The 10 best expense tracker apps of 2026

Key takeaways

• Intuit shut Mint down in 2024. The apps that replaced it cost US$48 to US$109 a year, and automatic bank sync is the feature most often paywalled.

• When choosing an expense tracker, consider which features actually matter, like automatic bank sync on the free tier, multi-currency support, and household or team sharing.

• The best expense tracker apps are Airwallex for business expense tracking, YNAB for zero-based budgeting, and Monarch for shared household budgets.

Intuit shut Mint down in 2024, leaving users searching for a replacement expense tracker app with fair prices and automatic bank sync. This guide compares the top 10 expense tracker apps on annual cost, free tier limits and budgeting method. Nine of the apps are for personal expense tracking and one, Airwallex, is specifically for business expense tracking.

Expense trackers at a glance

The 10 best expense tracker apps

Best for business expense tracking: Airwallex

Ideal for

Tracking business expenses rather than household ones, especially across more than one currency.

Our take

Airwallex offers the ideal business expense tracker app for businesses that need to track company spending, issue cards, assign approvals, and capture receipts.

Airwallex Expense Management handles all four use cases. Employees spend on Airwallex Corporate Cards in local currencies, the app captures and matches receipts automatically, and the Expense Policy Agent approves what follows policy while flagging only the exceptions. Every other app here budgets household money, while Airwallex tracks money somebody else has to sign off on.

Pros

• The Explore plan costs US$0 per user per month and includes up to 10 free Spend users.¹

• Collects and holds 20+ currencies, and spends in 60+ countries from balance with no foreign transaction fees.

• The Expense Policy Agent approves expenses that follow policy and flags only the exceptions, on the Grow and Accelerate plans.

• Bank feeds, expenses and bills sync with Xero and QuickBooks from the free Explore plan, adding NetSuite and Dynamics 365 Business Central on Grow and Accelerate.

• Employees photograph a receipt and the app reads it, fills in the details and categorizes the expense, while managers clear expenses and reimbursements from the same app.

Cons

• Built for company spending rather than personal budgets.

• Tracks spending against company policy instead of an envelope or zero-based budget.

Best for zero-based budgeting: YNAB

Ideal for

Breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle with a proven budgeting method.

Our take

YNAB assigns every dollar a job before the user spends it, and the discipline the app builds is the product. That is also why it has the steepest learning curve here. People who stick with it tend to stay for years; people who want a passive spending report abandon the app quickly.

At US$109 a year, it is the most expensive of the base annual plans here.² One subscription covers up to six people, though, which makes it competitive per head for a household. The 34-day trial runs without a card, and students get a free year with proof of enrollment.

Pros

• One subscription covers up to six people

• A 34-day trial with no card required

• Free workshops and an unusually active user community

Cons

• The steepest learning curve of any app here

• The method needs maintenance, so a skipped week compounds

• US$109 a year, with no free tier

Best for shared household budgets: Monarch

Ideal for

Couples or households who need one dashboard both people will actually open.

Our take

Monarch pairs budgeting with investment and net worth tracking, and the base plan includes household sharing rather than selling it as an upgrade. It has become the default Mint replacement for couples, and the interface is the reason.

Core runs US$14.99 a month or US$99.99 a year. A Plus tier at US$199.99 a year adds forecasting, advanced investment analysis and business-income tracking for people with a side hustle or rental property.³

Plus is annual only, and there is no free tier at all, just a seven-day trial.

Pros

• Household sharing included in the base plan

• Budgeting and net worth tracking in one dashboard

• Plus adds forecasting and business-income separation

Cons

• No free tier, only a seven-day trial

• Plus is annual-only at US$199.99

• Rules and categorization need more setup than Copilot

Best for Apple users: Copilot Money

Ideal for

iPhone and Mac users who want categorization that learns from a user's habits

Our take

Copilot is the best-looking personal finance app in this category. That matters because the app people actually open is the one that works. Categorization learns from corrections instead of waiting for rules, and the integrations other apps handle badly, including Venmo, Apple Card and Coinbase, work directly.

One constraint is that there is no Android app, so a household on mixed devices is out before the trial even starts. At US$95 a year with no free tier, it is also the most expensive way to find out whether an app fits.⁴

Pros

• Categorization that learns from corrections rather than rules

• Direct Venmo, Apple Card and Coinbase support

• Investment and net worth tracking, including property values

• A one-month free trial

Cons

• No Android app

• US financial institutions only

• US$95 a year with no free tier to fall back on

Best for spending forecasts: Quicken Simplifi

Ideal for

Getting most of Monarch's feature set for about a quarter of the monthly price.

