Charged again every year, whether or not you used it.
No Subscription
A budgeting app with no subscription. Free to use, forever.
Almost every budgeting app now rents you access to your own money for $70 to $180 a year. Simply Finance does not. It’s free to use with no subscription; a single optional $4.99 adds sync and detailed reports if you want them. No renewal notice, ever.
- ✓Free to use
- ✓No monthly or annual fee
- ✓No bank sync, no signup
- ✓End-to-end encrypted
Free to use. Optional extras are $4.99 once—never a renewal.
Free, not rented
When you stop paying a subscription app, you usually lose access. Simply Finance is free with no subscription to lapse—your data stays on your device no matter what. Sync and reports are a single $4.99 if you want them, never a renewal.
Why no subscription matters
A budgeting app exists to help you spend less. It is a strange deal when that app becomes one of your recurring bills—and one that quietly renews while you sleep. Worse, most subscription apps gate your own history: stop paying and you lose access to the records you created.
Being free with no subscription flips the incentives. There is no reason to sell your data, run ads, or push you to a higher tier, because a small one-time unlock for optional extras is the entire business model. Your data stays on your device either way.
How the prices compare
Here is the same set of features across the popular budgeting apps, with the part everyone forgets to add up: the yearly cost.
| Simply Finance | YNAB | Monarch | Simplifi | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free / $4.99 extras | $14.99/mo | $14.99/mo | $3.99/mo |
| Subscription | None | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bank connection | None | Optional | Optional | Optional |
| Works offline | ||||
| No signup needed | ||||
| End-to-end encrypted | ||||
| Data stays on device |
Competitor pricing verified March 2026 from official sources. YNAB also offers $109/year. Quicken Simplifi is subscription-only with a free trial.
How we keep it free
The reason most budgeting apps need a subscription is the bank connection. Aggregators like Plaid charge per user, every month, so the app has to charge you every month to cover it.
Simply Finance removes that cost entirely. There is no bank sync, so there is no recurring bill to pass on to you. You log spending manually in a few seconds—and as a bonus, you get no broken feeds, no duplicates, and no miscategorized imports to fix.
Manual entry is the trade
If automatic bank import is a must-have for you, a subscription app may be worth it. If a few seconds of typing is fine, you never have to pay a recurring fee again.
What you get for $4.99
- Every account in one place — checking, savings, cards, and cash, added in seconds.
- Simple monthly budgets — spent, remaining, and over at a glance, no methodology to learn.
- Recurring bills with reminders — know what is coming and confirm or skip with one tap.
- Forward-looking answers — how long your money would last and where your balance is heading.
- Encrypted sync across devices — the same data on iPhone and Android, with keys only you hold.
FAQ
Do you sell my data?
No—but that is the low bar, and the wrong question. “We don’t sell your data” still means a company can read it: your full history sits on their servers, one breach or subpoena from exposure. Simply Finance can’t sell what it can’t see. Your data is end-to-end encrypted on your device, and the sync relay only ever holds scrambled ciphertext—no readable balances, merchants, or amounts. Nothing to sell, nothing for an employee to peek at, nothing legible to leak.
Is there a budgeting app with no monthly subscription?
Yes. The app itself is free. You download it free and can add the optional extras (sync across your devices and detailed reports) for $4.99 once. There is no monthly or annual fee and nothing renews.
What is the catch with a free budgeting app?
The trade-off is that Simply Finance does not connect to your bank. You log transactions manually, which takes a few seconds each. In return there is no aggregator fee, no broken feeds, and nothing for us to monetize, so the price can stay a single payment.
Do I have to create an account or sign up?
No. There is no email, password, or profile. You open the app and start tracking. Optional sync uses a private recovery phrase, not an account.
Will I lose access if I stop paying?
No. Because there is no subscription, there is nothing to stop paying. Once you unlock the app it keeps working, and your data stays on your device regardless.
How much do I save versus a subscription budgeting app?
Subscription budgeting apps run roughly $70 to $180 per year. Simply Finance is free, so you save all of it; the optional extras are a one-time $4.99, not a recurring fee.
Buy it once. Track for years.
Stop renting access to your own money. Download Simply Finance free, and the optional extras are $4.99 once.