The best budgeting and money management apps

Keep an eye on your spending, set budgets and see all your accounts in one place.

If you’ve got one current account then keeping track via your bank’s app is easy. It’s not that hard either if you have one or two more.

But when you start adding even more or have credit cards on top then it makes sense to move over to an aggregator app that will show all your different accounts in one place.

However, not only are there more and more of these to choose from, but they won’t work with every type of account. So I’ve taken a look at the leading options to help you pick the best app for you.

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Why use a money management and budgeting app

The key idea is to give you more control over your finances. These apps will help you track your spending, set budgets and even nudge you of changes you could make. The result is you’ll understand more where your money goes and when.

From there you can identify where you might be able to cut back or find better accounts that’ll put you and your money in a better position.

How money management apps work

These apps use a system called Open Banking to connect third-party apps like these money management ones to your different bank and credit card accounts.

By granting permission, you allow the apps to access your data but it doesn’t store any of the login details. It’s all encrypted too, so your money and data are safe.

The link between the app and your bank is generally done quickly via a few clicks. You select the bank you want to add and the app will open up your banking app for approval.

This connection currently needs to be reauthenticated every 90 days, though this rule is set to change in 2022. When this happens you’ll just need to reconfirm permission which will be much quicker.

Key features

See most of your accounts in one place

For anyone who has more than one current account or credit card (and in some cases investments and savings), you can see all the balances and transactions in a single app.

This, in theory, means you don’t have to keep checking the bank balance for each one, and you can search the aggregator app for transactions if you’re not sure when you paid for it.

You can also see an overall balance. This is really handy if you’re using a cashback credit card to ensure you’ve got enough in your current account to clear the bill each time you get a statement.

Some apps allow you to add mortgages, investments and pensions too.

Track spending & categories

This is a really useful tool and something these apps do much better than most banks (except maybe Monzo).

Every transaction will be put into a category, from transport to food to bills. Sometimes these are preset, other times you can add or adapt them to your own choices. The more you break these down the better.

You’ll then be able to see at a glance where your money goes. Adding together all the different purchases can be more powerful than seeing them separately, and can be a shock when you realise just how much goes on things like taxis or takeaways.

Some apps also aggregate spending by retailers, so you’ll be able to spot if your real spend at Deliveroo tallies up with what you think you spend.

Set a budget

The next level from this is to set a budget for each of those categories. This can be based on your actual spending in previous months, but it’s better to work out in advance what you want to spend in those sections.

You’ll then be able to see with a few clicks how you’re going each month. Say you’ve set a budget of £200 for eating out, you’ll see when you get close to this (or go over it). That’s the nudge you might need to readjust spending for the rest of the month.

Most apps will let you sync your budgeting month to either the first of the month or a set date (ideally your payday).

View upcoming spending

Another feature I really like is bringing together regular and committed spending. This will largely be bills and subscriptions, but can also include any standing orders you have set up – eg to savings or investments.

Having a single figure for this is another weapon in your budgeting arsenal as anything that’s not already committed is what you have available to spend elsewhere.

Some of the apps might also show you forthcoming debits and how they impact your bank balance to give a true reflection of what you can spend right now.

Nudges of what to do

This final key feature worth noting is that many of the apps will also nudge you to take action. For example, it could highlight where you are overspending, tell you when your balance is low or remind you that a subscription is going to renew.

Key Issues

Not all providers can be added

This is the biggest problem for me. Not including bills, I do the bulk of my spending on three cards. My American Express credit card, my John Lewis Partnership card and my Chase Debit card.

Most of the apps do connect to Amex, though I’ve struggled to get this to work on some apps. John Lewis is only listed (that I can see) on Moneyhub, but that won’t connect. And Chase Bank isn’t on any at all. This could change, but it makes the apps largely useless.

You might also struggle to connect Premium Bonds, or savings and investments held with online savings accounts (eg Tandem or Zopa) or rival fintech apps (eg Chip or Plum).

PayPal is also a notable absence, though that’s only really an issue if you keep money there rather than use it as a way to pay via your debit or credit card.

