Creating and following a budget is an excellent way to build up your savings. But it can be tricky without a little help. Luckily, there are plenty of budgeting apps that can monitor your spending, automate your savings, and help you limit unnecessary purchases.
We’ve used a strict methodology to find the best free budgeting apps you can use to manage your finances.
The 5 best free budgeting apps for September 2024
Why pay money to save money? The best free budgeting apps we’ve curated here won’t charge you for their services. With their help, you’ll be able to better organize your finances and reduce your monthly spending.
All the information in this article, including fees and other numbers, is up to date as of September 20, 2024, and is subject to change.
1. Empower: Best for net worth tracking
Empower is a financial services company that offers investment services as well as the Empower Personal Dashboard app. With the app, you can get a comprehensive picture of your net worth, including a free portfolio analyzer.
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Empower
| Average app rating: | 4.3 stars |
| Account syncing capabilities: | Connect individual retirement accounts (IRAs), retirement plans, mortgages, loans, checking, credit cards, and savings accounts through Yodlee. |
| Premium version cost: | N/A |
Why we like it
Empower’s budgeting tools let you sort your savings and spending by date, merchant, or category to keep you organized. You can set a detailed savings goal to keep yourself on budget, including how much you want to spend in specific categories.
Empower’s built-in investment tools also help you track your portfolio so that you can make adjustments as your spending changes.
What to be aware of
The budgeting tools in Empower can feel bare-bones because it’s centered more on long-term investments.
“If you’re more focused on long-term financial planning and retirement, it’s great,” says Latham. “But if you’re looking for detailed expense tracking, it might fall short.”
Learn more: Read our Empower review
2. SoFi Insights: Best for syncing all your accounts
SoFi Relay is SoFi Bank’s in-app budgeting tool. It provides credit score monitoring, breakdowns of your spending, budgeting tools, and personalized financial insights to help get you on track to financial freedom.
SoFi
| Average app rating: | 4.3 stars |
| Account syncing capabilities: | Connect deposit, investment, and retirement accounts as well as credit cards, student loans, mortgages, and other liabilities through Plaid. |
| Premium version cost: | N/A |
Why we like it
SoFi uses Plaid for account syncing, so you can connect nearly any external account for monitoring. Once you’re connected, you’ll be able to sort your spending by categories, analyze your monthly savings and spending, and keep track of recurring transactions.
The all-in-one dashboard also shows your net worth, upcoming bills, and spending targets. You can set up spending targets to keep yourself on track and edit them as needed.
“It’s best for casual users who want to keep tabs on their financial health without diving into detailed budgets,” says Andrew Latham, Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and content director at Supermoney.com.
What to be aware of
You can only set one spending target for the month, meaning you can’t set up spending targets in individual categories. This could be a big drawback if you’re trying to cut back on certain expenses, such as entertainment or eating out.
Learn more: Read our SoFi review
3. Goodbudget: Best for envelope budgeting
Goodbudget is a home budgeting app that uses the envelope method. The envelope method involves putting a set amount of money aside each month for every category you’ll be spending in.
Goodbudget
| Average app rating: | 4.3 stars |
| Account syncing capabilities: | Connect checking, savings, cash accounts, and credit cards with Plaid. |
| Premium version cost: | $10 per month or $80 per year |
Why we like it
Free users get 10 regular envelopes for recurring expenses and 10 more for annual or goal expenses. You can also sync your account with other users, making it a good option for households that share expenses.
“If zero-based budgeting or the envelope method will change your mindset for the better, then absolutely give tools like Goodbudget a try,” recommends Melissa Caro, CFP and founder of My Retirement Network.
Goodbudget also has a debt payoff feature that helps you see your payoff progress. It provides an estimate of when you’ll be debt-free based on your spending.
What to be aware of
Goodbudget doesn’t store any of your money for you in virtual envelopes, so it can’t stop you from overspending. Also, it doesn’t sync your purchases automatically, so you have to track every purchase manually.
4. EveryDollar: Best for creating a custom budget
The EveryDollar app was created by financial company Ramsey Solutions to help users simplify their budgeting needs. It comes with unlimited categories so you can truly make a customized budget tailored to your spending requirements:
EveryDollar
| Average app rating: | 4.3 stars |
| Account syncing capabilities: | Connect checking, savings, money market, and credit card accounts using Finicity (must be Premium member). |
| Premium version cost: | $17.99 per month or $79.99 per year |
Why we like it
It takes 10 minutes to set up your first budget on EveryDollar, and you can create categories for every possible expense, from groceries to pet care. Once you’ve created your budget, you can then share it with others.
Another free feature is Savings Funds. This tool lets you save up for nonregular expenses, such as vacations, annual subscriptions, or a new car. The Funds balance automatically carries into the next month so you can keep better track of it.
What to be aware of
The EveryDollar free app is quite limited—you can’t connect to other bank accounts without paying. You also won’t have access to your financial roadmap, paycheck planning, goal setting, and custom budget reports.
