Budget apps that don't connect to your bank, and what you give up

A budgeting app that doesn't connect to your bank is not the second-best kind. Typing an expense is the moment you notice it, and noticing is most of what a budget is for. A bank feed tells you what you spent last Tuesday. A typed entry tells you now, while you can still change Wednesday. The trade is real, and this guide says it plainly: no transactions arriving by themselves, balances that drift until you correct them, and a habit you have to keep. If that trade suits you, here is how to pick an app, what each one costs today, and how to make the habit last. For what a bank link actually shares, read Is Plaid safe?; for how Tavala works with no bank at all, see budgeting without bank linking.

Why people say no to the bank link

There are four reasons, and they are all reasonable.

Your bank password

When a budget app links your bank, it often does so through an aggregator such as Plaid. At banks that support OAuth, you sign in on the bank's own screen and the aggregator never sees your password. At banks that do not, you type your username and password into the aggregator's window and it signs in for you (Plaid, how it works; Plaid docs, OAuth guide). Some people will not do that for any app, and that is a sound rule.

The link breaks

A bank connection is not set once and forgotten. Plaid's own documentation says consent at many US banks that use OAuth has to be renewed every 12 months, and that consent in Europe typically expires after 180 days (Plaid docs, OAuth guide). Connections that use a password break when you change it. Each break means a gap: days of spending that never arrived, in a budget that looks complete. A feed that fails quietly is worse than no feed, because you trust it.

Your bank is not covered

Aggregators are regional. Plaid describes localized support across 20 countries (Plaid, global). Goodbudget's bank sync is for the United States only (Goodbudget help). Actual Budget's optional bank sync relies on providers that each cover one region: New Zealand, Europe, North America, Brazil (Actual docs). Tavala's bank connections are for banks in the United States and Canada. If you hold accounts in two or three countries, check each bank against the app's map before you pay for a feed. Any account outside it gets typed by hand anyway.

What happens to the data

A bank link gives a third party ongoing read access to every transaction. Plaid's privacy policy lists its uses, which include developing new services, training AI systems, and making de-identified data for research (Plaid End User Privacy Policy). In 2021 Plaid agreed to pay $58 million to settle a class action alleging it collected bank data without proper consent. It denied wrongdoing (CyberScoop). Then the app has its own policy on top. Typing your own entries means no aggregator holds your bank history. The app holds only what you typed.

What you give up without a bank feed

Say it before choosing, so the choice holds.

• Nothing arrives by itself. Every entry is one you typed. The card payment you forgot is missing until you add it.
• Balances drift. A bank fee, a refund, interest, a coffee paid in cash and not logged. Each one moves the real balance and not yours. Left alone, the gap grows, and a budget built on a wrong balance gives wrong answers.
• No history on day one. A feed can import past months on the first day. Without one, you start from today, unless you type the past in or import a file.
• It takes a habit. A few seconds after each payment and a few minutes a week. Miss a week and you have a catch-up job.

And what you get back:

• You notice. The entry happens at the till or right after, when the amount still means something.
• The category is right the first time. You know the €38 at the supermarket was half wine for a dinner party. A feed does not.
• Nothing to break, nothing to renew, nothing to re-authorize.
• No third party holds your bank history. The app sees only what you chose to type.
• It works for every bank in every country, including cash, which no feed sees.

What drift looks like

Say it is Sunday. Your budget says the checking account holds €1,240.00. The bank app says €1,204.00. The gap is €36.00. Scrolling the bank's list, you find a €2.50 card fee you never logged and a €33.50 dinner you meant to add on Thursday: €2.50 plus €33.50 is the €36.00. You add the dinner as spending, because it was spending. The fee is spending too. Now both numbers agree, and the dinner shows up in your eating-out category where it belongs.

Do that weekly and the gap is two lines you can still remember. Skip it for two months and the gap is a number with no story, and the only honest fix is a correction you cannot explain.

The options

Six apps and a spreadsheet, each with its trade-offs. Facts and prices come from each vendor's own pages, checked on 24 October 2026 as a US visitor sees them. Prices in your country's App Store or Google Play may differ. Tavala publishes this guide and is one of the options; the others are described by what their own pages say.

