If you struggle to pay bills on time or save money, budgeting can help you get back on track. However, making and sticking to a budget is challenging for some people. Fortunately, plenty of apps can help you along your financial journey. You might have heard of some of them, while others may have avoided your notice. Truebill is one such app that some people love, but it may not meet everyone’s needs. If you’re looking for apps like Truebill, keep reading.
1) Mint
Perhaps the best-known budgeting app is Mint. Not only is Mint available for iOS and Android, but it’s free. The simple interface allows you to categorize expenses and see where your money is going. You can customize categories based on your spending and set spending limits for each.
Syncing your financial accounts, including checking, savings, retirement, and investment accounts, to name a few, makes budgeting easier than entering the information manually. Plus, the ability to check your credit score is a convenient perk.
Although many people enjoy Mint, some find it lacking because it tracks purchases after the fact instead of letting you plan a budget for the future. It doesn’t sync well with some accounts, nor can you use it with joint accounts.
2) Monarch
Monarch bills itself as the best alternative to Mint, and the development team has been hard at work adding requested features since the service first went live in 2020. To start, Monarch doesn’t display ads. The app solves another issue with money management apps that are less useful for families and couples: you can add accounts for multiple people.
If you’re an investor, you’ll be glad to know that Monarch also has robust tools for looking at your investments and lets you create a budget for the future. Thanks to the iOS and Android apps and web-based platforms, you can access your account from anywhere. Of course, you’ll need to pay a monthly ($9.99) or annual ($89.99) subscription to use the service.
3) YNAB (You Need a Budget)
YNAB is not just an app; it’s a method for saving money. The method is based on four rules.
- Give Every Dollar a Job
- Embrace Your True Expenses
- Roll With the Punches
- Age Your Money
By following these rules, YNAB believes users will be able to cut down on expenses by revealing discrepancies between how much they spend and what they can afford to spend. This allows you to spend “older” money with the saved money creating a safety net and paying off debt.
YNAB offers a free trial, so you can see if it’s a good fit. This app might be right for you if you’re looking for a more hands-on budgeting solution. However, some people find the setup process more time-consuming than they’d prefer. Finally, YNAB costs $14.99 monthly ($98.99 annually), and some people need a more affordable option.
4) Personal Capital
Personal Capital, the all-in-one financial tool, might be a bit much for someone who only needs the budgeting function. While assets, cash, spending, and portfolios are all available at a glance on the dashboard, some users may find this information overwhelming. Having all that information available may not be helpful for those who need more tips to improve their financial positions.
However, it’s a great option for users interested in following their investments (it shows current market trends), saving for retirement, tracking their net worth, and reaching specific goals such as paying for college or buying a second property.
Personal Capital users can also pay a flat fee to get financial advice from experts, which may be worthwhile if you’re saving for retirement, interested in investing, or need occasional guidance but not enough to justify paying a financial manager.
5) GoodBudget
GoodBudget is based on the envelope method, dividing incoming cash into envelopes for each budget category. The more money left in the envelopes at month’s end, the more you can save. It’s a simple solution for planning your finances. With GoodBudget, you don’t need cash to use this method. Instead, you can log on from your smartphone or browser.
This app is great for couples because you can split household expenses and share budgets. GoodBudget promises to help you make sense of your finances with goals, which fall into categories such as charity, retirement, vacation, education, and wedding, to name a few.
Because it’s free, GoodBudget has limitations. You can’t track investments, for example. However, you can connect debt accounts to see how much you owe.
6) EveryDollar
The basic premise of EveryDollar is the same as the first rule of YNAB: give every dollar a job. This free app from Ramsey Solutions has a simple interface that breaks your money into planned expenditures (including due dates), spent money, and the remaining balance. Users can customize budgeting categories to fit their expenses, and the ability to split long receipts into multiple categories is especially convenient.
Upgrading to premium lets you connect and automatically sync your accounts, export your data, and get an overview of your spending from month to month. At $9.99 monthly, EveryDollar’s premium subscription is comparable to other budget services on this list, but some of those alternatives offer more features, even for free.
