MyDoh Review: Is This Money App Worth It for Kids?

This post is based on Mydoh’s current features, pricing and terms as of September 2026.

Teaching kids about money can be surprisingly difficult.

We can explain saving, budgeting, spending and earning, but eventually kids need to actually use money if they’re going to understand it.

That’s where apps like Mydoh come in.

Mydoh is a Canadian money-management app for children and teens that combines allowances, chores, savings goals and a prepaid Visa card. It’s a product of RBC, and it’s designed for kids from 6 to 17 years old.

I’ve always liked the idea of giving kids some financial independence, but I’m also not particularly interested in handing a young child a traditional bank card with unrestricted access to money. My 7 and 9 year old recently got their own bank accounts and bank cards with TD Bank (of course we took advantage of a new bank account promotion for children, they each got their $100 deposited recently).

I’m a bit wary of letting them use their bank card wherever (especially if they forget their PIN code).

So I wanted to look at whether Mydoh actually provides a useful middle ground.

Here’s my review:

What Is Mydoh?

Mydoh is essentially a financial learning app for kids and teens.

Parents have their own account, while children have a separate account where they can:

• Receive an allowance
• Get paid for chores
• Spend money
• Set savings goals
• Track their spending
• Use a prepaid Visa card
• Learn about money through the app

Parents can monitor the account, transfer money, and receive spending notifications.

The important thing is that this isn’t a credit card, but a reloadable Visa prepaid card issued by RBC. Kids can only spend money that’s already been loaded onto the card. There is no interest and no ability to borrow money.

How Much Does Mydoh Cost?

This is probably the first question any personal finance blogger is going to ask.

And fortunately, it’s a good one.

Mydoh currently has no monthly fee.

Mydoh says families can have up to two parents and five children on one account at no monthly cost.

That’s a big selling point.

A financial education app charging $5 or $10 per month would have to provide quite a bit of value before I’d consider paying for it (as you may know, I don’t like paying for subscriptions).

At $0, the calculation is considerably easier.

If your child wants a ‘personalized’ Mydoh card with a cool picture on it, it’s $6.99. Otherwise, the regular Mydowh Smart Cash card is $0.

The Mydoh Smart Cash Card

This card can be used for purchases online or in stores wherever Visa is accepted (many places, as we know).

There is both a physical and digital card.

The physical card is intended primarily for in-store purchases, while the digital card can be used online and through supported mobile-wallet functionality.

That means a child can actually experience what it’s like to have money available and decide:

“Do I really want to spend $12 on this?”

That’s very different from asking Mom or Dad to buy something (shockingly, when I tell my child he can use his own money to buy something, he decides he doesn’t want to buy it anymore).

Why I Like the Prepaid Structure

One of the biggest advantages is that kids can’t accidentally rack up credit-card debt.

Accidentally- that can be easily done. There have been times when my children (yes both) ended up downloading $50 worth of Amazon apps each on their tablet.

If there’s $25 in the Mydoh account, they have $25 to spend.

That’s it.

There isn’t a credit limit of $500 that they can somehow turn into $900 of spending.

For a child who is learning about money, I think this is an excellent feature.

You can let them make mistakes without allowing those mistakes to become financially catastrophic.

Why I Like It Even Better: Parents Still Have Control

This is where Mydoh differs from simply giving a child cash.

Parents can:

• Add money
• Set up allowances
• Assign tasks
• Monitor spending
• Receive real-time notifications
• Lock the card
• Help kids establish savings goals

Mydoh describes this as giving parents oversight while allowing children to make their own spending decisions.

I like this concept.

You’re essentially giving kids a financial sandbox.

They get to experiment, but Mom and Dad are still standing nearby.

Great For Playdates

There have been a number of occasions where my child is on a playdate with his friend and they go for a meal. I have put money for him in a ziplock bag to use, but it certainly is much easier to be able to swipe a card without having to count change and put it back in a ziplock bag.