A spreadsheet

The original no-bank budget. You own the file, it works offline in a desktop spreadsheet program, it syncs through whatever cloud drive you already use, and it holds any currency you set up. Sharing is sharing the file. Export is the file.

The cost is that you build and maintain everything: categories, formulas, monthly tabs, the currency conversion. Adding an expense on a phone in a queue is clumsy, and clumsy entry is how manual tracking dies.

Choose a spreadsheet if you enjoy building the system, enter expenses at a desk, or want a format nobody can discontinue.

Goodbudget

Envelope budgeting, manual-first. The free plan has 10 regular envelopes plus 10 more, 1 account, 2 devices and 1 year of history. Premium costs $10 a month or $80 a year and adds unlimited envelopes and accounts, 5 devices, 7 years of history and optional bank sync for US banks (Goodbudget sign-up page). A household shares one login. It runs on the web, Android and iPhone.

Two limits to know: Goodbudget's own comparison says it does not do multiple currencies (Goodbudget blog), and offline use is not documented; its help says the app is available wherever you have internet access (Goodbudget help). It imports QFX, OFX and CSV files on the web (Goodbudget help, import) and exports transactions as CSV (Goodbudget blog, export).

Choose Goodbudget if you want envelopes, one currency, and a couple sharing a budget on two phones for free.

Actual Budget

Free, open-source (MIT) and local-first. The desktop app runs on Mac, Windows and Linux and works offline out of the box, with your data on your device; Actual says it has no trackers (Actual docs, install; Actual privacy policy). It imports CSV, QIF, OFX, QFX and CAMT files (Actual docs, importing), the widest file import of any app here.

Syncing between devices needs a server. You can host one yourself (Docker and other routes) or rent one: PikaPods lists Actual from $2.0 a month at minimum resources, plus VAT for EU customers (PikaPods apps). Actual ran its own hosted service until 2024 and shut it down (Actual FAQ). The official mobile apps are deprecated; on a phone you install the web app to your home screen. And Actual is "currency agnostic", which means it does not support multi-currency (Actual docs, multi-currency).

Choose Actual if you want envelope budgeting in open source, mostly at a computer, and you are comfortable running or renting a small server.

Cashew

A free app for iPhone, iPad, Android and the web, open source under GPL-3.0. Data is stored on your device, and sync goes through your own Google Drive. It handles several currencies, one per account, with a converted total and rates updated daily unless you set your own. Instead of a bank feed it offers notification and SMS scanning and Google Sheet import. Pro costs $1.49 a month, $11.99 a year or $19.99 once, on the US App Store (App Store listing; Cashew FAQ).

Choose Cashew if you want a free phone-first tracker with several currencies and are happy for sync to run through your Google account.

Money Manager by Realbyte

A manual tracker for iPhone, iPad and Android, with no bank sync. It takes entries in several currencies and can total an account in the currency you choose. It costs $2.49 a month or $19.99 a year on the US App Store; the lite version is limited to 10 accounts (App Store listing). How it syncs between devices, and whether it needs an account, is not stated on the pages we checked.

Choose Money Manager if you want a long-running, ledger-style phone app and do not need a web or desktop version.

EveryDollar's free tier

Ramsey's EveryDollar has a free version with no time limit, unlimited categories and manual entry. Bank sync is in Premium, at $17.99 a month or $79.99 a year, with a 14-day trial (Ramsey, EveryDollar). The free tier includes shared household budgets; CSV export is Premium. It runs on iPhone, iPad and the web. Currency support is not stated on the pages we checked.

Choose EveryDollar free if you follow Ramsey's method, budget in one currency, and want a shared household plan at no cost.

Tavala

You can start without an account: everything works on the device, offline, and your records never leave it (use Tavala without an account). It holds 155 currencies and 96 cryptocurrencies. The free plan holds 2 currencies per space and, with a free account, syncs one device at a time; Tavala Plus holds every currency and syncs every device, at $39.99 a year or $6.99 a month on tavala.io (pricing). There is no trial: the free plan is the trial. Every plan has a full JSON export. What it does not have: no CSV import of bank statements (only of debts) and no import from YNAB or other apps, so your history starts when you start typing. Bank connections exist as an optional add-on for banks in the United States and Canada, and you never need one.

