KOHO vs Neo is a comparison of two Canadian money apps that look alike and work differently. KOHO is built around a prepaid card with a plan ladder; Neo is built around a credit card with a membership ladder, plus a prepaid card of its own. This page sets the two side by side on cards, cash back, monthly costs, credit building, foreign-exchange fees and savings interest, using figures YieldMaple read on KOHO’s and Neo’s own pages on October 8, 2026. It is general education, not financial advice.
Individual reviews: KOHO · Neo Financial. For savings-focused alternatives, compare with Wealthsimple Cash and EQ Bank. For a wider ranking, see Best Cashback Credit Cards Canada.
KOHO vs Neo at a glance
| Feature | KOHO | Neo Financial |
|---|---|---|
| Main card | Prepaid: a prepaid Mastercard issued by KOHO Financial Inc. | Credit card: Neo Mastercard, $0 annual fee (better on this row) |
| Prepaid card | Yes (the main card) | Yes: a prepaid Mastercard (the Neo Money™ card), powered by the Neo Chequing account |
| Entry tier price | No plan: free | Membership: free on Essentials (Build costs $0–9.99 a month and Grow $14.99 a month) |
| Paid tiers | Essential: $7 a month, or $0 in a month you set up direct deposit or deposit $1,000; $18 a month for Extra and $22 a month for Everything on monthly billing | Build and Grow, at the prices in the row above |
| Cash back on everyday categories | 1% on Essential, 1.5% on Extra and 2% on Everything (groceries, transportation, food and drinks); no plan: 0% — no cash back without a plan (better on this row) | Neo Money card: 1% cash back on gas and groceries; Neo Mastercard: cashback on gas and groceries, at a rate the Neo Mastercard page does not state |
| Cash back on other purchases | 0% on Essential, 0.25% on Extra and 0.5% on Everything | Neo Mastercard: cashback at Neo partner merchants |
| Reports to credit bureaus | Credit Building only: reports your payment history to Equifax and TransUnion | Neo credit cards: Equifax and TransUnion (better on this row) |
| Credit-building cost | $10 a month; guaranteed approval, with no deposit, no hard credit check and no application | Secured limit: security funds from $50, plus the Build membership, listed at $9.99 a month with ways to get it for free |
| Foreign-exchange fee | 1.5% per transaction; waived only on the paid Extra and Everything plans (not on Non-Member or Essential) (better on this row) | Credit cards: 2.75%. Neo Money card: 2.5% on Neo Money cards (memberships page) or 3% on purchases in a foreign currency (Neo's fee schedule, correct as of September 1, 2026) |
| Savings interest | No plan: 0.5% (after opting in); 2% on Essential, 2.5% on Extra and 3.5% on Everything | Neo Savings: 2% on Essentials, 2.5% on Build and 2.75% on Grow |
| CDIC coverage | up to $100,000 per beneficiary, per CDIC member institution, once you opt in to Earn Interest | up to $100,000 per beneficiary, per CDIC member institution holding the trust funds (Neo itself is not a CDIC member) |
| Round-up savings | RoundUps on every plan, including the free Non-Member account (better on this row) | Not listed on the Neo accounts page |
| Joint accounts | a Joint account in which each holder gets a card connected to the same balance | joint Neo Savings accounts; the chequing page also advertises a joint Neo Chequing account with two Neo Money cards |
Sources: koho.ca, help.koho.ca (Compare Plans), neofinancial.com (credit cards, Neo Mastercard, memberships, accounts) and Neo's chequing fee schedule, all read October 8, 2026.
Every row above is repeated in a sentence below, with the page it came from.
Is KOHO or Neo a credit card?
Neo’s main card is a credit card and KOHO’s is not: KOHO’s card is a prepaid Mastercard issued by KOHO Financial Inc., loaded with your own money.
KOHO describes its card as not linked to a credit line, so you can only spend money you've loaded, and it offers instant approval with no credit check. The trade-off is stated on KOHO’s own prepaid card page: a prepaid card doesn't build credit on its own.
The Neo Mastercard is issued by Neo Financial under licence from Mastercard, has an annual fee of $0, and Neo describes the application as open to any credit history or income. Neo’s Mastercard page describes two starting points. Applicants who qualify for credit get a traditional card with a limit of up to $10,000. Applicants who are starting out or rebuilding get a card with a secured credit limit, which requires security funds, meeting Neo's eligibility rules and a paid membership.
Neo is not only a credit card company, which matters for a fair comparison. It also has a prepaid Mastercard (the Neo Money™ card), powered by the Neo Chequing account. So the like-for-like match for KOHO’s prepaid card is the Neo Money card, and the Neo Mastercard is the product KOHO has no direct equivalent for.
