Top 16 Budgeting Apps to Follow for Couples to Sync Their Finances Without the Fights This Year
Let's talk about money, honey. For many couples, those four words can send a shiver down the spine. Merging finances, or even just managing shared expenses, is often cited as one of the biggest sources of relationship stress. Who pays for what? Are we saving enough for that vacation? And what was that surprise $200 charge from Amazon? The arguments are as old as currency itself.
But what if you could turn financial friction into financial teamwork? In today's digital world, you can. The key isn't a complex spreadsheet that one person resents updating. It’s a budgeting app—a powerful tool that can live right on your phone, providing transparency, facilitating communication, and turning shared goals into an achievable reality. Think of it as a neutral, always-on financial mediator that helps you and your partner get on the same page, minus the blame game.
Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we believe financial wellness is a cornerstone of a healthy life and a strong partnership. Choosing the right tool is the first step toward building a financial future together, with clarity and confidence. That’s why we’ve compiled the ultimate list of the 16 best budgeting apps for couples this year. Whether you want to merge everything, keep things separate but transparent, or just stop arguing about who bought the last round of groceries, there’s an app here for you.
1. Honeydue
Best for: Couples who want a dedicated, all-in-one platform for sharing finances without fully merging accounts.
Honeydue was built from the ground up specifically for partners, and it shows. It’s designed to increase transparency and foster collaboration. You and your partner each create an account and link them together. You can then link your various bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments. The magic of Honeydue is its approach to sharing: you decide which accounts your partner can see and what level of access they have. This is perfect for couples who want to maintain some financial independence while still working on shared goals.
The app automatically categorizes transactions and lets you add custom categories to fit your lifestyle. It also includes practical features like bill reminders, so you never miss a due date, and an in-app chat function tied directly to specific transactions. This simple feature is a game-changer, allowing you to ask questions about a purchase in a low-pressure, contextual way. Best of all, the core features of the app are free, with an optional joint bank account available.
Pro Tip: Use the "split transaction" feature for shared expenses paid from a personal account. If you pay for a $100 grocery bill on your personal credit card, you can immediately tag it and mark that your partner owes you $50, keeping the running tally clear and accurate.
2. YNAB (You Need A Budget)
Best for: Proactive couples who want to be intentional with every single dollar and are willing to invest time (and money) in a powerful system.
YNAB is more than just an app; it's a financial philosophy. It’s built on four simple rules, with the most important being "Give Every Dollar a Job." Instead of just tracking past spending, you and your partner proactively decide where your money will go before you spend it. This forward-looking approach transforms your budget from a restrictive document into an empowering plan for your life.
For couples, YNAB shines with its "YNAB Together" feature, which allows two or more people to share a single subscription and manage multiple budgets. You can have a "His," "Hers," and "Ours" budget, or, more powerfully, one single, unified budget that you both contribute to and manage. This method forces crucial conversations about priorities and goals. It’s not the cheapest option (it's a subscription service after a 34-day free trial), but its devotees swear it pays for itself by finding savings you never knew you had.
Pro Tip: Create a "Relationship Goals" category group. Inside, add specific goals like "Anniversary Trip," "Date Nights," and "Weekend Getaway." Funding these categories together each month makes saving feel like a fun, collaborative project rather than a chore.
3. Monarch Money
Best for: Couples looking for a premium, modern alternative to Mint with robust collaboration features.
Monarch Money is a beautifully designed, comprehensive financial dashboard that feels like a major upgrade. It allows you to invite a partner to your household for free, giving you both a complete, shared view of your net worth, transactions, budgets, and goals. Its custom dashboard is a standout feature, letting you and your partner arrange your financial information in a way that makes the most sense to you both.
One of Monarch's best features for couples is the ability to use a single login for your household, or for each partner to have their own separate login with access to the shared data. The app syncs with a huge range of financial institutions and even has an integration with Zillow to track your home's value. It also offers a clean, ad-free experience and powerful tools for setting and tracking progress toward your shared financial goals.
Pro Tip: Use Monarch’s "Goals" feature to create a savings plan for a big-ticket item like a house down payment. You can link specific savings accounts to the goal and watch your progress in real-time, which is a huge motivator for both of you.
4. Goodbudget
Best for: Couples who love the simplicity and discipline of the cash envelope system, but want a digital version.
