---
title: PocketSmith vs WealthScout: features and differences
url: https://wealthscout.app/compare/pocketsmith-vs-wealthscout
checked: 2026-08-20
---

# PocketSmith vs WealthScout: features and differences

> PocketSmith links your bank accounts and forecasts the balance in them over time. WealthScout projects your net worth instead. It tracks your shares, with prices that update automatically, along with your property, mortgage, cash and the legal owner of each asset, and uses your income, spending and assumptions to estimate the year you could retire.

Checked 2026-08-20. Source: https://wealthscout.app/compare/pocketsmith-vs-wealthscout

## Verdict

Pick PocketSmith to forecast your bank balance from bank feeds. Pick WealthScout to project the value of your assets and debts, including the tax charged when money is paid out to a person.

- **WealthScout is best for:** People asking when they can retire, buy, or drop to part time.
- **PocketSmith is best for:** People who want to forecast the bank balance week by week.

## What both do

Both keep income, spending and budgets, both track net worth including property and loans, and both forecast years ahead.

## Pricing

- **WealthScout.** $99 a year — Plus is $99 a year, or $11.99 a month. One subscription per household, with no per-person charge. Free plan: Free has no time limit and asks for no payment. It includes one user, your complete current position, up to 10 share holdings in one supported market, one property and a current-trajectory projection..
- **PocketSmith.** $85 a year (charged as AUD $9.99 a month, billed annually, converted 2026-08-19) — Foundation is the entry paid plan. Bank feeds and the longer forecasts sit on Flourish and Fortune above it. Free plan: Free covers manual entry and a small number of accounts..

## Feature by feature

| Question | WealthScout | PocketSmith |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Do my share and crypto prices update automatically? | Yes — Share prices update automatically during the trading day. Crypto prices update at least every fifteen minutes. | Partly — It imports investment account balances through its bank feeds rather than pricing each holding. |
| Can I keep a share ledger with trades and dividends? | Yes — Each trade, dividend and cost is recorded separately, and prices update automatically. | No — It tracks an investment account and its balance. It records transactions, not individual trades. |
| Do my bank transactions import automatically? | No — You enter what is in the accounts yourself. There are no bank connections. | Yes — It links banks in many countries and sorts the imported transactions. |
| Can I record a property with its rent and running costs? | Yes — WealthScout records the value, the owner, the mortgage, the rent and each running cost separately. | Partly — A property and its loan appear in the net worth view. |
| Does it record who owns each asset? | Yes — Every asset belongs to an owner, which can be a person, a trust or a company. | Partly — An invited user can view or edit the same figures. It does not record who owns each asset. |
| Are budgets built from sorted bank transactions? | No — You enter your income and spending yourself, and both are used in the projection. | Yes — Its budget calendar and rules use the transactions it imports. |
| Does it forecast my day-to-day bank balance? | No — It projects the value of your assets and debts. It does not forecast a daily account balance. | Yes — It forecasts cash balances up to 60 years out from accounts and budgets. |
| Can I review gains from my share trades? | Partly — You get a factual summary of what you sold and the raw gain or loss on it, not a tax calculation. | No — It does not make share tax reports. |

## Choose PocketSmith when

- You need linked bank transactions now.
- You want a day-to-day budget calendar.
- You mainly want to forecast bank balances.
- You need its phone app now.

## Choose WealthScout when

- Your question is when you can retire, buy, or drop to part time.
- You want each share holding tracked in detail, with prices that update automatically.
- You want to record property, rent, loans, running costs and the owner of each.
- You want the projection to use the figures you already track.

## Where WealthScout falls short

WealthScout does not link to banks, and PocketSmith has the stronger bank-fed budget tools today. WealthScout updates share and crypto prices automatically, records who owns each asset, tracks property in detail, and projects your net worth over time.

## The two products forecast different things

PocketSmith projects money moving through your accounts. It does that better than anything else here, and if your question is what the balance will be next month, it is the right tool.
WealthScout projects the value of your assets and debts instead. It applies growth rates to each asset, calculates the tax when an asset is sold, and calculates the tax charged when money is paid out of a trust, company or retirement account. From that it estimates the year you could afford to retire.

## WealthScout records each holding, not just the account balance

PocketSmith adds an investment account to your net worth as a single balance. WealthScout records each trade, each dividend and each cost separately, and updates the price of every holding automatically during the trading day.
That lets the app calculate the return on each holding and the income it has paid you, and produce factual summaries of your realised gains and investment income for your tax return.

## WealthScout records more about a property than its value and loan

PocketSmith shows a property and its mortgage in your net worth as two figures that offset each other.
WealthScout also records the rent, the running costs you have paid, the costs you expect, and the legal owner. From those it calculates the return on the property before and after tax, and the tax you would pay if you sold it.

## The projection uses the figures you already track

You confirm the figures once a month, and every projection uses those figures. Nothing is retyped, so it does not become out of date the week after you build it.
Add a move, a career break or school fees to the timeline, and see how the estimated retirement year changes. You can also test lower investment returns to see how much the estimate moves. Later you can compare what actually happened with what you projected.

## Questions

**What is the main difference between PocketSmith and WealthScout?**

PocketSmith forecasts the balance in your bank accounts. WealthScout projects your net worth, tracking shares with prices that update automatically, along with property, debt, asset owners, and the tax charged when money is paid out of a trust or company. Only WealthScout estimates a retirement year.

**Which product is better for budgets?**

PocketSmith, if you mean sorting transactions into categories. It imports bank feeds and WealthScout does not. WealthScout records your income and spending as figures you set, and uses them in the projection, which is more useful when investments, property, debt and a retirement estimate also matter.

**Which product is better for tracking shares?**

WealthScout. It records every trade, dividend and cost, updates holding prices automatically during the trading day, and produces factual gains and income summaries. PocketSmith shows the investment account balance only, without the trades underneath it.

**Can both products make long-term forecasts?**

Yes, but they forecast different things. PocketSmith projects the cash moving through your bank accounts. WealthScout projects the value of your assets and debts, applying growth rates and the tax charged when assets are sold or money is paid out to a person.

## Sources

- PocketSmith features
- PocketSmith plans and account limits
- PocketSmith net worth tracking
- PocketSmith forecasting