Investopedia found You Need a Budget (YNAB) to be the best budgeting app overall. YNAB i🔯s loved by many for its zero-based budgeting approach, which can take some getting used to but delivers a comprehensive view of your income and expenses. This can help take the uncertainty out 🅘of your money situation, giving you more control over your spending and financial life as a whole.
Investopedia’s research and editorial teams examined 10 popular budget apps in April 2025, scoring and ranking each one based on 28🐽 criteria. Real-world tests were included as part of our evaluation process. Each app was evaluated based on its fees, availability, features, and customer satisf💛action, among other factors. Investopedia collected 280 data points to objectively score and rank each app, resulting in the recommendations below.
Best Budgeting Apps for June 2025
- Best Overall: 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网: You Need a Budget (YNAB)
- Best Low-Cost App: 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网: PocketGuard
- Best for Cutting Bills: 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网: Rocket Money
- Best for Couples: 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网: Honeydue
- Best for Managing Multiple Account Types: 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网: Monarch Money
Best Overall : You Need a Budget (YNAB)
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You Need a Budget (YNAB)
- Price: $14.99/month or $109/year
- Free trial: 34 days
- Customer satisfaction rating: 4.8/5
Detailed tracking and analysis of spending habits
Test out the app for 34 days with no commitment
Zero-based budgeting encourages inten🎶tional spending
Relatively expensive compared to other apps
Can take some tꩲime to learn and use 🍬budgeting methodology
Doesn’t🐲 include continuous investment account syncing
You Need a Budget (often referred to as YNAB) is a favorite among many budget enthusiasts, although it may take some time to get used to the system. YNAB uses 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:zero-based budgeting, a system in which every single dollar gets a job—spending, saving, investing, etc. This can be difficult to do, as it’s somewhat tedious at first and may also require a change of mindset. But advocates of this budgeting system praise its ability to give you more control over not just your spending but your entire liಞfe.
YNAB aims to help you become more mindful and intentional with your spending. With every dollar allocatꦍed to a specific purpose, you get a complete view of your income and expenses. Like most budget apps, you can set financial goals and monitor your progress towards them.
YNAB is more expensive than some other budget apps, but it might be well worth the cost if it helps you save more throughout the year—especially be🧜cause you can add up to five more people to your subscription for no extra fee. It also earned a high overall score in Investopedia’s combined customer satisfaction rating (4.8 out of 5), which aggregates customer ratings from a variety of sources.
- Monthly fee: $14.99
- Annual fee: $109
- Free trial duration: 34 days
- Platforms: Apple, Android, webpage
- Joint accounts available: Yes (up to 6 people per account)
- Account sync types: Checking, savings, credit cards, loans
- Credit score tracking: No
- Bill payment reminders: No
- Subscription price negotiation: No
Best Low-Cost App : PocketGuard
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PocketGuard
- Price: Free, or $7.99/month or $34.99/year for Plus
- Free trial: 7 days
- Customer satisfaction rating: 4.6/5
Basic version is free; pa♌id version is relatively ꧒inexpensive
Add notes and hashtags to transactions
Subscription price ne💯gotiꦰation/cancellation service
Easy to see payment history with specif💖ic merchants
Free vers🐻ion restricts linked accounts and budget categories
Free trial is relatively short (7 days)
Can’t track credit score
Paying for a budget app may sound paradoxical, ജbut it can be a smart move if it ends up saving you money overall and giving you more control over your financial life. S🍎till, there are free and inexpensive apps that can do a great job, with no need to splurge on YNAB.
PocketGuard is worth trying if you don’t want to spend a lot on a budget app, especially if you’ll go for the yearly subscription. The free version has basic features and may be suitable for some people, although you’ll be limited in the number of a🍨ccounts you can sync and the number of budget categories you can creꦛate. For a relatively small fee you can upgrade to PocketGuard Plus, which lets you sync as many accounts and create as many budget categories as necessary. You’ll also get access to subscription price negotiation, which will automatically attempt to reduce your bills for services like internet and cell phone plans.
One highlight of PocketGuard is the ability to split transactions into multiple categories. If you made a big purchase from Costco, for instance,🐬 which included groceries and an outdoor patio furniture set, you can categorize the money spent on groceries separately from the money spent on the patio furniture. You can also add hashtags to transactions if you want to go beyond basic budget categories.
- Monthly fee: Free for basic, $7.99 for Plus
- Annual fee: Free for basic, $34.99 for Plus
- Free trial duration: 7 days
- Platforms: Apple, Android, webpage
- Joint accounts available: No
- Account sync types: Checking, savings, credit card, investment
- Credit score tracking: No
- Bill payment reminders: Yes
- Subscription price negotiation: Yes
Best for Cutting Bills : Rocket Money
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Rocket Money
- Price: Free, or as low as $6.00/month or $72.00/year for Premium
- Free trial: 7 days
- Customer satisfaction rating: 4.5/5
Easy bill negotiation/cancellation service
Pay-what-you-want model for Premium🌠 (as low as $6 per month)
Can move money from check🍬ing to savings within app
Monitor your Experian credit score
Charges a success fee for bill negotiation
Free version lacks many useful features
No debt payoff tools
Do you feel like you’re paying too much every month for internet, cell ser𒊎vice, or even utilities like electricity? Rocket Money’s automatic ne𝄹gotiation service offers several ways to cut down on costs:
- Negotiating prices directly for services like internet to reduce your monthly bill.
- Checking to see if you can save by switching to a different electricity supplier.
- Checking to see if any recent bank fees can be refunded.
- Cancellation of unneeded subscriptions.
If Rocket Money is able to negotiate a lower mont💟hly bill, it charges 35% to 60% of the first year’s savings—you get to choose how much you pay. These features are only available with the premium plan, but again—you get to choose how much 𒈔you pay for Premium, from $6 to $12 per month.
