YNAB App Reviews

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Excellent budgeting method, poor reports. YNAB’s budgeting method is the envelope method with a unique “ready to assign” addition that makes it one of the best budgeting apps. It’s a learning curve, but helps users to understand what every penny is doing for them. The app itself is clean, has a light/dark mode option, and a few other options like icon and budget bar display choices. Even though the app looks somewhat basic, clicking longer over a budget unlocks all the detailed features like category activity and targets. You can also add accounts a sync them to your bank. This app is slower at syncing than other budget apps, but I’ve not found that to be an issue since you should be adding transactions manually to keep your accounts as up to date as possible. The reports in this app are very basic. You can only see net worth and filter that number by accounts. The only other option is age of money. The more useful reports are charts for budget history and net income. Those are not a part of this app and I think a big miss on YNAB’s part.

This app has changed my entire financial way of life. This is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. I have always lived paycheck to paycheck. It’s been very difficult for me to save, and when expenses would pop up, like car repairs, I would have high anxiety. I had tried making a budget for myself before, using various spreadsheets designed for budgeting, but most had me try to figure out what I would bring in in a year and what I would spend in that year. It was something I could never figure out very well or stick to. YNAB starts by only having you budget the money you have right now. Every dollar gets a job. It makes it so much more manageable. In just a short period of six months, I’ve gone from having debt, to a point where that debt is gone and I just reached 30 days of the age of my money, which gives me so much more choice and MUCH less anxiety. The other great thing that sets this app apart is the help you receive. There are tons of online training sessions daily, and any time I hit a snag where I wasn’t sure how to handle something, I could get a hold of someone almost immediately who would walk me through the issue I was having. I would highly recommend this app to anyone who wants to get control of their personal finances and live a bit more at ease day to day.

Exceeded the hype. I didn’t want to like YNAB. I’ve been proudly budgeting for years (even got myself out of credit card debt..... before going right back in), using Excel and envelopes. But I was ready to try something new, and poured myself into YNAB. It’s worth it to read all the articles, enroll in the webinars, watch the videos, etc. I stumbled a bit at the start, even tried out some of the other budgeting apps in frustration but none of them had the bells and whistles or the ease of use that YNAB has. After creating my 3rd YNAB budget all I can say is, IT WORKS. I didn’t think I needed to learn anything else about budgeting, but this really reframed how I think about my money. The tools are so easy to use, once you get the gist (give yourself at least 3 months, especially if you’re used to another budgeting system - - and use their exceptional tech support when you get confused or stuck), that my budget is now something I’m both proud of and look forward to doing. The online and phone apps work seamlessly, so it’s easy to keep up with everything and see what’s coming up. YNAB helped build my confidence while teaching me new skills. Thanks, Jesse and friends! ❤️❤️❤️

Changing my life. So YNAB is slowly changing my life after using it for one month. I retired last year and having a budget has been something I’ve been meaning to do for the last 30 years. I learned some painful credit card lessons early on, and haven’t been paycheck to paycheck living for many years. But I had no idea where my money was going, nor did I really have it following my life goals. In the past, my way of budgeting was to keep trying to get promoted, and/or be scared and stop spending. I can think of a few weddings/life experiences I missed because I had no budget. And I think I’ve been much less generous than I could have been because I was so scared I wouldn’t have enough. I had no idea if/how much I could spend responsibly, what I could give, what I could plan, etc. After just one month of using YNAB, I have so much less anxiety and am excited to budget and assign the jobs to every dollar! You can do most everything in the app that you can online - though I prefer to see it all on the laptop screen. But it’s great to have the app for when you’re out and about. I’m now obsessed and look at it all the time! So stop living in the dark and get YNAB!

Life Changing. I started my budgeting journey about 4 years ago using a free app. I was budgeting to zero every month but I continue to blow my budget and live on the credit card float. I could never figure out what I was doing wrong. I was paying extra money to pay off debt and everything looked right on paper but I kept having to borrow from savings and I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong. In a desperate search to figure out why my budget wasn’t working, I started watching video reviews of budgeting apps. I found YNAB and I will never look back. I learned I was budgeting money before I earned it and then having to float expenses until payday and I wasn’t embracing my true Expenses. Hence my continuing to blow my budget month after month. Now I’m working on saving enough to be a full month ahead in my pay and I have accounted for all my true expenses. Absolutely life changing. Two months in and I haven’t blown my budget at all. I realized I was paying way too much a month extra on my debt. Now that I know what my true expenses are I know how much extra I can actually afford to put towards debt. I haven’t slept better in years. It’s such a relief. Best app ever!! Update: A couple years in and I am now living on last months income and I have enough money to be several months ahead. I have paid off all most all my debt, apart from my mortgage and I couldn’t be more happy this app. YNAB for the win!!

Helps my marriage thrive. My husband and I have been using YNAB since the start of our marriage and it has been such a useful tool for communicating spending expectations, saving, planning, etc. Two major feats with this budgeting app are that we paid off our car way faster than we expected and we saved so much before our first child was born. One of my favorite features we use it for is that each of us has our own “fun money” budget line that we put a specific amount of money in each month and we can each use it for whatever we want. This prevents me from going overboard with spending and helps my husband feel like he has some freedom to spend a little bit here and there. The functionality of it is great. I love that it connects to bank accounts and credit cards so we can easily categorize every transaction without having to go back and forth between the bank app. I HIGHLY recommend YNAB to anyone that is looking for a way to get organized with money. It’s super easy. Just a couple minutes a week. I do recommend giving it a little bit of time if you don’t get the hang of it right away, especially if you don’t already have a budgeting system. It can take a little time to get acquainted, but I promise it’s so worth it!

Careful before you buy- good for single account low transactions. This app seemingly is good for someone with one or two accounts and a level of transactions that they are comfortable going through all the time and comparing with YNAB Vs your account ledger. IMO, this app is an electronic way to balance a check book, nothing more. I made the mistake of adding all of my cash accounts and credit card accounts since I liked the function of credit card spend automatically going to your budget. However, the transferring around of money from one account to the other when paying is a nightmare in how it affects your “budget” on the application. Additionally, the auto function of reconciling accounts never works and my accounts were inaccurate most of the time. Another big problem with multiple accounts and banks is there is always connection issues that are blamed on the bank yet I ran mint along side and never had issues with Mint on same accounts. 30 day trial is NOT long enough for you to realize all the issues you will have with this application. Apple will NOT refund your $90 and YNAB will point you back to Apple. Be very careful on this tool, Mint is far better in every aspect and doesn’t cost you a dime.

Not sure what happened…. This app was a lifesaver for me getting my budget on track. At first I was intimidated with the expense categories and wondering how in the world I was going to manage it. I shifted my mindset to treating each expense as a virtual envelope of cash and for some reason, that just made everything click. Why the 3-star review? I’ve been using YNAB daily for the last 18 months and for me, an important feature of YNAB was the ability to sync with all of my accounts (checking, savings, credit cards, etc.). I bank with USAA and for whatever reason, the last couple of months has been a noticeable delay of 3 or 4 days before transactions sync to YNAB. This delay makes it impossibly difficult to keep tabs on my budget in a timely manner. I’ve done every troubleshooting recommended, multiple times, from unlinking and flat out deleted the accounts and adding them back in. Note: this sync delay is not periodic, it’s CONSISTENTLY delayed. Bottom line: if the solution is to manually add transactions or deal with the delay, then this will be my last annual renewal with YNAB. It really was the perfect budgeting tool for me, but with no effective syncing capability, YNAB is only worth a quarter of the 100 bucks annually to subscribe.

First Impressions. I just downloaded the app and can already see the cash management benefits. It took me 20-30 minutes to build my budget (might take less time for others depending on the level of detail), which in itself was an eye opening process as I became uncomfortably aware of how much I should be spending vs. my actual spending. So far, my biggest issue is the bank account linking. In order to be able to properly use the app, to-the-minute accuracy of the money available in your back account is crucial. My balance has been off since I linked my bank and does not reflect a recent paycheck. YNAB does have a list of banks on a “watchlist” for syncing issues but there are plenty of other apps out there -including free ones & those also using the Plaid system- that link without issue. As a result, I’ll probably have to use the manual/unlink option to record available cash. Depending on how cumbersome it is, will determine if I keep using the app after the free trial. Until YNAB resolves the linking issue, it would be better if they didn’t advertise bank-linking. As it stands, they’re setting an expectation that they can’t meet.

Day 1 and frustrated. I really liked the idea of this app. I signed up for a trial subscription. So far I’ve found this pretty frustrating. It’s very glitchy. You add your accounts by signing into them, but then you need to go an additional step and add them...annoying. I have accounts at Capital One. I spent the better part of an hour trying to link the accounts on and off, getting an error message with a message telling me it’s a temporary problem try again later, then I finally found some info within the app that there is a known issue with connecting/linking to Capital One, and it’s been an issue for many months possibly a year. So, that’s just bad business not to let me know that; turns out I’ll need to export a quicken form from my Capitol One accounts to add it to YNAB app; I’m not know for my record keeping which is why I Need A Budgeting APP that works seamlessly. I’m not impressed, I’m a fool with my money, but at least I’ll deeply consider spending $84 for a year or $12 a month for this glitchy app. I’ve been using Truebill which woke me up but doesn’t have the tools for budgeting I need like this app, so I’m disappointed. I had no problem at all connecting my account to Truebill including my Capital One account. Oh, I want to mention: I sent an email to CS about Capital One and adding my accounts and the reply is that they will get back to me in 24 hours. Yeah, this isn’t looking good.

the best learning app, but has a massive learning curve. Alright everyone, this is truly the best money app out there if you have no idea what you’re doing. We started in 2018 and kept stopping because of a mix of ADHD and not having taken time to understand the app and methods. We finally buckled down when covid hit, and thanks to Ben’s “creating your budget in YNAB” and “using credit cards with YNAB” videos we were finally able to see and use the app’s full potential. With the help of the community (first the now defunct forum, then the discord group), as well as the app, we went and pushed ourselves to find ways to make more money, got better at our jobs and got some promotions, paid off debt, broke the paycheck to paycheck cycle, and now finally have control of out money. The caveat? The app has an extremely deep learning curve, but luckily there is plenty of resources for learning out there, and the YNAB team is getting better at making their own, so I definitely advise you to go for it, your finances will thank you.

Awesome Platform, had to delete iPad version :-(. Been using YNAB for a couple years now and before that, budgeting was done on the fly by seeing how much money I had to spend. Very scary at times unfortunately. Since using YNAB, my life has been transformed entirely with a piece of mind that I cannot fully explain. And, the addition of the new webapp based phone app has simply made the platform even better. However, when I added the app to my brand new iPad, my budget crashed unexpectedly on both my tablet and my phone. After freaking out to customer service, the only solution I could come up with so that I could still use the app on my mobile devices was to delete the iPad app and use the webapp on the iPad instead. Then, everything went back to normal and YNAB now functions normally. Plus, there is the added benefit of using the webapp on the tablet, which adds more functionality. So, maybe it worked out for the better. Suggestion: delete the iPad app or don’t install it, the webapp actually works on the tablet quite well.

