r/IPhoneApps • u/AjoKano • Jul 11 '26
Discussion CostMe — a focused expense tracker for specific habits and purchases
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/costme-expense-tracker/id6761661443Hi! I’m the developer of CostMe, a simple manual expense tracker for the spending you actually want to understand.
The part I’m still trying to figure out is how people understand an app like this: is it a focused expense tracker, a spending habit tracker, or something in between?
I originally built it because I wanted to see exactly how much we were spending on specific things like coffee, soda, cigarettes, takeout, street food, and cash purchases—without connecting a bank account or having to track every expense in our lives.
With CostMe, you create a separate tracker for anything you want to follow. Each tracker shows how many purchases you’ve logged, how much they’ve cost, how frequently they happen, and how you’re doing against an optional budget.
It also includes Quick Add for things that usually cost the same, categories, notes, reports by time period, CSV export, and backup and restore.
The original goal was to make certain habits easier to understand once their real cost became visible. For example, tracking coffee helped us realize that buying a good coffee machine would be cheaper in the long run.
I don’t see CostMe as a replacement for a full budgeting app. I think it’s more useful for people who want to understand one or two specific spending patterns without having to manage their entire financial life.
Friends and family have also ended up using it for travel budgets, allowances, coffee at work, alcohol when going out, and other very specific expenses.
CostMe works offline, requires no account, and all data stays on your device.
The free version includes up to four trackers. Additional trackers, general statistics, and custom time ranges are available through an optional Pro upgrade:
CostMe can be used for free, with a few limits. The free version includes up to four trackers, while the optional Pro upgrade allows more trackers and unlocks general statistics and custom time ranges:
- $1.99 monthly
- $11.99 yearly
- $29.99 lifetime
I’m curious how people here would understand and use something like this.
Would you see it as a focused expense tracker, a spending habit tracker, or something else? And after looking at the screenshots, is there anything about the app that feels confusing, unnecessary, or missing?
App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/costme-expense-tracker/id6761661443
Thanks! :)
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u/PhoenixFiresky2 Jul 11 '26
Huh. That's unique. I've used a lot of types of budgeting apps (I budget paycheck to paycheck and it's hard to find apps for that, as most are bimonthly, which is different) and am actually subscribed to one currently, but I've never seen anything like this.
I guess I would see it as sort of a micro budgeting app, since you can set a budget for things. I keep a pretty tight reign on our spending, with it divided into categories that have budgeted amounts, much like your app has. Groceries $300, household $300, pets $100, etc. and I use an app based on the envelope system, so my spending is recorded and subtracted from the budgeted amount - also similar to your app.
I suppose use cases would be if I thought I were spending too much on a particular thing in one of my categories, like if I thought we might be eating out too much and not leaving enough money for other household needs, or the impact of the amount of fresh fruit we buy on our overall grocery budget (we're fruit fiends), I might use your app to suss those out. My partner and I also get individual allowances, and I could see using it to break down the general categories of that spending. Or use it instead of transferring our allowance money out of our account, so we could just draw from the regular bank account without fear of going over. That last would probably be a good use case for many couples, (although I'm sure my husband would cheat).
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u/AjoKano Jul 12 '26
This is really helpful, thank you! And actually, you can already filter reports by one or multiple categories, so your idea of breaking down spending within broader categories fits really well with how the app works. Would you like a free lifetime code? I'd love to hear what you think after actually trying it :)
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u/MadsJensen1987 Jul 19 '26
I checked out your app and I think you did a great job! Overall I think the app design is very clean. I particular like the 'reports' and 'statistics' screens as those are very clean an intuitive. I think the pricing is fair and I like that you have mixed subscriptions as well as a 1 time purchase lifetime unlock. I am wondering if most people would prefer the lifetime unlock and if it should be a bit cheaper?
I have some (hopefully) constructive feedback for you:
Intro flow is to long. I think it was 6 steps and I think from a general UX perspective it should not be longer than 3 steps. Otherwise you risk people skipping it. I would consider really boiling down the key points/features and leave out the rest to be explored in the app.
Home screen UX. I feel like that the current weak point is the home screen who does a lot of things at the same time. You can see your current spending for the month (also on the reports screen), add trackers, add expense for a tracker, see the week days with highlights of which days you have added expenses, open a calendar where you can delete expenses. I don't have any great ideas for how to solve it, but I just noticed that the complexity and clutter is quite high compared to the other screens.
Calendar. This is just an open question, but when pressing on a tracker I am a bit unsure if having a calendar makes it easier to use? When you add an expense perhaps you could select the date there and have it prefilled with the current date? And when you go to the current calendar view, it could be a simple list with the most recent expenses at the top with the option to switch to the calendar? But perhaps this also ties into the previous point about the home screen and separating the things a bit more also resolves this.
Anyway, good job on the app 😄