Some apps allow you to add a manual account, though that does then require you to add individual transactions and / or balances. Which again defeats the purpose.

You might still need to log into individual apps

I love the idea of only ever using one app, but it’s worth checking if a bank switching or monthly reward offer from your current account requires you to log in to your app or online banking on a monthly basis.

You’ll need to put the time in when you first sign up

Though you’ll see adverts saying “sign up in two minutes”, you’ll likely need to spend a good 30 to 60 minutes going through all the different settings. That starts with adding accounts, but also includes categorising transactions, building budgets and

You often need to manually change categories

If you want the most accurate snapshots of your spending then you want each transaction to be in the right place. So a spend at the pub might go under “Going Out”, while your Spotify subscription under “Bills”.

The theory is this is automated and the apps will learn about transactions and what they are the more you use them. But in practice you’ll always have to go into the categories and change some. If you’re lucky it’s just one or two, but I think it’s more likely you’ll be changing at least half.

Some of the worst are for those retailers which could have more than one function. Eg if you get petrol at Tesco it’ll come under groceries rather than travel, or if you pay off a John Lewis credit card it might appear under shopping rather than bills or transfers.

It can also be a nightmare if you regularly shuffle money around accounts in order to meet certain account criteria. Some apps will treat it as income or spending, so you’ll need to change or potentially exclude those transactions.

You might be limited on the categories you can choose

Some apps will let you set your own categories, to help you make them relevant to your own spending. But others will have preset options which you can’t change.

Some are overcomplicated

Some of the apps are very simple and get the job done. Others allow greater personalisation and analysis. Which is great in some ways but I think most people will be put off by this and in turn stop using the apps.

Most will push you to switch

The main way these apps make money (other than perhaps selling your data) is to get you to change your credit card or utility provider via them. They’ll get paid a commission for this – in exactly the same way a comparison site will.

However some of the apps will really push this feature at you, often in the guise of it being for your benefit. But other than a reminder that you should be shopping around for the best deal, I think these should be avoided.

They don’t have access to your actual bill usage, just the amount you pay. So they can’t possibly know if you’re on a good deal or not.

Some charge you for full features

Though most of these all have a free option (MoneyHub will charge after a 180-day free trial), others will want you to sign up to a paid tier to get extra features.

Be careful before you commit to these. I don’t think most are worth paying for unless you really need those additional features. And in some instances you’ll be able to get them for free elsewhere.

Though of course if you really like the app you’re using and want to try it you can always cancel if you don’t like it.

There are too many!

The other issue I have with these apps is there are now so many of them! That’s a very crowded marketplace, and one that’s hard to generate income. This means many won’t make it, or they’ll offer all sorts of random functions and services which detract from what people actually want.

In fact one of the biggest and best of this type of app – Yolt – closed down in 2021. I’ve also found a few apps (eg iSpent19) that no longer seem to work despite only launching recently.

The top budgeting apps

If you want to try a budgeting app then the following are worth downloading and trying. I’ve listed the compatible banks and other accounts at the bottom of the article. Here are my top ones, and then a little more detail about each one

• Money Dashboard – £4 for signing up and full desktop version too
• Snoop – Free £5 for trying
• Emma – Easy to use but some features are paid for only
• MoneyHub – Huge number of accounts to add but no free option

Other budgeting apps

The following apps also have budgeting features, but from my research they don’t offer as much as the ones mentioned above. I’ve included them below in case you want to check them out, along with anything notable about them:

APP	PROS	CONS
Claro	– 2% AER Interest on up to £3,000 (details), – connected to Amex	– Free right now but will be £10 a year, – budgeting and money management not the key focus of the app so it’s harder to find total balance etc, – can’t customise categories, – auto-categorisation not great
Cleo	AI assistant to keep you motivated	– AI assistant to keep you motivated (it’s not for me!), – US first when connecting accounts, – Amex didn’t connect, – pushes a paid credit building credit card
Nova	– Amex connected, – doesn’t push switching or cashback offers	– Only 2 months of spending history, – no automated categories, – you can’t customise categories (though there are lots set up already), – £2.99 a month for things like unlimited history and subscription monitoring
Plum	– Autosavings options	– Very limited budgeting tools

Banks with budgeting features

If you just want to keep things simple and just use a single bank account then you could also look at one of the following banks. They all allow you to track, categorise and analyse your spending and most let you set up budgets to measure your spending against.