As the child gains more independence (taking the bus to places and even spending their own money when they reach the preteen or teen years), this will be more useful to have than cash in a ziplock bag.

The Chore Feature

The chore functionality is another interesting part of Mydoh.

Parents can create tasks for their children and connect those tasks to payments.

For example:

Load dishwasher → $1

Clean bedroom → $2

Take garbage out → $1

Or you can have an allowance that isn’t connected to chores.

Mydoh says parents can decide whether an allowance is linked to tasks or provided separately. Payments are made on “Pay Day,” which occurs every Saturday.

I do like the flexibility here.

There’s often a strong debate about whether children should receive an allowance simply for being part of the family or whether allowances should be tied to work.

We don’t plan on giving our kids allowances nor do we plan to give them money tied to chores- chores are an expected part of family life, so we likely won’t be using this function of Mydoh much.

If we have big irregular chores then maybe we could pay them.

My dad paid me $20 a week in high school cleaning one of the offices he rented out. I remember cleaning those toilets vividly.

Savings Goals Are Probably My Favourite Feature

One of the hardest financial concepts for kids is delayed gratification.

It’s easy to understand:

I have $20 → I can spend $20.

It’s harder to understand:

I have $20 → I should save $15 so I can eventually buy something I really want.

Mydoh’s Savings Goals feature allows kids to establish a target amount and date for something they’re saving toward. They can also use a general savings function.

This turns saving into something tangible.

Instead of telling a child:

“You should save more.”

You can ask:

“How much do you need to save each week to buy that?”

What About Spending Notifications?

Another feature I think parents will appreciate is real-time spending information.

When a child makes a purchase, parents can see the activity through the app.

This creates opportunities for conversations.

For example:

“You spent $8 on snacks today. Was that part of your budget?”

rather than discovering three weeks later that the child has spent their entire allowance.

The goal isn’t necessarily to prevent every purchase.

It’s to teach kids to think about purchases.

There Are Spending Limits

Mydoh also places limits on the card.

Currently, the child’s account has a maximum balance of $999.99, with spending limits that include:

• $999.99 in purchases per day
• $2,000 per week
• $3,000 per month

There are also per-transaction limits depending on whether the physical or digital card is being used. These numbers scare me and seem very high for a child under age 18, but maybe in the future that’s how much kids spend at that age!

For younger children, these limits are far above what they’ll realistically need.

But they become more relevant for teenagers who might be using Mydoh for larger purchases, I suppose.

One Important Downside: No ATM Withdrawals

This is something parents should know before signing up.

The Mydoh Smart Cash Card cannot be used to withdraw cash from an ATM or bank.

That’s both a pro and a con.

For younger children, I actually like the restriction.

But eventually teenagers need to learn how cash works too.

If your goal is to completely replace a traditional bank account, Mydoh isn’t designed to do that.

It’s better thought of as a controlled spending and money-learning tool.

I don’t mind being the “ATM” though as I move money from their bank account into Mydoh to use. It does provide another “friction point” before money is spent, so hopefully there is more awareness from the child.

What About Foreign Purchases?

This is particularly relevant for Canadian families who travel.

Mydoh says foreign-currency transactions are converted to Canadian dollars with a 2.5% foreign-currency conversion fee.

So I wouldn’t use the Mydoh card as a travel card for your teenager if you have a no-FX-fee alternative.

For everyday Canadian spending, that’s less of an issue.

But it’s definitely something to remember before handing the card to your child on a family vacation.

Is Mydoh Safe?

It’s not a bank account.

The Smart Cash Card is a prepaid Visa card, not a traditional chequing account.

The other thing to note is that because it is a prepaid Visa card, it is not CDIC insured. Canadian Deposit Insurance Coverage covers up to $100,000 of your deposits at financial institutions should the company go belly up or fail.

That doesn’t necessarily make Mydoh unsuitable for its intended purpose, but I wouldn’t treat it as the place to park your teenager’s entire savings.

