Best Budgeting Apps [2024]: Tools to Manage Your Everyday Finances

Managing your finances can be a lot easier if you take advantage of tools like budgeting apps. The best budgeting apps can help you track your spending and savings, but there are a ton of other features you might want to maximize your benefits.

The top budgeting apps include Rocket Money for its bill negotiation feature, Quicken Simplifi for its simple budgeting interface, SoFi®¹ for its comprehensive financial picture, and more.

I like a fairly simple budgeting app that allows me to choose my spending and savings categories, but you might want something a bit more nuanced. Take a look at our roundup of some of the best budgeting apps and decide which features are essential to you.

How we evaluate products

For this roundup of the best budgeting apps, we looked at a number of features.

Cost: We included several budgeting apps that are free (SoFi and Honeydue’s are both entirely free). We also included several with subscription fees and a free trial period, so you can decide what you prefer.

Customer satisfaction: While everyone’s experience is subjective, we included only budgeting apps with relatively high customer satisfaction ratings on app platforms.

Budgeting features: The primary feature we analyzed was whether each app offers functional budgeting tools. Each of those included here provides options for spending categories and importing transactions, and most can link directly to bank accounts for greater automation.

The 7 best budgeting apps

Rocket Money

Quicken Simplifi

SoFi®

YNAB (You Need a Budget)

Monarch

Goodbudget

Honeydue

Comparison of the best budgeting apps

Budgeting app	Best for	Pricing
Rocket Money	Cutting your bills	Free version $6 to $12 per month
Quicken Simplifi	User-friendly budgeting	Promotion (ends 10/30/24): $2.99, billed annually Regular price: $3.99 per month, billed annually
SoFi®	Tracking your money in one place	Free
YNAB	Cross-platform budgeting	34-day free trial period $14.99 per month for month-to-month access $109 per year ($9.08 per month)
Monarch	Comprehensive budgeting	$99.99 annually ($8.33/month) but $69.99 annually ($5.33/month) with welcome discount
Goodbudget	Using the envelope system	Free version $10 per month for the Goodbudget Plus monthly plan $80 per year for the Goodbudget Plus annual plan
Honeydue	Couples	Free

Rocket Money

Available for: iOS devices on the App Store and Android devices on Google Play

Pricing: Free version, or choose to pay $6 to $12 per month for premium version

With Rocket Money, you can connect your bank accounts and credit cards (using Plaid). The app analyzes your transactions to assist you in tracking spending, budgeting, and saving.

Where Rocket Money really stands out is its work on recurring subscriptions. If you’re anything like me, chances are you’ve signed up for a subscription or six to various retailers and have forgotten to use them. The app alerts you to recurring bills for things like cable TV and gym memberships and lets you either cancel useless subscriptions yourself, or you can have Rocket Money handle it.

Plus, Rocket Money offers a “lower your bills” feature in which the company negotiates bills on your behalf. It charges 35%-60% of the first year’s savings, if successful (so you still save money, though not as much as you might hope).

Overall, I like Rocket Money’s features, especially if you’re looking for help lowering your bills, since calling service providers to request discounts is a hassle and not all of us are built for negotiations.

Visit Rocket Money | Read our Rocket Money review.

Quicken Simplifi

Available for: iOS devices on the App Store and Android devices on Google Play

Pricing: $3.99 per month, billed annually

Quicken Simplifi is a tool by Quicken that helps you with money management and financial planning. Over 14,000 financial institutions can connect directly to your Simplifi account, or you can input your transactions manually if your banks aren’t included.

The app automatically categorizes your transactions to help you identify unnecessary expenses and track your monthly spending. You can set up custom limits for each category to help prevent overspending, as well as real-time alerts for unexpected transactions. You’ll also be able to establish and track your savings goals from the app.

The app can track your bills to assist you with paying them on time and avoid late fees, and it also offers a credit report feature that allows you to keep track of your credit score.

Quicken Simplifi doesn't offer a free version, but personally I find its subscription reasonably priced (regularly listed at $5.99/month, but it often runs a deal so it’s just $3.99/month when billed annually).

