GoHenry: Banking for Under-18s Reviews

by Hdgagajwnensgsjene

The custom service is terrible, there is no one there to answer you calls and it hangs up on you. They do not reply to your emails if you need help and the online chat service can’t really help you with anything. The card came in the mail, child was super excited and the card would not activate. This goes one for 2 days and customer support doesn’t know what to do so they tell me someone else will get a hold of me as soon as possible. Well who is that? Cause I can’t reach anyone by phone or email and online chat can’t help and no one can tell me when I’m getting contacted. This card is a scam, they got my money, the said they would refund that and that they send me an ema. No email received and I probably won’t see any money either. Plus I bet they will still charge me the monthly fee as well. Stay away from this card, disappointing for everyone involved.

by Mom Who Like Order

I choose GoHenry over Greenlight because it gave the option to pay the children for chores with a weekly allowance. However if chores don’t get completed, the allowance will still pay out. Also the kids cannot send money to each other , it has to be sent to the parent account and the sent from there. GoHenry has stopped working especially in times I need it the most. I try to log in and make payments, check spending, etc and the function does not work for days as I know the passcode is correct because it is stored to my phone. The kids also have had their cards decline at several merchants even when there have been ample funds at their disposal. The cards also do not work at the atm. Imagine sending your children to the mall with cards that will not allow them to make purchases they have been approved for with a $300 a day limit and be denied in a line full of people. Once all monies have been spent off of the cards, we will no longer have any use for them. I really wanted this to work!

by Peanut427

GoHenry worked great for us for a while. Until we moved next door to a shake shop. My daughters card has been declined multiple times and she has gotten extremely embarrassed. When I asked the response I got was
This is due to a hold put on purchases for tip-orientated retailers. This is a pending transaction amount that is 20% percent higher than the total you spent. When the retailer settles your final bill and if they do not charge a service charge, this extra money will be returned to your account. This usually happens by midnight on the day of purchase. This is in place to prevent the child account from falling into a negative balance

This is not ok with me. My daughter has the money in her account and should not have to have an extra 20% in her account at all times. That is a lot for a little girl to figure out.. definitely switching to another company after this experience.

by Eva.p.1026

GoHenry is decent. Basically it’s a withdraw app for money to a debit card. Except that debit card is definitely not accepted everywhere (seems like 50/50) The program with chores is great. It can be educational for kids for sure. My main problem, is that if you want to transfer money from your parent account back to your personal bank account there is really no option. After reading the FAQs go Henry advises the best way to do this is go to an ATM. If that doesn’t work you need to contact customer service. I think it’s ridiculous that this program has the capability of withdrawing money from your bank with is zero option to return it or retrieve it to your bank account. FAQs say when contacting customer service provide banking details. Don’t you have them? I don’t really want to put those in an email either. Understandable, right? This should be user friendly and convenient for not just kids parents too. We’ll see how it’s resolved, I could easily get a venmo debit card and have less inconvenience.

by Jmaries

I would like to be able to set daily tasks under earning without having to add a separate task for each day or editing the amount as he completes additional tasks. As it stands right now our earning list is ridiculously long because it’s reading challenge month and he’s saving for a new Lego set so he has three daily optional earning tasks. We currently have 21 separate entries to scroll through (Sun-Sat entries for reading challenge, emptying the dishwasher, and helping with the laundry.) It would be great to just have them listed once and be able to check them off multiple times throughout the week and have the amount accumulate instead of having to designate them as separate daily tasks.

The percent bar in the saving section is nice, but there are better visuals that could be used to make it easier for younger kids to understand how close they are to their goals.

Reminders to complete chores or tasks, while not necessary right now because he’s too young for his own phone, will be important for us once we get to that point.

Ultimately, I’m not sure we’ll stay with this app. The idea is cute and I like that he has his own card, but I would really like more functionality in GoHenry .

by Inglorious Bastard 87

So I just got GoHenry and ordered the cards for the kids. We are very excited to use this great tool to help teach financial responsibility to our kids. I think this is an excellent option. I am still new to this service, but I do feel like a few tweaks to GoHenry are desperately needed. Such as the daily chore functions that others have mentioned, but also, multi-parent support without sharing logins. It would also be SUPER convenient to be able to allow relatives to create an account to link to the child so the grandparents can transfer birthday/Christmas money and things like that. I think that would also drive customer acquisition, so it would be a win-win function! But overall I think this concept rocks!

by Mummaziz

I use this with my 15 y.o. He likes that he has a debit card, and I like that it shows his spending in such great detail. It has definitely raised his awareness about his spending and how he can contribute to the household.