I love this app. Budgeted on and off with various methods over the past 30 years. Whenever life got crazy I left it by the wayside and just flew by the seat of my pants. I operate off of approx 8 accounts and I guess it’s a little complicated for most people but works for me. It took a huge learning curve to get used to YNAB. I left it twice over the course of three months and tried other apps but kept coming back mostly because of its customizability. I originally started because I wanted to ease of automatic downloading of bank accounts. Unfortunately of the three banks I deal with NONE of them work (CapOne, PNC and a local bank) however I put almost every thing on my AmEx card which does automatically download. Also by this point I don’t care because I love this app and would use it even if I had to manually download every transaction. Best features for me are the ease with which it handles split transactions, credit card transactions/payment, and the ease of switching money between categories. And the customization of course. It is pricey as far as these apps go but imho so worth it. I highly recommend Nick True’s videos to help you get through the process in addition to Ynab’s videos.

Life changer. Adding myself to the list of folks who say this. I’m good with finances, but only looked backward at what I was spending, then made reasonable, gut-based decisions about what we could afford. We had a byzantine suite of accounts with which I wrestled monthly, transfer if from one account to another, writing everything out in tiny writing in a notebook then doing quarterly reports for myself. That’s to say, I put in a lot of work. But we didn’t get to the point of having extra money on hand, ever, and carried a fluctuating debt balance, always. I’m doing YNAB in a dedicated fashion, now, and I spend an hour or two a week keeping it up, revising my categories, and reviewing our expenses. I am failing at reconciling, but it’s a learning curve, and parenting two little people gobbles some goals. We’ve been able to save up for a new fence, a new dish washer, and are saving to replacing our water heater. The dish washer and water heater were simple bad timing, not discretionary decisions. The fence we saved up for! We’re able to do all this without paying any financing. It’d be killing us, a year ago, to have that all happen in 3 months time. And I’m really happy to have simplified how we manage our money. What a relief. Thank you, YNAB!!!!

New link server 👎🏻. I love YNAB. It has helped completely reconstruct our finances and has been amazing for us.. but the other day they were forced (I believe) to start using a new account link server because do an acquisition and the new server is awful. It seems to work ok when it works but when it doesn’t work, the server takes an astronomical amount of time to relink accounts. For some reason I have to constantly relink my discover accounts, I always have, but now that process which used to take seconds takes minutes every time. I’m not sure if Discover or ynab is to blame but the new server is significantly drawing out the process. Other accounts which have been historically not able to connect at all but maybe once a week (commerce bank) is showing as connected with the new server but is not actually syncing. So that’s confusing because at least with the older server it would tell me when it wasn’t synced and was so when it was I could rely on the information but now it’s not even telling me so I can’t rely on it at all ever, I just have to manually balance. It’s unfortunate that this has happened because ynab was awesome, and still is but I am very hopeful they can work out the issues with the new server which seem to be pestering others besides myself according to reviews.

Thank you for the update!. An update for your app is one of the few app updates that I am excited to see! I’ve already noticed a couple of the fixes and they are SO helpful! Your app is just plain packed with good stuff! You’ve just thought of everything! Thank you so much! I love using the desktop (cloud) version too. Sometimes my phone screen is just not big enough. Kind of like being cramped in the car on a long car ride and it feels good to stretch your legs...and see my budget on a bigger screen. I like to visualize my budget and using YNAB is the best way to do it. I’ve tried so many other ways to budget the last 25 years...and none has been successful until I started using YNAB. I love the new cloud version. I got frustrated with YNAB 4 for several reasons and gave it a break (and used the free version of Every Dollar, which was nice to look at, simple and easy to use, and smooth in many ways but lacked a lot). When I tried YNAB again after about 9 months, almost everything I was frustrated with was fixed, and now about a year later, everything is fixed. I’m VERY impressed with your developers! Thank you for your hard work!! Make sure they see this!

Excellent cash flow management tool. Most budget programs are set it and forget it. Which is the problem: once you set it, you forget it and you drift away from your spending plan. The beauty of YNAB is that it is flexible and dynamic, and allows you to adjust your spending plan as you need to. I found the program itself is well designed, reliable, and easy to use. The only issues I’ve had were with banks making it hard to set up connectivity. But YNAB did a good job of communicating how they were working to resolve the issues. In the beginning it does take a few hours to set up categories and get banks connected, mainly because it is so customizable, but once it is set up it is virtually effortless to maintain. Do watch the tutorials first on how to set it up. But then I spend 1 to 3 minutes each morning reviewing the previous days expenditures, and maybe 10 minutes a month reconciling my accounts. It shows monthly and quarterly reports so I can see trends over time. The only tricky bit is understanding how YNAB budgets your credit card purchases. That is not intuitive the way the rest of the program is. But they produce tutorials that explain it well. The web platform is easiest to use for setting up your categories, and for reconciliation. But the phone app is essential for quickly checking your remaining budgets on the go, especially as you get close to your next payday. I highly recommend it for those who want to be in charge of their spending habits.

Love YNAB....one request. Update 6/3/20: please for the love of budgets can you create a way to upload files from Dropbox or files within the App? My local bank is not supported for direct link and this is becoming so cumbersome on iPad. I don’t want to have to go to a computer every single time but the process is becoming bogged down to the point of annoyance. I really love YNAB! It has helped us tremendously with our budget and is easy to use. For me, the app is a bit smoother and simpler to use than the website. Here is my conundrum: We use a small town bank that does not have direct download, so we have to manually download our transactions. I don’t want to fire up the laptop just to do this, as it doesn’t really take that long. So it goes, sign into bank website, download transactions, sign into YNAB website, which using an iPad means go to YNAB site, choose Request Desktop Site, then login, then import. Understandably, being it is a small bank, there may be no direct link in the near or distant future. I have no desire to move to another larger bank (there aren’t any close enough) that has direct link. So, I have one request, could we have a way to upload our manual transactions from the app instead of having to go through the website every time? It would make it a tad smoother process on the user end. I still love YNAB and will continue to use it. Never hurts to ask, right?

Remember why I deleted the first time. Categorizing transactions is so tedious especially when you cannot link your bank account. I was able to connect my credit card accounts which is great but once the payments showed up in my transactions I was forced to assign them to a category because it shows up as income to assign. The payments aren’t supposed to be counted towards income to assign, it’s already income I’ve spent on the CC payments. I’m trying to pay off debt. I also can’t reassign the transactions so I can’t delete the categories I moved them to so I would stop being promoted. I was trying to use this for flexible bi-weekly budgeting but it’s overwhelming. If you create a category but don’t create a goal for it any money in that category is labeled as over spending and the bright yellow alert at the top of your screen is annoying. You’ll also get enrolled in the daily emails even if you deselect to receive emails when you sign up. It’s easier to just have a couple separate banks accounts and give each account a purpose instead of using this. Also not clear how to cancel free trial or where to edit payment info. This does not show up in my apple subscriptions nor do I have an email confirming my subscription. I do not want to pay for this app

So happy. I am so so thankful for YNAB!! I’ve never been able to keep a budget but have desperately needed it.. I wanted something automated and did try Mint and Every Dollar a long time ago yet didn’t want to pay to have my accounts linked so maybe that was on me.. but what I love about YNAB beyond being able to link your accounts is the ability to save for different goals/targets. I haven’t been able to save for things because I’d either have to withdraw cash and physically put it into different envelopes or have a million separate bank accounts.. YNAB sets you up so you can separate out your goals while still maintaining one or two or however many accounts. This is really a god-send. I’m finally saving money, paying off debt, and excited about budgeting!! The ONE thing I do wish they’d work on is the ability to link my Apple Card. I try to manually put in transactions as I go anyway, but I like the assurance of having an actual linked account if I were to forget anything. The credit card part also was driving me crazy in the beginning to figure out.. after watching several videos and just refusing to quit until it clicked, I finally got the hang of it. I also love that you can add a family member to your subscription for free!! Some people have complained that the price keeps going up.. maybe because I just subscribed but to me $8/month is more than worth it (though I wouldn’t complain if the price went down either). :) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I had to post a review because.... I have written reviews on products or apps maybe five times in my long history of online purchasing. I am a stickler and do a lot of research before purchasing anything, and am rarely blown away by the quality of something, even if it meets my expectations. I’ve been using YNAB for several months now, and it is hands-down, the best, most intuitive, most user-friendly app of ANY kind that I’ve ever used. I’ve used other budget and personal finance apps, including the most popular ones you’ll consider if you are on the hunt for one. Trust me on this...give YNAB an honest try. The app itself is brilliant. There is a learning curve for some transactions - I had to start over a couple times. However, I am now very comfortable with YNAB. One of the reasons for that level of comfort is their mind-boggling customer service. I can’t write enough glowing adjectives to describe my happiness with their stupendously great service. Words of advice: Go through the tutorials - they really helped me understand YNAB. Ask the team questions...they’re wonderful. YNAB has changed the fundamental way I budget. Every dollar we earn has a job. Brilliant!

The iPad app is way to kiddy. The app/methodology/paradigm(s) have really revolutionized the way I approach my own finances and i cannot recommend it enough from that regard as a service & function. I have budgeted myself for well over a decade and have done alright, but always felt there was some missing piece or rather a “hole” that seemed to be getting in my way. This app/way of tagging and budgeting really helped me see in a very adult way, the ways in which I was failing to connect some financial dots and keep myself from doing as well as I should have been; it made sense after I really pressed myself to drop my bad thinking that I had developed to try and work around the natural holes in a standard budget logic. Having said all of that, I find myself using my iPad Pro to access the web client, as the app itself is so kiddy and limited that it makes it actually harder to digest the information presented and make the most sense of it. So much information but it’s all so “big” that you can’t see the big picture, almost simply because the text and forms are so LARGE. Really the app could be and needs to be as feature-rich and dense as the web app; basically take the web app and adapt it to be touch targets and color coded like the app is. It could be so much BETTER than the web interface with all the screen real estate on the iPad and the easy entry and basic structure they have in place for it already. I really look forward to the iPad app “growing up.”

The best. Seriously.. To preface—I lived and breathed Excel for budgeting. Old school, but it’s what my Dad taught me on. I tried using Mint and Buddy, but I never trusted those to be as accurate as my manual calculations since it was frequently miscategorizing budget items (and going in to change every purchase category was really annoying). The setup was nowhere near as easy as it could have been, and it left me going back to Excel every time. I lost the Office subscription I had through college after I graduated, and thank goodness I did! I would have never tried YNAB before losing Excel because I’d lost faith in budgeting apps, but YNAB has been incredible. Even for someone who has been great with budgeting in the past, YNAB’s mindset has somehow given me money I didn’t even realize I had. Tracking subscriptions, purchases, and savings account balances is a breeze and I no longer have to keep multiple Excel sheets for various accounts and spend an hour a week balancing everything. YNAB’s setup was AMAZING and allowed me to do so much more than I could with Mint or Buddy. I’m only halfway through the free trial and I’ve already got the purchase for a subscription lined up. This is seriously amazing and I’ve recommended it to all my friends!

Life changing. My husband and I have been using YNAB for almost a year now and I cannot speak highly enough about it! I have tried to budget in so many different ways and this was the only system that stuck and actually works for us. I love the integration with the app and the desktop, we are able to do most everything we need to on the app (I personally prefer setting the budget for the month on the desktop so I can see it all more clearly but this is just a personal preference). The app is easy to use and if you set up integration with your accounts, transactions automatically flow into the app within about a day or so of posting. This app has made keeping up with budgeting so easy with my busy schedule as it is something you can do every day in a few short moments. We have saved so much money with YNAB by giving each dollar a job and holding ourselves accountable. It has absolutely changed the way we think about money, budgeting, saving, and goal setting. The ease of use of this app is a huge part of that success for us. Thank you YNAB, you have truly impacted our lives in such a profound way and I will be forever grateful!!!