Which earns more cash back, KOHO or Neo?
KOHO’s cash-back rates are fixed by plan, while Neo’s credit card cashback varies by partner merchant, so the answer depends on where you shop.
KOHO. Per KOHO’s plan table, cash back on groceries, transportation, and food and drinks is 1% on Essential, 1.5% on Extra and 2% on Everything, and cash back on everything else is 0% on Essential, 0.25% on Extra and 0.5% on Everything. KOHO with no plan earns 0% — no cash back without a plan. KOHO’s help centre also lists up to 6.5% extra cash back at select merchants on the Essential, Extra and Everything plans (not on the Non-Member account). KOHO’s list of transactions that earn nothing covers ATM withdrawals, e-Transfers, KOHO transfers, bill payments, pre-authorized debits, direct deposits, crypto, remittances and gambling.
Neo Mastercard (credit). Neo’s card page says the card earns cashback at Neo partner merchants, and its footnote says that cashback may be limited and varies by perk, offer and partner. The same page mentions cashback on gas and groceries, at a rate the Neo Mastercard page does not state. Neo’s credit card footnotes add a ceiling: gas and grocery cashback on the Neo Mastercard is limited to $500 a month per category of spending, and after that the rate is 1% with the World Elite, 0.5% with the World and 0% with the Neo Mastercard. Because Neo publishes no partner rate table on those pages, YieldMaple cannot put a dollar figure on the Neo Mastercard.
Neo Money card (prepaid). Neo’s accounts page promises 1% cash back on gas and groceries. The condition from Neo’s chequing page: the 1% cash back on gas and groceries stops once you hit a monthly spend limit, which Neo shows in its app rather than on its website.
A worked example
Take a reader who spends $500 a month on groceries, transportation, and food and drinks, and another $500 a month on everything else. The amounts are hypothetical; the rates are the published ones above.
- KOHO Essential: $5 a month, or $60 a year. The plan itself is $7 a month, or $0 in a month you set up direct deposit or deposit $1,000.
- KOHO Extra: $8.75 a month, or $105 a year, against a yearly plan price of $12 a month, billed as $144 a year. Cash back alone leaves the plan $39 short of paying for itself.
- KOHO Everything: $12.50 a month, or $150 a year, against a yearly plan price of $14.75 a month, billed as $177 a year. Cash back alone leaves it $27 short.
- Neo Money card: at most $5 a month, or $60 a year, with no membership fee on Essentials.
- Neo Mastercard: not calculable from Neo’s public pages, because the cashback is set per partner and offer.
On cash back alone, the paid KOHO plans need more spending than this example to break even. The Everything plan earns one percentage point more than Essential on the everyday categories, so cash back by itself covers the yearly price at roughly $1,475 a month of spending in those categories. The higher interest rate, the foreign-exchange fee waiver and the Credit Building discount are separate reasons a reader might pay for a plan.
For readers with established credit, a flat-rate credit card is the other benchmark. The Wealthsimple credit card pays 2% on every purchase, which on the same $1,000 a month is $20 a month, or $240 a year. Its annual fee is $240 a year ($20/month), waived with $100,000+ in individual assets or $4,000+/month direct deposit, so a cardholder who pays the fee nets $0 at that level of spending. The Wealthsimple credit card review covers the waiver conditions.
What do KOHO plans and Neo memberships cost?
Both start at no monthly cost: KOHO with no plan is free, and Neo’s membership is free on Essentials (Build costs $0–9.99 a month and Grow $14.99 a month).
KOHO’s ladder, per its help centre plan table: the Essential plan is $7 a month, or $0 in a month you set up direct deposit or deposit $1,000. The higher plans are $18 a month for Extra and $22 a month for Everything on monthly billing. Paying yearly lowers that: Extra is $12 a month, billed as $144 a year, and Everything is $14.75 a month, billed as $177 a year. KOHO says its plans come with a free 30-day trial.
Two smaller KOHO costs are easy to miss. Adding money with a debit card costs $3.00 per load on Non-Member, Essential and Extra; free on Everything, and a cash deposit is free on Essential, Extra and Everything ($3.00 with no plan).
Neo’s ladder is a membership that sits on top of whichever Neo product you hold. The Neo Chequing account lists fees of $0, and the Neo Mastercard’s annual fee is $0. What the paid memberships change includes the Neo Savings rate, access to a secured credit limit and, on Grow only, the foreign-exchange rebate. ATM-operator fees are a further difference between tiers: Neo lists ATM-operator fees in Canada reimbursed up to $5 per withdrawal, but only on the paid Build and Grow memberships (not the free Essentials tier). A change is also scheduled: Neo’s chequing fee schedule says NSF, Interac e-Transfer send, mobile cheque deposit and cash withdrawal fees are set by membership tier, with membership-based fees taking effect January 1, 2027.
