Saving money whilst managing the essentials is an art that very few are able to master. Cutting down the extravagant spending and bumping up the saving may appear to be a hard nut to crack to some. It’s actually a straightforward affair if you can adhere to your set budget. If you struggle with your financial spendings and want to get serious about saving up to buy your dream object, here are some of the best expense trackers for Android and iPhone that can help you with that.
Best Expense Trackers to Tame Your Finances
Most expense tracking apps let you set up a budget with a clear goal based on how much money you want to save. Once you have created a custom budget based on your spending, the app provides you a clear view of your total spending. It also warns you whenever it finds you going overboard with your spending.
Since we’re dealing with financial information, it’s important to ensure the apps don’t steal your data or spy on you. Therefore, it’s important to ensure the apps don’t steal your data or spy on you. That’s why some of the expense trackers in this article are open source.
1. Flow Expense Tracker – Best Expense Tracker App
Flow is one of the best expense trackers on this list because because it gets a lot of things right. Firstly, it’s completely free and open-source, meaning you needn’t worry about privacy-related issues. Secondly, it has a great material user interface which adapts to system colors and looks visually appealing. The UI is not only pleasing to look at but also extremely easy to get around and use.
For starters, you can add your bank accounts, balances, and manually add your expenses at the end of the day. You can add the expenses categorically and see the summary of your account, money spend per month, and remaining savings and other balances.
On the home page, you can filter your expenses to see the categories you spent your money on the most. There’s also an easy backup and restore option in case you switch devices. Besides, you can hide those expenses as well. Overall, for a free app, Flow is easily one of the best Expense Trackers for Android and iPhone.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free and open source | No automatic backups |
| Excellent user interface | |
| Lots of expense categories | |
| Filters to find out exact expenses |
Price: Free
2. Ivy Wallet
Ivy Wallet has been one of the best expense trackers in the open-source world for a while now. While the project has unfortunately been discontinued, it only happened recently, meaning you can still use the application. Like Flow, the user interface of Ivy Wallet is on point with easy usability. There are actionable cards that help you find exactly what your looking for.
The home tab contains your total income and expenses cards with the overall cashflow, upcoming payments, and recent transactions. The accounts page shows you the balance in your accounts. You can even filter transactions as per month or range. Or you can select a category to list all the transactions under that category. Overall, Ivy Wallet is simple yet easy and efficient way to track your expenses with ease.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free and open source | No longer being maintained |
| Excellent user interface | Only available for Android |
| Categorize your expenses | |
| Set up future transactions |
Price: Free
3. Paisa – Best Expense Tracker for Android
Paisa is an expense tracker app built by the same developer behind the popular offline music player app Retro Music. What I like about the app is it’s ability to simplify tracking expenses with the help of different sized cards on the home screen. The home page shows you cards that show you things like the total balance, Budgets, Goals, Loans, Monthly payments, and analytics at a glance.
You can add your current cash and bank balances. You can then add expenses from the home page with the name, amount, and description. You can then add the date and time of the transaction, the account used for the transaction. There are options to add banks and cash and a lot of categories as well. Besides, the goals options lets you set goals for, say, an upcoming trip. And the budgets option lets you set a budget for, say, groceries and eating out. The reports section gives you a full-fledged report on your expenses and income.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free and open source | Only available for Android |
| Exceptional user interface | Google Drive backup requires premium |
| Categorize your expenses | |
| Set up goals and track budgets |
Price: Free
4. Spendee
Spendee is a neat budgeting app that promises to cut down all the unnecessary expenses and enable you to save more money than ever before. And from what I can tell after giving it a shot, I must say that it has got the features to keep an eye on spending and preventing it from going overboard – without breaking any sweat.
The expense tracker features an intuitive interface that is fully customizable. Thus, you can set a budget as per your needs and set the target to achieve at your own pace. Spendee analyzes your expenses and automatically organizes them so that it’s easier to track each spending type.