The table

"Needs a bank" is no for every app here, which is the point. The rows that differ are below.

"Not stated" means the vendor's pages we checked do not say, not that the feature is missing. For a wider look at free plans, including apps that do link banks, see the free budgeting apps compared.

How to choose: six questions

Answer these in order. Most people are down to one or two apps by the fourth.

1. Do you need sync between devices, and will you run a server for it? A phone and a laptop that agree is the most common need. Actual needs a server you host or rent. Cashew uses your Google Drive. A spreadsheet uses your cloud drive. Goodbudget, EveryDollar and Tavala sync through their own service, each with device limits on the free plan.
2. How many currencies? If you earn in one and spend in another, or keep savings abroad, rule out the one-currency apps now: Goodbudget and Actual. Check whether the app stores the rate you actually paid or converts at today's rate, because that changes what last month cost.
3. Do you share the budget? Goodbudget shares one Household login. EveryDollar's free tier includes shared household budgets. Actual needs an OpenID provider for several users, or one shared budget file (Actual docs, multi-user). In Tavala, anyone can join a shared space for free, but sharing a space you own needs Plus (up to 6 people) or a Group pass.
4. Can you get your data out? Look for a full export, not just a report. Goodbudget exports transactions as CSV. Actual exports from its settings (Actual docs, backup). EveryDollar's CSV export is Premium. Tavala's JSON export of everything is on every plan. A spreadsheet is already the export.
5. Does it work with the network off? Actual's desktop app, a desktop spreadsheet and Tavala work offline. Goodbudget's help describes it as online. For the others, test it: put the phone in airplane mode, add an entry, reopen the app.
6. What does free cover, and what does paid cost per year? Compare the yearly price, not the monthly one, and read what the free plan stops at: envelopes and history for Goodbudget, accounts for Money Manager's lite version, devices and currencies for Tavala.

One more, if you are moving from another app: what comes with you? Actual imports the most file types. Goodbudget takes QFX, OFX and CSV on the web. Tavala imports neither bank statements nor other apps' data yet, so you start fresh.

A middle path: link one account, type the rest

Refusing the bank link does not have to be all or nothing. Some people link the one account where most card spending happens and type everything else: cash, the account abroad, the partner's card. The feed carries the volume, and typing covers what the feed cannot see.

The middle path costs money in most apps. Goodbudget puts bank sync in Premium, for US banks only (Goodbudget sign-up page). Actual's sync for North American banks goes through SimpleFIN Bridge, which Actual's docs price at $1.50 a month or $15 a year, on top of a server (Actual docs, SimpleFIN). Tavala's bank connection is an add-on to Plus at $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year per bank on tavala.io, for banks in the United States and Canada. Whichever you pick, the linked account brings back the reasons people refuse: the consent renewals, the breaks, the aggregator's policy.

How to make manual tracking stick

Manual tracking fails in week two, not on day one. The method matters less than three habits. For the full walkthrough, read how to track expenses by hand.

Log at the moment you pay. Before the card goes back in the wallet. One line: amount, a word, done. The app that makes this fastest wins, whatever else it does.

Check balances once a week. Open your bank app, compare each account with your budget, and fix the difference the same day. A gap found after a week is one or two missing entries you can still remember. A gap found after a month is a mystery.

Catch up in one entry, not seven. If you missed three days, do not reconstruct them. Log one honest estimate for the stretch, mark it as an estimate, and move on. A budget that is roughly right today beats one that is exactly right up to last Friday.

In Tavala, two screens do the last two jobs. On a wallet, Update balance asks the question directly: "Tavala has €240.00 in Cash. What does reality say?" You type the real figure, it shows "Off by −€5.00.", and Correct the balance adds one dated correction that moves the balance without counting as spending. When the gap is spending you forgot, It's spending I didn't log opens the entry form with the difference already filled in, so it lands in your budgets and reports like any other expense (update a balance). And when you have not logged anything for more than 3 days, the capture bar's placeholder changes to Roughly what did the last days cost? try "~150". Typing about 150 last 3 days saves one entry, marked estimated and dated today, with "last 3 days" kept in the note (estimates and catching up).