OnTrack Money Review: Is The Budgeting App Worth It?

What Is OnTrack Money?

OnTrack Money is a budgeting platform available on iOS and desktop (no mobile app for Android users). It uses a zero-based budgeting approach, meaning you assign every dollar of income a job. This includes the money you want to save or use to pay off debt. As you log your purchases, you can see how much you planned to spend, how much you have spent, and what you have left. 

What Does It Offer?

For this review, I'm focusing on six OnTrack features to help you create and maintain a budget. 

Manual Transaction Tracking

With OnTrack, you don't need to sync your bank account to enter purchases and assign them to budget categories. You can enter transactions manually and split them across multiple items. This could be helpful if you have a single store receipt that includes groceries and household supplies. While I prefer to automatically sync my transactions, manual tracking can really help you get a handle on your spending, as it prompts you to check how much money you have left every time you log a purchase. In other words, you stay more hands-on with your money. 

Automatic Bank and Transaction Sync (Pro)

If you sign up for the Pro plan, you can take advantage of automatic bank and transaction syncing. OnTrack Money uses Plaid to connect to supported financial institutions and automatically pull in transactions. You can review those purchases and allocate them to the right budget categories, such as transportation, groceries, entertainment, or clothing. Before you commit to an annual OnTrack plan, make sure it supports your main bank account. 

Intelligent Recommendations

OnTrack's recommendation feature will suggest where it thinks a transaction belongs, and you can review the suggestion before assigning it. For example, it might suggest a grocery store purchase as groceries, but you can move it if you intended to assign it to a different category. According to OnTrack's privacy policy, bank-sync users can opt in to AI category suggestions separately. 

Export Budgets And Transactions

If you want to keep a copy of your budget or transactions outside of the OnTrack platform, like in your own spreadsheet, you can export budgets and transactions as Excel or CSV files.

Transaction Rules (Pro)

The Pro plan lets you create rules that make it easier to handle repeat purchases from the same retailer. For example, you might set up a rule to send your monthly internet bill to the same budget item each time it comes in. To get the most out of rules, I'd start with merchants whose charges are easy to predict, like an internet or cell phone bill. Make sure you review transactions from stores where you buy things for several different categories. For example, you might shop at Walmart for groceries, cleaning supplies, clothing, electronics, pet supplies, and more. 

AI Assistant (Pro)

Pro users can connect ChatGPT or Claude to OnTrack and ask questions about their budget or transactions. For example, with read-only access, you could ask how much you’ve spent on takeout this month. If you grant editing access, the assistant can also log or split transactions and change individual budget items. The connection is optional, and you can revoke access in OnTrack’s settings.

Note: This feature requires an AI app that supports remote MCP and OAuth.

Are There Any Fees?

OnTrack keeps things simple with two plans: Free and Pro. The Pro plan includes a 14-day free trial, during which you can test the features and confirm your bank is supported for automatic syncing. 

Here's what's included in each plan:

How Does OnTrack Money Compare?

OnTrack is one of many budgeting apps on the market today. Alternatives include Lunch Money and Monarch Money.

OnTrack Money is a relatively new app and it's still in active development and they are rolling out new features all the time. As a result, you should keep that in mind as you are comparing it to some of the more mature products in the market. 

Lunch Money is a top choice if you want flexible budgeting options. It's the only budgeting app on the market that offers custom budget periods. Want to match your budget to your paycheck? You can set your budget to start any day of the week and roll over weekly, biweekly, twice per month, etc. It also supports multiple currencies, so if you're a digital nomad or travel frequently and often earn or spend in more than one currency.

Monarch Money is a long-standing budgeting app that is more feature-rich than OnTrack. I recommend it if you want to track investments and net worth alongside your monthly budget. 

How Do I Open An Account?

You can get started with OnTrack through its website or by downloading the mobile iPhone app (Android is not yet supported). On the web, enter your email address and follow the prompts. Once your account is active, you can begin logging transactions manually right away. If you prefer automatic bank and transaction syncing, upgrade to the Pro plan, but you can try the platform risk-free with a 14-day free trial. 

Is It Safe And Secure?

OnTrack says it encrypts data in transit and uses access controls to protect stored information. If you link a bank account, OnTrack uses Plaid, a secure third-party data transfer platform. As a result, OnTrack never has access to your bank account or online banking credentials. I would pay close attention to what you share if you choose to connect the AI assistant, as you are involving other platforms, including LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude. 

How Do I Contact OnTrack?

You can email OnTrack at [email protected] if you need help with your account or have questions about the app. There is no telephone or live chat support, but that's to be expected for a budgeting app. 

Is It Worth It?

If you want to be hands-on with your budgeting, are ready to move beyond the pencil-and-paper approach, and want a free budgeting tool, OnTrack Money could be a good entry point to online budgeting. The free plan lets you enter transactions manually and includes basic features that can simplify the process, such as intelligent recommendations, transaction search, recurring line items, and a note-taking feature.

But OnTrack's Pro plan, in my opinion, is too expensive for a budgeting app that lacks so many of the features you would get from the best budgeting apps. In fact, it costs more than Lunch Money, which offers net worth tracking and reporting, custom budget periods, support for multiple currencies, and an engaged community with thousands of users. Monarch Money doesn't offer a free plan, but its Core plan costs about the same as OnTrack Money Pro and offers far more features like net worth tracking.

Over time, I suspect OnTrack will build out its platform and add more helpful features, but for now, its biggest competitive advantage is its free plan. 

Check out OnTrack here >>