Top Free Budgeting Apps for Smart Money Management

A budget is a plan for how much money you have and how much you spend. This means you should create your own budget in order to manage your finances. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up and then maintain your budget.

1. Calculate your monthly income, and keep track of your progress.

2. Consider adhering to the 50/30/20 rule, which states that your needs should account for 50% of your budget, your wants for 30%, and your savings for 20%.

3. By regularly checking, you should monitor and manage your spending.

It's tough, isn't it? Thus, we recommend you to use budgeting apps to understand your planning process better. Do not be surprised. A budgeting app is a digital tool that aids in budget creation and revenue and expense tracking. Some even provide you the option to automate your savings goals and monitor your net worth, credit score, and debt repayment. So, now let's explore the most popular and the best budgeting tools for 2025.

Mint

“Managing money, made simple”

Manage your personal finances and keep track of your bills with Mint, the most downloaded personal finance app. With 25 million users, it is among the most used budgeting apps. Mint will let you follow your monthly budget, account balances, subscriptions, and other costs.

Users of Mint have free, round-the-clock access to their credit score, and a summary of their credit report. Furthermore, they get notifications in case of any changes to their TransUnion credit report.

You can automate your budgeting process with Mint, which can also help you to save and set money aside for future goals. It is very simple to use: after linking your financial accounts, Mint tracks your transactions and groups them into budget categories to make tracking easier.

The most important factor that makes Mint so popular is that it’s free of charge. After creating a free account, you can use the app's features and advantages. The app does not even have a premium version that can be purchased separately, which means that all the users are equal on this platform.

GoodBudget

“Spend, save, and give toward what's important in life”

This virtual budget tool uses the envelope budgeting technique to keep you on track with your family and friends. With the “envelope method,” customers can divide a specific portion of their income across expenses like groceries, rent, and debt repayment. They are only permitted to spend the money in their envelopes, and if they exceed their spending limit, the envelope will turn red.

The most vital advantage of this app is that the "envelope method" allows users to prioritize achieving various goals and see how much money they have spent in each area.

However, keep in mind that you are only permitted to use 20 envelopes for free. You need to switch to Goodbudget Plus, which costs $7 per month or $60 per year if you want to use an unlimited number of envelopes.

YNAB

“Change your relationship with money”

You Need A Budget (YNAB) is a widespread budgeting app that works with a zero-based system that requires its users to account for every dollar of their income. This straightforward budgeting app was created for those who are seeking to cut back on their expenditure and prefer to do it themselves.

YNAB, established in 2004, not only enables people to make a budget but also has the potential to help you save money. YNAB claims that the typical new user saves $6,000 in the first year and over $600 in the first two months of use. However, the app provides only a 34-day free trial to allow customers to use the program for an entire month and still have a few days left over for month-end review. After the free trial, YNAB costs $14.99 per month or $98.99 per year.

YNAB forces you to categorize every spare dollar, unlike many other budgeting apps. Doing this allows you to plan your spending beforehand rather than wondering where it has gone.

Personal Capital

“Get a clear path to your financial goals”

Personal Capital is a budgeting app and investment tool that helps you get a holistic view of your money by linking your bank accounts, credit cards, IRAs, 401(k)s, mortgages, and loans to keep track of your income and expenses.

Personal capital operates entirely for free. The personalized plan from Personal Capital considers every aspect of a client's financial situation. The app invests equally across all categories using a technique it calls "Smart Weighting." Smart Weighting, an innovative indexing technique offered by Personal Capital, can help you improve your financial portfolio. This approach has several benefits, including:

  • increased factor diversity
  • increased chance of profit
  • more chances for tax management
  • sector bubble prevention
  • expense reduction

Personal Capital claims that "Three important factors—economic sector, style, and size—are more evenly weighted in an index created by Smart Weighting using a sample of individual U.S. stocks. The objective is to increase return after adjusting for risk while also taking advantage of additional possibilities to add value."

EveryDollar

“Tell your money where to go”

The EveryDollar app lets you take forceful, deliberate charge of your financial future by guiding you step-by-step through the budgeting process. This app has several functions, such as

  • Establishing savings accounts
  • Setting deadlines
  • Split transactions
  • Keeping your spending under control, and more.

However, only EveryDollar's basic version is free of charge. The premium version is only free to trial for 14 days. Following the trial period, you should pay $79.99 annually or $12.99 monthly.

You may view all of your accounts on EveryDollar and keep track of their performance. Using the free version will require you to manually enter data, which may help you become more attentive to your spending habits. Set and achieve some impressive financial goals with this app, as it teaches how to establish and live on a budget.

In summary, Mint is an all-encompassing and free tool, GoodBudget employs the envelope budgeting method, You Need A Budget (YNAB) enforces meticulous money tracking, Personal Capital offers holistic financial insights, and EveryDollar provides structured guidance. Choosing the right app depends on your specific financial needs, but with these tools, you can take charge of your finances and work towards a more secure financial future.