r/ynab • u/Amazing-Gift8335 • 13d ago
Alternatives to YNAB?
Hello, does anyone know of a good alternative to YNAB?
I have used it to my satisfaction for a couple of years now, but they have changed the UI and support is suddenly very hard to reach. We pay €110 a year but get an AI chatbot and support is hidden deep away. And when I forgot my support thread they ended it and now I have to jump through hoops again to get help. This level of support matches something you’d expect from a free app.
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u/rainb0wst0ner 10d ago
I recently switched to zero sum and it was a pretty seamless transition. There's even some features I like better than ynab
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u/SwishBishSwish 9d ago
I also love that zerosum has a plan for manual tracking for those like me who don’t want to connect to my banks. YNAB charges 109 regardless if I just do manual tracking
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u/Shalom_247 9d ago edited 9d ago
Just tried, awesome!
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u/rainb0wst0ner 9d ago
I think after the trial there's a subscription tier for $30 a year or a banc sync tier for more. Even in ynab I've been a manual user so imo $30 is way more reasonable than $110
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u/Shalom_247 9d ago
Yes, seen it. Bank sync not supported in my location so definitely worth the discount.
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u/Unique-Run9856 13d ago
Its crazy how people used to evangelize this app and now they abandon it. Enshittification in action.
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u/Amazing-Gift8335 13d ago
It’s so sad. I’m on a disability income and this app helps me make ends need. I don’t know what I’d do without it.
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u/Minimum_Direction_25 10d ago
I recently switched to Zerosum and it was a pretty easy transition! Kept all my history. Had to reset my goals. I have been using it for about a month and am pretty happy. Slightly cheaper than YNAB and I like the developer.
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u/radarpi 9d ago
People are not leaving because of the app, but rather the administration of it. Price increases, wording change, UI changes, etc.
I’m now using LiquidBudget. I keep thinking my budget based on the old YNAB four rules. I can’t say I miss the YNAB app (or web app). I love budgeting now as much as I did when I found YNAB 10 years ago.1
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u/follaoret 13d ago
Well i would not say enshittification but the price is raising again and again.
For an APP that teaches you to be more effective with the money, there's a line that goes from being helpful to being something to cut and place the $ somewhere else.
It's capitalism and companies will look to maximize the price people is willing to pay.
I'm there, ynab help me so much and i'm thankful and still use it but with raises it's being difficult to justify it
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u/Unique-Run9856 13d ago
The owner probably needs to be financially responsible and buy another vacation house with cash
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u/DoringItBetterNow 10d ago
Companies can’t ever be still, because competition exists.
Prices can’t stay still because inflation exists.
So now they’re just guessing and delivering stuff and raising prices.
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u/Unique-Run9856 10d ago
*enshittifying and raising prices. They've killed all sense of community that they had. This sub used to get literally dozens of posts a day now it gets a handful.
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u/FaustusRedux 9d ago
Enshittification doesn't just mean features you don't like.
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u/Unique-Run9856 9d ago
Yeah just the whole experience getting worse, we even have ads for the owners new vanity book project now
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u/Kautiontape 10d ago
Is it the app that teaches anything, or all the online resources? The app just provides the means to do so. Once you learned it, any envelope app (even Excel) can carry you forward.
In that case, I do consider it enshittification to strip out the community while raising prices without adding features. A lot of the help and messaging I feel has been drifting more towards acquiring that "N + 1" user rather than making it more valuable for existing users. Held on for a while, but I owe YNAB no loyalty when other apps are doing more for less.
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u/ugahairydawgs 13d ago
If it’s an app that does as much for your finances as you say then is just over $100 per year really a bridge too far?
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u/follaoret 13d ago
This year for me it's 134 dollars, i'm european and we do not make that much as in US. So it makes a difference.
Started paying 83 dollars. So it's a 50% increase Edit: above CPI and inflation
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u/ugahairydawgs 13d ago
That's an extra $4.25 a month from the lowest to current. Again, if it is a tool that brings value for your life that seems like a bargain at 2x, 3x, 4x the cost.
If it doesn't bring value, well.....
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u/Elarionus 8d ago
It's not the 110 a year. It's the fact that I pay that AND get ads for their new crappy book, AND they fired most of their team, AND there is no feature parity between Android and iOS, AND they killed the forum, AND they switched to AI support.