This App Transformed my Personal Finance but..... This app is great, and changed my life for the better. It helped me pay off 6k dollars worth of credit card debt in 7 months. I also love how it can keep track of everything. Anything from brokerages, student loans, and 401ks. I love the desktop and mobile version. It’s a fantastic app with fantastic support. Although there is a few critiques. This app could be much more powerful. It could automatically tell you your budgets when you go to a specific location, it could show you a plethora of data based on all your financial accounts. Maybe it could notice patterns that the customer is unaware of. Maybe it could have broad goals like pay off all consumer debt/student loans. Maybe tell you more exact goals like if I paid a little more to my mortgage, how much could I save. It also could automatically accommodate for fixed interest rates. I also think the app needs a lot of help, if we need 5 videos explaining the program, then it’s too difficult for someone with a limited amount of time to understand it.

I love this app!!!. Four years ago, I was about $30,000 in debt and money was evaporating out of my wallet at every turn. We spent $2000 more than my wife made one month (thankfully we had savings to cover that!) and my wife finally agreed that we need a budget! We started using YNAB and went from $2000 over budget to a month ahead on all our expenses, because we gave every dollar a job and were able to immediately age our money! With YNAB, my wife and I have much better transparency and communication about money, we’re more generous, putting 10% of our money in our donations category and actually donating it, and putting about 12% of our income away for retirement and a little bit each month for my daughter’s college! And most importantly to me, we are DEBT FREE!! I dragged my student loans around from age 18-34, and we paid them off in April. The app itself was an amazing improvement from the old app, and I LOVE budgeting on my phone in the morning while I drink my coffee. My only wish for the app is that reconciling could be a phone app feature as well.

Changed my life. I signed up for YNAB a year ago and have made it an integral part of how I receive and spend money. I initially signed up for it after bouncing a check and realizing I needed to make a change in my own “money behavior,” and since signing up (and, most importantly, learning how to use the YNAB system) only twelve months ago I have saved a significant amount of money towards an emergency fund, and paid off even more in debt. I never, ever, ever thought I’d be able to get where I am in just one year. As long as you stick to the system and make it a part of your daily life, YNAB can change your life and make you feel secure and in control of your own money. It’s completely worth the subscription fee. The mobile app is easy to use and I’ve never experienced any bugs or crashes. It alone got me where I am today. It’s one of the few apps I use every day. Very recently I learned that YNAB also has a web app for desktop which offers even more functionality, so now I use that when I have time to sit down and spend a few minutes with my budget and use the mobile app when I need to budget on the fly. I love YNAB and I want everyone to get as much out of it as I do!

The BEST financial overview!!!. I love seeing exactly how much we have and what categories we are saving for etc. I’ve been using YNAB for over a year now and have really gotten into my groove with our budget. It does take time and commitment...in the beginning. Now I spend about 5-10 minutes every morning reconciling my accounts...I actually look forward to it! I try for monthly budget chats with my husband so he can see where we’re at. I have added things and tweaked my budget over the past year, and now I don’t think there is a thing that we’re not planning for. (A solid emergency fund for the totally unexpected stuff). I definitely spend less, because I know exactly where our money is and where we want it to go. With three teens in the house and college coming up, we need to be on top of things. I’ve tried MANY budgeting apps and this is the only one that finally allowed me to give up my Excel spreadsheet. We are a debt free family (no mortgage, no car payments, etc), but we do have a Lake house rental business (reasonable mortgage on that). YNAB has kept us SO organized!!! Love!

New app is a massive improvement. I had started using YNAB but ended up losing the habit because there would be times when a purchase made on the go couldn’t fit into any existing categories I had set up on the web app, and I had no way of changing things until I had long lost track of purchases. Now, the new app lets me do literally everything I used to have to go on my computer to do, and it does so in a beautiful, easy-to-use package. With the most recent update, the app went from feeling 8 years outdated and nearly unusable to one of the best-designed apps on my phone. I used to have to apologize for it - “if you can get over the outdated app, the system works really well” - and now I can wholeheartedly recommend the YNAB system to people who ask for help with budgeting. Don’t fall for the convenience of automated budget tracking with other apps! YNAB’s manual system forces you to pay attention to the consequences of every single purchase. The learning curve is difficult at first, and it does take an hour or two to get everything set up. But the payoff is literal - managing my money tightly with YNAB lets me spend more comfortably by making sure I have what I need for expenses and savings. This is hands-down the best budgeting system available.

Great for this envelope budgeter. We love YNAB! The subscription has definitely been worth it to us (we used a well-known “free” money tracker for many years prior to this…remember “free” means you’re the product…) – we love being able to manually enter transactions, schedule recurring transactions, and know when a transaction is pending and when it’s cleared the bank. And the transition from our prior service was pretty painless – YNAB “just made sense.” And YNAB works great for budgeting as a couple! We’re able to use flags to indicate things we need to discuss, and whichever of us is available to work on the budget is able to do so without confusing the other (this is especially made possible by the fact that auto-entered transactions from the bank are clearly marked as needing attention, so we don’t have to wonder if the other person categorized it or if that’s just the automatic categorization on the imported transaction…this is in stark contrast to that other free tracker we used to use). In short, YNAB is a great tool for envelope budgeting and for managing shared finances. I’m glad to financially support this team in continuing to make a great product.

Excellent budget tool allows you to view your net worth and start managing your money better. Love this app. Started using the app ~3 months ago. I have always managed my money pretty well but have had slightly more difficulty since I got married 15 years ago. I’ve tried making a budget with my wife several times but one of the biggest obstacles has always been tracking how much we’ve spent together and how much is left for the month. This app lets you easily track how much you’ve spent. You can manually add transactions or link your bank account which will automatically cross over to your budget tool. The best option is doing both, however. Immediately entering the transaction allows you to know exactly how much money you have in each category before you spend. You can also move money between categories anytime your priorities change. Since starting using this budget tool, I was able to save several thousand dollars In the first few months and paid off the rest of my undergrad loans. Now I can visualize what I am saving every month toward emergency savings, new car fund, vacation, etc! Strongly recommend the app. Consider the 100 dollars a year an investment. You will likely save far more than what you spend on the app.

YNAB, giving me control in an out of control time. I started using YNAB this year and really liked using it right away. I had been ignoring my finances and letting stress dictate when I would sit down and look at what was going on. YNAB has given me a sense of calm and control over everything. There is clearly work to be done but I have a clear path for dealing with it now. I actually look forward to looking at it all now without a shred of anxiety or guilt. I recommend it to anyone I can! The second part of this review is really what made me want to submit a review to begin with. My husband and I have not yet lost our jobs amid the COVID-19 craziness... but our pay has been reduced greatly and we are experiencing financial uncertainty. We have not saved enough (yet!) to wether a lot of financial upset, however, when it starts to feel like too much and the anxiety is creeping in, I hop onto YNAB and look through my budget and it gives me a great sense of relief, quickly. I know the important things can be covered and money can easily be moved around. Thanks for making it.

Everything we hacked ourselves but better. My husband and I, over our 20 year relationship, did countless hours of deep tearful or frustrated conversations that turned into loving support about money and money values. This was complicated by my then-undiagnosed ADHD with dyscalculia, which made balancing budgets or perceiving what money was allocated where and when at a glance very challenging. We hacked together his spreadsheets and our envelope methods and m numerous bank checking and savings accounts with specific debit cards, and all the ups and downs with credit cards and student loans. And then he died suddenly of a chronic illness in middle age, leaving me to figure out his spreadsheets on my own. But then after doing some research and reading/viewing reviews and demos, lo and behold, YNAB app (online subscription form) was literally everything that my husband and I worked so very hard to invent ourselves, but with internal adding/subtracting, and interest calculators, and color coded graphical interfaces for at-a-glance knowledge of what is allocated where. I am so happy & relieved (understatement!) that I can carry forward all the progress about financial awareness and responsibility that we accomplished together, with the help of this app! It truly is saving my life and my future during the chaos (mental and emotional) of early widowhood. I’ve been using it daily since signing up a few months ago and it continues to exactly fit what I need!

Life changing. My husband and I tried the original YNAB app years ago but we fell off the wagon. Years later and thousands of debt later, I then decided to take charge of the budgeting because our other methods didn’t work. This new app made it possible for us to communicate better our goals and although my husband isn’t hands-on when it came to the budgeting, he knows to check at least his categories to see if there is money there. The auto-import also makes it possible for me to see anything that gets charged on our accounts. It has become a habit to check in every week and tell my husband how much money we have for expenses. It made us embrace these varying expenses. It made me a responsible credit card user which ultimately increased our credit scores. YNAB also has a great FB community where people share/troubleshoot/rejoice your YNAB wins! I thank YNAB for freeing us from debt, for giving us the peace of mind and for changing our lives. This review cannot contain the gratitude we have for the team and developers of this app.

Saved my marriage??. 7 years of chaos - finally over! From the first week my husband and I combined our bank accounts balancing to the penny has been a pipe dream. I have been an excellent budgeter since childhood. My hubs, on the other hand, literally said he just wants to be told what to do, but then he wouldn’t do it, he had never heard of “nickel and dime’ing yourself to death”, he couldn’t visualize planning for future expenses - basically if $$$ is there $$$ can be spent. So. Many. Tears. I tried countless ways to get us on the same page and nothing was sustainable past one week because of his nature. BUT NOW!! I set everything up in YNAB, programmed his app widget, and gave him an allowance category. BALANCED TO THE PENNY IN UNDER A MONTH! The app is super easy to use, the desktop version is even better, the whole system is so flexible and intuitive… in under a month from starting I’ve already saved enough to pay the monthly app fee several times over. This has brought so much peace to my life. Use the free trial (desktop) and dink around checking out all the features; I can’t imagine who wouldn’t love the concept and functionality. I’m in, forever. 💘

YNAB is a life changer. YNAB is not like other budget apps. It is simple, made to work for you, and created to actually hold you accountable to a budget. Apps like Mint make me super nervous (because they show you past spending patterns rather than helping you change habits) and don’t make sense for real budgeting. There is a learning curve to YNAB- it took me about a week of daily use and starting over once to understand how it works. Now, it’s an integrated part of my life and is SERIOUSLY changing my habits and the way I see the numbers in my bank account. In a few months, I’ve managed to save more money than I have in years. I’m also understanding my true expenses and planning ahead more than I ever have done before. The reason the app costs more is because there aren’t ads and they’re not mining your information- it’s meant purely for you to better manage finances. I can’t recommend YNAB enough. It’s easy once you get it set up, makes me excited about budgeting, and has completely changed my financial situation in a matter of months. I can’t imagine how stable I’ll be in a few years, thanks to YNAB!!!

Stable, Essential, Life Changing. I’ve used YNAB since I was a broke college student, and it’s helped me keep my financial life on track despite barely breaking the poverty line for my first few years out of school. I have never struggled to make rent or pay for my necessities, and I’ve stayed free of consumer debt. Because of YNAB I have been able to carefully weigh any debt I did take on (training for a career switch, a car) and pay it down without any stress. I clung stubbornly to the desktop app until I convinced my partner to start using it, and saw how far the web/mobile app had come, at which point I promptly switched over. I have a thing about app subscriptions (hate ‘em), but the YNAB team is consistently rolling out improvements and features, all of which have been rock solid and helped me plan for my financial future even better. It’s one of the rare cases where I get enough value from the service that I’m not only willing but HAPPY to pay to help the company grow. I could not recommend this app more highly. If you’ve ever struggled to save money or pay down debt, if you regularly get clobbered by predictable but irregular payments (6 month insurance premiums, replacing your computer/phone/car), if you need more accountability to make sure you’re spending your money in line with your values, there is nothing better on the market for helping you get there.