It would be very convenient if there were categories to help keep tasks organized, such as household chores, school responsibilities, and health. I also would love to see tasks that could be checked off each day. As it is now, if things need to be done 4 times in a week, I have enter into GoHenry 4 times. For consistency and routine, I think my son would benefit from daily and weekly format. As it is now, it’s difficult to visually organize it. Despite that, I would definitely recommend GoHenry to other parents.

by Rainy1

Today I saw the beauty of GoHenry in action. I took my nearly 14-year-old to a store and told her she could use her new card, this app. She knew what the limit was that she could spend on a transaction, so she use the calculator on her phone to add up the items in her hand. She said to me you don’t know how hard it is to stick to that dollar amount. She was nervous using the card for the first time but smiled when all went well with the transaction.

My second example is my 10-year-old failed to bring her card to the mall but she wanted to buy something from the Lego store. So I told her I would purchase it and then transfer the money from her card back to my parent account. She calculated what that would do to her balance and still thought it was a good deal. Normally, I might have offered tickets but it and then choose chores to earn the money. It’s harder to do it that way.

While I think cash is the right way to teach kids about the value of money. I don’t feel comfortable with children having cash on hand versus a card when it comes to larger sums. They are still kids. This allows them to really think through their purchases.

by Tjulz

I just received my sons debit card and so far I really like how easy it was to set everything up. I also like that a real person answered the phone when I had a question. I do have a suggestion though. I think the spending limits is great but it could be better. My son has set a savings goal for a game he wants to buy when it comes out later this year. When he reaches his goal we will transfer the money to his available balance so he can buy the game. However, in order for him to buy the game I will need to edit his spending limit for that particular purchase. I think it would be better if kids could just REQUEST to spend a higher amount for those times they want to purchase something that may cost more than their limits but they have the available balance. And as parents we can deny or approve such request. Kinda like how my kids have to “ask” to download an app with the Apple family plan. Maybe it would be as simple as: if a parent approves the request the spending limit is turned off temporarily and if denied stays the same. Other than that so far I really like it and so does my son.

by Kids First 1968

I got GoHenry and signed up for the service for the purpose of trying to get my 14 year old boy to do the daily tasks that we nag him about everyday. To include home work and studying. This is typically a tough age and I wanted to use positive reinforcement to motivate him instead of nagging, punishment or yelling. I thought GoHenry and credit card would be the perfect way to do that! Unfortunately, at this point, there is no way to assign daily tasks unless you manually enter a one-off task everyday. This is not reasonable and would be very time consuming and tedious. So unfortunately I am forced to cancel. I will say that the online chat with Elliott was quick and helpful. Even on a Sunday morning in eastern standard time. this app says they are working on adding daily tasks sometime this year. When that happens this will truly be the perfect app. Until then i give it 3 stars, 4 because of the customer service. Thank you this app!

by JKM2401

I researched several allowance/money management apps to use to (hopefully) motivate my kids age 12 and 17. I decided to try this app because it seemed easy to use for kids and parents. I’ve always given my kids money for completing chores but I think actually *seeing* their money and having some financial independence with the debit card is a better motivator than simply handing them cash.

In addition to GoHenry making it easy to add tasks and change monetary amounts, I love the parental controls, kids get their own debit card and mine personalized theirs for the extra $4.95 fee. Kids and parents can set up savings goals and even decide to donate to charity.

Some things I’d like to see though are the ability to set tasks for “daily” instead of always weekly or one time. For example, I want my kids to brush their teeth and get themselves ready for school everyday, not once a week! I also think it would be great if some additional charities could be added so kids could choose to give to their favorite one. The SPCA or the Humane Society would be a good start for additional nonprofit organizations.