BANK	PROS	CONS
Chase (read my review)	– 1% cashback and 5% interest on “roundups” for a year, – can treat as a prepaid spending card, – can pay from different sub-accounts, – spending can be grouped by categories or merchants, – you can see scheduled and recurring payments	– No direct debits, – limited categories, – no customised categories, – no budget feature
Monzo (read my review)	– Can set a monthly budget, – bills can be paid direct from a Pot, – spending can be grouped by categories or merchants, – you can see scheduled and recurring payments	– Some features, such as customised categories, are only on paid accounts
Revolut	– Set a budget and add committed spending, – spending can be grouped by categories or merchants, – you can see scheduled and recurring payments, – accounts from other banks can be added	– Not FSCS protected, – charges for physical debit card
Starling (read my review)	– Bills Manager allows you to pay bills from separate Spaces in your account, – spending can be grouped by categories or merchants, – you can see scheduled and recurring payments	– No budgeting feature – No customised categories

How to choose the best budgeting and money management app

Which banks can you connect?

Here’s a list of the banks and other accounts you can connect to the core budgeting and money management apps. These are the official lists and could obvioulsy change at any time.

Cleo	Claro	Emma	Money Dashboard	Moneyhub	Snoop
Amazon	American Express	American Express	AIB (NI)	AJ Bell	American Express
American Express	Bank of Ireland	Bank of Scotland	Adam & Company	Accord	B
Bank of Scotland	Bank of Scotland	Barclaycard	AlphaWallet	Adam & Company	Barclaycard
barclaycard	Barclaycard	Barclays Bank	Amazon	Aegon Pensions & Investments	Barclays
Barclays	Barclays	Chip	American Express	Aldermore	Cahoot
Capital One	Captial One	Danske Bank	Aqua Card	Allied Irish	Capital One
First Direct	Chelsea BS	First Direct	Bank of Scotland	Amazon	Clydesdale
Halifax	Danske	Freetrade	Barclaycard	American Express	Coutts
HSBC	First Direct	Halifax	Barclays	Aqua	Danske
Lloyds Bank	Halifax	Hargreaves Lansdown	Binance	Aviva	First Direct
Metro Bank	HSBC	HSBC Bank	Binance US	Bank of Ireland	Halifax
Monzo	Lloyds	Lloyds Bank	BitGo	Barclaycard	HSBC
Nationwide	M&S	Marks & Spencer	Bitcoin	Barclays	Lloyds
Natwest	MBNA	MBNA	Bitfinex	Best Invest	M&S Bank
Revolut	Monzo	MoneyBox	Bitmex	Birmingham Midshires	NatWest One
Royal Bank of Scotland	Nationwide	Monzo	Bitstamp	Brewer Dolphin	Bank of Scotland
Sainsbury’s Bank	Natwest	Nationwide Building Society	Bittrex	Brits Money	Bank of Ireland
Santander	RBS	Natwest	Burton Card	Burton card	Creation Cards
Starling	Revolut	Nutmeg	ByBit	Cahoot	Nationwide
Tandem	Santander	Paypal	Capital One	Capital One	NatWest
TSB Bank	Starling	Pension Bee	Chelsea Building Society	CashPlus	MBNA
Virgin Money	Tesco	Revolut	Cipher	Carter Allen	Monzo
	Tide	Royal Bank of Scotland	Clydesdale	Charles Schwab	RBS
	TSB	Santander	CoinSquare	Charles Stanley	Revolut