The best budgeting app out there. I can’t express how much I love this app. If you’re like me, you’ve tried Mint, Every Dollar, the next upcoming budget app suggested by the App Store, your own excel sheet, your friends excel sheet, some budget guru’s spreadsheet you found on the internet and still not happy? YNAB is the answer. It’s honestly worth the investment to get your finances in order. You might think it’s counterproductive to pay to save money but it really is an investment. If what you’re doing hasn’t worked, there’s gotta be a reason. Plus, you’re not paying to use the software: it also comes with really great resources - the customer service team is amazing (friendly and prompt!!) and YNAB is constantly producing resources, trainings, workshops, articles, etc to help you. You might not like it the first few weeks but you really need to take the time to learn the software and what it stands for and figure out a way make it work for you. That’s why there’s a 34 day trial. Really life changing and I could not recommend this app more.

Excellent For Budgeting, Unreliable for Bank Connections. I’ve used this app for 4 years and will continue to do so because honestly, the methodology and approach to budgeting is heads above all others. However, the reliability in connecting to the various banks i use for loans, credit cards, and checking/savings is a complete mixed bag. Amex doesn’t work at all, and hasn’t for years l, even though YNAB has been “working with their import partner”. Capital One is down 30% of the time, and my local credit union is somewhere between the two. i honestly spend as much time reauthorizing bank connections, deleting and reconnecting other banks, and manually importing banking records, as i do ‘managing’ my budget. Yes, i manually enter all transactions, but i’d love to see balancing those accounts much more automatic. And at $100 a year (which is a price increase from when i started), it’s one of the pricier budgeting apps available which every year leaves me with the question, “why am i paying for headaches?” I’d love to see YNAB produce a premium banking integration that matches its premium app, but until then, this will stay at 4 stars.

Oh my god this is what I’ve been waiting for. You should know, I NEVER write reviews. After trying Mint (okay, but app force crashes all the time and I keep having to reconnect my banks because Mint “can’t connect to the server right now”) and Buddy (who has the time to log every transaction manually?!?) I’ve landed in YNAB, the tool that is as detailed as I am (#VirgoGang). No but really, I love the motto behind this app of not budgeting dollars you don’t physically have. The creator describes traditional budgets as a “glorified list of bills” which is so true. Instead, YNAB works to budget the dollars currently in your account to make sire you have funds allocated for each bill, when they are due! The idea is to ask, “What does this money have to do before I get paid again?” If you overspend in a category, you have to borrow from another category to cover the expense. I cannot wait to see how this app helps me to budget, but so far I am obsessed! My only constructive critique would be to add a bi-weekly option for recurring bills, as some of my bills are on a bi-weekly cadence, but I just doubled the amount I need and set it as monthly and I’m not in a bad spot :) Overall 10/10 and would definitely recommend this over any other budget app out there! PS definitely watch the videos to get a better understanding of how to budget!

I’ve never been so excited about budgeting. I’ve sucked at budgeting for my entire life. I always felt like it was just restricting all of the fun things that I want to do. Then I became an adult and realized it’s a good life skill but every time I tried it it was overwhelming and felt so complicated. I tried different apps like Mint and I felt like there was no help and the format was confusing and so I never got it down. My friend recommended YNAB to me and it has been LIFE CHANGING! There are seriously SOOOO many resources and it makes it easy to really know what’s happening with your money. For the first time in my life I feel really empowered to make financial decisions rather than constantly feeling regret and fear about all of my impulsive buys. I love the envelope system cause it’s easy and it works, but because it’s connected to my bank account it makes life so much easier. I also weirdly love that I can put emojis next to all of my categories and set all the different goals. It’s only been a month and I’m so excited to see where I’ll be a year from now.

I hate the new keyboard. App is great, service is great and life changing. Been using it for two years and finally can keep up with my spending and seeing improvement But anyways this is a review of the app not the service and I currently have a few issues 1. My girlfriend and I (she is more enraged than I am) loved how easy it was to change budgets in the old app! Now We have to go through a very long journey just to change the budget! And I have 3 different budgets (sometimes 4 if I am traveling) I wish there was an easy way to switch between them (while we are at it, the web app could use easier budget switching ..). Also, maybe add in a title somewhere which budget I have opened? A few times I have logged in things in the wrong budget, because I didn’t realize I had the wrong one open 2. The keyboard to enter a transaction as of 21st of January. I like the overhaul of the page, I love how everything is in one page, but hate the new keyboard! My eyes bleed every time I look at it .... YNAB has designed such an aesthetically pleasing app, why did they do that!! And it bothers me that the keyboard covers the clear button (yes it’s silly I know). I hope the great developers behind this app can find it in their hearts to make the keyboard visually pleasing ...

Really great for starting my adult life. I just graduated college and this is a life saver. I got a free year through my school starting in the fall of my senior year, so I got used to using this before entering the “real world”. Having someone speak to us at school about it in person helped make it easy to understand right away. I highly recommend the online tutorials as well because there is a lot more to YNAB than is obvious. It has been insanely helpful as I take on more expenses and money management gets more complex. $85 a year is a little high, but thanks to the app I’m able to plan for it! I used to keep up with homemade excel budget, but I can’t ever imagine going back to that. Pro tip: add widgets to your Home Screen! I added one for some of my main monthly categories like groceries and gas. Then you can stack them all together and scroll through them in one single box on your Home Screen. Plus, you can click on the widget for the category shown and it takes you right to a screen to add a transaction for that category. Love this app! I’ll be a user for life unless the price sky rockets.

the best dang budgeting app there ever was. i have been religiously using YNAB for 3 years now. I don’t know how I would successfully go through life without it. I’ve recently converted 5 of my closest people and i can also say it changed their life. Even if you are not good at following a budget- you at least know what’s going on in your finances. You can run expense reports and break your spending down into infinite categories. You can log future transactions to watch and make sure you have those expenses funded before they are auto payed from your account. Their mindset is to slowly fund life’s expenses overtime so when your computer craps out on you- you’re not stressed about replacing it because you’ve logged away $500 over the last year. You can set goals to track your weekly spending, save for a specific thing by a specific day, or just be reminded to save a set $$ amount every month indefinitely. In 2018 i knew I could afford a little higher of a car payment because I had been tracking my finances and knew I was spending a LOT of money eating out so I could just eat out a little less and still afford my car payment!

Love the app so far. I love the interface and all of the features of this app. The only thing that brought down my rating is the heavy use of shame and blame on one of their top resources (podcast on getting out of debt - Rule one priority) displayed prominently on the app. It really brought the whole process into a negative light and it made the app less appealing or friendly to use because now I feel berated and pressured into doing it. It’s no longer a fun experience to open the app and use it. While shaming someone with doom and gloom into doing the right thing works for some, it doesn’t work for all. If people are using your app and resources, they are already making the right move and therefore don’t need to be reminded of their past failures or bad financial decisions in such a disparaging manner. YNAB should closely monitor the podcasts and resources they allow to represent their company. At the very least the link should be called Tough Money Talk or something similar to better match the tone of the message contained which seems to be “You don’t deserve any happiness in life until you pay off all of the unnecessary debt you brought on yourself that should’ve been avoided.” Now I need to repair my self-esteem and re-assess. Thanks a lot. But I’ll be back!

The returns far outweigh the subscription cost. This isn’t an app so much as it is a guide for living your best financial life. It’s a way of thinking about money. It will shape your behavior in a way that no other method will. The app is simply the tool to help do that work. It will give back in dollars what you put into it in effort. It is forgiving, which may be its most valuable attribute. It won’t solve problems for you. That is up to you. But it will allow you to view your finances in a way that allows you to take control. It shows you the stark reality of your personal and household cash flow and finances which is the only way to face your financial truth. But when you do, you will be proud of yourself. The community of users who support and motivate you is like no other I’ve encountered. For many it will finally help you seize control of one of the most crucial aspects of your well-being: the security of knowing you can build a safety net and let you control money and not let it control you. Unquestionably, it changed my life.

A significant upgrade from mvelopes but with a major caveat. I just switched away from a much deteriorated mvelopes, which I’ve used for years, and signed up for ynab. Overall, it is a much better implementation of a very similar and useful approach to budgeting— I really like it. Customer support is responsive, the interface is nice, and it nails all the essentials except for one thing— the way it handles reimbursements. I spend money for work costs in one month and am fully reimbursed the next. I never used to have to worry about it and it was useful for making sure I was capturing all my reimbursable expenses. Whereas with mvelopes I used to be able to carry over that negative balance into the next month, which would resolve when I get paid, ynab forces the balance to zero when the month turns over and moves the debt into my credit card accounts. This in turn forces me to have to allocate my personal funds to cover expenses I know will be reimbursed, or track down where the debt was created and manually allocate the payment to my credit cards. It makes a simple process that should have no impact on my personal budget MUCH more complicated than it needs to be. Ynab says they are working on creating a dedicated reimbursement category to address this issue, and I will be 100% happy with ynab when they do.

Life Changing!. The YNAB app has changed my life! It allows me to budget for personal life and my business in one place. I have clarity around where the money is going and when it is schedule to be used. I went from having debt to debt free with savings AND running a profitable business. I’ve been impressed with the YNAB since I began using it in April 2020. The customer service at YNAB is impeccable! Truly an example of a company I WANT to do business with. Just when I didn’t think I could be a bigger fan, they released an update in July 2021…and I became a bigger fan!! The update simplified and gave even more clarity to my budget. And as they explain in blog and video, there was a learning curve with YNAB and they have squashed the learning curve. Now, THAT is seeing a “problem” and finding an incredibly effective solution. YNAB truly puts the customer first. I can’t say enough great things! The resources, the support, the software…all phenomenal! If you are ready for gaining control of your money in a not-guilt-trippy kind of way I’d highly recommend giving the free YNAB trial a spin.

Does not work with many Banks. When it works it's great, but many times, the app fails to connect to my bank account, delays transactions that don't appear for months, and requires me to re-authorize every couple of weeks, entering in all the security questions all over again. By the time the imports work, my budget is completely thrown off from not having been updated in months, so I have to delete my progress and start over. The support team is useless, they tell me that my bank is on a "watch list" that throttles their connections. Yet they have my BANK ACCOUNT PASSWORD. They can just login and do it themselves but refuse to. A couple years ago this app used to be five stars, used to work fine, but because of all the bank connection issues, the app has become completely unusable for me. They gave excuses as to why, and blamed my bank, but ultimately it's YNAB's product, not the banks, and it's up to YNAB to fix it. YNAB collects your bank account password, they should therefore, in theory, be able to do anything you can do with your bank account password, including logging in and impersonating you to get the data. Whether or not a bank cooperates doesn't matter, it's up to YNAB to make it work; they aren't, and it doesn't. Figure out how to get the data and stop blaming the banks. It's your product, and it's been broken for years. Fix it.

