Truly the best budgeting app out there. Unfortunately they recently started using Plaid to connect to bank accounts. Plaid is not only very sketchy (has been called out by many banks for parsing irrelevant data from the website) it simply doesn't support several banks that I use (even though it says that it does). So while I think it's worth manually maintaining my own transactions, you may not. It's a shame they can't figure out what everyone else seem to have already figured out: accounts.
Reviews for YNAB
← Back to YNABConfusing, subscription is expensive for occasional use. The basic budget functions are okay, but trying to move beyond that into a 5 year plan is impossible. The app isn't at all intuitive for me, and I don't have the time or patience to devote days learning a new method. This is supposed to make life easier. Maybe I chose the wrong app.
It is by far the best budget app I've used. I've been using it for years now. Best feature is, most budget apps will simply go into the red for a line item. But still let you think you have enough in another budget. But you don't, since you're in the red. YNAB encourages you to move money to keep things out of the red. I was able to easily onboard my wife when we started sharing expenses. Price for a year is respectable. I don't see myself ever using anything else.
The more I used it the more confusing it got, but this might just be harder when trying to budget for 2 people on a single account. The UI doesn't really explain why the budget bars are divided and the credit card payments are very difficult to categorize on mobile. I can spend the same amount of time just using an excel sheet.
This is a great budget app, full stop. I like that it deals only with money you actually have, which is an issue I had with Everydollar. I have one big complaint though. I signed up for the yearly subscription, and I thought I'd already paid. Either way, the app auto-adds a budget item for the subscription but sets the due date for NEXT YEAR. I have to reshuffle my money to cover the subscription. I'd also like to see a one-time paid lifetime license rather than a perpetual yearly arrangement
It takes some getting used to, but I wouldn't use ANY other budgeting app. It's impossible to go over budget with the methodology. Everything syncs and rolls up clean (even if you don't understand why at first). Makes you think about money differently. I believe the methodology is rooted in double entry accounting, but it's woven into how the app calculates your transactions and presents the money you have left. Fantastic!
not as robust or as good as The web app. when paying off my credit card I have to go to the web app because I can't find the category and the phone app. otherwise this is fantastic. I've been able to accurately pay so many bills, and plan for surprises. I've only been using this since February (two whole months) and it's been a game changer. I came from mint and mint was really not good at helping me save money, just tracking money, so less of a budgeting tool and more of a tracking tool.
USER BEWARE: PREDATORY AUTO SUBSCRIPTION installed app, poked around for a few minutes and then closed it and decided it wasnt for me. forgot about it. was uninstalling unused apps yesterday and when I uninstalled got popup saying I had a subscription! I look and they had auto subscribed me to a YEAR subscription. contacted support and they said they would not refund the $100. I never signed up for a year subscription. I used this app for all of 10 minutes.
I'm coming up on a year since I started using YNAB. It has changed the way I look at money and more importantly, how I save money. I've used other budgeting apps over the years, but they did not have the support system to help me learn how to create a budget that works for my family. With YNAB, there are video tutorials on their website and YouTube that teach you about budgeting and for the first in my life I'm controlling my money instead of my money controlling me.
learning curve. comprehensive. nice to see all finances in one place. YNAB way is to put ALL monies available into a a pot called "ready to assign" and assign to various budget items from there. all well and good - unless you keep several different POTS. after a while - when monies are assigned you have to do sleuthing to figure out which POT that assigned money is stored in. Brokerage accounts are uploaded to tracking only - can't be used for budgeting
Horrible customer service! The service is not worth the money. I was a paying customer for a few years. I started off as manually entering my expenses but got tired of it and moved over to the direct bank link. The manually entry is tiresome and I can do that with free apps or a spreadsheet. The direct link worked well for a while but I had issues here and there with it not pulling data over. Lately I have been down for 3 weeks without a single bank transaction updating. I canceled it.
terrible update. I have to click through three different layouts to get to my transactions? Who in the world did you test this with? a rock? this is legit enough to make me give up on ynab. if I'm looking at my accounts page, why would I NOT want a link to the outstanding transactions to be approved? my response: you're misunderstanding. I want to see the alerts for the transactions which prev. appeared at the top of the "plan." now they only show in ONE location. much less real UI friendly.
This is worth paying for. Finally, it is easy to set aside funds for down the road essentials (like filling the oil tank!) and know if you can afford to go out to dinner! August 2025 update: I continue to use YNAB regularly and couldn't live without it! I often create a budget category for special projects to keep track - then hide it when complete. I really like the new changes except: please when we open the app don't make us wait through the cute plant. And name the budget the budget.
The new UI is not good. They took away the functions from the previous version. I'm having to re learn how the app works. We don't need a "Home" tab/ screen. Feel like the current information being shown could be under the "Reflect" tab. Extra/ different steps to add a transaction. The main button was removed. Had to read the reviews to find out what happened and find a picture of the old layout. "Spending" & "Accounts" show the same information. Seems unnecessary.
It is lacking compared to competitors. The automatic transaction import feature is flawed. More so recently, it stops syncing frequently which throws me off. I contacted support three times. It works after each contact, but then breaks again later. The reporting and visuals on Android are lacking compared to competitors and their own desktop version. All of this would be tolerable if it were a low cost or free product, but it's not. It is the most expensive budgeting app I have seen.
I'll start by saying I use YNAB religiously and it indeed changed my life for the better. With that being said it does seem like some areas have gone down in quality for whatever reason in the past months. For example it used to be very good at bucketing incoming items when the charges were more or less coming in on a consistent basis, now it's just throwing guesses at the wall. Also not a fan of the redesign. I want to go straight to my budget not some home where adverts will abound.
Been using ynab since version ynab3. Over the years it's gotten more bloated. There is now some type of home advertising page you have to click through to get to the actual app now. Considering changing budget tools in the future. Maybe I'm in the minority, but the new "features" they keep adding are a step back for me. Sometimes a bit more basic is better. Last, they now call it a plan instead of a budget in the app which is a bit funny since it used to be focused on you need a budget.
New update - "minor" changes? The UI is completely different. It now takes several extra steps to see information that used to be laid out immediately upon opening the app, which is not the end of the world but is definitely irritating. Worst of all, it apparently can't sync properly anymore. Transactions used to show up within 24 hours, but it's now lagging several days behind.
I have been a user of the ynab app for years and am totally bought in on the philosophy. That being said, the new UI is a huge miss. The home tab is useless, it's taking me more clicks to get to useful information, and some of the most recent terminology changes are actually nonsensical. I hope they'll start focusing more on the reflect tab. That's where I see the biggest area for opportunities. Best of luck ynab, I'm rooting for you.
I've been a subscriber for around 6 years. The YNAB team has been making odd choices for a while, changing the word "budget" to "plan" a while back and now forcing the app to open on some new home screen that just adds extra steps to the budgeting process. Give us the option to choose what screen is displayed when you open the app so I can force it to open to the budget...I mean plan. And stop adding "features" that nobody is asking for in an attempt to justify all the price increases.