7) Fudget
The developers of this incredibly simple app, Fudget, wanted to make creating a budget straightforward. They’ve achieved that with one-top adding income and expenses, the option to repeat expenses, and a future purchase saving feature. Fudget places your information in user-friendly lists, so you don’t need to be tech-savvy to get the most out of this app.
Fudget’s weaknesses are mostly based on its simplicity. You can’t categorize expenses, share with others, connect your accounts to sync transactions, follow your investments, or get insights about your spending. And while Fudget is free for mobile devices, Windows and Mac users have to pay for the desktop experience.
8) PocketGuard
PocketGuard offers the best in both worlds in many ways. For example, you can choose whether to link accounts (not retirement or investment) or manually add transactions. You can easily see how much spending money you have, your net worth, and your progress toward savings goals. Autosaving and tips to reduce bills help promote financial health.
Upgrading costs $7.99 monthly, but you can save a lot of money by purchasing a lifetime subscription for $99.99–the same price as other budgeting apps’ annual subscriptions. Going premium gives you the option to import and export transactions, change transaction dates, attach receipts, split transactions into multiple categories, add custom categories, and set unlimited goals and category budgets.
9) Tiller
The lesser-known Tiller is designed for those who love spreadsheets. After syncing with your accounts, it creates a spreadsheet that can be imported directly into Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for your convenience. Tiller uses spreadsheet templates, and you can expand its functionality with templates for retirement planning, net worth, and paying off debt.
Users can easily create categories, groups, and tags to organize their finances better. Wirecutter calls the tool “intuitive,” noting how you can set monthly budgets for each category. The autocrat feature is especially useful because it categorizes expenses based on user-created rules.
Tiller isn’t a standalone solution, and you’ll have to pay $6.58 monthly once the 30-day free trial expires, but if you prefer spreadsheets, it’s a good option.
10) Marcus Insights
After Marcus acquired Clarity Money, the company rolled most of its features into Marcus Insights. You don’t have to be a Marcus customer to use the app because it syncs with thousands of accounts. However, you can use your existing Marcus account, and the app highlights Marcus accounts in their tab.
Marcus Insights offers many of the same features as other tools on this list: account balances, latest transactions, categorized spending breakdowns, and cash flow. The iOS app will let you see the money you spent at your favorite merchants by month or year.
Best of all, Marcus Insights is free but offers no support for retirement, investments, or customizing your budget and won’t work with international accounts.
11) Spendee
From income and debt balances to the transaction list, Spendee is a money management app similar to others on this list. Thanks to shared wallets, you can add transactions and set goals for future purchases, all of which are made easier for couples, families, and roommates.
However, Spendee differs because you can connect your crypto wallets to get a more accurate picture of your finances. It’s easy to tell if you can connect your bank account or crypto wallet to Spendee by looking at the supported institutions, including global banks. Switching between currencies is also possible with this app.
Unfortunately, the free version limits you to manual transactions and a single wallet and budget. Syncing with your bank accounts and sharing information is also a premium feature. But Spendy charges just $14.99 yearly if you don’t need account syncing or automatic categories and $22.99 yearly if you want all of its features.
12) Digit
Track your spending and create multiple savings goals with Digit. This app focuses on investing as much as it does budgeting and will even suggest investment opportunities that align with your budget (up to two advisories). Digit also advertises a smart bank account to consolidate your income and purchases, complete with a Digit Visa debit card.
You’ll get an impressive six months free, during which you can see whether Digit is right for you and even meet short-term goals. If you like the app and want to continue using it, its price is only $5 monthly.
13) Trim
Trim promises to do the work of saving money for you by analyzing your spending habits, negotiating bills, canceling unused subscriptions, and lowering fees. Trim also comes with several unique features:
- Auto insurance comparison
- Liability calculator
- Automatic debt payments
- Automated savings transfers
While transition monitoring is free, you’ll pay an annual “success fee” of 15% of the savings on your bills if Trim manages to lower them successfully. This app also lacks the goal feature of other budgeting apps, so it may be best for users who simply want to lower their bills.