For larger amounts of money, a proper bank savings account is a better fit.

I would probably put $100 in Mydoh at a time, tops (of course once my kids become teenagers, $100 doesn’t get you much but $100 would be my ideal situation).

One time I found a Mydoh card on the floor at a community centre. It has a child’s name on it, hopefully the community centre was able to return it to the kid.

If the Mydoh is lost, you can lock the card from your app.

Also, the card number is not listed on the Mydoh card for added safety.

If you really can’t find the Mydoh card, ordering another Smart Cash Card is free (unless it was a $6.99 personalized one).

What Age Is Mydoh Best For?

Mydoh markets itself to children aged 6–17, but I don’t think every child needs exactly the same setup.

For ages 6–9, I’d focus on:

• Simple chores
• Small allowances
• Learning to save
• Understanding spending

For ages 10–13, I’d introduce:

• Budgeting
• Larger savings goals
• Comparing prices
• Saving for wants

For ages 14–17, Mydoh can become more about:

• Financial independence
• Budgeting
• Real-world spending
• Earning money
• Managing a larger amount of their own money

Mydoh itself breaks its audience into similar age stages.

How Much Should You Give Your Kids?

This is where Mydoh gets interesting from a personal-finance perspective.

Mydoh’s Canadian Allowance Report found that B.C. parents surveyed reported an average weekly allowance of $17.80, with children starting to receive an allowance at approximately 10.8 years old.

Of course, there’s no magic number.

I think the important thing is that the allowance is large enough for the child to make actual choices.

If you give a child $2 per week and everything they want costs $20, they don’t get much opportunity to practice spending decisions.

On the other hand, giving a child $50 a week doesn’t necessarily teach them budgeting either.

Mydoh Pros and Cons

Mydoh Pros

• No monthly fee (this is huge! Maybe they will change it in the future and start charging)
• Designed specifically for kids and teens
• Prepaid Visa rather than credit
• Parents have spending visibility
• Chore and allowance tracking
• Savings goals
• Physical and digital cards
• Kids can shop online (with the digital card)
• No overdraft or interest
• Up to five children per family account
• Backed by RBC

Mydoh Cons

• No ATM withdrawals
• 2.5% foreign-currency conversion fee
• Not a traditional bank account
• Balance isn’t CDIC insured
• Parents still need to actively teach financial concepts
• Some card/payment limitations apply
• Custom card costs $6.99

Is Mydoh Worth It?

For me, the biggest factor is the $0 monthly price.

If Mydoh cost $10 per month, I’d have a much harder time recommending it.

I particularly like the combination of:

Earn → Save → Spend → Learn

rather than simply giving kids a prepaid card.

The chore functionality encourages earning, the savings goals encourage delayed gratification, and the prepaid Visa gives them an opportunity to practice spending.

Final Thoughts

Teaching kids about money is one of those things that’s easy to put off.

Even I, someone who is passionate about personal finance, had idealistic goals on how to teach my children about money. As they get older sometimes (oftentimes) it seems they are tuning me out.

I’d rather give kids small opportunities to make financial decisions while the consequences are small.

That’s what I think Mydoh does well.

It doesn’t replace a bank account, and it certainly doesn’t replace parents teaching their kids about money.

But it creates a real-world environment where kids can practice.

And because there’s currently no monthly fee, I think it’s particularly interesting for families who want to introduce their children to budgeting, saving and spending without giving them unrestricted access to a traditional credit or debit card.

The Genymoney.ca bottom line

Mydoh is less about giving your child a card and more about giving them a safe place to make financial decisions.

If your child spends their entire allowance on something they later regret, that’s a pretty inexpensive financial lesson and a lesson better learned early on.

It’s a lot better to learn that lesson with $15 than with $15,000.

For a free Canadian financial-learning tool, Mydoh is definitely worth a look.

What is your Mydoh review?