Overall my kids and I are enjoying GoHenry . I rated it 4 stars because I think it’s great but could use some tweaking.

by Almost 12 Artist🤤

I really like GoHenry, but it does have its flaws. Though I wouldn’t take them too seriously because this rating is coming from a 11 and a 1/2 year old. Anyways, GoHenry it’s self is a genius approach, but it does sometimes get kinda wonky. For example; when me and my dad were waiting for GoHenry to pay me my money I earned that week, it said and I quote ‘ given by tonight’ but at midnight, it still didn’t give me the money! Although it was clearly 12:06 AM! But by 1:00 on Sunday morning it finally payed me. But other than that I haven’t have anything bad happen and I honestly wouldn’t be able to comprehend such a nice idea. So I rate it with my fat fingers a four star rating. Not a bad app to use for your kids! But why would anyone listen to an idiotic demonic child such as myself.

by Coach_koessel

I have been using this for a few months now with my 2 children so they can learn about finances as well as knowing how to learn to use a card ( now days that’s all people use).
Love how they have a feature where you can set different chores and what not to check off to deposit monies at the end of the week. Also being able to transfer monies at any time has helped my teen daughter out tremendously. Especially this past couple of weeks. I had to rush out of town while she was left behind and she needed some money so I was able to transfer money to her right Away !! So it has been truly amazing!! Check it out! Seriously it is the best.

by Rajkpersaud

GoHenry has all the right tools for disciplining yourself or your children when it comes to your finances. Personally, I’ve tried using it as a way to reward myself for actions or tasks I’ve completed because money is a huge motivator. Being able to tie my to-do and task-list to a sense of earned accomplishment —creating an ongoing financial leash if you will— has boosted my productivity immensely. My only wish is for GoHenry to perhaps add easier tools to remind users of their tasks so that they can more actively engage with them. Due date reminders for each as well as better filters for organizing and tagging them would do wonders. Highly recommended.

by Lindzo214

I absolutely love GoHenry!! I looked into a couple others before I found this app and I’m so glad I found it. It works perfectly for me as a busy working mom. No having to remember to get cash to pay allowances. I use it as a motivation tool for many things from getting chores done to savings goals. Kids love it and it’s easy for them to use on their own phone. I really can’t think of a single bad thing to say about it. Its also a great introduction for kids on how to keep track of their money as it comes and goes and as a parent it is important to have control over their card and where they spend their money. I noticed they’ve been spending too much on video game stuff on Xbox online so I was able to restrict them from online spending for a while to encourage them to save their money or spend it more wisely. I was able to send extra money instantly to my son during his field trip after I forgot to give him money that morning. The features are great and customer service is good too.

by Obama Critic

This is GoHenry that my wife and I have been waiting for. Our kids are learning so much about financial responsibility and the value of saving money for something they want.

They are both so excited about having their own debit card and being able to save up money for something that they want to purchase with it. My 10 year old has logged on every day and moving his money around to different savings piles for things he wants to “invest” in. When he sees how this affects something else he had earmarked some money for, he learns the value of prioritizing where he should put his savings.

This is by far the best teaching app I have ever used.

by BlairCB

We got our 6 year old son a this app card because we rarely use cash so it didn’t make sense to give him an allowance in cash. It has worked so well to help him understand that he has to save up to get bigger items and to help him understand the value of each dollar. If he wants something, he asks me to check his account. If he goes to a store, he loves having his own card, but usually I just order him things online and then transfer the money back and forth between us. The only complaint that I have is that somehow the card number was stolen and one cent was deposited or spent (I can’t remember) from a website. To this app’s credit, the phone call to cancel the card was easy and I quickly received another. We look forward to our son using this for years to come.

by Smb0513

Much, MUCH better than greenlight. this app is legitimately reliable with your money and I am very happy with GoHenry and service so far. Greenlight demands money down first and for 6 months I tried 3 times to get the card in the mail for my teen and it never showed up. After contacting by phone and several emails to support, still no card. But they asked for more money! I canceled and went with this app, they sent the card right away, notified me of updates on the cards delivery, and didn’t ask for any money to be loaded until I had the card and activated it. Also , they allow me to decide how much I want to load. Greenlight demanded a minimum of $20 before they even will send a card. If you want a reliable source to help you send money to your youth and help you get the tools to teach them about spending and saving, then this is a great app to start with!

by Ms_bugg

GoHenry definitely deserves 5 stars. It is an amazing idea and I’m glad to have this for my 12 yr old daughter who begged for a “credit card” in her words. This truly will help her become more responsible and teach accountability, plus makes it easy for me to stick to an allowance amount as well. I like how I can see what she sees from her point of view and control the account and her spending and limits. It allows them to have freedom, but freedom that is definitely appropriate for a child. I also love how easy they make it to add money and add a debit card to fund the account. The reason for the “But” is that I wish they allowed you to add both parents or link another parent profile seeing that my child has both a mom and a dad who would like to monitor. Also it would be nice if other people such as relatives, could have the option to send her money as well for things like birthdays or Christmas. Other than that, no complaints from what I’ve seen so far, but we shall see how this goes.