Our take

Simplifi projects what is safe to spend after bills, goals and expected income, and includes the investment and net worth tracking that Goodbudget and EveryDollar lack. At US$3.99 a month billed annually in year one, it is the cheapest full-featured paid app here.⁵

Two things matter before buying. Billing is annual only, so the monthly-equivalent pricing is presentational and there is no trial, only a 30-day refund window, and the renewal rate is US$6.99 a month billed annually, roughly 75% above the intro price.

It is also the only personal app here that states its currency handling plainly. It supports US and Canadian accounts in USD and CAD, one currency at a time.

Pros

• The cheapest full-featured paid app, especially in year one

• A forward-looking spending plan rather than retrospective reporting

• Investment and net worth tracking included

Cons

• Annual billing only, with no free trial

• Renewal costs about 75% more than the intro rate

• Persistent bank-sync complaints, and mobile lags the web app

Best for debt payoff: EveryDollar

Ideal for

Anyone working the Ramsey Baby Steps, or anyone who wants zero-based budgeting free.

Our take

The free tier is the most generous here for budgeting alone, with unlimited categories, unlimited months, sinking funds and transaction splitting. But EveryDollar withholds bank connection, which means users type every transaction in by hand. For a lot of people that is the point, because manual entry is the friction that makes spending register.

Premium costs US$17.99 a month or US$79.99 a year, meaning monthly billing costs about 2.7 times the annual rate.⁶ Premium also bundles live coaching that no competitor includes, which is a better reason to upgrade than the bank sync.

The method itself is locked to Ramsey's, with no investment tracking, no rewards-card-friendly workflow, and a steady push toward the wider Ramsey+ subscription.

Pros

• The free tier covers unlimited categories and unlimited months

• Zero-based budgeting implemented simply and strictly

• Premium includes live and one-on-one coaching

• A 14-day free trial on Premium

Cons

• EveryDollar paywalls bank sync entirely, so the free tier is manual only

• US$17.99 monthly against US$79.99 annually punishes anyone not committing for a year

• No investment tracking, and the method is not negotiable

Best for envelope budgeting: Goodbudget

Ideal for

Households splitting one budget across two people, and anyone with irregular income.

Our take

Goodbudget is the cash-envelope system as software, and it handles irregular income better than any zero-based app because envelopes carry forward without guilt.

And the free plan is usable, though tightly capped at 10 regular envelopes, one account, two devices and a year of history. Premium at US$10 a month or US$80 a year lifts all of that, extends history to seven years, and adds automatic bank sync for US banks, which is recent enough that older reviews still describe Goodbudget as manual-only.⁷

Pros

• The clearest envelope implementation available

• A permanent free plan rather than a trial

• Household sharing across devices

Cons

• An interface a decade behind Copilot or Monarch

• The free plan caps at one account and two devices

• No investment or net worth tracking

Best for net worth tracking: Empower Personal Dashboard

Ideal for

Watching net worth and investments without paying for it.

Our take

The dashboard is free with no paid tier and no feature paywall, and the investment tooling beats any other personal app here.⁸ The trade is well documented. Users who link enough assets can expect a call from Empower's advisory arm, because the free product feeds a wealth-management business for clients who invest more than US$250,000.

Pros

• Free permanently, with nothing held back

• Retirement planning, asset allocation and a fund fee analyzer

• Strong net worth aggregation across banking, brokerage, property and loans

Cons

• Weak budgeting, with no envelope or zero-based method

• Linking assets invites advisory sales calls

• Crude categorization with no rules engine

Best for subscription cancellation: Rocket Money

Ideal for

Finding and killing subscriptions without doing the legwork.

Our take

Rocket Money is the only app here that cancels subscriptions on the account holder's behalf, and the free tier already surfaces recurring charges and upcoming bills. The free plan caps budgeting at three category budgets, so it works as a subscription auditor rather than a budgeting app.

Premium uses a sliding scale, typically US$7 to US$14 a month, though Rocket Money publishes no fixed number.⁹ A Premium+ tier at US$15 a month adds an AI assistant and, more usefully, bill negotiation with no success fee. On Free and Premium, a successful negotiation costs 35% to 60% of the first year's savings.

Pros

• Cancels subscriptions on the account holder's behalf

• The free tier covers subscription and bill tracking

• Premium+ removes the bill negotiation success fee

Cons

• The free tier caps budgeting at three categories

• Monthly billing only, with no annual option

• Bill negotiation on lower tiers costs 35% to 60% of the first year's savings

Best for overspending control: PocketGuard

Ideal for

People who want a simple app that tells them whether they can afford a purchase at a given time.

Our take

PocketGuard's In My Pocket figure answers the only question most people ask an expense tracker, which is whether they can afford a purchase right now. It subtracts bills, goals and committed spending from income and shows what is left.

