Budgeting can be stressful when you handle everything manually, but with the help of the best budgeting apps, you can get back on track without all the work.
Budgeting apps can automatically track your income and expenses, monitor your net worth, and help you make important financial decisions that help you reach your goals.
There isn’t one app that’s best for everyone, so I’ve rounded up the top 10 budgeting apps to give you options when choosing which is best for you.
1. Monarch Money
- Cost: $14.99/month or $99.99/year. For a limited time get 50% off your first year with code MONARCHVIP
- App Store Ratings: 4.9/5 iOS (50,000+ reviews) and 4.4/5 Google Play
- Free Trial Period: 7 days
Monarch Money is the premier all-in-one financial management platform that provides a unified view of your household finances, spending patterns, and progress toward long-term financial goals. Recognized as the Wall Street Journal’s and Forbes’ Best Budgeting App, Monarch delivers unparalleled financial clarity with its comprehensive suite of tools for budgeting, investment tracking, and collaborative money management.
Users can connect with over 13,000 financial institutions to bring all their accounts into one place. Whether you’re tracking real estate investments (via Zillow integration), bank accounts, credit cards, vehicle values, cryptocurrencies (via Coinbase), or other loans, Monarch provides customizable dashboards and reports to help you make informed financial decisions. The platform offers two distinct budgeting approaches—Category Budgeting and Flex Budgeting—allowing you to choose the method that best fits your lifestyle.
What sets Monarch apart is its robust collaboration features, allowing partners or financial advisors to access your financial information at no extra cost, and its completely ad-free experience with no data selling to third parties. With powerful features like Bill Sync for tracking statement balances and minimum payments, Swipe to Review for efficient transaction management, and custom saved reports for quick financial insights, Monarch delivers exceptional value for individuals and couples looking to gain complete control over their financial lives.
If you’re searching for a single platform to handle all aspects of your financial management, Monarch Money stands as the definitive solution.
2. Cleo
- Cost: Budget and personal finances services are free, but Cleo Plus is $5.99 per month and Cleo Builder is $14.99 per month
- App Store Ratings: 4.7/5 iOS and 4/5 Google Play
- Free Trial Period: Varies by plan
Cleo is a financial AI assistant to help you master your personal finances. It uses humor and cheerleading to keep you motivated and on track. If you ask Cleo to ‘roast you,’ you’ll get statements that make fun of your past spending to help you make better spending decisions.
There’s also a ‘hype mode’ that cheers you on for what you did well in the hopes that you’ll keep doing it.
Cleo will also help you build a budget, adjusting it as your income changes, which is great if you have variable income. Cleo will help you choose the right budget, set up savings on autopilot, and learn where you can cut back on your expenses to save more money.
3. Tiller Money
- Cost: $79/year
- App store ratings: n/a
- Free trial period: 30 days
Tiller Money is a spreadsheet-based app that directly syncs with nearly 21,000 financial sources, including deposit accounts at large and small banks in the United States, U.S.-based brokerage accounts, employer-sponsored retirement accounts, personal loans, credit cards, and mortgages.
If you bank, invest, or borrow with a U.S.-based financial institution, you should be able to sync most or all of your financial accounts with Tiller Money.
Once you’re synced, Tiller Money makes daily updates to custom-created Google or Excel spreadsheets with automatically categorized transactions pulled from your synced accounts. For example, if you spend $50 at the grocery store today, you’ll see it reflected in the groceries or food category on your spreadsheet tomorrow.
You can set your own categorization rules and color scheme, so your spreadsheets are always easy to follow, and you can manually categorize or recategorize synced transactions.
If you’re not one for checking spreadsheets regularly, Tiller Money’s optional email alerts give you an unobtrusive daily digest delivered to your inbox. If you manage joint finances with a spouse or work with a financial planner, share your spreadsheets with them.
4. Simplifi
- Cost: Normally $3.99/month (current promotion $2/month billed annually)
- App Store Ratings: 4/5 iOS and 2.8/5 Google Play
- Free Trial Period: n/a
Simplifi is a Quicken-powered budgeting app with a handy, fully customizable spending plan tool. It uses what it knows about your income and bills to show you precisely how much you can safely spend — and what you must do to stay on track.
Simplifi doesn’t stop there. The app connects to more than 14,000 financial institutions, facilitating a truly holistic view of your entire financial life. Its savings goal feature lets you drill down on small and not-so-small financial goals.
Plus, Quicken’s bill management tools have a knack for uncovering recurring obligations you’ve all but forgotten about, clearing the way for financial housekeeping when you’re ready.
Everything in Quicken is completely automated and 100% customizable, so you can make it your own. You can set it and forget it, or be as involved as you want in creating, managing, and following your budget.
5. Honeydue
- Cost: Free
- App Store Ratings: 4.5/5 iOS and 3.4/5 Google Play
- Free Trial Period: n/a
Honeydue is a financial app to keep couples on the same financial page. Honeydue connects with 20,000+ financial institutions in five countries and lets you share what you want with your partner.
Think of Honeydue as an opportunity to make those difficult financial conversations a little easier. You can ask about transactions or other financial questions in the app or simply send a ‘thumbs up’ when something goes right in your finances.
You can set up custom alerts so you never pay a bill late and share your budget and balances so you can both see where you stand and what needs to change. Think of Honeydue as the easier way to discuss money and help you and your partner reach your financial goals.
6. You Need a Budget
- Cost: $14.99/month or $99/annually
- App Store Ratings: 4.8/5 iOS and 4.7/5 Google Play
- Free Trial Period: 34 days
You Need a Budget (YNAB) is a paid budgeting app with an unusually long free trial (34 days) and a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee within 48 hours of subscribing. Although it’s among the most expensive apps on this list, its intuitive features and powerful insights mean users get what they pay for. It was built to help users change their relationship with money.
YNAB follows a version of the zero-based budgeting method that uses four rules that give every dollar a job, include irregular expenses in your monthly budget, require you to be flexible and help you get to the point of using last month’s money for this month’s bills.
It’s easy to get started, just link all your financial accounts to your YNAB account, set your savings goals, and follow the created budget. With regular use, you’ll see where you spend your money (and where you shouldn’t) and learn how to age your money so you stop living paycheck-to-paycheck.
YNAB claims that the average user saves $6,000 per year, though your actual savings depends on how much fat your budget has to cut in the first place. Even if you cannot save thousands using YNAB, the app will surely get you to think differently about how you’re spending and saving. That could ultimately prove more valuable than a one-time savings boost.
Final Word
If you’re among the few Americans who have never developed a budgeting system or spending plan, you’re under no obligation to start now. Many people do just fine by following a few basic money management principles and sound spending habits, such as “spend less than you earn” and “pay yourself first.”
But, adherence to tried-and-true money maxims is not mutually exclusive of creating and sticking to a budget or spending plan. They’re complimentary — the latter helping to achieve the former and vice versa.
Perhaps that’s reason enough to adopt one of these budgeting solutions.