14) Pocketsmith
Pocketsmith is all about forecasting your financial future to help make it brighter. After signing up, you can add up to 12 budgets and two accounts, along with manual transactions, to get a six-month projection of your finances. Upgrading to the premium plan for $9.95 monthly lets you sync your bank accounts to add and automatically categorize transactions. This will also get you unlimited budgets, 10 accounts, and a 10-year projection.
Pocketsmith’s Super account tier is noticeably more expensive–$19.95 per month–compared to other services, which is a major drawback for those who want to save money. However, you can add unlimited accounts and get a 30-year financial forecast if that’s of interest.
15) Wally
While some personal finance apps focus on past spending, Wally ensures you’ll never miss a bill again with its financial calendar, real-time tracking, and bill reminders. With Wally, you can choose to budget by category or goal. Of course, you can connect your accounts so the app can analyze your spending to save more.
Wally isn’t just good for single users; you can add joint accounts and create household budgets. Plus, it’s compatible with accounts and currencies in 70 countries, and this is all for free.
What’s the catch? Wally is only available on iOS, and some have noted that it’s easy to overspend with the app.
16) Simplifi
If you prefer a solution from a trusted name, Simplifi by Quicken might be it. After connecting accounts, users see precisely where their money is going. Simplifi analyzes your spending to offer savings tips such as closing unused subscriptions. The ability to add specific planned expenditures in categories helps track discretionary spending,
For whatever reason, Quicken has decided to use unique names for some of the features of its money management app. So while you can assign budgets for each category, these budgets are called “Watchlists.”
Simplifi isn’t free, but it’s one of the more affordable premium apps on this list at just $3.99 monthly.
17) Emma
The financial “super app” Emma is a good option for folks across the pond because it converts to and from GBP. It analyzes your accounts to help you save money and increase your investments. If you don’t already have investments, you can do it right from the app with as little as £1.
Other features include payment sending, bill reminders, cashback, custom categories, offline accounts, net worth tracking, business accounts connections, and joint account management. However, not all of these features are available for free. They’re split across multiple subscription tiers, which could be confusing, starting at $5.99 monthly.
18) Mvelopes
Another envelope-based budgeting app, Mvelopes, has been helping users save for over 20 years. The app focuses on budgeting, and you can connect unlimited bank accounts to import transactions, monitor their balances, and receive interactive reports.
There’s no free version of Mvelopes, so expect to pay between $5.97 and $19.97 monthly. But the highest tier includes financial coaching, and the middle tier includes setup help for those who might be unsure how to use a budgeting app like Mvelopes. You can only try the middle tier for free for 30 days.
19) Moneydance
You may already be familiar with Moneydance, which has existed as a desktop program for some time. However, you can now download the app on your smartphone, so you don’t need to find a new service if you’re already a Moneydance user.
Unlike most apps on this list, Moneydance charges a one-time $49.99 fee, which covers every person and device in your household. The personal finance app relies on spreadsheets to track and provide personal finance reports for your income, budget, investments, and more. Purchasing the service gives you access to online banking and bill paying and is compatible with multiple currencies.
20) Honeydue
Honeydue is aimed to make budgeting with a partner easier. You can sync bank, credit, investment, and loan accounts while choosing which information the other sees. While the app uses default categories, you can customize them to fit your needs better. The budgets you create in each category apply to both users. Chatting directly within the app makes it more collaborative than other tools on this list.
Honeydue’s price, free, attracts couples looking to wrangle their finances. and the company also offers Visa cash cards that will soon be able to autopay bills. However, the app focuses more on past spending than future budgeting.
With so many apps like Truebill, it’s easy to find the best fit for your budgeting needs, even if they change over time. Download one today, and you’re on your way to more savvy spending, an improved credit score, or reaching your financial goals.
