriptions into one place, so you can keep an eye on just how much you’re spending on a monthly basis.

Origin outperforms Copilot by zooming both in and out: Instant Insights, one of our AI-powered features, drills down into each number across your account, explaining how and why it’s changed. Weekly Recaps give you a higher-level view of where your money went each week, revealing insights and trends you might not catch on a daily basis, and your Daily Market Brief gives you a personalized, jargon-free update on the day’s key finance moves.

Financial Advice & Knowledge: Origin Has AI Advisor

This is an area where Origin far outstrips Copilot. Our AI Advisor puts expert-level knowledge at your fingertips at the touch of a button. AI Advisor is basically your personal financial assistant, capable of answering complex financial questions with the rigor of a Certified Financial Planner®. Ask whether you’re saving enough, how to rebalance your portfolio, or what a major life change means for your finances. AI Advisor also brings in the latest news and market trends, to help make each additional conversation all the more contextual, helpful, and actionable.

Looking for more in-depth financial planning? Our platform also connects users with CFP® professionals who can address their specific needs and develop financial plans with their specific goals in mind. As an Origin user, you’re always just a few clicks away from scheduling time to meet with a Origin financial planner, who can advise you on home buying, investing, retirement planning, debt repayment, and more.

In certain tabs, Copilot offers boilerplate insights, but does not come close to Origin’s guidance capabilities.

Investment Tracking: Origin’s Real-Time Insights vs. Copilot’s Static Charts

Copilot charts your investment performance, and provides detailed summaries about top market-movers.

But like other features, Origin’s capabilities go much deeper. Our investment dashboard gives you a complete, real-time view of your investments across all accounts. You can see the full value of your portfolio; get detailed AI-powered summaries on what exactly has changed in your portfolio and why thanks to the Instant Insights button; ask AI Advisor related questions; and more. AI Advisor also brings real-time news updates into its advice and observations, so you don’t just get the what re: what’s happening in your portfolio, you get the why.

Crucially, Origin lets you drill down into your individual assets on our Holdings tab. There, you can see the number of shares you own in a given product; the total value; and the return in dollars or percentages. We also offer Market Watch, a feature that is basically your on-demand financial markets search engine.

Ways to Invest & Save

Origin wins here, hands down. We offer a cash account with a market-beating interest rate, automated index investing, and stock bundles. (Copilot does not offer cash accounts or investment opportunities.)

Our automated index investing accounts are managed investment portfolios that put your money in globally diversified stocks and bonds based on your own timetable, goals, and risk preferences. Crucially, these have no asset under management (AUM) fees — unlike most major brokerage firms, which typically charge between 0.25% and 1%. Our subscription fee covers the cost of managing these accounts, so you keep more of the money you earn. With Origin handling trading and rebalancing, these are a simple, super cost-effective way to build your wealth — which we don’t take a cut of.

We also offer stock bundles, packages of individual stocks that focus on a certain objective or theme, like, say, cloud computing or dividend blue chip stocks. Bundles are designed to supplement your core portfolio; save you time (no more scouring forums to find new stocks that might be good investments); and help you discover stocks that interest or intrigue you. Plus, Origin does all the math to make the investment based on the dollar amount you want to invest (rather than the share quantity), eliminating work for you and streamlining the way to a more diversified portfolio.

Partner Access: Origin’s 2-in-1 Accounts vs. Copilot’s Shared Login

While you can share your Copilot login with your partner — which means your dashboard will reflect both of your accounts — that’s as far as it goes. Origin’s partner features are much deeper and more robust, giving you the ability to toggle between partners, or to view your information together. That’s three views (partner A, partner B, and together) for the price of one.

Both allow joint budgeting; Origin allows you to also maintain your own personal budget. And if you want to occasionally hide certain accounts to allow for surprises, Origin can do that. Copilot cannot.

Net Worth: Origin’s Advanced Tracker vs. Copilot’s Simplified One

Both Origin and Copilot offer net worth tracking, which auto-updates when you connect your accounts and allows you to track your net worth over time.

Origin also has integrations with Zillow and Coinbase, meaning your net worth on Origin reflects myriad asset classes.

Origin also offers equity tracking, if you have ever earned equity as part of your compensation package. Our product also simulates different tax scenarios so that you can make fully informed decisions.

Forecasting: Only Origin Can Project Your Future

Origin’s forecasting feature acts as your AI financial planner, letting you model out the financial impact of major life changes, like getting a new job, having kids, taking a sabbatical, or retiring. With our forecasting tool you can simulate these scenarios before they happen, combining your personal data with advanced modeling to show exactly how choices affect your future.

Estate Planning: Only Origin Offers Wills and Trusts

Aside from our team of financial planners, one of the things that really sets Origin above is our commitment to helping users navigate the full range of financial matters life throws at you. To fulfill that promise, we offer estate plans (Trusts and Wills), built with the input and supervision of estate lawyers, to ensure that your family and assets are protected.

Our estate plans are valid in all 50 states. A basic will is included in every membership and, if you have an annual membership, you’ll get 30% off a Trust or Full Will.

Copilot does not offer estate planning.

Taxes: Only Origin Files Taxes

Origin partners with Column Tax to allow users to file their state and federal taxes for free every year. After all, when all of your money is already in one streamlined place, why not also file taxes there? Our tax filing system is capable of covering high levels of tax complexity; is backed by our maximum refund guarantee; and gives you access to on-demand tax expert support for free.

Copilot does not have tax functionality.

***

Fundamentally, Copilot is just budgeting and tracking — Origin is so much more. No other app on the market comes close to our status as the first AI financial advisor with an all-in-one financial platform. We excel at a few other things too…

Responsiveness

At Origin, iterating on our product regularly is a priority for us. When users request specific functionalities, we deliver — quickly. We also have a product advisory council made up of IRL users that gives feedback on each new functionality. On our active Reddit, Origin staff and Origin members are in regular communication. And when it comes to technical support, our customer care team has a one-minute response time on live chat.

Financial Education & Resources

At Origin, our newsletter, The Gist, keeps readers informed about economic conditions and educated about personal finance matters that may impact their bottom line. (You can also sign up for it for free at the footer of our homepage.) We take financial education seriously at Origin, and our Resources tab is home to a host of blog posts breaking down some of the more complex elements of financial planning.