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Budgeting apps.

11 apps · 5,013 reviews held · 2,124 negative · 2026-09-02 snapshot

The market’s shape

2.1star
How angry
42%
Negative reviews
55%
Room to enter
10 of 11
Willingness to pay

Mostly solved: ads. 9 of 11 apps run below the store’s typical rate on it, while 9 of 11 still carry sync & data complaints.

4 gaps.

Shares of this market’s 2,124 negative reviews.

Sync & datahigh

2.8% vs 0.9% typical store-wide.

Counted in 60 reviews · 9 of 11 apps · 2.1star mean

What they said · 3 of 60
  • Copilot: Track & Budget Money3star· Aug 14, 2026

    Issues prevent me from using — I want to like this app. I really want to like it. It promises so many great things. Unfortunately, if you do not have one of the major five banks, you will probably have issues. I have a small, smaller credit union, and and there are constant issues with syncing, correct balances, and just getting it to work in general. I downloaded this in spent more time talking w

  • EveryDollar: Budget Management1star· Aug 12, 2026

    Frustrated and Disappointed — Entered all my information in 3 different times. Every time I come back to the app all my data is gone. Who has time for that?!?! I assume it’s because I’m using the free version. Not much incentive to actually pay for it! So frustrated and disappointed.

  • YNAB2star· Aug 12, 2026

    Needs Work — I’ve read the book and I’m totally on board with how YNAB frames finance. But this app is poorly structured and non-intuitive. I thought if I stayed with it, maybe something in it would click, but that’s not happening. It also, unlike the app I’ve chosen to use, doesn’t sync with all my banks. So I’m making Goodbudget work in YNAB framing.

Named problems · 2
  • Sync fails between devices14 of 60
  • Everything gone at once5 of 60

UXhigh

11.8% vs 4.9% typical store-wide.

Counted in 251 reviews · 11 of 11 apps · 2.4star mean

What they said · 3 of 251
  • Copilot: Track & Budget Money3star· Aug 16, 2026

    From 5 to 3 stars — I love the interface because it’s colorful and easy to navigate. It’s so easy to categorize transactions and see where all of your money is. The rollover feature is perfect for me rather than having to track individual sinking funds. It didn’t take long to set up at all, and it shows me everything I need without having to run reports or search for it, such as the average amount

  • YNAB1star· Aug 14, 2026

    Bring back progress bars — Please bring back the progress bars, or at least the option to toggle them on. The circles are so much more difficult to read and make me want to cancel my subscription. I find it hard to believe anyone asked for this feature - please stop making arbitrary UI updates that don’t actually fix anything.

  • YNAB1star· Aug 14, 2026

    Constant Useless and Confusing Updates Recently — Have been a used for years. Recent updates bury my budgeting info multiple clicks deep so I can no longer see the useful info (how much money I am aiming for, nave, and need) without multiple clicks. Was all set to get an account for my child before college. Now I am looking to see when my current subscription expires so I can be sure it doesn’t au

Accuracyelevated

2.4% vs 1.5% typical store-wide.

Counted in 52 reviews · 10 of 11 apps · 2.1star mean

What they said · 3 of 52
  • EveryDollar: Budget Management2star· Aug 15, 2026

    The app badge is screwed uo 👎🏻 — This app is mostly good. But the app badge is really screwed up. It shows that there are transactions to log when there are none or else the number is wrong. If there are any, after I log them, a couple minutes later the badge shows that there 3 new transactions, but there are always none. It does this consistently. If it shows a number of transactions to log at o

  • EveryDollar: Budget Management3star· Aug 14, 2026

    Could be better — I REALLY wish the paycheck planning feature allowed you to select the dates AND the specific amounts that will be deducted on each of those days instead of assumed it’s equally divided. i.e. if I have $150 in monthly subscriptions and they come out on 4 different days, the app assumes $25 is coming out each day when that isn’t the case. So it’ll say you’re at risk of overspending

  • Copilot: Track & Budget Money1star· Aug 7, 2026

    App degrades overtime. Getting worse. — They keep clearing my review so I’ll keep reviewing it. Used to be so smart with transactions now it makes the same errors over and over again. This app is aging. Why did rules used to work so well and now I have to fix the same transactions month after month after month. Used to be the cool new kid on the block but no functional new features for quarter aft

Billingelevated

43.4% vs 30.8% typical store-wide.

