Comparing the Most Popular Budgeting and Money Apps

Short for You Need a Budget, YNAB is one of the premier budgeting software services. It allows users to set a budget based on their income, and adjust categories throughout the month when the unexpected happens.

If you earn a decent income, but you’re still living paycheck to paycheck, YNAB can help you master your cash flow, start saving, and break the cycle.

The cost for YNAB is $6.99 per month or $83.99 annually. It is by far the best budgeting-specific app that we’ve seen.

Clarity Money focuses on clarifying your financial picture. Its primary features are income, expense, and net worth trackers. But it has more categories than many trackers, and it now has a weekly budgeting feature which can help you proactively manage your money. The budgeting feature is best for people with predictable incomes.

As an added bonus, you can track your credit score through Clarity Money too.

Personal Capital is one of the original asset allocation, portfolio management, and net worth tracking apps. Users can also use the app to track income and expenses. 

One word of caution: Personal Capital is also a financial advisory firm, and the firm will call you to ask you to purchase advisory services.

Tiller Money is an app that feeds financial transactions and balance statements to an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet. As far as “apps” go, it could not be simpler.

However, it is a top app for people who need flexibility in their apps. You can use it for traditional budgeting, financial tracking, and to build cash flow and profit and loss statements for your business.

The Emma app uses machine learning to quickly analyze your financial habits. Its well-designed user interface makes exploring your finances easy and fun. It has great budgeting and financial tracking features which are helpful for people who are just getting started.

Trim is a clever app that helps you identify recurring subscriptions and cancel unnecessary subscriptions. Paying for Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix? Trim can help you cut those expenses.

Plus, it can also help you negotiate your cable or cell phone bills to get you better pricing.

Truebill is a subscription monitoring and bill negotiation service. You only have to pay if Truebill actually saves you money.

If you’re someone who struggles to stay on top of your costs (especially cable and phone bills), Truebill can help you save a lot of money.

Much like Ibotta, ReceiptPal allows you to submit photos of receipts to earn points. Points can be redeemed for gift cards to sites like Amazon or similar retailers.

The payouts from ReceiptPal seem to be lower than Ibotta’s, but you can double up on the apps. As a result, this is a great way to earn about $1 to $2 per week.

Best Cash Advance Apps

Cash advance apps are becoming popular payday loan alternatives. These apps are touted as using technology to help consumers better manage their money, and these apps don't nickel and dime users for borrowing small amounts of money. Plus, by doing these quick cash infusions, users can avoid costly overdraft fees and other bank charges.

This is a cash advance app that allows hourly employees to take a free cash advance of up to $500 on money they’ve already earned.

The app comes with up to $100 initially, but you can build up to being able to borrow up to $500. You must meet certain requirements to use the app.

Fidelity is a high-quality brokerage company that supports nearly every type of tax-advantaged investment account (and brokerage accounts too). You can use the app to buy and sell stocks, options, and ETFs for free.

This brokerage earned a score of 100 out of 100 in our most recent review, and the app is excellent for most investors. It's also named our number one best free investing app.

M1 Finance combines the best of individual stock investing with robo-advisors. Users can create their own portfolio and rebalance it regularly. The whole app is completely commission-free.

This is one of the best apps to invest for long term investors because it easily allows investors to dollar cost average their portfolios, and rebalance as new funds enter the portfolio.

Overall, Robinhood is a bit of a novelty app. It’s not a great app for long-term investors.

But, if you’re someone who has a bit of money in a “sandbox” for trying out trading strategies, Robinhood can be a good choice. After all, the app offers free stock and ETF trades.

Zeta is a financial tracking and budgeting app that allows couples to manage money separately and together. The standout feature in Zeta is the bill splits feature that helps couples track who owes whom money.

If you and your partner are working towards a joint savings goal, but you have separate finances, Twine is a perfect app for you. It allows you and your partner to set up and contribute toward a joint savings or investment account. You can also budget or track your finances together.

Plus, as a bonus, you get $5 towards your first goal when you sign up!

For a few years, it seemed like all the advances in the financial app space had to do with microsaving or micro-investing. Digit and Acorns were some of the front runners in these categories.

The idea behind these apps were that you could “round up” purchases, or save just a few dollars or cents at a time. By taking small amounts from your account, a person could save (and even invest) a few hundred dollars per year.

While the concept seems sound, and some people love these apps, I found that they add an unnecessary layer of complexity. A person who can truly only afford to save $100 or $200 per year will see their savings eaten away by the app fees.

Those who can save more don’t need microsavings apps. They can set up an automatic transfer to an investment account of their choice.