Which is cheaper for building credit?
Neither is clearly cheaper: KOHO Credit Building costs $10 a month with no deposit, while a secured Neo Mastercard needs security funds plus a paid membership.
KOHO Credit Building is a line of credit, not a card. The limit is $225, the interest rate is 0% (a no-fee, no-interest line of credit), and KOHO offers guaranteed approval, with no deposit, no hard credit check and no application. KOHO reports your payment history to Equifax and TransUnion. Both bureaus were named on KOHO’s pages when YieldMaple read them on October 8, 2026. Over a year the subscription adds up to $120. The discount is 30% off on Extra and 50% off on Everything (no discount on Essential), which works out to $7 a month on Extra and $5 a month on Everything. KOHO also has a Secured Credit Building option with a deposit of $50 to $500; that deposit is not insured by CDIC. The KOHO Credit Building guide goes through the mechanics.
Neo builds credit through a credit card. Neo reports to Equifax and TransUnion. An applicant approved for the traditional Neo Mastercard pays an annual fee of $0, and Neo’s pages list a paid membership as a requirement only for the secured limit. The remaining cost is interest on any balance that is not paid in full; Neo’s purchase rate is 19.99% to 29.99%, depending on Neo's assessment of your application. The secured route costs more: Neo’s Mastercard page says it requires refundable security funds and the Build membership, listed at $9.99 a month with ways to get it for free. The minimum security funds are $50, the limit is set by the security funds you put aside, so you choose the limit, and Neo returns the funds when you close the account with the balance paid off in full. At the listed Build price for a full year, that is $119.88, almost identical to KOHO’s subscription, before any of the ways Neo mentions to get Build for free.
The honest summary: an applicant who qualifies for an unsecured Neo Mastercard can build credit without a subscription, which KOHO’s Credit Building line does not offer. An applicant who does not qualify faces a similar yearly cost at either company, with a deposit at Neo and none on KOHO’s standard Credit Building. No score improvement is guaranteed by either. The guide to credit cards with no credit history compares more options.
What are the foreign-exchange fees on KOHO and Neo cards?
KOHO’s foreign-exchange fee is 1.5% per transaction and is waived on its two top plans; Neo’s credit cards charge 2.75%, rebated only on the Grow membership.
On KOHO, the fee is waived only on the paid Extra and Everything plans (not on Non-Member or Essential), per the help centre plan table.
On Neo, the rate depends on the card, and Neo’s own documents do not agree on the prepaid one:
- Neo credit cards: 2.75%, per the footnote on Neo’s memberships page.
- Neo Money card, memberships page: 2.5% on Neo Money cards.
- Neo Money card, chequing fee schedule: 3% on purchases in a foreign currency (Neo's fee schedule, correct as of September 1, 2026).
YieldMaple read both Neo documents on October 8, 2026 and cannot tell which figure Neo applies, so both are shown with their source. On any Neo card the fee is rebated only on the paid Grow membership ($14.99 a month), for the first CAD$10,000 of foreign spending each month; Essentials and Build members pay the fee.
On $1,000 of purchases in a foreign currency, the fees come to $15 on KOHO Essential, $27.50 on a Neo credit card, and either $25 or $30 on the Neo Money card, depending on which Neo document is right.
Savings interest and CDIC coverage
Neo pays more interest on its free tier, and KOHO pays more at the top. The Neo Savings rate is 2% on Essentials, 2.5% on Build and 2.75% on Grow. KOHO pays 0.5% (after opting in) with no plan, then 2% on Essential, 2.5% on Extra and 3.5% on Everything. Neo’s accounts page describes the top Savings rate as depending on a larger balance or a paid membership, depending on which Neo page you read (its accounts page says rates rise as the balance grows, without giving thresholds, and its memberships page lists the top rate under the paid Grow membership).
On $10,000 held for a year, before tax and ignoring compounding, that is about $200 on Neo Essentials or KOHO Essential, about $50 on KOHO with no plan, about $275 on Neo Grow and about $350 on KOHO Everything. The top tiers cost money, though: Grow at its listed price is $179.88 a year, and KOHO Everything billed yearly is $14.75 a month, billed as $177 a year.
