Monzo v Starling: the challenger bank grudge match: whose books look better?

Starling keeps roughly £27 in every £100, Monzo roughly £5. Starling's estimated pre-tax profit of £234m against turnover of £855m is a margin of 27.4%. Monzo's estimated £52m against £1,086m is 4.8%. The gap is 22.6 percentage points, or about five and a half times the margin.

Both banks improved on their own prior year. Monzo's estimated pre-tax profit moved from £16m to £52m, a far larger proportional jump from a much smaller base. Starling's moved from £223m to £234m, a step up on an already established profit position. Read together, those two movements describe different stages rather than different outcomes: one bank has recently reached scale profitability, the other has been holding it.

Neither figure is a reported statutory profit. Both are estimates derived from the filings, and a holding company carries its own costs outside the numbers shown here, so nothing on this page should be read as reconciling exactly to a published group result.

On turnover, yes, by £231m. Monzo reports £1,086m against Starling's £855m, about 1.27 times the revenue. On headcount, also yes, 5,089 against 3,902. On net assets, no: Starling's £1,269m sits £366m above Monzo's £903m.

The comparison holds only with two qualifications stated plainly. First, the periods. Monzo's accounts cover the year to March 2025 and were filed in September 2025. Starling's cover the year to March 2026 and were filed in July 2026. Twelve months separate them, and in a sector moving this quickly a year is a long time.

Second, the basis. Starling's figures are consolidated, so any subsidiary turnover, staff and net assets are already inside them. Monzo's are for the bank entity on its own. That difference cuts in Starling's favour on group-wide measures and against it on nothing in particular, but it means the two lines are not built the same way.

The two businesses are close in age. Monzo Bank Limited was incorporated in 2015, Starling Bank Limited in 2014.

Into payroll, into everything else, and into profit, in very different proportions. Splitting each bank's own turnover into £100 shows the shape of the difference: Starling spends more of its revenue on people and much less on everything else, which is where the margin gap comes from.

The middle band is the story. Monzo's other running costs absorb £63.90 of every £100 against Starling's £34.62, a difference of £29.28 in the same unit. Payroll works the other way, £38.01 at Starling against £31.31 at Monzo, but the payroll gap is small next to the running cost gap, and profit takes up the slack.

Monzo employs more, Starling pays more. Monzo reports 5,089 employees against Starling's 3,902, a difference of 1,187 people. Average staff cost per head runs at about £83,000 at Starling and about £67,000 at Monzo, a difference of roughly £16,000 a head.

The movement figures separate the two more sharply than the totals do. Monzo's headcount grew 63.2% on the prior year, close to a two-thirds expansion in twelve months, alongside a 54.4% rise in turnover. Starling's headcount was effectively flat, down 0.9%, against turnover down 8.6%.

Total staff costs land close together, £340m at Monzo and £325m at Starling, which is what happens when a larger team on lower average pay meets a smaller team on higher average pay. As a share of turnover the two diverge again: 31.3% at Monzo, 38.0% at Starling.

Both operating banks are wholly held by a holding company, and neither is co-owned at the operating level. Companies House records each holding company as a person with significant control in the 75% to 100% band, which is a control band rather than an exact stake.

Every figure quoted on this page, grouped by where it sits in the filings. Movement percentages compare each bank with its own prior year.