If you and your partner have ever tried (and failed) to stick to a cash envelope system, Goodbudget is your new best friend. It digitizes this time-tested method, allowing you to create virtual "envelopes" for all your spending categories (e.g., Groceries, Rent, Entertainment). You allocate your income into these envelopes at the beginning of the month and then track spending from them.
The app syncs across multiple devices (iPhone, Android, and Web), so when one person buys groceries, the "Groceries" envelope is immediately updated for both of you to see. This provides real-time visibility into how much is left in each category, preventing overspending before it happens. The free version offers a limited number of envelopes, which is perfect for getting started, while the paid version offers unlimited envelopes and more historical data.
Pro Tip: Create an "Our Fun Money" envelope and an "Individual Fun Money" envelope for each of you. This gives you both the freedom to make guilt-free purchases without needing to justify them, which can significantly reduce small, nagging arguments about spending.
5. Simplifi by Quicken
Best for: Couples who want a simple, visually-driven overview of their finances and future cash flow.
Simplifi is designed to be, well, simple. It provides a clean, consolidated view of all your accounts and focuses on a few key areas: your spending, your bills, your savings goals, and your investments. For couples, it allows you to easily connect all your accounts—joint and individual—into one dashboard, giving you a holistic picture of your combined financial health.
One of its most useful features is the "Spending Plan," which shows you how much is left to spend after accounting for bills and savings contributions. This is a great way for couples to see, at a glance, what their discretionary income is for the month. The app also offers custom spending watchlists and projected cash flow reports, which can help you and your partner anticipate financial crunches and plan accordingly.
Pro Tip: Use the "Watchlist" feature to monitor a spending category you're both trying to cut back on, like "Dining Out" or "Subscriptions." Simplifi will alert you as you approach your self-imposed limit, acting as a gentle, mutual reminder.
6. Empower Personal Dashboard (formerly Personal Capital)
Best for: Investment-savvy couples focused on building long-term wealth and tracking their net worth.
While many apps focus on day-to-day budgeting, Empower Personal Dashboard excels at giving you the 30,000-foot view. It’s an outstanding tool for couples who are more concerned with tracking their investments, retirement accounts, and overall net worth. You can link nearly any account—401(k)s, IRAs, mortgages, bank accounts, and more—to see your entire financial universe in one place.
Its free tools are incredibly powerful. The Retirement Planner, for example, lets you run scenarios to see if you're on track to meet your retirement goals together. The Investment Checkup tool analyzes your combined portfolio for hidden fees and offers suggestions for better asset allocation. While its budgeting features are less robust than YNAB's, they are perfectly adequate for tracking monthly cash flow and spending patterns.
Pro Tip: Schedule a quarterly "Net Worth Night" with your partner. Use the Empower dashboard as your centerpiece to review your progress, celebrate milestones (like reaching a new net worth high), and adjust your investment strategy together.
7. Tiller Money
Best for: The spreadsheet-loving couple who wants ultimate control and customization.
If one or both of you are die-hard spreadsheet fans, Tiller Money is a dream come true. Tiller is a service that automatically pulls all your financial transactions from your bank accounts and credit cards directly into a Google Sheet or Microsoft Excel file. It provides a library of pre-built templates for budgeting, debt-snowball plans, net worth tracking, and more, but the real power is in its infinite customizability.
This is the ultimate collaborative tool for couples who want to build their perfect financial system from the ground up. You can create custom charts, reports, and rules that are specific to your shared life. It’s a fantastic way to combine the automation of an app with the granular control of a spreadsheet. Tiller operates on a subscription model after a free trial.
Pro Tip: Use the "Couples Budgeting" template as your starting point. Then, add a custom "Goals" tab where you can list your shared dreams (e.g., "Kitchen Remodel," "Trip to Japan") and create formulas to track your savings progress automatically.
8. Copilot Money
Best for: iOS-using couples who appreciate a stunning user interface and AI-powered insights.
Copilot Money has quickly gained a loyal following for its beautiful design, smart categorization, and intelligent insights. If you and your partner are both in the Apple ecosystem, this app is a joy to use. It learns your spending habits and gets smarter over time, often categorizing transactions more accurately than its competitors.