If you’re looking for specific tools such as a debt payoff tracker or a retirement planner, you’ll need to look elsewhere. Overall, though, customers are fairly happy with Quicken Simplifi: it has a 4.1-star rating on Google Play and 4.2 stars on the App Store.

Visit Quicken Simplifi | Read our Quicken Simplifi review.

SoFi®

Available for: iOS devices on the App Store and Android devices on Google Play.

Pricing: Free.

SoFi®, one of the best online banks, offers ways to comprehensively manage all of your financial accounts. You can use the free budgeting app to link bank accounts along with investment and retirement accounts.

I like SoFi’s budgeting tools as they allow you to set straightforward budgets, see upcoming bills, and monitor your credit score weekly. Overall, it can help you keep your finances in order without spending any extra money. This might make it a good choice if you want to learn how to budget, but you might also keep it as your long-term budgeting tool.

You need to register for a SoFi® account to use SoFi's tools. This isn't a significant downside, as most apps require a similar step.

You may even double down and opt for opening a SoFi Checking and Savings³ account, one of our favorite bank accounts. It has $0 monthly fees⁴, offers access to high annual percentage yield (APY)⁵⁶ with direct deposits, and SoFi is a Member, FDIC ⁷.

Visit SoFi

YNAB

Available for: iOS devices on the App Store and Android devices on Google Play.

Pricing: 34-day free trial period. $14.99 per month on the monthly plan. $109 per year for the annual plan ($9.08 per month equivalent).

You Need a Budget (YNAB) is a budgeting app that offers extensive cross-platform support, including desktop, iPhone, Android, iPad, Apple Watch, and Alexa. It has a dedicated following and reports that new users save an average of $600 in their first two months and $6,000 in their first year.

I personally haven’t used YNAB, possibly because I’m not as motivated to learn the ins and outs of how YNAB works. But I know a lot of folks who swear by YNAB and wouldn’t use any other budgeting app, so it really comes down to preference.

YNAB is a proactive system where you manually categorize and track spending. You set up a zero-based budget aimed at managing income, paying down debt, avoiding overspending, or other goals. YNAB offers a higher level of control than other apps that make spending and savings decisions for you.

It does cost a bit for YNAB (it’s more than double the monthly fee for Quicken Simplifi). Plus, you might be willing to pay the money but want to be more hands-off, while YNAB requires time and effort.

Visit YNAB (You Need A Budget) | Read our YNAB review.

Monarch

Available for: iOS devices on the App Store and Android devices on Google Play

Pricing: $99.99 per year if billed annually (welcome discount of 30%) or $14.99 per month for month-to-month subscription (no welcome discount)

Monarch (from Monarch Money) is a budgeting app that provides tools for budgeting, net worth tracking, monitoring recurring bills, and more. Like other budgeting apps, it syncs with your financial accounts to automatically input transactions and track progress.

You can see info on recurring transactions and get notifications in advance before those bills come due. There’s also an option to plan ahead for larger expenses that don’t occur every month.

If you’re looking for a budgeting tool that also provides a comprehensive view of all of your finances, including investments, it might be worth checking out Monarch.

I had heard Monarch mentioned as a good alternative to Mint, which disappointed quite a few users when it shut down. A quick glance at some of the user reviews on the Google Play and App Store reveals that a lot of people hopped over to Monarch, but reviews are mixed as to whether this succeeds as an alternative. Overall, the reviews are positive (4.7 stars on Google Play and 4.9 stars on App Store).

Price-wise, Monarch is pretty similar to YNAB at $99.99 per year if billed annually (although it seems to be running an ongoing discount so it’s $69.99 per year).

Visit Monarch | Read our Monarch Review for more info.

Goodbudget

Available for: iOS devices on the App Store and Android devices on Google Play.

Pricing: Free version. $10 per month for the Goodbudget Plus monthly plan. $80 per year for the Goodbudget Plus annual plan.

Goodbudget is a user-friendly budgeting app that uses the envelope system to help beginners manage their finances. If you haven’t heard of the envelope system, it’s a way of organizing your spending by “envelopes” in which you assign a dollar amount to each spending category.

