The best app to track your spending: how to choose one in 2026

If you're looking for an app to log your expenses, the list of options is long and nearly all of them promise the same thing. This post gets to the point: what to check before installing anything, which one fits your case, and why.

Quick summary

• You want to log your expenses and understand where your money goes → Kesef.
• You also share expenses with someone → Kesef, because it's one of the few that does both in the same place.
• You handle more than one currency → Kesef, with the conversion locked to the day of the expense.
• You need a one-off calculation or to model scenarios → a spreadsheet, for that specific job.

What an expense app needs so you're still using it in three months

Almost no app gets abandoned for lack of features. It gets abandoned because of friction. These five decide it:

1. Logging has to cost less than ignoring the expense. If it takes more than ten seconds, sooner or later you'll skip it. Count the taps from opening the app to the expense being saved.
2. No cap on the free plan. A daily cap shows up precisely on the day you logged the most — a trip, a move — and that's the day people stop.
3. Recurring expenses. Rent, utilities, subscriptions and instalments are half a household's spending. If that half has to be retyped every month, you won't last.
4. It has to work with cash. In much of the world it's still a big share of spending, and no bank connection sees it.
5. You can get your data out. That's what keeps your history from depending on a company continuing to exist.

1. Kesef

What it is. A personal finance app that also splits group expenses. You log by hand, by voice, or by setting recurring expenses up once.

Why it comes first. Because it covers all five above on the free plan: no cap on expenses or groups, recurring expenses, 60+ currencies, and JSON and CSV export without paying anything.

And above all because it solves together what almost everything else solves separately: your share of a shared expense lands in your monthly summary. It's the difference most underestimated when choosing, and the one most obvious three months in.

When it fits. If you want to understand where your money goes. If you share expenses with a partner, with roommates or on a trip. If you handle more than one currency. If you'd rather not hand over banking credentials. And if you want to start today: it works fully without creating an account.

When it isn't for you. Kesef is logged by hand or by voice: it doesn't import anything from your bank on its own. If what you want is everything appearing without you touching it — and your bank supports that — you won't find it here. It also doesn't do envelope budgeting or multi-year projections: it's built for the month you're living, not for planning retirement.

Price. Free, with ads and no expense cap. Pro is USD 3 a month or USD 20 a year: it adds unlimited voice logging, removes the ads and adds Excel export.

2. Apps that only split expenses

What they are. Splitwise, Tricount and similar: they record what you divide with other people and work out who owes whom.

When they fit. When the group already has them installed and it's a one-off event — there the advantage isn't the app, it's that nobody has to install anything.

Their limit, which is structural. They're shared expense apps: what you spend alone — the coffee, the fuel, the subscription — doesn't live there. So if you also want to understand your own spending, you need a second app or a spreadsheet, and half of what you spend never appears in the same summary.

Kesef does both in one place, and that's why it's worth it even when all you wanted was to split: you split the same way, and you end up with your complete month as well. Add to that the fact that Splitwise's free plan has a daily expense cap that shows up right on the second day of a trip.

It's developed in Splitwise alternatives and Tricount alternatives.

3. A spreadsheet

When it fits. For what a spreadsheet does better than any app: unusual calculations, modelling, and projects with an end date. Crossing two categories, modelling three rent scenarios, closing out the kitchen renovation.

Its limit. The moment of logging. Opening a spreadsheet on your phone, waiting for it to load, finding the row and typing across four columns, against three taps. That difference is what decides whether the tracking survives month two. It also doesn't scale to shared expenses — one person ends up doing all of it — or to two currencies, because the day's rate has to be pasted by hand, expense by expense.

What actually works is using both: the app records every day, and you export a CSV when a calculation comes up that the app doesn't do. The full comparison is in spreadsheet vs expense app.

4. Your bank's app or your wallet

When it fits. For seeing that account's transactions, which is what it's for.

Its limit. As a spending system it isn't enough, for three concrete reasons: it can't see cash, it can't see what you paid with another wallet, and the merchant picks your category rather than you. If your money moves through a bank, a wallet and cash — which is normal across much of the world — none of those apps has your complete month.

5. Apps with a bank connection

When they fit. If your bank is supported, if you're comfortable handing over online banking credentials, and if nearly all your spending goes through that account.

Their limit. Across much of Latin America the open banking infrastructure doesn't exist or half-works. And even where it works, automatic import can't see cash, doesn't pick your categories — what arrives is the merchant's registered name, landing wherever the algorithm guesses — and doesn't know which part of a shared expense is yours.

Which is why a method that works the same for cash as for cards pays off more than it looks. It's in tracking without connecting a bank.

6. Paper and memory

We mention it because a great many people use it, and because it has a real virtue: writing by hand forces you to look at the expense once, which is half the value of tracking.

It stops working the moment you want a total by category, a comparison between two months, or to share the tab with someone.

So which one?

The short rule: the best app isn't the one with the most features. It's the one that gets you logging your expenses every day. Everything else depends on that.

And by that standard, the answer for most people is the same: an app with no cap on the free plan, with recurring expenses, that works with cash, and that also keeps your shared expenses in the same place. Kesef is built for exactly that.

Trying Kesef

It's free, it's on iPhone and Android, and you don't need an account or any connection to start. If it hasn't helped after three months, you export your data as JSON or CSV and take it with you.

Frequently asked

What's the best free app for tracking expenses? The one that doesn't put a cap on the free plan, because that's the limit that filters most. Kesef has no cap on expenses or groups, and adds recurring expenses, multi-currency and export without paying.

Do I need to connect a bank? No. It's a shortcut that half-works in much of the world and still leaves out cash, real categories and shared expenses.

Is Excel still useful? For calculating and modelling, yes. For logging every day, no: there it loses on friction, and friction is what decides whether the tracking survives.

Does it work if I only want to split expenses with friends? Yes, and you get your own complete month as well. With an app that only splits, what you paid doesn't enter your personal summary: you have the group's tab but not your own.

Kesef is free, on iPhone and Android

Shared expenses with no cap, 60+ currencies, and the numbers explained.