Counted in 921 reviews · 11 of 11 apps · 2.5star mean

What they said · 3 of 921
  • Copilot: Track & Budget Money2star· Sep 4, 2026

    Does not auto categorize — I’ve had this app for 3 months and there’s only one thing I wanted it to do. I want to be able to categorize transactions automatically. This app is very very bad at that. At 3 months I still need to manually change each transaction. I canceled because it doesn’t do the most basic thing it’s supposed to do. Wave is not very good at this but 100X better than this app. I d

  • Copilot: Track & Budget Money1star· Aug 17, 2026

    Doesn’t work as it used to — I used to love this app, but now it’s not working as it’s meant to be. I have submitted multiple tickets and they always give me the same answer as they’re working on fixing it but it’s been the same issues for the whole year. They had added a goal for spending so it doesn’t affect your current budget but that feature is a joke. Since I first added a goal to a transact

  • Copilot: Track & Budget Money3star· Aug 16, 2026

    From 5 to 3 stars — I love the interface because it’s colorful and easy to navigate. It’s so easy to categorize transactions and see where all of your money is. The rollover feature is perfect for me rather than having to track individual sinking funds. It didn’t take long to set up at all, and it shows me everything I need without having to run reports or search for it, such as the average amount

Named problems · 4
  • Price judged too high for the value69 of 921
  • Trial converted without clear consent26 of 921
  • Cancellation blocked or broken23 of 921
  • Charge the user never authorised21 of 921

Also counted

ThemeOf 2,124 negatives
  • Performance224 · 10.5% · 11 apps
  • Support172 · 8.1% · 11 apps
  • Login & auth140 · 6.6% · 10 apps
  • Ads96 · 4.5% · 11 apps
  • Limits & caps37 · 1.7% · 9 apps

The tick marks the store-typical rate. A review can mention more than one theme, so these sum past 100%.

Is anyone looking for this?

What Apple and Google complete after budgeting apps, in their order.

Who they're for
couplesteenscollege studentsyoung adultsadhdbeginnerskids
Google
budgeting appsbudgeting apps redditbudgeting apps reviewsbudgeting apps freebudgeting apps canadabudgeting apps for couplesbudgeting apps ukbudgeting apps that connect to bank account
App Store
budget managementbudget planner freebudgetingbudgeting app for couplesbudgeting app for teensbudgeting for teenssmart moneybudget planner

Marked App Store phrases are searched, but no app in this market says them in its name. Audiences are what Apple and Google complete after “budgeting app for” and “budgeting for” and “budgeting apps for”, with the query stripped.

Potential customers

People the apps here do not serve, and what they asked for.

  • Wants lesstoo many features 40 · just a basic one 18 · it used to be simpler 1151
  • Outgrown itbulk entry 11 · select all 4 · bulk delete 319
  • Shut out by device or contextiPad 312
  • Wants it to plug inan API 2 · widgets 27

Counted in 1 to 4 star reviews. The small numbers are how many reviews named each thing. What they wrote is in the free trial.

Who’s in it

All 11 apps counted in this market · 2026-09-02.

Buddy: Budget Planner App is the biggest app here that has stopped shipping. Last update 8 months ago, at 4,032 installs.

Installs are Google's own count, captured 2026-09-06. 2 of 11 apps have an Android listing we could match. A dash means we could not pair the two stores, not that the app is absent from Play. Amber marks an app that has not shipped in over 90 days, the 90th percentile across every market we hold.

What they charge, and what it costs them

Prices from Apple’s public pages; the share counts payment-mechanics language only.

AppMoney complaints
Monarch: Budget & Track Money$14.99–$199.99 · 4 tiers8.3% of 181
Rocket Money - Bills & Budgets$2.99–$9.99 · 6 tiers6.6% of 513
Buddy: Budget Planner App$4.99–$49.99 · 7 tiers6.1% of 180
Budget Bestie$4.99–$69.99 · 6 tiers5.7% of 87
YNAB$14.99–$109 · 2 tiers5.3% of 266
Budget app - spending tracker$2.99–$14.99 · 8 tiers4.7% of 85
Goodbudget Budget Planner$5.99–$79.99 · 8 tiers4.5% of 156
EveryDollar: Budget Management$7.99–$129.99 · 7 tiers3.8% of 156
Copilot: Track & Budget Money$13–$95 · 3 tiers3.2% of 187
NerdWallet: Smart Money Appfree1.4% of 292
Fleur - Budget Planner App$6.99–$39.99 · 6 tiers0% of 21