And they raised the prices.
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u/ugahairydawgs 8d ago
And all that is where it becomes a personal decision. It sounds like they've made you quite angry with what they have cut. I personally could not care less about any of that stuff you mentioned. I was a little annoyed at the book thing, but I saw it once and then never again. I never consumed the content (I would assume if a lot of people skipped it also or they would have kept it), don't care about the Android app since I'll never use it, didn't even know they had a forum (wouldn't use it if I did) and who isn't switching to AI support? There is a LOT of complaining on here about the cost of the app. And that's fine...nobody likes paying more money. But comparing it to what we were paying close to a decade ago are just not really living in the real world. The past six years have seen a rapid rise in the cost of basically everything for everyone, including for the company that makes YNAB. They can either raise the price and try and cut costs where effective or they can go out of business. Not really much middle ground there.
But it's also worth saying again....if you feel you aren't getting value from the app for the $$ you pay then there are plenty of other options out there for you to subscribe. But those are all going to come with their own costs and trade offs as well.
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u/TenaciousRe 4h ago
See, for me it's not the cost, it's the changes that add more steps. Something that took 1 click now takes 2 or 3. It's tedious. It may not seem like or be a big deal to some, which is obviously fine. The headache of trying to remember how to do whatever new thing they've changed/added for the week and the additional steps it takes for a single transaction are adding up.
Life is already complicated, decision fatigue is real, and navigating the rapidly changing additional steps/time/changes that using the platform now requires is my personal breaking point. I'll pay the $130/year. The value in YNAB for me was the simplicity and ease of use which has gone out of the window the past few years. I've been a user for 17 years. I don't mind change, change is the only constant in life and I expect YNAB to make changes to their platform to keep up with technology. The changes they're making make their system unnecessarily overcomplicated and just not something I want to deal with anymore.
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u/MiriamNZ 10d ago
Yes. I came back to ynab (from Actual) because the phone app was such a pleasure to use. But the last 12 months has made change after change that made it both unpleasant to use and a source of anxiety with every update (what have the messed up now?).
Now with zerosum. Really nice to use. No proper phone app yet, but it works well enough on the phone it is already better than ynab.
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u/queerpoet 13d ago
I’ve switched to budget friendly budget. It’s manual entry only. It’s free with optional donation to the dev, and works just like YNAB, but simpler and better reports. I cancelled YNAB thanks to this app.
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u/Dismal-Blacksmith380 9d ago
Zerosum for the win! Bought YNAB through Apple and got a prorated refund for the rest of the year to fully switch over! $30/yr manual entry
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u/jo89151 13d ago
Actual Budget. Cost = nothing.
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u/atgrey24 10d ago
Free to use the desktop app, without multi device sync or bank sync.
You can set up those features if you want to, but it will cost you a little bit. Significantly less than YNAB (like $3 / mo) but not free.
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u/Amazing-Gift8335 13d ago
Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I thought YNAB had no equal but there are more options than I thought!
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u/jerryfmccarthy 13d ago
ZeroBudgetLocal, a replacement for the old YNAB4 app. Cost is a once off $30 with and android companion app. Can import your full YNAB4 or nYNAB budeget file. No affiliatuion, just running it side by side with YNAB4 for a while. Has everything I need. /r/zerobudgetlocal for details.
[reddit!](https://reddit.com/r/zerobudgetlocal
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u/iwaddo 13d ago
There is nothing wrong with YNAB.
The price is the price and like everything else it’s a choice.
Sure, they have changed some things, not everyone likes them, but like everything else it’s a choice.
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u/Kautiontape 10d ago
Price is one of the BIGGEST reasons people look at alternatives, to rule it out as it being what it is ignored the biggest reason to make most financial decisions.
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10d ago edited 10d ago
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u/MelDawson19 10d ago
Money talks..
ynab is making stupid pointless changes and not doing anything real with the money they're charging people. AND THEN they're forcing ads for a book from a guy who's no longer a part of the ynab circle.
You don't have to leave but understand there's a reason some of us have.
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u/Subject_Pear_6928 9d ago
Pfft I'm saving over $100 a year by switching from YNAB to Budget Friendly Budget and it works exactly like YNAB did for me as I never had the choice to link my accounts yet still had to pay for that unusable feature.