Raising Prices. I love YNAB, I really do… I could leave a 5 star review with six paragraphs on how much I enjoy the budgeting feature on the app. However, the upcoming raise in price is seriously forcing me to consider finding another budgeting tool. YNAB might consider me not “core” enough for their offering and an unwilling subscriber that they are willing to lose…. That’s not the case, I’ve had the tool for years and I use it everyday. I’ve even brought in over 3 of my friends to be full time subscribers (the most difficult sell for them was of course the monthly subscription). Can I do almost everything YNAB does in a free Google sheet? Yes, I can. Does YNAB truly offer $15 worth of value each and every month? I’m not sure. Prices have remained the same since 2017, so am I to expect a $5 increase in price every five years? I understand inflation causes prices to rise to even our digital goods, but I fully expect the value of those goods to rise as well. YNAB’s recent feature releases (and roadmap as far as I can tell) do not reflect the increase in price, What new features and functionality and I paying for this team to build? Please be careful YNAB Team, or your app will quickly outprice itself in a very competitive mobile budgeting field.

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Peace of mind. YNAB has allowed me to spend 100% of my income meaning every dollar has been committed to a specific job. This brings peace of mind every day knowing that everything has been covered down the whole budgeting list. What I really love is when you finish placing funds in every item then look at the remaining amount to budget & there’s a surplus....yes 👊 savings in the bank. Thanks YNAB 👍

The app is finally what I always wanted it to be. I’ve been using this product on the desktop for about 4/5 years and the phone app was very disappointing. Now it finally lets you do everything you can do on the desktop version and it’s often even easier on the iPad than on my pc (flicking between months for example). The only thing they could do better is enable sync with more banks.

They don’t support Australia. I’ve been a YNAB user for a while and do like the app. However I think it’s unfair that they continue to charge us the full price when we don't get the full service. I’m talking bank sync! They say that it might come soon but I don’t think they have any intent to do it. I was paying for a third party to provide the sync, so it is possible for them to implement it. YNAB just don’t care about their Aussie customers.

Great idea but doesn’t work. I love the idea of YNAB, but it’s so confusing to use especially if you get paid irregularly or have multiple incomes. Every time I add income and then allocated my budget it will give me a completely random numbers. I physically have my cash in my hands setting aside certain amounts for this and that, and then doing the same in the app, and it comes up with different numbers. I don’t understand why? Each time I use the app I have either more or less income than I know for sure I have?

The best budgeting app out there!. We were introduced to YNAB over 12 months ago and to say it’s changed our outlook on finances would be an understatement. We have savings for the first time and have stopped living pay to pay. We no longer fear bills arriving and are happily working towards greater financial freedom! Thank you YNAB!

Gamechanger. YNAB is not just a company who sell their budget software, they focus on educating people on (personal) budgeting, paying off their debts efficiently and breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. I am not exaggerating: YNAB changed our life. We are not feeling guilty anymore about impulse spending, or spending on fun things. We earn, we budget, we spend, we save for our bucketlist items/experiences.

Fortnightly lacking. Really excited to get this app up and running - I have an itemised budget for every fortnight and so far it was pretty easy to upload! But I hit a snag with fortnightly bills. I have many expenses (eg insurance, gym etc) that are billed fortnightly. I’ve read posts online where employees of this app stated ‘we will never add fortnightly periods as we aim to get people out of the paycheque to paycheque attitude’. Noble philosophy, kinda condescending application of it. Lacking a super simple and straightforward function has derailed my process and made it pretty frustrating! I’ll continue trying to find a workaround, but again it’s just annoying not to have something so simple as repeating every x weeks, or fortnightly. Can only repeat monthly or yearly.

Few problems. It gets confused because I’m paid in the middle of the month. I can’t work out how to preemptively pay myself at the start of the month and then I’m not sure how to allocate my income so that it shows up as a debit not a credit. So for half the month it always tells me I’ve overspent. Also at some point I over allocated a category. I’m not sure how to fix this and now it wants to always over assign $400 somewhere which is a pain and defeats the purpose of trying to draw up a zero sum budget.

Another greedy developer. 5 star features and concept 1 star value - recommend checking out their method for budgeting that’s a great idea. It’s available for free on their website recommend having a look. $120 AUD a YEAR for this app? For what? It’s a neat database entry system and nothing more. Pricing it based of average savings is ridiculous way to go about it. I think you could quite easily create your own version of this (to get your basic features) in google sheets for free. Look I like this app. It’s one of the most convenient apps of this kind. I bought the old version for $40 (or similar) and have been using it for over 5 years (maybe there was a paid upgrade there somewhere). That $40 works out to be $8 per year (and still counting until one of the software updates renders it unusable). How can a developer justify a more than 10x price hike with some features that they themselves mocked in their original budgeting method (bank import). Once the legacy version is no longer supported I will be looking for an alternative.

This app has set me free. Using YNAB for the last few years has been so empowering. People would think that having a budget is restricting but it’s the opposite. I love manually entering transactions as I go and so easily with this app. It keeps me on top of what’s happening with my money. The categories help me have a clear picture of where my money needs to go and we haven’t been living pay check to pay check for years now. This year when I had a baby and stopped working, we have known exactly where our spending needed to cut back. A real win has been when we had three weddings hit in one month. Initially we panicked, but then we looked at our gifts budget and it had increased without us realising and we were still able to be as generous as we wanted to be! Thanks YNAB.

A future subscriber, maybe... It looks like there’s been a lot of constructive criticism left here from Australian subscribers requesting fortnightly payment options and ability to import our transactions. I have gone through the reviews and can see these requests from as far back as over a year ago from a large amount of people. Never mind the ones who simply deleted the app and moved on with their lives. Instead of increasing prices over 120% and offering nothing new, which seems counterintuitive for a self-proclaimed customer-forward budgeting app, can I suggest you invest that money into the development of implementing this feedback. You will rake in a plethora of new Australian subscriptions, especially right now as the main budgeting app here (pocketbook) has just closed down. Food for thought..

Best budgeting system. This isn’t just an app, but a whole philosophy of budgeting that actually works. Took a little while to understand it, but the best way to think about it is the way your Grandma might have budgeted 80 years ago. When she got paid, perhaps she took the cash and immediately put it into a set of envelopes - one marked “Groceries”, another marked “Mortgage”, another marked “Christmas presents”, another marked “Emergencies” and so on until all the money was in envelopes. That’s how YNAB works - take all the money you have and put it into envelopes. Can you spend more money than exists in one of the envelopes? Only if you take it out of another envelope. It’s a fantastic budgeting method as you quickly learn what your real priorities are and what you’re giving up if you decide to eat out instead of cooking at home. My wife and I use it together and just love it. Five stars. And the release notes after updates are a joy to read, which you can’t say of many apps!

Has changed our life. Was indifferent when my wife suggested YNAB, and yes there is a bit of learning required at the start, BUT. We have been saving so much money, simply because YNAB just causes you think before you spend, and 90% of the time that’s all I need. Thanks! App functionality is good too btw 🙂

Financial principles in action... powerful, liberating. YNAB gives great peace of mind, and for this fact alone I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a secure financial future. The financial road in life can be unpredictable and a bit rough at times. YNAB is like a practical financial survival kit, helping to smooth out the inevitable bumps. YNAB principles should be taught at school, and used by governments (who should be setting an example). The sooner it is implemented the more beneficial it can be. Start using YNAB today!

Add value in advance before asking people to commit!. Asking people to commit to a trial in-App purchase before giving any value is a bit over the board. Especially that you need to go through the whole process of account creation to see that you only have one option to move forward and that’s committing to a trial that after 7 days will charge you $100 or so if you forget to cancel it in case you won’t want to use the app...

Budgeting made easy. Super easy to use budgeting app, has everything you need nothing you don’t. Only complaint is it’s very expensive when it’s converted into Australian dollars, particularly considering aussies can’t use their bank to automatically upload transactions, but otherwise I’m a fan.

Big, Aussie YNAB Fan!. As an Aussie user, I love this app! I’ve been using YNAB for nearly a year now. Yes you have to enter all your transactions, but that takes you 2 mins of an evening, if that! I’m perfectly fine with our banks not syncing with third party apps- that would make me uncomfortable. YNAB has helped me finally feel in control of my finances, after years of study, part time work, saving for a building a house and paying for a wedding- things are finally evening out and it’s a great feeling. I’m even managing to convince my husband that we can’t just spend money wherever we like. Just because we have savings doesn’t mean we have spendings! I really love the new update! The progress bars are brilliant, they give you a clear, simple view of how your targets are tracking and the new auto-assign feature seems to work quite well, though I’ve only used that a couple of times now. Good work YNAB!

Just fascinating!!!. I have been using various types of personal finance software for over 5 years now. I have used Moneywiz, Debit&Credit, Quicken and mostly (2 years) Banktivity. All these apps are quite good at tracking expenses, creating reports and setting up budgets( not like in YNAB, YNAB's budgeting approach is completely different). The predicament with all these apps is that they are tracking your expenses and telling you where you spent your money, but not helping you to change your spending habits. Because when you see $2,500 in your bank account, you tend to think that you have money to buy a new watch with $150. In reality, you don't have that $150 to buy a new watch, because that $150 needs to be spent on the quarterly electricity bill. YNAB is an amazing app, using envelop budgeting with the money in your bank account (not the money you are expected to earn in a month) as their primary method of money saving. Only Banktivity has this envelop budgeting like in YNAB. But the issue with Banktivity is clunky, complicated to set-up and it does not work smoothly all the time. Moreover, Banktivity does not have a proper mobile app. It works only on Mac and it is more expensive. So I can keep going for hours... you get the picture. You should not be worried about its price because it is worth it.

FINALLY! A budgeting app that does what I want!. This app is awesome! I actually enjoy using it. The perfect level of intuitive features that actually serve a purpose, vs adding unnecessary features and options just for the sake of releasing new updates. Thankyou to the creators for keeping the consumer top of mind when creating this app! Really enjoy the behaviour change it encourages, instead of just providing you with twenty different ways to breakdown your spending! Currently #66 on finance apps? Pfffft this is 66x ahead of the rest. If only they made an app for how to budget time, I would get it so quick so I didn’t waste so much of it writing long winded reviews.

Disconnected from customers. Pros: a good platform, good logical budgeting Cons: pricing is flat out unfair. Doubled prices two years ago, and then was tempted to stay with misleading information regarding direct imports to the australian market coming soon. Equal pricing over all services, despite direct import not actually available to customers is a rort. Do not expect customer service to work with you as a loyal customer of six years- there is a company line and that will be stuck to under all circumstances.

It’ll change your life I swear. Have been using Ynab for 6 years. Convincing my partner was the hardest part initially, but the extra bump in savings after month 1 did the trick. After 2 months I knew we were never going back. 6 years later I can honestly say we never argue or even stress about money. I used to think that being ‘good with money’ was about having willpower or being naturally frugal. Now I would say it’s all about clarity. Ynab puts you right on top of your money where you can really see what’s happening. And then it helps you test and learn until your spending really suits what you want out of life.

Old school to new school. I used YNAB back when it was a spreadsheet and again through all the desktop app iterations. The move to the cloud version has been decent though more communication from YNAB about their roadmap would be nice as that all seems to have dropped off. My only complaint is that after so long, Australian banks are still not supported. I've tried to use every other app out there that does but they don't resonate with me like YNAB and the YNAB ethos does. So here I am in 2018 still doing manual transactions for my fairly busy accounts. Direct Connect for Australia shouldn't be that hard with the right partner, Yodlee seems to be the big one but I don't think YNAB is thinking about Australia at all unfortunately. Whinging aside, the app is stellar, the ethos is solid, the newsletters are funny and informative, the training and support are always top tier. Strongly recommended to get your financial life under control and keep your finger on the pulse.

