The Top 4 Apps To Automate Your Finances and Save Time in 2025
Written by
Jake Safane
Edited by
Zuri Anderson
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Keeping track of your finances and working toward your goals can be challenging, but technology can make these areas more feasible and efficient. There are many mobile and web apps available that can help you automate your finances, measure progress and get clear insights into what you need to do to improve.
You still might need to do some work yourself, such as inputting your information into the apps to set things up initially, but from there, you can often increase your financial clarity and overall position with minimal effort.
YNAB
YNAB, formally You Need a Budget, is one of the best budgeting apps because it reframes the traditional approach to budgeting in a way that often makes it easier to stick to your budget and reach long-term savings goals.
Rather than starting with a monthly income and seeing how your expenses eat away at that each month, hoping you end up with more than zero, YNAB uses a zero-based budgeting approach. That means that you work only with the money currently in your linked accounts — not future paychecks — and assign every dollar “a job.” For instance, some money in your account is earmarked for next month’s credit card payments, some is earmarked for rent, some for entertainment, and so on.
You do need to set some things up manually initially, but from there, you can set up a lot of automations like auto-assign, which disperses your new funds (budgeting-wise) based on the categories you’ve set up. The app can also learn to categorize your spending.
There’s a bit of a learning curve overall, but once you get the hang of it, you can more clearly plan how you want to spend your money and put money toward future savings goals. Also, this app isn’t free; the annual plan starts at $109. However, YNAB users save an average of $6,000 per year, according to the company. So if it gets you to commit to your budget, that can be worth the cost.
Empower
Another good budgeting tool that also gives you a more comprehensive view of your finances is Empower.
After some initial setup, this app can pull in all of your financial information such as credit cards, investment accounts and the Zillow estimated value of your home to automatically calculate your net worth on essentially a real-time basis. You can also track areas like your spending, though it’s not necessarily as strong of a budgeting app as YNAB, depending on your perspective.
The app is free, though you might get solicited to work with an Empower advisor, which carries a cost that varies based on your situation. However, if you don’t want to work with an advisor, you can simply use the app’s insights for free to automatically track your net worth and other areas like your monthly spending.
Experian
While there are several good apps to check your credit score, not all use the same methodology. So, while you might end up using more than one app to get a more comprehensive view of your creditworthiness, if you had to just pick one, Experian is a solid choice.
With the Experian app, you can get free access to your FICO score and credit report directly from Experian, one of the three major credit reporting bureaus. Within the app, you can also get automatic suggestions, such as new credit cards you’re likely qualified for and options for switching car insurance providers to save money.
Also, as part of a premium subscription (starting at $24.99 per month), you can access features like bill negotiation and subscription cancellation easily from within the app, along with additional identity monitoring perks. Otherwise, you can just use the free features like for checking your credit score, and still get a lot out of the app.
Betterment
If you’re having trouble getting started with investing or committing to a reasonable strategy for your situation, a roboadvisor like Betterment can help. While it’s not necessarily as cost-effective as investing on your own, considering the management fee of $4 per month or 0.25% of assets (depending on your situation), that can be well worth it for the automated investment support.
After answering a few questions around your risk tolerance and other factors, Betterment builds a portfolio for you and automatically makes adjustments like rebalancing your portfolio and engaging in tax-loss harvesting to try to optimize your finances.
You can also access additional products and services, such as a high-yield checking account.
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