“If you don’t mind doing the work yourself, it’s a straightforward and effective tool,” says Latham.
Learn more: Read our EveryDollar review
5. Honeydue: Best for couples
Honeydue
| Average app rating: | 4.2 stars |
| Account syncing capabilities: | Connect bank accounts, loans, and investments at over 20,000 financial institutions across five countries. |
| Premium version cost: | N/A |
Honeydue is a budgeting app designed specifically with couples in mind. It lets you manage shared expenses so you can know exactly who is paying.
Why we like it
Honeydue comes with a bill reminder that sends you and your partner notifications when it’s time to pay. It also comes with a built-in chat so you can keep your financial conversations all in one place.
Check individual and joint account balances from the dashboard. You can sort your transactions further by category so that you can see where your budget is going. Finally, you can set monthly household spending limits by category and get notifications when you’re approaching your set amount.
What to be aware of
While Honeydue offers some great features for free, such as account syncing, it doesn’t have an abundance of advanced tools.
“[Honeydue is] better suited for basic tracking rather than in-depth financial planning,” says Latham.
Learn more: Read our Honeydue review
Why is budgeting important?
By enacting a budget, you can learn more about what you spend each month and find ways to reduce those amounts. Over time, the money you save can go into your emergency fund or toward larger goals.
“Budgeting is key to help understand and manage your income and expenses, set goals, and gain greater control over your finances in the long run,” says Caro. “It forces you to evaluate your spending habits and prioritize what’s truly important to you.”
What to know about free budgeting apps
Free budgeting apps often come with plenty of features to help you start planning out your finances, such as bank account syncing, expense tracking, and customizable spending budgets. But there may be some drawbacks.
“Being free, they may come with some limitations like ads, fewer features, or data collection to make up for the lack of fees,” says Alyson Basso, Master of Business Administration (MBA), CFP, Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC), and managing principal at Hayden Wealth Management.
How to choose a free budgeting app
Basso’s top tips for picking a free budgeting app are to consider the app’s security features, how easy it is to use, and whether or not it suits your specific needs. Research each app you’re considering to see which features it does or does not have.
Basso also recommends choosing an app that comes with envelope budgeting and debt payoff planners, as these are two of the budgeting tools she finds most useful in her work.
Pros and cons of using a free budgeting app
Pros
- Easy to use: If you know how to work a phone, you’ll be able to work a budgeting app. “[Free budgeting apps] are easy to set up, helping you stay on top of your spending without costing you anything,” says Basso.
- Saves you time: Latham notes that because some free budgeting apps automatically sync your accounts for you, it eliminates the need to spend hours manually tracking transactions.
- Helps you find a system that works: There are many kinds of budgeting systems out there, and trying out different free apps gives you a chance to test the waters before committing to one.
Cons
- The app might not last: Very few things are free forever. Caro cautions that this is especially true of free budgeting apps, using Mint as an example of a popular free app that shut down. “If you get too reliant on the app itself and the app is discontinued, you won’t want your budget to end up derailed.”
- Data concerns: “If the product is free, you are the product,” warns Latham. “These apps either sell your data, push financial products that benefit them most, or both. Their goals might not always align with what’s best for you.”
- Not enough functionality: Basso says many people eventually outgrow a free app’s features. At that point, you might need to upgrade to a paid app or think about working with a financial planner.
Our methodology
The Fortune Recommends team compared more than 25 budgeting apps, comparing price, ease-of-use, customer reviews, and more.
For our best free budgeting apps, we used following categories and weighted each one as outlined in the percentages below:
- Mobile app availability and rating (25%): We calculated the average mobile application rating for each budgeting app using ratings from the Apple App Store and Google Play. We rewarded apps that had a higher average mobile application rating, and deducted points if an app was iOS- or Android-exclusive.
- Account integration capabilities (25%): Budgeting apps that allow users to link bank accounts, credit cards, or other financial accounts within the app ranked higher.
- Categorized expenses (20%): We favored apps that categorize users’ expenses into different spending categories within the app and allows users to personalize their spending categories.
- Security and privacy features (15%): Budgeting apps that offer multi-factor identification, have an encrypted network, or provide other security features were awarded extra points.
- Sharing capabilities (10%): Budgeting apps that allow users to add multiple people to the same budget earned additional points.
- Desktop version (5%): Budgeting apps that offer desktop or browser versions of their software (in addition to the mobile platform) for users who prefer the option to budget from their computers received a higher score.
Dig deeper: learn more about our banking methodology
Frequently asked questions
Is there a truly free budget app?
Yes, several budgeting apps are entirely free. Some of the ones we cover in this review include Honeydue, Empower, and SoFi.
What is the best free app to track my spending?
SoFi has the best free app for tracking spending. That’s because it allows you to sync your accounts for free, which many other apps don’t.
Is the Goodbudget app free?
Goodbudget has a free account that gives you 10 regular envelopes and 10 More envelopes without any account syncing. If you need more than that or want account syncing, you’ll pay $10 per month or $80 per year.
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