	Ulster	Starling Bank	Coinbase	Choice by Octopus Investments	Sainsbury’s
	Virgin Money	Tesco Bank	Coinbase Pro	Citibank	Santander
	Wise	TSB Bank	Coinbase Wallet	Clydesdale Bank	Starling
	Yorkshire BS	Ulster Bank	Coutts	Computershare	Tesco
		Vanguard	Cumberland Building Society	Coutts	TSB
		Virgin Money Credit Cards	Danske	Creation Cards	Ulster
		Virgin Money Investments	Dapper	Crowdcube	Vanquis
		Virgin Money Savings	Debenhams Card	Cumerland Building Society	Yorkshire Bank
		Wealthify	Dorothy Perkins	Dasnke	The One Account
			Equal	De Giro	Virgin Money
			Ethereum	Debenhams	Virgin One Account
			Evans Card	Dorethy Perkins	Amazon
			First Direct	Drgain]Equiniti Shareview	Aqua
			Fluid Card	Evans card	Argos
			Frost	Ferguson	Burton
			GO! WALLET	Fidelity	Debenhams
			Gate.io	First Direct	Dorothy Perkins
			Gemini	Fluid Card	Evans
			HSBC	Friends Life	Fluid
			Halifax	Fundsmith Equity Fund	TopShop
			Hargreaves Lansdown	Ghana International Bank	House Of Fraser
			House of Fraser	Global Reach Group	Laura Ashley
			Huobi	HSBC	Marbles
			Kraken	Halifax	Miss Selfridge
			KuCoin	Handlesbanken	Opus
			Laura Ashley Card	Hargreaves Landsown	Outfit
			Ledger	House of Fraser	Topman
			Liquid	Idealing.com	TUI
			Lloyds Bank	IG Bank	Wallis
			MBNA	ING
			Marbles	IWEB
			Marks and spencer	Intelligent Finance
			Metamask	Interactive Investor
			Miss Selfridge Card	John Lewis
			Monzo	Kent Reliance
			MyEtherWallet	LGT Vestra
			Nationwide	Laura Ashley
			Natwest Bank	Leeds BS
			Nifty Wallet	Legal & General
			Nutmeg	Lifesight
			Opus	Lloyds
			Outfit Card	MBNA
			PensionBee	Marbles
			Revolut	Marcus
			Royal Bank of Scotland	Marks and Spencer
			Sainsburys	Metro Bank
			Santander	Mettle
			Starling Bank	Miss Selfridge
			Status	Money Mona
			TSB	MoneyFarm
			TUI	Monzo
			Tesco Bank	Morses Club
			Topman Card	NS&I
			Topshop Card	National Grid
			Trezor	Nationwide
			Trust Wallet	Natwest
			Virgin Money	Nest Pensions
			Wallis Card	Newbury Building Socirty
			Wealthify	Now Pensions
			Wise (Transferwise)	Nutmeg
			WiseAlpha	Old Mutual
			XPub Key	Opus
			Yorkshire Bank	Outfit Card
			Yorkshire Building Society	PensionBee
				Post Office
				Principality BS
				Prudential
				Punjab National Bank
				Quilter Cheviot
				RCI
				Rate Setter
				Rathbones
				Revolut
				Royal Bank of Scotland
				Royal London
				Saffrom BD
				Sainsbury’s Bank
				Sallie Mae
				Salvus Master Trust
				Santander
				Scottish Widows
				Selftrade
				Share PLC
				Skansa
				Smart Pension
				Smile
				St James Place
				Standard Life
				Starling
				Stocktrade
				Student Loands Company
				TPT Pensions
				TSB
				Tui
				TalkRemit
				Tesco Bank
				The Big Exchange
				Co-op
				The One account
				The Peoples Pension
				Think Money
				Tide
				Topman Card
				Topshop card
				Trading 212
				Transact
				Triodos
				Turkish Bank
				Ulster Bank
				Unity Trust Bank
				Vanguard
				Vanquis
				Virgin Money
				Wallis Card
				Yorkshire Bank
				Yorkshire BS
				Zoopla
				Zopa Loans
				GoHenry