Thanks to the infographics, detailed graphs, and insights, you will be able to get a clear picture of how you are spending your money. The app has an option to automatically track your expenditure but its locked behind a monthly subscription paywall. The user interface of Spendee is not the best but it gets the job done.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Has a free version with manual tracking | Automatic tracking limited to paid version |
| Decent user interface | Not the most intuitive UIs |
| Categorize your expenses; great demographics | |
| Set up goals and track budgets | |
| Does not sell data despite being closed source |
Price: Free, $23/year
5. Wallet – Daily Budget & Profit – Best Expense Tracker for iPhones
Wallet is a proficient personal finance app that you can use to manage your budget. The app offers a flexible budgeting system to let you set one time or recurring budgets. Based on your needs, you can combine several categories and keep a tab on them. Furthermore, it can automatically sync transactions with your bank. It also keeps you in the loop about each update, although that feature requires you to get the premium subscription.
Another feature that makes Wallet a great asset is an insightful report with easy-to-use graphs and financial overviews. Thus, you can check out the state of your finances, credit and debit cards, cash, and more. What’s more, Wallet supports multiple currencies and provides a seamless cloud synchronization to keep your data secure and easily accessible across devices.
We found the iOS app to have much better UI than the Android counterpart. Perhaps, the developers could improve it a bit. Long story short, Wallet is an able personal finance assistant that can let you manage your spending with the desired control.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Has a free version with manual tracking | Automatic tracking limited to paid version |
| Categorize your expenses; great demographics | Not the most intuitive of UIs |
| Set up goals and track budgets | Shares financial info with third parties and collects lots of data |
Price: Free, $20/year, $30 for lifetime
6. Money Manager: Budget & Expense
As someone who prefers a simplified experience, I have found Money Manager up to the mark. There are the reasons why it’s worth giving a serious look. First and foremost, the app features a neat calculator function to let you quickly do your math. Second, it allows you to manage all of your accounts from one place and also offers the flexibility to set up as many sub-categories as you need.
Third, the Money Manager supports multiple currencies and provides a calendar view of all your set rules. What I have found really handy in this app is the proficient credit card management that allows you to view the payment amount, outstanding balance, and even connect it to your bank accounts to record expenses automatically.
Even better, Money Manager sorts expenses by receipt so that you can view the information graphically. And if you never want to lose important data, you would appreciate the useful backup and restore functionality.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Has a free version with manual tracking | Ads in free version |
| Highly customizable with categories | Not the most intuitive of UIs |
| At a glance statistics | Collects financial info |
Price: Free, $5.99
7. Spending Tracker – Best Lightweight Expense Tracker
While Spending Tracker may not be a feature-packed expense tracking app, it’s got you covered with all the easy-to-use tools that can let you monitor your spending and cut down the not-so-smart expenses. The app has a clean interface and lets you track your spending weekly, monthly, or yearly. Based on your target, you can set a fixed budget and track the spending.
Spending Tracker shows a summary view of all of your spending progress, therefore you can take a quick glance at the expenses without needing to dig deep. It allows straightforward transaction entry and also offers you the flexibility to repeat/export transactions.
What I love the most about this app is the option to choose a specific icon for each category, which adds a bit of personal touch to the mix. And with an insightful visualization, it offers a bird’s eye view of how your money is spent. Thus, tracking down the shortcomings to get rid of extra expenses becomes a tad easier. In a nutshell, Spending Tracker is among the top expense tracker apps for Android and iOS.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free with ads; One-time fee to remove ads | Not the best of UIs |
| Good UI | |
| Setting fixed budgets is easy | |
| Gives a detailed view when device is rotated in landscape |
Price: Free, $3 for no ads (lifetime)
8. Monefy
Monefy is the sort of expense tracker that seems complete in more ways than one. For starters, the app provides one of the most detailed charts that are designed to offer thorough insight into your spending. So, whether you are willing to bump up your saving or get rid of all the overspending that has been hurting your finance, you can count on it to sort out your financial mess and put things back on track.
