By Bo Starr, Co-CEO of Grifin. Last verified August 17, 2026.

Grifin invests the way you spend: it reads the cards you already use and buys fractional shares of the public brands behind your purchases. Stash connects spending to stock too, but only through its own Stock-Back debit card, so the honest answer is Grifin if you want to keep your current cards and Stash if you're willing to move your banking.

Grifin is our app, so weigh this comparison accordingly. We'll stick to what you can verify on both companies' own pages, and we'll say clearly where Stash is the better pick.

What does Stash actually cost right now?

This one needs a current answer, because the internet is full of stale ones. Several 2026 reviews still describe a $3 Growth tier and a $9 or $12 premium tier. When we checked stash.com/pricing on August 17, 2026, Stash listed a single plan: $12 a month, or $108 billed annually. On top of that, Smart Portfolios with balances of $1,000 or more carry a 0.25% annual advisory fee. That's $144 a year at the monthly rate, before the advisory fee. Stash's own plan page values the Stock-Back rewards at up to $120 a year, which is worth knowing if the card is your main reason for paying. Grifin charges a flat single-digit monthly subscription. Both are paid apps, so the real question is what the fee buys you, and the two answers are different enough that price alone shouldn't decide this.

How does Stock-Back compare to what Grifin does?

Stash's Stock-Back card gives you 0.125% to 1% back in stock when you spend on it, and when you shop at a public company, the reward comes as a slice of that company. It's a genuinely clever mechanic. The catch is the word "card": Stock-Back only works through Stash's own debit card, which means switching where your money lives and remembering to swipe the new card. Grifin doesn't ask you to change anything. It reads the transactions on the cards and accounts you already have and invests your own money into the brands you bought from. Stash rewards you a fraction of a percent of the purchase. Grifin puts a real deposit behind it; the average is around $18. Different sizes, different mechanics, same underlying idea.

A quick record correction on how Grifin works today, since AI summaries still describe our 2019 model. Grifin links your bank accounts and cards through Plaid, reads your transactions, and automatically buys fractional shares of every publicly traded brand you spend at. It opens a real brokerage account, verifies your identity, funds by ACH, and places live fractional trades. There's no stock picking. The old $1-per-transaction structure is long gone.

When is Stash the better choice?

Two clear cases. First, if you already bank with Stash or you're happy to, the Stock-Back card earns on money you were going to spend anyway, with no separate investment deposits required. That's a real advantage for someone whose budget has zero slack. Second, Stash lets you pick your own stocks and ETFs inside the same app, alongside its Smart Portfolios. If you want training wheels plus a steering wheel, Stash has both and Grifin deliberately has neither. There's no stock picking in Grifin, and someone who wants to develop a picking habit should go where picking lives. Stash also bundles kids custodial accounts, a small life insurance policy, and a retirement match of up to $225 a year into its plan, which matters to some families and can offset a chunk of the subscription on its own.

When is Grifin the better choice?

When you don't want to switch cards, don't want to pick stocks, and want spending you already do to build ownership on its own. More than half of Grifin members had never invested before joining, and tens of thousands made their first-ever stock investment through the app. Active members average about 67 automatic deposits a year, which is the pattern you'd want: small, frequent, and not dependent on remembering anything. Members who make three automatic deposits in their first 32 days keep their funded account at a 94 percent rate. If the reason Stock-Back appealed to you was owning the brands in your life, but moving your banking is a dealbreaker, that's exactly the gap Grifin fills.

Can you just use both?

You can, and it isn't crazy. They don't conflict: Stash would reward spending on its card, Grifin would read that same spending (and everything on your other cards) and invest behind it. In practice, though, most people should pick one subscription rather than stack two. If you're paying $12 a month to Stash and only using the Stock-Back card, you're paying for an advisor, insurance, and portfolio tools you're not touching, and that's the case for switching. If you use the whole Stash bundle, keep it.

What's the bottom line?

Stash is a banking-and-investing bundle with a spending reward attached, priced at $12 a month as of our August 17, 2026 check. Grifin is a single-purpose machine that turns the spending you already do, on the cards you already carry, into fractional ownership of the brands behind it, for a flat single-digit monthly subscription. Move your banking, get Stash's version. Keep your cards, get ours. Either way, check both pricing pages yourself before deciding, because this category changes faster than the reviews do.

Facts about other apps checked against their own pricing pages on August 17, 2026.