KOHO is not a bank, and it doesn't take deposits itself, and Neo is a registered payment service provider under the Retail Payment Activities Act and a FINTRAC-registered money services business. KOHO says funds are eligible for coverage of up to $100,000 per beneficiary, per CDIC member institution, once you opt in to Earn Interest, and that balances not earning interest are not eligible for CDIC protection. Neo says eligible funds are insured up to $100,000 per beneficiary, per CDIC member institution holding the trust funds (Neo itself is not a CDIC member). The separate pages on whether KOHO is safe and whether Neo Financial is safe cover the trust arrangements in detail.
Do KOHO and Neo offer joint accounts?
Both list one: KOHO offers a Joint account in which each holder gets a card connected to the same balance, and Neo’s chequing page advertises a joint Neo Chequing account with two Neo Money cards.
Neo’s accounts page also lists joint Neo Savings accounts. Neo’s chequing page is not fully consistent, though: its FAQ still lists joint accounts among the features Neo is still building. YieldMaple read that page on October 8, 2026 and cannot confirm from it that joint chequing is open to every customer, so the Neo app is the place to check.
Where KOHO wins
- Published cash-back rates. KOHO states a rate for each plan (1% on Essential, 1.5% on Extra and 2% on Everything on groceries, transportation, and food and drinks). Neo’s credit card cashback may be limited and varies by perk, offer and partner.
- Round-up savings. KOHO’s RoundUps feature rounds each purchase up to the nearest dollar and saves the difference, and it is included on every plan, including the free Non-Member account. The Neo accounts page YieldMaple read on October 8, 2026 lists recurring savings and savings goals but no round-up feature.
- Credit building with no deposit. KOHO Credit Building offers guaranteed approval, with no deposit, no hard credit check and no application.
- Lower foreign-exchange fee. KOHO’s 1.5% per transaction is below every Neo figure above, and it is waived only on the paid Extra and Everything plans (not on Non-Member or Essential).
Where Neo wins
- A credit card with no annual fee. The Neo Mastercard’s annual fee is $0, the limit on a traditional offer is up to $10,000, and Neo reports to Equifax and TransUnion. KOHO’s main card is prepaid.
- More interest with no subscription and no deposit condition. Neo Savings pays 2% on Essentials, 2.5% on Build and 2.75% on Grow; KOHO with no plan pays 0.5% (after opting in).
- Prepaid cash back with no plan. The Neo Money card pays 1% cash back on gas and groceries on the free membership, up to its monthly limit. KOHO with no plan earns 0% — no cash back without a plan.
- A path to higher-tier credit cards. Neo’s World Elite Mastercard cards cost $149 a year and list comprehensive travel insurance, which Neo says is unavailable to Quebec residents. KOHO’s plan table lists access to travel insurance on the Essential, Extra and Everything plans (not on the Non-Member account), which is access rather than included coverage.
- A low entry point for secured credit. The minimum security funds are $50.
Decision framework: KOHO, Neo or neither?
Pick KOHO if:
- You want a prepaid card that cannot run a balance, because it is not linked to a credit line, so you can only spend money you've loaded
- Most of your spending is groceries, transportation, and food and drinks, where KOHO’s rates are published
- You like the RoundUps feature
- You want a credit-building product with no deposit and no hard credit check
- You travel and would use a plan that waives the foreign-exchange fee
Pick Neo if:
- You want a credit card, and you are comfortable paying the balance in full
- You already shop at Neo’s partner merchants (the current offers are in the Neo app)
- You want savings interest of 2% on Essentials, 2.5% on Build and 2.75% on Grow without a qualifying deposit
- You want a secured credit limit that starts at $50
Pick neither if:
- You have established credit and want one flat rate on every purchase; the Canadian credit card comparison covers those cards
- Your spending does not line up with KOHO’s categories or Neo’s partners
- You would rather manage one app fewer
The verdict
KOHO and Neo solve different problems. KOHO is a spending account with predictable cash back and an optional, deposit-free Credit Building subscription at $10 a month. Neo is a credit card with a $0 annual fee whose rewards depend on partner offers, alongside a savings account that pays more than KOHO’s on the free tier.
Readers who want to avoid credit altogether are comparing KOHO’s card with the Neo Money card, and there KOHO’s Essential plan names three cash-back categories against the Neo Money card’s two, while Neo’s card needs no paid plan. Readers who want a credit card are comparing the Neo Mastercard with other credit cards, not with KOHO. For those who qualify for its fee waiver, the Wealthsimple credit card (2% on every purchase; annual fee $240 a year ($20/month), waived with $100,000+ in individual assets or $4,000+/month direct deposit) is a flat-rate alternative, compared in detail in the Wealthsimple vs KOHO comparison.