Budgeting apps take the sting out of organising your finances. It can be a right bore having to sift through crumpled receipts and calculations scribbled on the back of used envelopes, finally totting it up in a spreadsheet. Whether you're a student, couples with joint accounts, or you're just looking to get on top of your spending, using a budgeting app makes life easier.
We've done the research for you and found the best apps in the UK to save and manage money, including Mint, Moneybox, Plum and more. In this guide, you'll discover the key features to look out for in a budgeting app and our top 10 recommendations, including free and paid-for apps for both IOS and Android. Enjoy!
For those after a quick look, here is our Top 5:
For a more in-depth look at the comprehensive top 10 selection, make sure to read on to learn more about the different types of budgeting apps available and understand how our ranking was determined.
This article's chosen EC site price listings (inc. potential monthly billing) are reflective of its publishing date.
Image | 1 ![]() Emma Technologies LTD | 2 ![]() ING | 3 ![]() Chip Financial Ltd | 4 ![]() Mint.com | 5 ![]() Digital Moneybox Limited | 6 ![]() Money Dashboard | 7 ![]() Moneyhub Financial Technology Ltd | 8 ![]() Cleo AI Ltd | 9 ![]() Squirrel Financial Wellbeing | 10 ![]() Plum Fintech Limited |
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Name | Emma | Yolt | Chip | Mint | Moneybox | Money Dashboard Neon | Moneyhub | Cleo | Squirrel | Plum |
Features | The Best App for Budgeting, Saving and Managing Money in One | A Simple, User-Friendly Solution to Track Your Spending | Little by Little Is the Key to Growing a Savings Pot | An Expense Organiser With Friendly Nudges to Keep You on Track | Ideal for Savers Wanting to Try Stock Investment | One Dashboard for All of Your Finances | A Great Start to Budgeting With Professional Phone Advice Included | Fun, Friendly Money Management for Younger Users | The Budgeting App That Gives You Pocket Money | Save Money Automatically With the Plum E-Money Account |
Price | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £9.99 | £0.00 |
Audience | Personal, couple, family | Personal, couple, family | Personal, couple, family | Personal, couple, family | Personal, couple, family | Personal, couple, family | Personal | Personal | Personal | Personal |
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, open banking | Yes, screen-scraping |
Highlights Subscriptions | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Alerts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Debt Tools | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
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Budgeting apps were developed for overspenders; people who live paycheck to paycheck and can't seem to get their money to stretch far enough each month. In the past few years, these apps have gone from simple spreadsheet-style programs to entire budgeting, saving and debt-eliminating machines.
The app will connect with your bank accounts and analyse your spending patterns by considering your historical data. Some also include tools for improving your monthly subscriptions, interest rates and savings goals, presenting the information into easily-digestible graphs and charts.
But budgeting apps can do so much more than that. They can be pocket assistants, gently nudging you before you indulge in your third takeaway coffee of the day, or letting you know before purchasing that it will take you over your limit. Some even offer options for investing, so there's an app for you no matter your budgeting needs.
If it's just your money that you're looking into, download a basic app geared towards personal finances. You might not need all the bells and whistles that some apps provide as you won't need to integrate various people's bank accounts.
The more streamlined your experience is, the more likely you are to stick with it. Your app needs to have just the right amount of integration to link to your accounts but not so many options that it gets confusing. Budgeting apps are there to make your lives easier, not harder!
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If you're in a relationship that pools your recourses together for joint purchases and bills, you'll need an app geared towards couples. These are excellent for organising funds to automatically transfer out of both of your bank accounts to pay for rent or household bills. They also often include additional features like integrating joint accounts, multiple logins, and joint savings functions.
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Then finally, there are budgeting apps for families. When you add kids to the roster, financing suddenly becomes a lot more complicated! On top of organising your bills and subscriptions each month, joint accounts for mortgages, rent, and food, you also need to budget for your children.
School projects, trips, clubs, clothes – there's much more to budget for when your family starts to grow, and it can become a little chaotic. A family budgeting app will allow you to keep track of all of those categories, making sure you don't overspend in any area.
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The problem with connecting your bank to an app is that you might need to hand over your bank details to a third party, which opens up another way for fraudsters to access your details.
Open banking, however, allows you to log in to your bank account directly so that the budgeting app only has access to read your statements, not access to your login information. This keeps your money secure and your mind at ease.
Screen-scraping apps, meanwhile, essentially give over your bank details to the app so that it can access any transactional information that happens on your account. Unfortunately, this means that a third party can access all of your bank details, including your logins.
If you use a reputable company, it shouldn't pose too much of a problem, but your banks might not be obliged to help if any money goes missing. Many banks have strict rules about allowing third-party access to valuable information, and if you provide the app with your login details, it could be going against their policy.
If your number one goal is to save more money, go for an app which heavily features this service. There are multiple features that allow budgeting apps to help you save, but here are three we particularly recommend:
If you seem to live from paycheck to paycheck, regularly dipping into your overdraft to pay for those unexpected expenses, choose an app that's more of an accounting tool with features such as these:
This ranking has been compiled by the writing team at mybest UK via careful evaluation of the points made in the buying guide and thorough research of each product and comparing multiple verified customer reviews across the EC sites used.
£0.00
Audience | Personal, couple, family |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | Yes |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | Yes |
£0.00
Audience | Personal, couple, family |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | Yes |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | No |
£0.00
Audience | Personal, couple, family |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | No |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | No |
£0.00
Audience | Personal, couple, family |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | Yes |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | Yes |
£0.00
Audience | Personal, couple, family |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | No |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | No |
£0.00
Audience | Personal, couple, family |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | No |
Calculates Affordable Savings | No |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | No |
£0.00
Audience | Personal |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | Yes |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | Yes |
£0.00
Audience | Personal |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | No |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | No |
£9.99
Audience | Personal |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, open banking |
Highlights Subscriptions | No |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | No |
Alerts | No |
Debt Tools | No |
£0.00
Audience | Personal |
---|---|
Bank Syncing | Yes, screen-scraping |
Highlights Subscriptions | Yes |
Calculates Affordable Savings | Yes |
Categorised Spending | Yes |
Spending Analysis | Yes |
Alerts | Yes |
Debt Tools | No |
Written and researched by Roxy Pratley
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