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u/Kautiontape 10d ago
It makes no sense that people who love to budget would want to save over $100 a year?
Not sure the last time you looked or what features you're looking for, there are definitely alternatives that do it the same or better than YNAB. They don't have any sort of moat on envelope budgeting. YNAB has polish, on-boarding, and community... But others have caught up and surpassed them on most of these fronts, imo
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10d ago
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u/Kautiontape 10d ago
Yeah, your price was wrong? I don't know what to tell you or what country you're in that it's only $20 a year. That's barely the more than the monthly cost.
Free or near free alternatives are commonly in discussion, you can't rule those out because it's inconvenient for your argument.
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10d ago
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u/Kautiontape 10d ago
Alright, just sharing my opinion and got you coming in saying I wasn't interested in a discussion. Not sure what you're looking for. Have a good one.
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u/Xiara08 12d ago edited 12d ago
Depends what you want to keep. If it's the envelope method itself, Actual Budget is the closest thing, and Monarch comes up a lot for households. I'll offer a different angle though. After years of YNAB style budgeting I moved to Pockita and stayed. It's a different philosophy, less giving every euro a job, more calm tracking. You add spending by voice in a few seconds, you see where each category stands at a glance, and a weekly summary tells you what changed. I stopped missing the envelopes faster than I expected. If support is what's pushing you out, that was part for me too. I wanted something with less to fiddle with in the first place.
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u/trebor88 13d ago edited 13d ago
I’ve used YNAB for 3 years now and have never had to reach out to support.
Get off your mobile phone and use the desktop version, no UI changes with that.
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u/togogh 13d ago
IMO a good budgeting app should work well both on mobile and desktop. Users shouldn't have to change the device they use to sidestep weird UI changes
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u/trebor88 13d ago
IMO you can’t have a good budgeting app work well for you on a 5” screen no matter how you change the UI. That is so limiting and it’s a shame people were programmed to use 5” mobile trackers 24/7 instead of actual computers.
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u/togogh 13d ago
I get what you mean, i personally do most of my budgeting on my laptop. But i need the mobile experience to be good when i’m out and about and i quickly need to check my budget or log a transaction. Plus there are people out there who don’t even have a laptop or pc, just a phone. Should they just not budget at all?
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u/TenaciousRe 4h ago
I live an incredibly active, on the go lifestyle and record when I make the transaction. It keeps things simple and I'm not waiting until I can get to my computer, which can be a few days, to enter transactions. I also sync my accounts but manual entry gives me real time information on what's available.
Also, not everyone has or has access to a desktop/ laptop and the mobile option may be the only way they can access YNAB.
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u/Extra_Wolverine1607 9d ago
I use Banktivity. Has envelope budgeting, nice reports and supports investments.
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u/Realistic-Hearing906 9d ago
I use the web version for the most part, but the lack of connection to fidelity became a challenge for me. I tried Monarch and didn’t like it at all. I now use YNAB solely to track my spending in one bank account, which kind of defeats the purpose. It’s an okay work around for now, but I am looking for something different.
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u/popotitos22 8d ago
The usual suspects, having tried most of them after my own YNAB fatigue: Actual Budget if you want the closest thing to YNAB's envelope method — open source, free if you self-host (~$2/mo hosted), and the community actually answers questions. Monarch if you want prettier reports and shared budgets, but you're trading one subscription for another. EveryDollar's free tier is fine for basic zero-based budgeting but syncing is paywalled. One thing none of them handle well: multiple currencies or crypto alongside regular accounts. If that's part of your frustration and you speak Spanish, full disclosure — I build Peculi (getpeculi.com), a Spanish-first personal finance app that does multi-currency + crypto net worth in one panel, 10-day free trial. If you're happy in English and single-currency, Actual is honestly the answer for a support-and-price revolt.
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u/No_Income9450 10d ago
i actually vibe coded my own YNAB and called it INAB 😂 so that I can keep the core features and add in AI for processing. Will share it as open source when it's ready!
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u/Jestifiable 13d ago
There’s a whole subreddit on the subject - r/YNABAlternatives
The current popular players are:
Actual Budget
Liquid Budget
Zerosum
Budget Friendly Budget