Features like tracking recurring records, multiple currency support, and the built-in calculator have got you fully covered. And with the detailed reports, it keeps you in the know about your money spending. Not just that, it also offers pro tips to prevent you from overspending.
Furthermore, Monefy supports both Google Drive and Dropbox to let you synchronize your data and make it accessible across devices. However, some of those features are locked behind a paywall. If you don’t want anyone to get inside the app without your permission, you can enable a strong passcode to ward off unauthorized access.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Simple user interface | UI feels ancient |
| Customizable | Expensive for what it offers |
| Easy to categorize payments | Features locked behind the paywall |
Price: Free, $60/year
9. Expensify – Best Expense Tracker for Advanced Users
If you are hunting for more than just a simple expense tracking app for your iOS or Android device, Expensify deserves to get your attention. With Expensify, you can track your business, personal expenses, scan receipts, and even your book travel. Thanks to the integrations with several accounting apps including QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, and more, it enables you to manage your expenses with better control.
Most expense tracking apps let you set up a budget with a clear goal about how much money you wish to save. Once you have created a custom budget based on your spending, the app provides you a clear view of your total spending and also warns you whenever it finds you going overboard with your spending. Since we’re dealing with financial information, it’s important to ensure the apps don’t steal your data or spy on you. Therefore, some of the expense trackers
The custom report exports, insightful tracking, and advanced tax reporting play a vital role in keeping you aware of the things that you must do to boost your finance and also nab the downsides that are obstructing it from reaching the full potential. The PCI-compliant security works as the essential safeguard to keep your sensitive information protected from the prying eyes. Putting everything into the right perspective, Expensify is a versatile expense tracking app for Android and iOS.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Great user interface | Learning curve |
| Custom report exports | Meant for businesses |
| Integration with accounting apps | |
| Ability to connect to bank accounts | |
| Receipt scanner built in |
Price: Free, $5/month
10. Pocket Expense 6 – Expense Tracker with an Assistant
Should you wish to go for a fully-featured personal finance assistant, Pocket Expense could be the right answer to your needs. For a more simplified expense tracking experience, the app lets you sync all of your accounts and manage them without having to move from one account to the other. With the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly stats, the app ensures you have a transparent perspective about your spending.
With the recurring and non-recurring budget, it keeps finance management straightforward. Moreover, you can move funds from one budget to another and set custom alerts to never miss the due bills. Thanks to the calendar view, you will be able to glance through essential things with the utmost ease.
Pocket Expense also provides the ability to lock the app to stop unauthorized access. Plus, there is an option to back up all the data and restore it without any pain. To sum up, it’s a highly-rated expense tracker that can play a good part in boosting your finance, and can be considered one of the best expense trackers.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Good user interface | Learning curve |
| Great categorization and reports | No advanced financial analytics |
| Budgeting features |
Price: Free, $1.49/month
Bonus Expense Tracker App: Fold Money
For readers living in the subcontinent, we cannot recommend Fold Money enough. The app is currently in Beta but it has made great strides in a year since I first tried it out. It fetches your account balance and transactions and automatically categorizes them, making it easier to see the breakdown of your spendings.
Besides, it can show you recurring payments, fetch your stocks and mutual funds. There are lots of other features that we could mention and this article would never end, so if you’re from India, do give it a shot. It tops every app we mentioned above with the only major downside being it’s currently India-only. Overall, it’s hands down one of the best expense trackers in the subcontinent.
So, these are the best spending trackers that can play a vital role in enabling you to manage your expenses with better control. Thanks to in-depth reports and actionable insights, they can keep you fully informed about how your money is spent. And with the pro advice, these expense trackers can also help you find ways to reduce unnecessary spending and bolster saving. That said, if you’re searching for the best apps you record Fuel costs, checkout our list of Android Auto apps which contains Fuelio, an amazing app to log fuel costs and trip.
Which is your favorite spending tracker? Let us know in the comments. Besides, if you know any other apps that deserve a spot on this list, let us know.
