Best free budget apps compared, honestly

Search for the best free budget apps and you will find long lists where every app is “the best” and half of them are not actually free. Some are free for a month. Some are free until you want to connect a bank. Some are free because they earn money recommending you credit cards.

This guide takes a different approach. It explains the four things “free” can mean, sets out what to look for, and then compares the main types of budgeting app with well known examples of each. We make MADBU, so we have an obvious interest here. We have tried to be straight about where other apps are the better choice, including for people MADBU does not suit.

One caution before we start. Prices and free tiers change often. Everything below describes each app’s general model at the time of writing, in November 2026. Check the app’s own website before you commit.

What “free” really means in a budgeting app

• Free forever, with paid extras. The core app costs nothing and stays that way. Advanced features sit in a paid plan. This is the model to look for.
• Free trial. The full app is free for a few weeks, then requires a subscription. That is a paid app with a test drive, which is fine as long as you know it.
• Free but limited. A free tier exists but caps something important, such as the number of budgets, categories or accounts, so that regular use pushes you to upgrade.
• Free because you are the product. The app costs nothing because it earns from advertising, from referral fees on financial products it suggests, or from data. Read the privacy policy before trusting one of these with your bank login.

What to look for

• How entries get in. Manual entry, bank sync, or both. Manual keeps you aware and private. Sync saves typing.
• The budgeting method. Some apps enforce a method, such as zero based or envelopes. Others just track and leave the method to you.
• What the free tier includes. Check the actual limits, not the headline.
• Privacy. Does it need your bank login? Does it show adverts or recommend financial products? Can you export and delete your data?
• Where it runs. Phone only, web only, or both, and whether your data follows you between them.
• Whether you will keep using it. The best budget app is the one you still open in month three. Speed of entry and some form of motivation matter more than charts.

The main types of budget app, compared

Manual entry trackers

You type each purchase yourself. No bank connection is required, which makes these the most private option and the one that works with any bank in any country.

Examples: MADBU, the free version of EveryDollar, and Goodbudget.

Strengths: you notice every purchase as you log it, cash is tracked as easily as card, and there is no connection to break.

Weaknesses: you have to build the habit. If you stop logging, the budget stops.

Best for: beginners, privacy minded people, and anyone who has tried an automatic app and found they never looked at it. Our guide on tracking expenses without linking your bank explains the method.

Zero based budgeting apps

These are built around giving every dollar a job before the month begins. They are the most structured kind of budgeting app.

Examples: YNAB, which is a paid subscription with a free trial, and EveryDollar, which has a free manual version and a paid version that adds bank connection.

Strengths: a clear method, strong teaching material, and a plan for every dollar including savings.

Weaknesses: a learning curve in the first month, and the most complete versions cost money every year.

Best for: people who want a full system and are willing to spend time learning it. If the method is new to you, start with zero based budgeting for beginners.

Envelope apps

A digital version of cash envelopes. You divide your income into envelopes for each category and spend from them until they are empty.

Example: Goodbudget, which has a free tier with a limited number of envelopes and a paid plan with more.

Strengths: very easy to understand, and well suited to couples sharing one budget.

Weaknesses: the free tier can feel tight once you want more categories, and entry is mostly manual.

Best for: households that like the envelope idea and want to share it across two phones.

Automatic trackers with bank sync

These connect to your accounts, import transactions on their own and sort them into categories. Many also track net worth, bills and subscriptions.

Examples: Monarch, which is a paid subscription, and Rocket Money and PocketGuard, which have free tiers with paid upgrades. Mint was the best known free app of this kind until Intuit closed it in 2024.

Strengths: very little typing, a full picture across many accounts, and good at finding forgotten subscriptions.

Weaknesses: you must hand over a bank connection, categories are often wrong until you correct them, connections sometimes break, and it is easy to stop looking because nothing requires you to.

Best for: people with many accounts and a lot of transactions who already have the budgeting habit and want less admin.