While it doesn't have a dedicated "couples" mode with separate logins, it’s easily shared by using a single account on both of your phones. You can connect all your accounts—his, hers, and ours—to get a complete financial picture. The app provides slick, easy-to-understand visuals for spending trends, recurring expenses, and investment performance, making financial check-ins more engaging and less of a chore.
Pro Tip: Pay close attention to the "Recurring Expenses" screen. Copilot is excellent at identifying subscriptions you may have forgotten about. Reviewing this list together is an easy way to find and cut unnecessary expenses, instantly freeing up cash for your shared goals.
9. Rocket Money (formerly Truebill)
Best for: Couples who want to slash their monthly bills and cancel unwanted subscriptions.
While Rocket Money offers solid budgeting and spending tracking features, its superpower lies in expense management. The app excels at identifying all your recurring payments and subscriptions, making it incredibly easy for you and your partner to review them and cancel the ones you no longer need with a single tap.
Even better, Rocket Money has a bill negotiation service. You can upload a bill (like cable, internet, or cell phone), and their team will attempt to negotiate a lower rate on your behalf, splitting the savings with you if they succeed. For busy couples, this is a fantastic way to save money without spending hours on the phone with customer service. You can both link your accounts to a single Rocket Money profile to get a comprehensive view of where your money is going each month.
Pro Tip: Onboard all your accounts and let Rocket Money run for a full month. Then, sit down together and go through the "Recurring" tab. You’ll likely be shocked at what you find, and you can make a game out of who can find the most subscriptions to cancel.
10. Splitwise
Best for: Couples who keep their finances mostly separate but share a lot of expenses.
Splitwise isn’t a full-blown budgeting app, but it is the undisputed champion of tracking IOUs and splitting bills. It’s perfect for couples who aren't ready to merge accounts but need a simple, fair way to manage shared costs like rent, utilities, groceries, and vacations. You create a group with your partner and log expenses as they happen.
The app keeps a running, real-time tally of who owes whom, and you can see the balance at any time. When you’re ready to settle up, Splitwise simplifies the debt into the single easiest payment. For example, instead of you owing your partner $50 for groceries and them owing you $30 for a concert ticket, the app will just tell you to pay them the $20 difference. It removes the awkwardness and mental math from shared expenses.
Pro Tip: Create different groups for different purposes. Have a "Home Expenses" group for rent and utilities, and a separate "Vacation" group for an upcoming trip. This keeps your regular, ongoing expenses separate from one-off events, making tracking much cleaner.
11. Buddy
Best for: Couples who want a straightforward, no-frills app for shared budgeting.
Buddy is a clean, simple, and visually appealing app designed for shared budgeting. It’s less intimidating than some of the more feature-heavy platforms. The concept is easy: you create a shared budget with your partner, set a monthly spending limit, and then both log your expenses as you go.
The app’s interface is bright and uses clear icons, making it easy to see where your money is going at a glance. It’s particularly great for couples who want to manually track their spending to be more mindful of their habits, although it does offer bank-sync as a premium feature. You can easily split expenses and see a clear breakdown of who paid for what.
Pro Tip: At the beginning of each month, sit down together for 15 minutes to set up your budget in Buddy. Agreeing on the spending limits for each category before the month begins is the key to staying aligned and avoiding arguments later.
12. EveryDollar
Best for: Couples who follow the Dave Ramsey "Baby Steps" and prefer a zero-based budgeting approach.
If you and your partner are fans of financial guru Dave Ramsey, EveryDollar is the app for you. It’s built around his philosophy of zero-based budgeting, where your income minus your expenses equals zero. This forces you to be intentional about every dollar you earn, assigning it to a category for spending, saving, or debt repayment.
The app walks you through the process of creating your first budget, and the free version allows for manual transaction entry. The premium version, Ramsey+, syncs with your bank accounts and provides access to a wealth of financial education resources. It’s an excellent tool for couples who are highly motivated to get out of debt and build wealth using a proven, step-by-step plan. As a financial professional who respects many approaches, I find the principles Goh Ling Yong often discusses about financial clarity are well-reflected in the intentionality of zero-based systems.
Pro Tip: Use the "Fund" feature to create digital sinking funds for irregular expenses like car repairs, holiday gifts, or annual insurance premiums. Saving a small amount each month prevents these predictable-but-infrequent costs from blowing up your budget.
13. PocketGuard
Best for: Couples who want a simple answer to the question, "How much can we spend today?"