What each one owns, where each is exposed

Rocket Money - Bills & Budgets

367,314 ratings · 68% negative

Owns. Largest reach; bill-negotiation hook

Exposed. Billing fraud perception ('billing every three weeks'); inaccurate sync; no Zelle/CashApp

Intuit Credit Karma

7,662,704 ratings · 67% negative

Owns. Massive free-tier reach; credit-score anchor

Exposed. Feature removals without notice; AI answers users call 'entirely inaccurate'; no real budgeting depth

NerdWallet: Smart Money App

124,050 ratings · 69% negative

Owns. Brand trust; free entry

Exposed. Stripped 50/30/20 tracker and bill tracker; ad-heavy redesign; users explicitly say 'my bank app does this now'

YNAB

60,738 ratings · 49% negative

Owns. Methodology loyalty; $109 annual ceiling proves willingness to pay

Exposed. Monstrous learning curve; bank connections break setup; UI redesigns alienate existing subscribers

Monarch: Budget & Track Money

97,998 ratings · 36% negative

Owns. Cleanest negative rate among syncing apps; strong community

Exposed. Facebook tracker in paid app; promised features moved to higher paywall; money-back guarantee unenforceable

Copilot: Track & Budget Money

29,706 ratings · 39% negative

Owns. Premium aesthetic; $95 annual tier proves high-end segment

Exposed. Crashes adding accounts; duplicate transactions require manual cleanup; support unresponsive

EveryDollar: Budget Management

83,904 ratings · 38% negative

Owns. Dave Ramsey ecosystem distribution; $129.99 ceiling

Exposed. Foreign transaction delays; buggy goal editing; batch labeling absent

Goodbudget Budget Planner

13,319 ratings · 37% negative

Owns. Envelope method niche; long-term retention

Exposed. Silent data loss wipes years of envelopes with no recovery path

The Deep Report on this market

Each rival’s exposed weakness, what not to build, and the call, argued from the same reviews counted above.

Read the Deep Report

Browse the apps behind these counts

Every app we count, with the complaint it runs furthest above the store’s typical rate.

Open the app library

Is there a market for a new budgeting app?

11 apps compete on this shelf, holding 5,013 App Store reviews. And the widest unfixed complaint, sync & data, runs in 9 of 11 of them at 2.8% of negative reviews against 0.9% typical. Those are counts, not a verdict. The page shows what is unfixed, not whether to build.

What do users complain about most in budgeting apps?

1. Sync & data: in 9 of 11 apps, 2.8% of negative reviews; 2. UX: in 11 of 11 apps, 11.8% of negative reviews; 3. Accuracy: in 10 of 11 apps, 2.4% of negative reviews; 4. Billing: in 11 of 11 apps, 43.4% of negative reviews.

How many budgeting app reviews did App Imp count?

5,013 US App Store reviews across 11 apps, 2,124 of them negative. Counted on the 2026-09-02 snapshot, never estimated.

How markets are ranked

We give each market a mark out of 100 for seven things (nobody's fixed it 20 · above the norm 15 · how angry 10 · room to build 15 · room to enter 15 · getting bigger 20 · willingness to pay 5). Then we multiply the marks together. We do not average them.

Averaging lets a market hide one bad problem behind good numbers. Multiplying means one bad mark pulls the whole score down. That is the point. A market you cannot win is still a market you cannot win, however badly it is served.

Each mark has a fixed rule. Nobody’s fixed it and willingness to pay are plain shares. Above the norm maxes out at 4 times the store’s usual rate. How angry runs from star3.0 down to star1.5. Room to enter is what the biggest app does not own. Getting bigger hits 100 at 10% growth. Room to build is different. It is a sweet spot, not a size. A market can be too small to live on, or too big to break into.

If we cannot count something, we leave it out. We never guess it. The score only sorts this list. Every other number you see on a market is counted.

How this is counted

Every number is arithmetic over the reviews we hold, re-counted weekly: nothing modelled, nothing scored. Themes come from a frozen pattern classifier rather than a model reading reviews, so the same review always lands in the same bucket. A market rate is pooled across every app here; the store rate is the same count across 12,728 apps. A complaint is only called a gap when at least half the market carries it, at least 20 reviews are behind it, and the market’s rate is elevated above the store’s, the same cutoff used everywhere on this site, because a problem concentrated in one app is that app’s bug, and a problem every app on the store shares is nobody’s gap.