Way too expensive. Great app but they're forcing people to pay a huge amount each year now for a service (ynab together) people dont want. I dont want to share my budget with anyone. Other people i know who use ynab dont want it either and the new price is ridiculous. Make two different subscriptions. 1- Regular, one login, cheaper plan. 2- Family Plan (ynab together) thats more expensive for people to share. Y'all dont even have Australian bank connections. Cmon!

Essential app. This is definitely one of my first installed apps whenever I come to a clean install on either my Mac or iOS device. The ability to plan, order, future proof my budget situation – know what’s coming for years in advance and be prepared for it – has really made a difference for me. Their support/teaching system is excellent. It’s clear that these guys aren't just producing software, but their aim is to make you a better budgeter. And that's gold! You definitely want to get behind a company that wants to get behind you, and plans to be around for the long term.

As an Australian I have never once confused YNAB with NAB. I used YNAB years ago to save a deposit to buy a home in Sydney Australia, which has one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the world. YNAB is an amazingly helpful budget system that has only been improved over the years. It may take a little while to learn how to use, but it is well worth the effort and if becomes a fun game to keep finding savings and to see your bank balance increase or debts be paid off. Today I read with disgust that an Australian bank called NAB is suing YNAB because they share the syllable “NAB”. This is ridiculous. No Australian is going to confuse a US budgeting software app that is branded completely differently to a local major Australian bank just because they both are pronounced similarly as Y-NAB vs NAB. Obviously NAB lawyers have nothing better to do with their time.

Life changing. Ynab’s four rules and app is truly the most beneficial thing I have stumbled across in my entire life. I recommend it to all my friends and practically force it upon my immediate family (makes a great gift). If you want to take control of your money and improve your wellbeing- this is the easiest and dare I say it; funnest way to budget! Thanks ynab!!

The BEST budgeting app out there!. I’ve been a user of YNAB for seven years now, and have found it to be by far the most helpful at getting control of money. It’s so helpful to see all your money in a layout to make decisions like this. As an Australian, it’s not been a problem to manually import my transactions as I go. I love the granularity of the app, and enjoy making my budget to suit my needs. Thanks so much to the team at YNAB!

Fantastic app and phenomenal budget system. Thanks to the latest update removing the two biggest inefficiencies of this app I have to give both this app and the whole YNAB system 5 out of 5. I have used this app every day throughout the day for more than a year now and it is intuitive and (especially now) really easy to use. The YNAB system (and the fact that I carry an interface with it in my pocket) has changed my family’s finances and lives. Thank you!

1 Year User Review. I’ve stopped short of a 5 star review because, despite the initial wins, YNAB definitely has its limitations. This software is great for those who really struggle with overcoming personal finance problems but the app doesn’t grow beyond that. The methodology is sound, the rules understandable. If a user wants to go beyond a savings account with a years worth of expenses they’ll have to expand in to other software. Another gripe is that developments are slow and hard to come by. Developers must have a list of legitimate Feature Requests made by current customers that is a mile long but the most recent change was the colour of some icons?! Also syncing to bank accounts isn’t available ANYWHERE outside of USA but you still pay FULL PRICE. They should have a cheaper option for those who are unable to access what is one of their selling points.

Absolute game changer. This app and the YNAB system are simple and easy to use and have really helped get results. We’ve got much better visibility and control of our money and the app and website are a joy to use.

Saves me money and worry. Love this app and product. Easy to use. Giving every dollar a job has taken the fear out of budgeting. It saves me money as I'm now mindful about spending and prevents impulse buys. I highly recommend their approach to budgeting. Great support and Facebook group too.

Great app but not for Aussies. The main thing separating YNAB from other budget apps is that it can link to your bank accounts and track transactions. However, if you’re not in the USA or EU, this is not an option and you have to enter transactions manually. Manually tracking transactions makes it difficult to justify the cost of the app—where you could just track in an Excel for free, or even use Buddy for a fraction of the price). There is also no option for fortnightly budget. Only monthly or weekly.

Too expensive. I have been with YNAB on and off for years and it’s just now too expensive. At over $120 a year you really have to budget to pay for it. It’s fine if you have the spare cash and budgeting saves you money compared to before you budgeted but if you are budgeting because every dollar has to count then your money is best spent elsewhere. You could even watch all their videos, read all their articles and make up your own spreadsheet based on their methods, much cheaper. I will say they are true to their word. If you pay for a yearly subscription and find it is not for you, ask for a refund. It took less then a day and I had my money back, pro rata of course. Personally I could never get it to work for me. What ended up working for me (as in savings money, still yet to find good budget app) was Up banking (Aussie bank) and its many savers. Go Up!

Improves your relationship with your money. Signing up for YNAB has helped me understand my finances better. While I haven’t mastered it like the YNAB expert community, it’s great for beginners like me to establish a positive and empowered foundation to grow and build my financial literacy and relationship with money. P.S.: if you’re starting out remember to be patient (set-up and commitment is important) it takes a bit of practice but stick with it!

This app has changed my life. It is no exaggeration to say that this app has changed my life more than any other that I’ve purchased. In the time that I’ve had it, I’ve gone from being seriously broke, to knowing exactly where my money is and how I want to spend it. I’m not rich, but I’m no longer poor, and I never never worry about money any more. This app will do that for you too.

Awesome app. I use the app everyday and YNAB has really helped me change my spending habits and understand my money. The app is really easy to use which plays a huge role in me actually sticking with my budget. So thanks! It’s been 5months and I now think I’d be lost without it. Also kudos to whoever does the app release notes.

Great helper. This doesn’t fundamentally change the sort of person you are - I still make plenty of impulse purchases, but I’m better at saving in between, understanding what it costs me, and remembering that all that money in the bank that looks like art supplies or any other impulse buy? That’s actually insurance/registration/insert other important thing here that’s due next month. App requests - you’ve made an Apple Watch app, any chance you’re working on functionality to input transactions on the go? And if you do, make it a complication available on the watch face? And you’ve given us the ability to add colours to our transactions. Can we have a pie chart under the reports tab that puts that information to use? Possibly with different time spans, like 30 days 90 days all time? Non-app related: Is there any hope of getting more Australian banks available for syncing? I don’t hold out much hope for my bank, it’s smallish and isn’t available for Apple Pay either, but I didn’t see many Australian banking institutions available on the list the last time I checked. Please and thank you

Superb Application. Having previously purchased and used YNAB4 I had very high expectations for this application. It did not disappoint. The ability to update and monitor your budget from anywhere without having to install a companion program make this version fundamentally superior. The ability to set funding goals is a nice touch albeit this is not difficult to do manually either. I would like to eventually see the automatic importation of transactions become available for Australian banks. However, having to enter transactions manually causes you to be significantly more aware of your spending. As such, I do not consider the lack of this functionality as anything but a very minor point. I would recommend this software for anyone. It doesn’t matter what stage you are in financially, this application (and system) will help to improve not only your understanding of your financial situation, but also provide a systematic way of improving it.

Worth every penny. YNAB was a game changer for my husband and I. We have been using the product for over a year and it has transformed our lives. We just purchased our first home after trying for years to save on our own. In 1 year we more than doubled our savings (of 5 years) and are moving in with a hefty buffer for surprise costs and renovation money.

Love it but.... I have used YNAB for a long time (since the desktop version), and I think it is great. However, as an Australian user I am now charged a hefty annual subscription but have no bank feed imports. The manual entry is time consuming and I am not getting what I’m paying for. I think it’s time to move on sadly... YNAB I waited a long time hoping you would come to the party and give Australian users bank support (or a discount on subscription) but it still hasn’t happened.

The magic is in the 4 rules. I’m based in Australia and I have a highly variable income from one month to the next. YNAB does not sync with Australian bank account feeds, but that doesn’t matter really, manual entry of transactions gave me a leap ahead in understanding my expenses and appreciating my inflows. The magic is in the 4 rules. I’d encourage anyone who is stressed about inflation, mortgage rates, unpredictable employment or messy accounts to slow down and invest the time in learning YNAB’s approach through podcasts, videos and blogs. Yes, I still sometimes have anxiety about my financial future, as a solo mum with three kids and some tricky financial obligations ahead. But I completely agree with Jesse Mecham when he says the anxiety of awareness is much healthier and more manageable than the anxiety of ignorance. I love this app, but the rules are the magic.

Problematic app. This is a problematic application - basic functionality is great but there is so much to dislike. The app is nowhere near as feature rich as the web app, with simple things (like viewing next month's budget) not available. But then again it is nowhere near as slow as the web app which has some real performance issues, especially at login (regularly over 40s). It is also not very friendly for Australian users, not allowing them to automatically load bank statements as advertised and with no plans to allow this for the Australian market

Great app but annual price should be cheaper. We are loving this app. We have always had our own spreadsheet budget plans but this app actually helps us make sure that what we plan in theory happens in practice and also gives an idea of whether our budget for each category is realistic as we can easily track spendings. It’s certainly capped my over-spending in certain categories by having a really clear indicator of when I’m about to hit a $ limit. It’s great for encouraging discipline. When the annual price is only about $2 cheaper per annum than it is to pay monthly, it would be nice if loyalty/long term use with the app had better financial savings. After all, anyone using this app is trying to save as many pennies as possible.

Time to budget. YNAB is a little different from other finance aggregators in that, if you’re with the programme, you really can’t spend money you don’t have. It is flexible enough in that you can “borrow” from one budget line to meet another, but a realistic budget and liquid assets are mandatory. The app syncs to the cloud and over any number of other computers. If you can, I’d recommend bringing in historical data from another app to help with a realistic initial budget. Mainly this unlocks your financial reports sooner. There will be a little more fiddling than warranted in order to meet each budget. One may or may not have a bent for this. The intent is noble, and through this I’d be surprised if you don’t think twice about your discretionary spending.

Most Used App Bar None. I am in YNAB many times every day (if but for a few secs to a minute or two depending on what I am doing). I have literally turned my life around with this app - going from being seriously in debt with barely any savings, to debt free (bar the mortgage) and regular savings and investments occurring on a monthly basis. YNAB is much more than the application - it teaches you 4 vital rules: 1) Give every dollar a job 2) Embrace your true expenses 3) Roll with the punches and 4) Age your money and these four rules are what sets YNAB apart from all the other budgeting clutter out there. You realise that you don’t need lots of accounts and multiple credit cards to “budget” - you can do all you need with as little as two accounts. You learn debt snowballing to get rid of all of those extra credit cards and loans. And you can even play with your figures to work out where you might be in 6 months or a year or whatever period you choose to understand clearly how you can move the needle with your personal finances, build your personal wealth and get out of the pay check to pay check cycle. My most recommended app - I simply could not live without it. 🏆

Simply the Best. I’ve tried lots of so-called budgeting apps over the years. Most show where the money went but have very limited forward planning. YNAB is the opposite; it’s all about planning your future, and it does this perfectly in an easy to use manner. Highly recommended.

Australia goes great. I’ve been using YNAB for 7 years now, and my current budget has been running for 3 years. In that time the mobile app has come leaps and bounds, and is now an integral part of my day. Previously it was ok, but for any real work I needed to be on desktop. I still budget once a month, but the maintenance and reconciliation can now be done comfortably on mobile. For Australia, we don’t have automated bank feeds. This may change in 2020 with open banking coming into play, but for now reconciliation is manual. To be honest, I prefer manual reconciliation. The app makes it easy, I have complete control over my tracking, and there are no surprises about where a record came from. Overall the YNAB fee is an expense I gladly pay each year, as it transformed how I look at my money and my financial education.