Rocket Money offers all of the other basic budgeting features you’d expect, along with some extras you don’t always find. You can track your overall net worth and your 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:credit score from Experian; you can move money from checking to savings right from within the app, manually or automatically꧅; and you can easily see and categorize recent trans😼actions with a quick swipe left or right.
- Monthly fee: Free, or $6.00 to $12.00 for Premium (pay-what-you-want model)
- Annual fee: Free, or $72.00 to $144.00 for Premium (pay-what-you-want model)
- Free trial duration: 7 days
- Platforms: Apple, Android, webpage
- Joint accounts available: Yes (up to 2 people)
- Account sync types: Checking, savings, credit cards, loans, investments
- Credit score tracking: Yes
- Bill payment reminders: Yes
- Subscription price negotiation: Yes
Best for Couples : Honeydue
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Honeydue
- Price: Free
- Free trial: N/A
- Customer satisfaction rating: 4.4/5
No fee to use the app
Designed for c𒐪ouples to easily mana🦄ge finances together
Can cu🦩stomize how much information is shared between partners
No desktop version; only mobile apps
Budget cate꧂gories are a bit harder to manage than other ap⛎ps
Lacks some features of more comprehensive apps
Honeydue is all about 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:budgeting with your partner. It has a variety of unique features designed for that purpose, making it easier to stay organized and aware of w🐽hat’s up with your partner’s financ𒆙ial situation.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to go all-out with radical honesty to use Honeydue. You can specify which accounts are visible to your partner—set an account as “Individual,” and only you can see it. Set an account as “Joint,” and your partner can see the balance or the trans🎃action activity, or both.
You can chat with your partner within the aꦕpp, and easily send each other notifications about accounts, balances, or specific transactions. If you pay for something together, you can split the expense to specify how much each of൩ you paid.
Honeydue lacks some of th🎃e nice features of other apps, like subscription negotiation and debt payoff plans. It’s not quite as easy and intuitive to set budget categories and break𝐆 down your spending in detail, but since Honeydue is free it could be a perfect way to manage spending with a partner in addition to your main budgeting tool.
- Monthly fee: Free
- Annual fee: Free
- Platforms: Apple, Android
- Joint accounts available: Yes (up to 2 people)
- Account sync types: Checking, savings, credit cards, loans
- Credit score tracking: No
- Bill payment reminders: Yes
- Subscription price negotiation: No
Best for Managing Multiple Account Types : Monarch Money
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Monarch Money
- Price: $14.99/month or $99.99/year
- Free trial: 7 days
- Customer satisfaction rating: 4.9/5
Sync many account types for a holistic view of finances
“Flex Budge🍰t” may be more intuitive and useful f🉐or some
Add family members o༺r financial advisors to view budget
Highest customer satꦺisfaction rating among ap🐻ps we reviewed
More expensive than some other budget apps
Doesn’t offer credit score monitoring
Doesn’t offer bill negotiation/cancellation
If you’ve got a lot of different financial accountಞs to manage, you’ll probably find that most budget apps only allow you to sync some of them. Monarch Money doesn’t have 🔜that problem—you can sync checking, savings, and credit cards, like most apps, but also investments, loans, and even assets like real estate (through Zillow) and crypto (through Coinbase). Monarch allows you to use three different services to sync accounts, in case you have a problem connecting (most apps only have one): Plaid, Finicity, and MX.
Monarch Money provides a clean, easy-to-naviꦇgate interface without unnecessary distractions. The app is well-organized; it’s easy to see your finances from a bird’s-eye view or zoom in on particular spending categories or merchants.
Monarch offers two budget methodologies: Flex Budget and Category Budget. Category Budget is the typical way to budget, giving every expense a category like “groceries” or “household.” Flex♎ Budget simplifies the situation, and instead puts everything into one of three buckets:
- Fixed: Expenses that are the same every month, like rent, subscriptions, and gym memberships
- Flexible: Expenses that are regular but hard to predict, like groceries or entertainment
- Non-monthly: Expenses that come at least once per year but not every month, like taxes and home repair
You may find that breaking down your expenses into these categories gives you a simpler but more efꦚfective way to understand your financial h🐻abits.
- Monthly fee: $14.99
- Annual fee: $99.99
- Free trial duration: 7 days
- Platforms: Apple, Android, webpage
- Joint accounts available: Yes
- Account sync types: Checking, savings, credit cards, loans, investments, real estate, crypto
- Credit score tracking: No
- Bill payment reminders: Yes
- Subscription price negotiation: No
Why You Can Trust Us
Investopedia was founded in 1999 and has been helping readers find the best budget apps since 2020. Investopedia’s research and𒆙 editorial teams conducted independent research into budget apps to offer readers the best recommendations for a wide variety of circumstances. Investopedia researched and evaluated ten popular budget apps across 28 criteria, collecting and calculating 280 data points to determine the best picks above.
How We Find the Best Budgeting Apps
Investopedia’s🍷 research and editorial teams conducted independent, comprehensive research into budget apps in April 2025. We included 10 different apps in our research. Investopedia collected and calculated 28 criteria for each app, resulting in 280 data points. This information was used to objectively score and rank each app.
Investopedia 𓆏collected information directly from company websites and through user testing of budget apps. Any data points not used for scoring purposes were collected for background. The 28 criteria were broken down into the following categories with the accompanying weights for scoring:
- Availability/Platforms: 32.00%
- Cost: 23.00%
- Customer Satisfaction: 22.00%
- Features: 20.00%
- Security: 3.00%
Investopedia’s full-time compliance team maintains the information on this page to ensure the content remains accurate 🤪and our recommendations are the best possible options available.
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Investopedia / Zoe Hansen
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