Best Budgeting Apps For Saving Money in 2025

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Creating a budget can help you stay on track spending and savings goals. Using a budget app can help you keep to your budget. Here’s our pick for the best budget apps.

1. EveryDollar

Best streamlined zero-based budgeting app

Cost: $17.99 per month, $79.99 per year after a 14-day free trial

Key features: EveryDollar was created by personal finance expert Dave Ramsey. It uses a zero-based budgeting system, which means that every dollar has a job. Users can create a customized budget based on their income and expenses, track their spending and create savings goals.

Why we chose it:

• Intuitive platform with simple features that make navigation easy
• Enables users to create a customized budget and adjust it as needed
• Connects to over 10,000 banks and automatically imports transactions
• Offers spending insights based on your financial history

Cons:

• Your bank might not be supported, which will require you to manually input transactions

2. YNAB

Best detailed zero-based budgeting app

Cost: $14.99 per month, $109 per year

Key features: You Need A Budget, or YNAB, tracks your spending and lets you know how you can pay off your debt, start saving and more. It’s an excellent choice for zero-based budgeting. The website also has an impressive library of lessons that explain all kinds of budgeting topics.

Why we chose it:

• Easy-to-use interface
• Detailed graphs and color-coding give a quick glimpse of how much money you spent
• Includes access to a learning library, podcast and free live workshops
• Free 34-day trial that doesn’t charge you unless you subscribe at the end

Cons:

• Pricey compared to comparable budgeting apps

3. Monarch

Best for visualization

Cost: $14.99 monthly, $99.99 annually

Key features: If viewing your financial picture in the form of graphs and charts is important to you, Monarch’s easy-to-use platform may be what you’re looking for. You can sync your credit and bank accounts for automatic updating, set goals and view investments. Plus, you can create your own categories and view them in list form.

Why we chose it:

• Seven-day free trial
• Features for beginner and advances budgeters
• Monthly email report to help you see goal progress
• You can add other household members to the app
• Recurring transactions can be seen on the calendar for clarity
• Frequent upgrades and improvement of features

Cons:

• Seven-day free trial might not be long enough to decide if you should commit
• Pricier than some comparable options

4. Empower

Best for wealth management

Cost: Free

Key features: Empower, formerly Personal Capital, calculates your net worth, helps you budget and helps you plan for retirement — all for free. It features a robust, user-friendly dashboard that you can use to link all of your accounts, see custom household retirement projections, view spending trends by category and see month-to-month comparisons in spending.

Why we chose it:

• Offers tools for people who want to invest and plan for retirement 
• Robust offering for planning and savings that doesn’t require you to pay a fee
• Investment Checkup tool to help you gauge the effectiveness of your portfolio

Cons:

• App may feel overwhelming for new budgeters
• Wealth management features might not be applicable for some people

5. Honeydue

Best for couples

Cost: Free

Key features: Honeydue is a free budgeting app designed to help couples manage their finances together. Couples can connect their bank accounts, credit card accounts and other financial accounts in one place, which allows them to see balances and transactions in real time.

Why we chose it:

• Allows couples to split expenses and track who owes what to whom
• Can be useful for couples who share expenses but have different incomes or spending habits
• Gives alerts for upcoming bills and when a budget category is exceeded
• Couples can chat within the app about money matters
• A joint bank account is available as an upgrade

Cons:

• The app has ads
• No investment portfolio or savings goals tool

6. Goodbudget

Best for the envelope method

Cost: $0 for Free Forever, $10 per month or $80 annually for Plus

Key features: By using the old envelope budgeting method, Goodbudget lets you track your envelope and account balances and sync them to multiple devices. You can make envelopes for all your budgeting categories and reserve money in each one based on that category.

Why we chose it:

• Sync and share your budget with others
• Goal setting and debt payoff available
• User-friendly mobile app

Cons:

• No direct syncing with financial institutions and requires manual entry
• Only one year of history is included with the free version
• Email support only available with the paid version

7. Fudget

Best for simple budgeting

Cost: Free for Fudget Basic, $19.99 annually for Fudget Plus Yearly, $14.99 every six months for Fudget Plus Bi-Yearly

Key features: If you’re looking for an ultra-simple app that helps you set a calculation-style spending plan without having to worry about syncing accounts, Fudget is a good option.

Why we chose it:

• Simple, list-style tallies of spending and income
• Star repeat expenses or income
• Create weekly or monthly budgets

Cons:

• You have to subscribe to the paid version to remove ads
• Minimal extra features in the upgraded paid version

8. PocketGuard

Best for overspenders

Cost: $12.99 monthly or $74.99 yearly

Key features: PocketGuard offers a simplified budgeting snapshot that will help you organize bills, expenses and subscriptions. You can sync your bank accounts and credit cards to the app, so you’ll know how much cash you have to spend at any time.

Why we chose it:

• Good for beginner and advanced budgeters
• Helps you set and keep savings and debt-payoff goals
• Good for those who like the 50/30/20 budget method
• Upload images of receipts and other items

Cons:

• Debt payoff plan and custom categories are only available in premium

9. Rocket Money

Best for choosing a subscription fee

Cost: Free version available; $6-$12 a month for premium features

Key features: Previously known as Truebill, Rocket Money helps you see your full financial picture while spending less and saving more. Upgrading to Premium for additional features, including concierge service to cancel recurring subscriptions, premium chat services, unlimited budgets, custom categories, real-time balance syncing and full credit report access.

Why we chose it:

• Free credit score
• Calculates how much you have to spend each month
• Identifies your top spending categories
• Spending goal tracker
• Spending alerts to help you stay on budget

10. Quicken Simplifi

Best for a comprehensive overview of your finances

Cost: $2.99 per month

Key features: The Simplifi app is brought to you by the money management platform Quicken. It provides you the ability to manage your finances while simultaneously monitoring your monthly budget.

Why we chose it:

• You can manage debt repayment and investing in one place
• Business owners can manager their personal and business expenses
• Can create a detailed monthly spending and savings plan
• User-friendly and easy to understand

Cons:

• Similar apps or platforms don’t have a subscription fee

Other Budgeting Options

A budgeting app isn’t the only way to keep track of your spending. You can create a budget and track your spending manually.

Free budgeting templates are also available online. Microsoft Excel has templates available that you can download to a computer. Alternatively, you can use a notebook or ledger sheet to create your own simplistic or detailed budget.

Choose the budgeting tool that works best for you. Be sure to include the following information:

• Amount of money you have coming in each month
• Your fixed expenses — rent, mortgage, internet bills, car payments and insurance
• Your variable expenses — food, gas and entertainment

Make a plan for your money. Perhaps you want to pay down debt or save for a big purchase. Look for places to cut back within your budget and divert that money toward your financial goals.

Review your budget regularly. Few people have the same expenses each month, and for many, it’s not unusual to earn varying amounts of income from month to month. You may have a surprise expense or even a surplus after a raise. Adjust your budget accordingly.

Caitlyn Moorhead, Barri Segal, Cynthia Measom and Cynthia Bowman contributed to the reporting for this article. 

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