The best. Been with YNAB for years. Got me out of pay to pay cycle, never able to save, always running short of cash. Lots of flexibility, good eduction videos, simple to understand and follow. I highly recommend this app.

Game Changer. I read the book My Total Money Makeover which was beyond excellent and then found this app and it was the perfect partner to the books philosophy. Within a month I’d completely turned my finances around and now four years later I’m saving like i never thought i would. As an artist this has completely revolutionised my art practice as no longer have stressed caused by money. I know what i have and what it’s all for. Money serves me I don’t serve money. I used to think that was the case but in truth what I had was a “I don’t care about money, I’m in denial about its control over me” situation. Not caring about money is a failure regardless of how much or little you have.

Stop asking for a review. I use this app because it’s convenient while I’m on the road to enter transactions. The review pop up directly interrupts the main reason I use this app at all: convenience Please stop asking for reviews.

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I flipping love this thing. Love it. I worked as a financial professional for 4 years. I’ve explored dozens of options for budgeting and cash flow solutions. YNAB is BY FAR the best one. Intuitive, easy to set up and use. TONS of resources for support, available in web and mobile. The only thing the app is missing is a calendar view to visualize recurring transactions. It that’s really a minor thing. USE this now.

YNAB Changed My Life!. I joined YNAB in February 2021... I never really knew how to budget/forecast. I now have less than $1,000 debt, I saved enough to get my son’s braces, and I’m saving for a new fence! I’m almost a full month ahead in my finances which I never thought would be possible! All the videos on YouTube are such a great support tool! (shout out to HIFH and Nick True!) I know if I have any questions there’s always someone to help me. This is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself! I’m already teaching my teens how to use YNAB! My only regret is that I didn’t find it sooner!

Expensive budgeting for gullible people. Hundreds of dollars for software that never changes. Think about it. The only thing you’re paying for is their marketing campaign, the developers to change the colour of the buttons every six months, and a guy to respond to negative reviews. You’d be a fool to not try any of the excellent free and cheaper options before considering this.

A must. for anyone caring for their finances

Singing it from the rooftop: this app is amazing!. Amazing budgeting app that really keeps you accountable to being intentional with your dollars and your spending. Would recommend! And I love the shareable feature, it helps gets friends/family onboard.

Offensively large price increase! (Canada). Well I’m out — the new price structure is a real slap in the face - north of $20 per month in Canada. I don’t know how YNAB did their price benchmarking and thought that increase could be born by their subscribers. The value just isn’t there for that amount of money. Do better YNAB!

Best app for behaviour modification. App was built with financial planning pillars in mind. So well designed and fantastic support and webinars to help shift mindset.

Best App Ever YNAB!!!. I have used this app just a few days short of a year and I LOVE it. It has changed my financial life from always looking for funds to pay my monthly/yearly bills and taxes to now having funds set aside for these bills plus savings. I never have to worry about what is in my bank account as it is allocated already to different buckets each month. I TOTALLY recommend the YNAB app, it is AWESOME!!!

Price increase. The recent massive price increase makes this app not worth the money for what they are asking. The features aren’t good enough. Cancelled my sub.

Useless for Canadians. DOES NOT SYNC TO MAJOR CANADIAN BANKS. Get ready to spend way more time that you can’t spare on updating your YNAB budget. Once you subscribe you’re stuck with it.

Price increase is a joke. I can understand price increases can be necessary sometimes, but to nearly triple the monthly sub price in Canada is just a bad idea. Was going to resubscribe but after seeing the price increase I uninstalled it and am looking elsewhere.

Needs iPhone X support. Needs support for the new iPhone X screen resolution / ratio.

Disappointed with it, have to reauthorize every day. I am writing this review and then deleting the app. It wants to me to reauthorize my bank accounts every day. It’s been 5 days in a row. I contacted YNAB support and they said that bank connectivity is imperfect and didn’t offer my any solutions or offer to help. So disappointing. I came from Mint and it was much better. I am deleting my account and putting that $100 towards something better.

Price. The price doubled overnight for what is a great app but not worth double the price.

It’s OK, does the job. Switched over to YNAB from Mint after they shut down. While YNAB is easy to use and has better support for transaction import, it lacks flexibility to budget the way you want to. The app relies on cash inflow, assignment of cash, and availability of funds to manage the budget - it’s more like cash flow management than budgeting. I make it work and just don’t pay attention to the available amounts. I would like to see a view where it simplifies things down to just activity and compare that to what you set out as the budget for that type of spending, similar to what Mint did very well.

Unauthorized billing is a no-go for me. Not only does YNAB increase the price of its subscriptions, they send you an email informing you that you must accept the increase if you want your subscription to renew. If you dont accept, they charge you anyway. After several months of use, the application becomes cumbersome and slow. Calculations are not alwais 100% accurate.

Connector doesn’t seem to work well with Canadian Institutions. Connector breaks and loses connection after a couple of days. YNAB has been great to try and fix and ultimately it works again. But it breaks again a few days later. I don’t have this issue with Mint (connector still works). The software is great though.

Does not support Canadian banks. If I pay it needs to support TD or HSBC which is not the case here

My bank account has never been higher. So grateful for this tool that has allowed me to be more aware and flexible with our money and budget! It has opened my eyes and I am more excited to see how much more I can save towards our safety net. Our bank account has never been higher!

Not free. Ridiculous short trial

Imports Delayed. The automatic imports have been delayed for over a month now and I’ve had to input transactions manually which isn’t that big a deal, but gets annoying after a while. I would think for paying over hundred dollars a year it would be a little better than this, come on guys.

Not Free. Please always let people know they have to subscribe

One time fee > Subscription. The irony is a monthly subscription for a budgeting app is not in the budget.

BS misleading tactics. App might be good but I’ll never find out cuz you put a paywall behind it and didn’t tell until AFTER I gave you my personal info so thanks for your dishonest, shady tactics! Hope you shut down

My Most Essential iPhone App. I would know how to live without it.

Love YNAB. YNAB is a great tool. It takes some getting used to but it’s useful for the simplest financial situation all the way to the most complex. It’s made my financial life way less stressful.

Great Software, Not worth the Price now. I love this budgeting app. I’ve used it before it was even a subscription model and have stuck with it for so many years (I want to say over 8 years?). It has helped tremendously with tracking my finances and the app is slick and easy to use. Unfortunately with the new price, my monthly cost was going to go from $8.99 a month to $18.49 a month. It’s an insane jump in price and I just can’t justify it. As much as I love YNAB I’ll be looking into other apps or systems.

This app completely made me lose interest as soon as I reached the end of signing up. To think I’m downloading this to save money, budget, and track my spending just for it to tell me to pay for a subscription which is more than a Netflix subscription. $18.49/Month 124.96/year ???? I would much rather have ads in the app then pay for a monthly or year subscription. I get it you need to make money but I’m sure a lot of people can agree with me on this that ads would be more doable since not everyone can pay $18.49 a month before tax. This just doesn’t go right with your Moto of trying to help people save money.

The best. I tried many many app throughout the year. This is by far the best one. It toke me a while to adapt to the method but now that i am, i realized it's the best method.

Spend money to save? No thanks. Soo expensive! I’m trying to save money and they want to charge me over $100. No way. This should have been disclosed in the App Store.

Doesn’t keep promises. Several years ago, YNAB promised lifetime pricing for legacy users. They have not followed through on this promise, and have not responded to their users complaints about this issues. I used to think YNAB’s business practices stood apart from other organizations - I’ve since found out that they’re no different.

Insane pricing. A year has gone by, and nothing has changed except the colour of the application, so, my review doesn’t change either: Even if you put aside the customer-hostile way this company doubled their prices overnight with no more notice than a matter-of-fact splash screen on the app followed by ignorance of any and all customer feedback, this is hugely overpriced. Years in, and instead of offering a tiered system which would save expense for users, they charge extortionate prices for training, courses, bank syncing and more that many people will never use again once they learn the software. Damn it, give us ynab basic for half the price and I can stop being bitter every year when you ruin my Christmas. You’re a budgeting software, not an office suite (by the way the whole of MS office 365 costs less per year than this). Madness.

An app that supports PC financial... But. No wealthsimple support unfortunately, so useless to me. Hopefully that gets added soon, then I'll be back!

Ridiculously unintuitive UI. Can’t add bi-weekly options.. For the price they want you to pay, this app doesn’t even come close to having value. I could make an easier system on excel than how this app operates. Way too confusing to figure out.

Waste of time. Can’t sign up. The first screen says sign in with apple, google, email etc where how do I sign up in the first place?

Did not accept app. I got charged for a year without accepting and cannot get a refund. This cost me over 100$ for The year that i have never approved. Nor have i usred IT Not impressed

Love it but wish it would support my bank. This made a huge difference to our family finances. The reason I only gave it 4 stars is because our bank (RBC Royal Bank of Canada) is not supported, why I have to enter everything manually.

Price in Canada. They’ve hiked the price. And don’t offer Canadian dollar subscriptions, so it’s around $130 CAD per year. Crazy.

Too expensive. The price jumped by $25 this year. I am not willing to pay for this much money for budgeting software.

Egregious price increase. For someone locked into the lifetime price of $45, I’m appalled that now I have to pay twice that amount annually to continue this service when I don’t even use all of its features (e.g., syncing, online support, videos).

Lol. Find it funny that you have to pay 124$ for an app meant to help you save money

Life. Changing.. Within my first pay period of using YNAB, I was able to stop dipping into my overdraft and charging new items without immediately paying it down. I realize that I had some pretty significant background anxiety regarding finances and a feeling of never having enough. I feel been able to dial back the anxiety and I don’t feel deprived when I’m making spending choices during my day.

Underwhelming, lacking major budgeting info. For all the resources this app has put into explanatory videos and the high rating it has, I think many people will be surprised by its clear weaknesses. There is a horrible lack of graphs and reporting of expenses. I really don’t understand why it can give you a clear summary of monthly spending or the progress of your track on that budget. Mint had its limitations and YNAB its upsides, but I very much preferred mint. YNAB please update the app with some basic monthly reporting options. How hard can this be?

A must have tool. I am not exaggerating but this app has improved my life, not only financially but also in decision making process thinking. Thanks to the minds behind it, you deserve a five star.

Not recommended. I don’t get the five star reviews: - App is completely overpriced at about $130 CAD annually - App is overly complicated - Simple excel sheet + using this app’s free trial together teaches you how to do this on your own with the excel sheet so why pay so much for this when can just learn from free trial then use on excel sheet I don’t know… I just don’t get the hype around this app.

Suspicious bank activity - coinscidence?. Downloaded this app on the recommendation from my Facebook moms group. Set it all up and linked my bank account after reading a few articles and reviews raving about this company’s security measures. That same night I get a notification that someone tried to log into my online banking but failed to answer the security question. I have been using online banking for over ten years and this is the first time anything like this has happened. I’m sorry but a bit too much of a coincidence. Unlinked bank and deleted app. I’ll use excel to track my spending.

Just doubled my price. Discovered that as of December 1, 2021 that they are doubling the costI have to pay for the product. No email, no announcement, just a FAQ on their webpage I heard about through social media. They just lost this 4+ year customer.

