The best YNAB alternative

There was one week left from my You Need a Budget trial, I was very happy with the tool and convinced of paying that “$6.99/month” when I realized that there was a tiny asterisk pointing to this phrase “Billed annually at $83.99”.

Javier Montes

Jan 19, 2019 — 3 min read

There was one week left from my You Need a Budget trial, I was very happy with the tool and convinced of paying that “$6.99/month” when I realized that there was a tiny asterisk pointing to this phrase “Billed annually at $83.99”, I wasn’t expecting this 🤬 old school marketing from them. I felt duped and instantly started the search of an alternative with a better price and similar functionality.

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1. YNAB vs Google Spreadsheets

There are tons of free Spreadsheets trying to mimic You Need a Budget

I discarded all of them because I simply don’t like their usability/look, they don’t feel right.

These are two of the best:

https://aspirebudget.com/ https://sites.google.com/view/zer0

2. GemBudget (3$/month - 30$ year)

I didn’t like their webpage, the app seems very poor and if you look at their screenshots it doesn’t look very similar to YNAB.

https://gembudget.com/

3. EveryDollar (free - $99/year)

This is one of the best YNAB alternatives and has a free version where you can’t have accounts, I need accounts so I would need the “plus” version, but the “plus” version costs $8.25/month billed yearly at $99 so is the same thing as YNAB… NO THX!

https://www.everydollar.com/

4. intuit mint (free)

I didn’t like it at all, too many tabs, too many things that overwhelmed me.

https://www.mint.com/

5. CountAbout ($9.99/year - $39.99/year)

Similar functionality than YNAB and good price, but in my honest opinion the usability is horrible, for example you must click each category to see its contents and it looks like an old Windows app from 10 or 15 years ago.

https://countabout.com/

6. And some more

7. The best YNAB alternative! financier.io (free - 12$/year)

This is my opinion of course, but if what you are searching for is something similar to YNAB but with a better price, and you don’t need the mobile app or automatic accounts, this is the best!

And if this wasn’t enough, there is a free version! the paid version has syncing (the free one lives in your browser).