by CRenee0911

I have this for my 3 oldest children (14,13 & 12) & it makes it very easy to give them their weekly allowance & extra chore money. They love being able to look on their app & see how much money they have. They also loved personalizing their card.
It’s great how quickly the money transfers from parent to child account & I love how it tells me when they use their card.
My only complaint is the monthly fee x3. I have 3 other children that I would like to get this for, but I’m really not wanting to pay that monthly fee times 6!
Otherwise, it’s a very good way to let kids keep track of their money and feel like a big kid. My oldest daughters friend thought she was so fancy when she whipped out her card to pay for their lunch, lol!

by TCKC Dk Racing

A couple of months have passed since I ordered three cards for my kids. It definitely has some great features but it only works maybe 50% of the time. I can use it at Starbucks, and other major retailers but other times it won’t work. my daughter earning money to go get her hair done but then the card wouldn’t work with her hair stylists square app. Since then I’ve took the card back and have tried using it randomly. It’s been declined more often then it has been accepted. I will be canceling the cards unfortunately. Great concept and GoHenry works flawlessly. If they can figure out the compatibility issues i would be keeping them. Until then i’m searching for different options.

by This Suuuuuuucks

So I just got GoHenry and ordered the cards for the kids. We are very excited to use this great tool to help teach financial responsibility to our kids. I think this is an excellent option. I am still new to this service, but I do feel like a few tweaks to GoHenry are desperately needed. Such as the daily chore functions that others have mentioned, but also, multi-parent support without sharing logins. It would also be SUPER convenient to be able to allow relatives to create an account to link to the child so the grandparents can transfer birthday/Christmas money and things like that. I think that would also drive customer acquisition, so it would be a win-win function! But overall I think this concept rocks!

by KRiley1985

Just set ourselves up and ordered his card. I’m glad it comes with a free trial month so we can make sure this is the one for us. I like the tasks and see that a daily option is “coming soon” but not having that is a serious downfall. My son only gets an allowance for helping around the house and stress free mornings (getting dressed, brushing teeth, making his bed without being told 100 times.) Having the daily option for that would be perfect. As it stands right now I have to give the “make bed” task 7 times for it to count for the week. His list is turning into a rather LONG one at this rate.

by The Bored

Just set it up and ordered my daughters card. Only flaw I see so far is that it needs daily tasks. Things that she needs to do every day like pick up her room and make her bed I’m going to have to keep track of every day to make sure she earned the allowance for that task at the end of the week. I hope to see an option for daily tasks at some point.
My daughter is almost 12 and very excited to have her very own card. We tried cash allowances in the past and it never works out. Heard about this from a customer at work & really excited to see my daughter learn some responsibility!! Giving 5-stars as I don’t see a reason to judge it just yet, but definitely needs daily tasks!!!

by Ajahmom

this app is the perfect app for kids who want to spend there own money without begging mommy or daddy for it. The kids get there own credit card and the parents are allowed to manage the child’s account! The parent is responsible for the child’s account but the card is all the child’s. My mother uses this app for my brother and I and it is amazing!!! We do chores to earn our hard earned money and sometimes if we’re doing really good, she gives us and extra amount! Each chore costs a certain amount, which the parent account can change and unchange then there’s allowance. At the end of the day this app is the perfect site for all families!⭐️ Hope you decide to try!

by Acappella30

I’ve only had GoHenry a short time, but so far it has been great. My kids love being able to see when I’ve put their allowance on there and it’s convenient for me as well. Being able to get updates when and where they spend money is a great feature. My only complaint (if I would even call it one) is that you have to pay $3.99 a month per child when another card service has it at like $4.99 for the whole family. I have three kids using the service so it can get pricey quick. Other than that I have nothing but positive ratings for the service.

by Sgreenlc

Kids point of view, it’s awesome! I can manage my money easily, put it into savings, and now I think about the money I spend and don’t buy as much! This is easy to carry around compared to a ton of cash, and I just overall think it was great! All my friends have one because I spread the news on how good this product truly was! I thought they would want to hear it more from me than the reviews online! So overall, I DEFINITELY recommend! Loved it! Also not to mention the customizable card that was only 4.99! So, that’s amazing! Loved it! 😉