Spreadsheets

A spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel is genuinely free and endlessly flexible. Plenty of good templates exist.

Strengths: total control, no subscription, and your data stays in a file you own.

Weaknesses: awkward on a phone, no reminders, and everything depends on your own formulas and discipline.

Best for: people who enjoy spreadsheets and budget at a desk once a week.

Where MADBU fits, honestly

MADBU is a manual entry tracker with habit building at its centre.

What is free, with no time limit and no card:

• Logging spending, income and savings, in about five seconds per entry
• A monthly budget and a breakdown of where the money went
• Savings goals with targets and dates
• Daily streaks, points, badges and challenges you can share
• CSV export of everything you have logged

What is paid:

• MADBU+ adds an AI money coach, questions about your own figures in plain English, type-to-log, a debt payoff planner that compares the snowball and avalanche, and bill reminders.
• MADBUMAX adds cash flow forecasting, a subscription finder, net worth tracking, CSV import and optional bank connection through Plaid.

Current prices are on the pricing page.

Where MADBU is not the right choice:

• It runs in the browser and installs to your home screen. There are no App Store or Google Play apps yet, though they are planned.
• If you want automatic bank import for free, MADBU does not offer that. Bank connection is a paid feature.
• It does not enforce a strict envelope system. If you want every dollar locked into a category before you can spend it, a dedicated zero based or envelope app will suit you better.
• It does not track investments in depth.

Where it is strong: no bank login needed, no adverts or tracking cookies, your data is never sold, and the streak system is designed for the real reason budgets fail, which is that people stop logging around the third week. We wrote about that in why most budgets fail in week three.

Which type should you choose?

• You are new to budgeting: a manual entry tracker with a free core. Learn where your money goes before you automate anything.
• You do not want to share your bank login: a manual entry tracker or a spreadsheet.
• You want a strict plan for every dollar: a zero based app, and be ready to pay for the full version.
• You budget as a couple: an envelope app with shared access.
• You have many accounts and little time: an automatic tracker with bank sync, usually paid.
• You are paying off debt: any tracker plus a payoff calculator. See debt snowball vs avalanche to choose your order.
• Your income changes every month: any tracker that separates income, spending and savings, used with the method in our guide to budgeting on an irregular income.

How to test a budget app in one week

Reading comparisons only gets you so far. A week of real use tells you more.

• Day 1: set it up and time how long your first entry takes. If it is more than about ten seconds, you will not keep it up.
• Days 2 to 5: log every purchase as you make it. Notice whether opening the app feels like a chore.
• Day 6: look at the summary. Does it tell you something you did not know?
• Day 7: find the export and the delete account option. If you cannot get your data out or remove it, choose something else.

Test one app at a time. Running three side by side triples the work and guarantees you abandon all of them.

Common questions

Is there a completely free budget app?

Yes. Several apps have a free core that never expires, including MADBU, and a spreadsheet costs nothing at all. What is rarely free is automatic bank import, because the app pays a provider for every connected account.

What replaced Mint?

Nothing replaced it directly. Mint users moved to a range of apps depending on what they valued: paid automatic trackers for the all accounts view, zero based apps for structure, and manual trackers for simplicity and privacy.

Are budgeting apps safe?

Reputable ones are. For apps that connect to your bank, look for a recognised connection provider, read only access, and a clear statement that the app never sees your banking password. For any app, read the privacy policy for what is shared and whether you can delete your data. Ours is here.

Manual entry or bank sync?

Manual entry builds awareness and keeps your accounts private. Bank sync saves time once you already have the habit. Many people start manual and add sync later.

Do I need to pay to budget well?

No. A free tracker used every day beats a paid one opened once a month. Pay only when a specific feature would save you real time or money.

The short version

Decide how you want entries to get in, check what the free tier really includes, and test one app for a week. If you want to begin with a free tracker that needs no bank login, you can read how MADBU works and make your first entry in under a minute.