Except, of course, this is a modern envelope system, entirely digital. (I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to start carrying around a bunch of envelopes full of cash!)

You can use Goodbudget for tracking expenses. The app is particularly useful for those looking to establish an emergency fund, as it allows users to set aside money for unexpected costs.

The app offers a simple user experience and comprehensive features. It allows you to track income and expenses and set budgeting goals, such as paying off debt or saving money. You can manually input your transactions or import them by uploading a supported file.

The free version gives you one account and access on up to two devices, while the premium version offers unlimited accounts and up to five devices. A downside is that Goodbudget doesn't integrate with other tools or accounts.

Visit Goodbudget.

Honeydue

Available for: iOS devices on the App Store and Android devices on Google Play.

Pricing: Free.

Honeydue is a free budget planning app for couples that's available for iOS and Android. It helps partners simplify essential money talks by tracking expenses, bills, and financial account balances, including joint bank accounts and investment accounts.

I like this because it’s so important for couples or partners to be on the same page with their finances. Using Honeydue can take a lot of the stress out of financial communication between you and your partner.

Couples can choose how much information to share, set monthly spending limits, add custom categories, split expenses, and settle balances. The app also offers a joint Cash bank account with a debit Visa card.

You can’t access your Honeydue information through your laptop or desktop device, limiting you to using your phone. That would be a con in my book because my eyes get tired pretty fast when looking at a tiny screen, but you might prefer mobile-only access.

Visit Honeydue.

How do budgeting apps work?

The main goal of most budgeting apps is simplifying the way you manage your money on a day-to-day basis. You can manage your budget by setting up spending categories and tracking your actual spending.

You typically connect the app directly to your bank to import and categorize transactions. Plus, many apps today help provide alerts to recurring transactions, which could save you money by reminding you to cancel unused subscriptions.

Some budgeting apps also offer investment tracking or credit score monitoring. While I’ll remind you that you can easily get updates on your credit score for free from a lot of places (credit cards, MyFICO.com, etc.), the investment tracking aspect could be quite useful.

Know yourself before choosing a budgeting app

When you look up any of these apps, you’ll see a lot of the information included here, but what you really want to consider is what you’re looking for from a budgeting app.

If all you want is a mobile tool that helps you monitor your spending, you can pick a no-frills type of budgeting app. But if you’re hoping for something that’s fully customizable or requires quite a bit of effort on your part, you should be ready to put in more time.

For example, YNAB is well-known for having a bit of a learning curve, so if you’re not interested in really spending time on your budget, it’s probably not worth your money because you won’t get the maximum benefit from all of YNAB’s features.

Overall, pay attention to what it is you want from a budgeting tool. It won’t be exactly the same as what I might want or what your coworkers want. Decide on what matters to you with regard to cost, ease of syncing with accounts, automated features, investment tracking, and other potential features.

FAQs

Products that didn’t make our list

These are a couple of other budgeting apps to consider if you haven’t found one you love yet.

EveryDollar

The app connected to the Dave Ramsey Show, EveryDollar is focused on debt-free living. There’s a free version of EveryDollar as well as a paid version, which you can also get as part of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, if you’d like to get more for your money.

PocketGuard

Another great budgeting app to consider is PocketGuard, an app with bill payment tracking, budgeting, goal tracking, and unique spending insights to help you make the right financial decisions. The cheapest PocketGuard plan is $6.25 per month when billed annually.

Bottom line

If you’ve never budgeted before, it’s simple to learn how to manage your money. You can actually have fun with a budgeting app because you’ll get a better understanding of where your money is going. I like budgeting because it lets me plan ahead for what’s necessary as well as the fun things I’m looking forward to in the future.

No matter your budgeting style, there’s an app that can help you better manage your money. You may want to look into various budgeting techniques before you pick an app, because different apps are stronger with certain techniques like the 50/30/20 method.

If a couple of apps discussed here stand out, you might check out one of our comparison pieces, such as Rocket Money vs. Quicken Simplifi, to help you make a decision.