Recurring-bill detection is good, and a US$149.99 lifetime license is an option almost nobody else offers.¹⁰

PocketGuard's reporting is shallow next to Monarch or Simplifi, and sync unreliability causes complaints. PocketGuard also offers no free tier, only a seven-day trial.

Pros

• In My Pocket is the clearest single-number answer in the category

• Strong recurring bill and subscription detection

• A US$149.99 lifetime license

Cons

• No free tier, only a seven-day trial

• Frequent sync failures and miscategorized transactions

• Shallow reporting and customization

• No investment or net worth tracking

Methodology for choosing the best expense trackers

This review assessed each app against four criteria: what the free tier actually includes before a paywall appears, whether the budgeting method suits the way most people manage money, how reliably bank connections sync, and total annual cost rather than the monthly headline. This review verified pricing and feature details against each provider's own pricing page in October 2026.

A note on Airwallex's inclusion: Airwallex publishes this article. This review scored Airwallex Expense Management against the same criteria as every other tool here, and lists its trade-offs just as it does for competing tools.

How expense tracker apps work

Expense tracking shows where money went, while budgeting decides where it goes next, and most apps follow the same sequence:

1. The user connects bank and credit card accounts, usually through Plaid or MX

2. Transactions import automatically, typically once or twice a day

3. The app categorizes each one, and learns from corrections

4. The app measures spending against whatever budget or spending plan the user has set

5. Alerts fire when a category runs over, or when a subscription renews

So the apps that charge for step 1 (automatic sync), which is most of them, are asking users to do steps 1 through 3 manually with data entry on their free plans.

How expense tracker app pricing works

Expense tracker app pricing can work in three different ways.

Free with a paywalled feature

EveryDollar, Goodbudget and Rocket Money all give away the budgeting features and charge for bank sync, extra envelopes, or cancellation handling. Empower Personal Dashboard is the outlier that charges for nothing and monetizes through wealth management fees instead.

Flat subscription

Copilot, YNAB, Monarch, and Simplifi charge US$48 to US$109 a year. Two costs are easy to miss. Simplifi's second year costs about 75% more than its first, and EveryDollar's monthly rate is about 2.7 times its annual equivalent.

Lifetime license

PocketGuard is the only app here that sells a lifetime license, at US$149.99, which pays for itself against its own annual plan in two years.

Expense tracker app checklist

These checklist items are worth working through before paying a subscription for an expense tracker.

• Does the free tier include bank sync, or is that the upgrade?

• What does year two cost, not year one?

• Is there a trial, or only a refund window?

• Does it run on both iOS and Android, if the household needs both?

• How many devices and accounts does the plan allow?

• Does it impose a budgeting method, and is that welcome?

• Does it track investments and net worth, or only spending?

• How does it handle a bank connection breaking, which it will?

Why Airwallex is the best expense tracker for business

Airwallex Expense Management is the best expense tracker app for business because it issues cards, routes approvals and captures receipts on a free Explore plan for up to 10 Spend users, and the Airwallex Business Account adds 20+ currencies with no foreign transaction fees. These guides on how Airwallex expense management works and how to track business expenses correctly explain how to set up and use Airwallex Expense Management.

Frequently asked questions about expense tracker apps

What is the best free expense tracker app?

The best free expense tracker app for personal use is Empower Personal Dashboard, which charges nothing and withholds nothing. Its budgeting is weak, and EveryDollar and Goodbudget both have stronger free budgeting that stops short of automatic bank sync. For business, the best free option is Airwallex, whose Explore plan costs US$0 and covers up to 10 Spend users with corporate cards and approvals no personal app offers.

Do expense tracker apps work with multiple currencies?

Expense tracker apps do not generally work with multiple currencies. Every personal app on this list is single-currency, and Simplifi is the only one that says so outright, supporting USD and CAD but tracking one currency at a time. Multi-currency tracking is a business feature, which is why Airwallex is on this list.

Can an expense tracker app help with taxes?

An expense tracker app can help with taxes by categorizing spending in ways that map to standard deduction categories and by keeping receipt images with transaction dates attached. That is enough for a personal return but not for a business one, which needs an audit trail and an export an accountant can reconcile.

What happened to Mint?

Intuit discontinued Mint in 2024 and directed users to Credit Karma, which tracks spending but does not budget. Monarch, Copilot and Simplifi have absorbed most of the people who left, and none of them are free.

Sources

1. https://www.airwallex.com/en-us/pricing

2. https://www.ynab.com/pricing

3. https://www.monarch.com/pricing

4. https://copilot.money/pricing

5. https://www.quicken.com/simplifi

6. https://www.ramseysolutions.com/ramseyplus/everydollar

7. https://goodbudget.com/signup

8. https://www.empower.com/tools

9. https://www.rocketmoney.com/learn/personal-finance/how-much-does-rocket-money-cost

10. https://pocketguard.com/pricing/