PocketGuard’s main goal is to simplify your financial life down to one number: the amount of money "in your pocket." After linking your accounts, the app analyzes your income, upcoming bills, and savings goals. It then shows you exactly how much discretionary money you have left to spend for the day, week, or month.
This is a fantastic tool for couples who feel overwhelmed by complex budget categories and just want a simple guardrail to prevent overspending. By having a clear, shared number, you both know what’s safe to spend on non-essentials without jeopardizing your financial obligations or goals. It's a low-stress way to stay on track together.
Pro Tip: Set up PocketGuard’s "Autosave" feature. It intelligently monitors your accounts and periodically moves small, safe amounts of money to your savings account. It’s a painless way for you and your partner to build up an emergency fund or save for a goal without even thinking about it.
14. Fudget
Best for: Couples who value extreme simplicity and want to track their budget manually.
Fudget is the anti-app. It’s a dead-simple, list-based budgeter that rejects the complexity of account syncing and automatic categorization. You create a simple list of your income and expenses, and the app does the basic math for you. That’s it. There are no bells, no whistles, and no steep learning curve.
This is the perfect choice for couples who are wary of linking their bank accounts to an app or who find other budgeting apps too overwhelming. It’s also a fantastic tool for managing a specific, short-term budget together, like for a home renovation project or a holiday. Its simplicity forces you to be mindful of every transaction because you have to enter it yourself.
Pro Tip: Use Fudget to manage your "cash" or "blow money" categories. Give yourselves a set amount of discretionary cash in Fudget each month and track only those fun purchases. This keeps your main budget clean while still providing accountability for your personal spending.
15. Qapital
Best for: Goal-oriented couples who are motivated by saving for specific, tangible things.
Qapital is less about restrictive budgeting and more about making saving effortless and fun. The app helps you and your partner save for your shared goals by using clever, customizable "Rules." For example, you can set a "Round-Up Rule" to save the spare change from every purchase, a "Guilty Pleasure Rule" to save $5 every time you buy a fancy coffee, or a "52 Week Challenge Rule" to save an increasing amount each week.
For couples, you can create Shared Goals and contribute to them together. Seeing the progress bar fill up for your "European Vacation" or "New Couch" fund is incredibly motivating. It gamifies the act of saving, turning it from a sacrifice into a rewarding, collaborative activity.
Pro Tip: Create a "Payday Rule" that automatically transfers a set percentage of your combined income into a shared savings goal the day you get paid. This "pay yourselves first" strategy ensures you’re consistently working toward your goals before daily expenses get in the way.
16. Spendee
Best for: Couples who need to manage multiple currencies or want detailed analytics on their spending.
Spendee is a powerful and beautifully designed app that gives you a deep understanding of your financial habits through data visualization. It offers "Shared Wallets," a feature designed specifically for couples and families to manage money together. You can invite your partner, connect your bank accounts (or enter transactions manually), and get a comprehensive overview of your household cash flow.
One of its key differentiators is its support for multiple currencies, making it an excellent choice for couples who travel frequently or have income/expenses in different countries. The app’s charts and graphs are clear and insightful, helping you pinpoint exactly where your money is going and identify areas for improvement.
Pro Tip: Schedule a monthly "Spendee Review." Sit down together and explore the app's analytics. Look at the "Spending by Category" pie chart and the "Cash Flow" graph. Use these visuals as a conversation starter to discuss what went well, what didn't, and what adjustments you want to make for the upcoming month.
Finding Your Perfect Financial Match
The most important step in managing money as a couple isn't picking an app—it's starting the conversation. Technology is just a tool; the real magic happens when you and your partner align on your values, goals, and dreams for the future. The right app can facilitate that conversation, remove the daily friction, and provide the clarity you need to operate as a true team.
Don't feel pressured to pick the "best" app on the list. Instead, pick the one that feels best for you. Are you spreadsheet nerds? Try Tiller. Do you need extreme simplicity? Fudget might be your answer. Are you laser-focused on getting out of debt? Give EveryDollar a shot.
So, here's your call to action: Sit down with your partner this week. Talk about one financial goal you want to achieve together in the next year. Then, pick one of these apps to try for a month. See how it feels. The goal isn't perfection; it's progress, transparency, and teamwork.
Which app are you and your partner most excited to try? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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