GoHenry Review
If you have a child or a kid, you probably want them to learn financial literacy. There are many solutions, and one of them is GoHenry. So in this GoHenry review, we’ll go into the detail of what the company offers and if it a good idea to get the card for your kid.
Final verdict: is GoHenry worth it?
GoHenry card is a good solution for kids and their parents. The card allows kids and teens to pay in a cashless way while the app helps to learn to earn and save. Meanwhile, GoHenry card has many limitations and it still needs some improvement with transactions and allowance payments.
What is GoHenry?
GoHenry is a banking company offering a debit card (Visa) and financial learning app for kids 6-18 years. The company offers tools for parents to make their kids smart with money. GoHenry allows children to earn their own money and spend them by having their own debit card–however, under parental control.
Parents are able to send money, see all the transactions, or block the card their kids via the GoHenry app. The app also allows automatic payments and spending tracking with notifications.
GoHenry card can be used by children as young as 6 years old while a traditional bank account can be opened starting from 13.
The company is operating since 2012, and now they have over 2 million users.
GoHenry alternatives
GoHenry Features
GoHenry has quite common features for this type of debit card for kids. The card with an app allows children safely learn how to spend while a parent is able to keep this all under their control.
Here are all the GoHenry’s features explained.
GoHenry card
- GoHenry cards can be used for online and offline payments as well as at ATMs.
- You cannot connect the card to Apple Pay and use it this way.
- You can make contactless payments with an inbuilt $50 limit on such purchases.
- If your kid’s balance is lower than a transaction, it will be automatically declined so parents do not need to control it.
- The company automatically blocks kid’s transactions for “adult” activities like gambling, buying alcohol or tobacco, paying on dating websites, etc (retailers having ‘over 18’ merchant code).
- GoHenry account can be opened only for those who live in the US (the continental US, Alaska, or Hawaii) and the UK.
- There is a fee of $1.50 for domestic ATM use and $2 for international ATMs.
- The card can be used in other countries where Mastercard is accepted with no additional fees for transactions in a foreign currency.
GoHenry account
- You can have a free standard GoHenry card for up to 4 children per parent. If you need more child accounts, your spouse can add more. You cannot pay additionally to get more cards.
- The card can be managed via a free mobile app.
- Both kids and parents will have access to the GoHenry app to manage a card with separate logins.
- GoHenry has a co-parenting feature; so you can invite a co-parent and they’ll have their own login.
Card funding
- Transfers from your bank account into GoHenry are free but there still might be a fee from your bank.
- GoHenry allows funding your account only with a single connected debit card and you cannot add a separate source.
- GoHenry offers free accounts for family members so that can easily send money to a kid
- There is a limit of funding of $500 a day to all the connected kids’ accounts.
- There are also limits of three loads per day.
Parental control
- GoHenry is a companion app for both parents to be able to manage their kid’s card.
- The app has a parental control feature with real-time notifications about the child’s spending.
- Parents are able to set the limits of where a card can be used (in-store, online, or in ATM) and how much money their kid can spend (both each week and in on ego).
- Parents are able to set ATM transaction limits.
Features to teach financial literacy
- Parents can set automated weekly allowance so that children learn to plan their own weekly budgets.
- The app allows setting custom tasks and chores (or choosing from what GoHenry offers). Those tasks can be weekly (like doing their home assignment or cleaning their room) or one-off chores. You can set the payment amount for each task separately.
- Kids can define their saving goals and can also set automatic savings to save for this goal. When a kid reaches their savings goal, the money from the Savings Goal will be transferred back to their spending account.
- GoHenry also offers plenty of educational content like quizzes and videos within Money Missions to learn how to save, borrow, and invest.
Custom cards
- A kid can pick the color of their card, choose a picture or a pattern, and add their name
- their name, choose a picture or a pattern, and pick a color to make learning about money something children can be proud of.
- The price for GoHenry’s custom card is $4.99.
- Both kids and parents can order a custom card using the app.
- You can change the design as many times as you want.
Customer support
- One of the downsides of GoHenry is that you need to call customer support to cancel your account.
- Customer support work seven days a week, 9am-5pm (EST).
- After a kid turns 18, they can continue using the GoHenry card until it expires. In this case, you still need to contact the company to cancel the account not to pay for it further.
So, to recap here are the GoHenry limitations.
- Accounts: 4 kids per one parent
- Kids age: 6 to 18
- Location: the US and the UK
- Maximum per load: $500
- Maximum load per day: $500
- Maximum number of loads per day: 3
- Maximum contactless payment: $50
- Custom design: unlimited ($4.99 each)
GoHenry pricing
GoHenry is a subscription service and its pricing model is very simple: you pay for the membership $4.99 per month per child (or £2.99/mo if you’re based in the UK). The company has a fee of $1.5-2 for ATM usage ($1.5 for domestic and $2 for foreign ATMs).
If you want to order a card with a custom design, you’ll need to pay $4.99.
There is also 30 first days of free trial with access to all of GoHenry’s features. However, you still need to content your card and the $4.99 fee will be withdrawn from the attached debit card or parent account starting from the second month.
Creating a GoHenry account
Adults can have up to 4 GoHenry cards for their kids.
After you create a GoHenry account, you can expect your card to arrive within 7- 9 business days (and up to 11 days max in rare cases).
The company conducts customer verification by matching their name, address, and date of birth against a number of public record databases (Experian). The customer might also be asked to upload their driver’s license or State issued ID. This is needed when the customer has lived at the address for less than 3 years, and the customer support team is not able to validate the details online.
GoHenry reviews
“I’ve used go henry since 2016 and never had any issues now all 3 of my kids are happy with them and the independence they get”
“Nice to teach kids how to save and the importance of getting things done in other to get paid. I’ll recommend it to all parents for their kids”
“Annoying sometimes. apart from that it’s a good app.”
“Ordered my daughter a card last September as she started secondary school and she loves it and I have to say so do I as it’s brilliant.I pay her pocket money into it and extra money for travel and emergencies and its so easy to use as.”
“I pay my 15-year-old son a small weekly allowance each Friday, and can put his school lunch money on it on a Monday morning. He has the ability to transfer funds into his saving section and enjoys seeing it grow. He is happy to have a card too as I think it makes him feel slightly more grown-up.”
“Don’t bother can’t cancel the account always given swings and roundabouts why they can’t cancel. They take ridiculous amounts for a card you can’t use. Wouldn’t mind I’ve told them it’s my partners account they’re taking money from me makes no difference sick of giving the run around for something we simply don’t use that”
“You have to pay $5.00 a week whether they earned it or not. So if your child didn’t earn their allowance, your are still required to put the $5.00 in, if nothing else to cover the 3.99 per child fee. And I have to pay $12.00 per month whether they do their chores or they use their cards. I want total control. I feel it should be a flat fee per month charged to the parent account. Not deleting the kids account. Not designed to save money. I put in $160.00 for 3 kids. They didn’t use their accounts and in 4 months the accounts were at 0. I don’t see on any statement where the money went. The product needs improvement!”
GoHenry’s card is created for children and teens aged 6-18.
Customers find GoHenry good enough being rated 4.2 out of 5 at Trustpilot with over 7,900 reviews.
The price of GoHenry is $4.99/month per child (or £2.99/mo for UK customers).
The card gives main features for cashless payments and helps kids learn how to earn and save. But it has many limitations and needs improvement with transactions and paying allowance.
David is an advocate of financial literacy. Having previously worked as a financial advisor and being a father of two daughters, he wants to show solutions to improve financial behavior.