I love the app, except for one thing…. YNAB has A thorough system with great functions and smooth budget flexibility. However, it doesn’t have a smooth introduction for new users. There are YouTube videos out there to show you around but it was difficult to find an entry level guide. All that was available was intermediate level videos that has a deeper look into the app. While I enjoyed watching them but it created intimidating image not to get into the app. If that problem is addressed more people will start using YNAB smoothly as soon as possible.

Great method, just a few issues. The YNAB method is excellent and really got my finances on track. I wish there was tiered pricing for those who don’t want to use auto import. Better reports in the app would be so nice as well!

Wouldn't even consider using it at no cost.. Attempting to utilize YNAB since January 2nd, I have consistently encountered an error while trying to connect my bank account, even after 40 days of usage. The customer service is unaware of the problem. Mint had no problems importing bank transactions.

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Excellent, useful tool. I really love this app. If I’m 💯 honest, I will admit that there can be a significant learning curve for new users but I did not find that to be the case for me. The learning curve mostly involves learning a whole new way to think about your money. Fortunately, I had mostly encountered the idea of designating “jobs” for all my money by using the Mvelopes app previously, so most of my learning had to do with the nuances between Mvelopes and YNAB. But my favorite thing about this app is that it comes with an amazing community of developers, users, and fans. This is what sets this app apart. No app is perfect, but YNAB as a company takes its profits from the VERY REASONABLE subscription fee and invests it heavily back into keeping the app running smoothly, making themselves readily available for troubleshooting, developing new features and teaching anyone who will listen how to succeed (and thrive!) in their day-to-day finances. Totally worth the cost and I plan on sticking with these guys forever!

Absolutely Life Changing. On the educational side of things, YNAB is absolutely amazing. I spent most of my life budgeting money in my head like most people do, “I need $X for rent, $Y for food, etc” but would still end up with too much month at the end of my money. Watching the videos and reading the articles really helped me understand the different budgeting concepts which helped me understand how to organize my money and how I spend it. I don’t know how I ever got by not managing my money in this way. YNAB isn’t teaching or selling a new concept. And to be fair, they’ve never pretended that they were. At its core, it’s the “envelope system” for managing your money. But YNAB is special because of the technology they’ve built around the concept. It’s super super easy and intuitive to use the app and move money around as needed. YNAB is also accessible for people who have never budgeted like this before. But once you start using YNAB and seeing your financial life change, you’ll never go back.

Overcomplicated. I really wanted this app to work for me and tried to make it work for several months, but it’s simply too complex to even answer my simplest budget needs. If you need to watch a dozen videos, read several articles, and request customer support a couple times just to get the basic functionality right, it’s not accessible enough. The balance of my credit card is never accurate, it’s difficult to understand your total spending vs total budget for the month, and cash flows don’t work with my monthly payment cycle. It’s been more reliable to eyeball the spending across my accounts than to follow YNAB’s numbers. This is disappointing because much of the functionality and idea is great and had given me some insight into where my money is going. But at the end of the day I need to know if my total spending last month was more than I can afford, not just how much went into each subcategory. Happy for everyone this worked for but I can see why it is not more popular.

Love the app, but not the iPad mobile version. Revised review — maybe it’s just my new iPad. I’ve been using YNAB on chrome under W10/Surface and just switched to iPad. YNAB won’t let me use the web version on the iPad. It force redirects me to the mobile app - ugh... I’m going to submit a help ticket to see if there’s alternatives. I need this app - it’s super. Just don’t like the Mobile only option on the iPad. —————————- I’ve used the app a while and yes I love it. But this upgrade… Really? Dark green on dark gray in a small font for totals “really pops” - really? Totals are the numbers you want to quickly reference and track - they should pop and IMO they don’t. Yes I use my iPad in the dark. My choice. I should still be able to read it. Turquoise on white and dark green on dark gray just doesn’t cut it for me. I guess I’m stuck between using the classic with it’s bugs or upgrading and fighting the UI. Bummer…

Deceitful Cancellation Policy. YNAB advertises on all subscription levels that you can “cancel anytime”. As a consumer, what does that convey? It conveys that you’re not “locked in” in any way. But that’s not the case with YNAB. They make you finish out your subscription period regardless of when you cancel. I paid for an annual subscription under this guise of “cancel anytime”; the app turned out to be much too complicated and I realized I wasn’t getting an accurate picture of my finances at all using YNAB. I cancelled my subscription with 7 months left in the subscription period, believing that YNAB would be true to the sentiment their cancellation policy expresses and give me a prorated refund. They refused, even after I pointed out to them that their website says “cancel anytime”. The app being too complicated to use is one thing; if I had more time and energy to put into it right now I would, because I do believe in the envelope system and I like the concept of YNAB- but now I will never use YNAB again and I will never recommend it to anyone being that their advertising is deceptive. Very unfortunate for a company whose mission is supposedly to “help people” financially.

Mixed bag. This app is very useful for granular tracking of different areas of your budget, saving up for larger purchases, setting money aside for specific emergency situations, etc. it’s almost like being able to have “virtual” checking and savings accounts within your actual accounts. That part I like. The part that is really frustrating (at least for me) is how credit card payment transactions work. If you are one of those people who uses their credit card as a debit card and pays your entire balance every month, you will probably run into the same issues. There is no way that I have found to get this app to work properly while doing this other than to just leave all transactions (both inflow and outflow) for credit card payments uncategorized. Otherwise I end up with massively negative values in “ready to assign”, and I can’t figure out why. Hopefully their support can clarify this as their articles related to this hasn’t made it any less confusing.

Bad bank connections and bad customer service. I loved this app when I first got it. But over the past few months, YNAB has not been able to connect to my bank accounts. Because of this, my budget is constantly off and the balances are not correct. What good is a budgeting app that you pay for if your account balances are rarely correct? I have messaged customer service several times and have gone through their steps at resolving this issue but have not been successful. The other problem is that there is no customer support that you can call on the phone to walk you through your issues with the software. I message their customer support and have to wait a day for their response, but by the time I get a response back it’s been a full day and I can’t immediately work on the issue because I’m at work or busy or otherwise preoccupied. It’s a huge hassle. YNAB is a great idea but in my personal experience, it is still lacking in major areas if they’re going to charge you as much as they do - especially all at once as opposed to a one time charge.

Excellent app and community. I'd been looking for years for a bridge off Quicken that wouldn't keep me tied to a PC or exposed to deteriorating quality after Quicken was sold to private equity. I was a Quicken power user. Finally gave YNAB a try, and after taking a few weeks to learn the system, I haven't looked back and have stopped updating Quicken altogether. The support and community are excellent as well, with plenty of help available online to help you recreate your old system. In my case the key thing was being able to set up rollover amounts with monthly funding targets to simulate Quicken 'savings goals' - implementing that in YNAB was much cleaner than in Mint. Regarding Mint, I tried it five or six times before trying YNAB, since it has the brand name and I therefore perceived it as more likely to be high quality, polished, and professional. I was wrong; YNAB runs faster and with fewer bugs, and with the subscription model I don't worry about my data being sold

You will not regret YNAB. I have never submitted an App Store review before, but after a recent experience I felt compelled to sing the praises of YNAB. Over the summer I, as so many others around the world, was furloughed due to COVID-19. I started using YNAB only a month before my paychecks stopped. I’m not sure what I would have done without it. I was able to make it through my two month furlough, stretching my unemployment pay, without racking up significant debt. (I do feel the need to recognize my privilege as a white male coming from an upper middle class family. An app will not erase the wage inequities in our country, but it also, hopefully, won’t hurt.) I would recommend YNAB to anyone looking to master their budget. The app itself is very user friendly, the videos and articles are really helpful, and the staff were very friendly and responsive when I had questions. Give YNAB a try, you won’t regret it.

Thinking of trying this? The answer is DO IT.. I have never been able to follow a budgeting system. The automated systems always categorized my expenses incorrectly and it was way too much work to go back and fix it all while keeping up with what was new. Then, I found YNAB. It took me a solid day to figure out how it worked because it only allows you to budget the money you have. It coaches you through budgeting your immediate obligations first then other things from there. Because I don’t have my accounts connected automatically I log every transaction manually. This app makes it a total breeze, and even shows you (real time) how your budget category goes down with that purchase. This entire system is a game changer. Try it, you’ll love it. Kudos to the developers for their great work. The only thing I’ve come across that I wish I could change is that I can’t figure out how to reconcile my account on the app. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I hope you decide to try this system!

We love YNAB!. We were introduced to YNAB a couple months after getting married. We were in our last year of college, my husband had just started a new job after having been laid off/unemployed for 5 months, and we had $2,000 credit card debt from our wedding. YNAB helped us get out of credit debt and get on a budget that stuck! It helped us keep grad school loans down as much as possible in an expensive city on a lean income. It helped us to afford having kids. And it helped us pay off $100,000 student loans 2 years after finishing grad school. It has changed the way we look at money and budgeting and strengthened our marriage by helping us communicate our priorities and create goals for our money and (more importantly) our life. 6 years after starting to use YNAB we’re in a completely different financial space, expecting another kid, and planning for purchasing a home and working towards financial independence. Thank you YNAB!

With 34-day Trail (no credit card asked for) how can you lose?. UPDATED: This is truly the best money app anyone could ever use. I’d give it more stars, but that’s not possible! The methodology behind the app is Jesse’s 4 Rules (the foundation is zero-based budgeting) The 34-days free trial allows you to try it with just an email address (no credit card asked for (and they send supportive emails to assist you along the way)! So what do you have to lose? The customer service if you get confused is off the hook! The amount of FREE support through articles, social media and (again free) LIVE workshops (where you can ask questions to actual instructors) is unheard of (and if you knew the hoops the employees jumped through to get their jobs you would know that they actually love them and want to be doing them (and NO I am NOT an employee)…and if that’s not enough support, they do have an entire coaching directory that you can access (although heads up that is not free). Seriously…this is worth at least giving a shot!

Life Changing!. I challenge anyone to find a better budgeting app; there are so many positives, I’m overwhelming as I start to write out this review. In no particular order: They don’t take your payment details before you sign up for the trial, so you won’t have to remember to cancel - you just don’t get charged. I can only think of one other app that does that these days! The app (and in-browser software) were created around financial principles that have proven to work for generations. Nothing fancy, just a streamlined way of getting clear on your priorities and not spending more than you bring in. The functionality works for variable income - would have LOVED this when I was self-employed. The customer service is incredible. There’s no problem too big or too small for them, and they’re always super friendly and helpful. There’s a bit of learning curve to credit cards but there are plenty of free resources to help you through, AND once it clicks, it’s incredibly helpful. I’ve been getting $500+ back every year with no stress (and no debt) because of the way YNAB helps me manage CC payments. YNAB helped us save $11k for our first baby in four months, pay off $9k of student loans in three months, and buy our first house (and hopefully pay it off early!), not to mention the annual cash back. The price tag might look spendy, but there’s no other app I could see being THIS worth it. If you’re still reading, go download the app now! You won’t be sorry!

Literally life changing. I was always super annoyed by all the YNAB reviews that talked about how this changed people’s relationship with $$, but now I say the same thing every time I talk about YNAB. I went from doing my best to not know what I was spending and based it on how much credit I had left, to having complete confidence in how I spend my money and have a few months bills in savings. Using YNAB’s system, in 18 months, I paid off all of my credit card debt from grad school and now have actual savings — and it kept me okay through the early parts of the pandemic when I lost my income. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but Nick True’s 101 videos really helped as does the amazing support from the YNAB customer service folks who were able to help me identify where I went wrong. I also use it to manage the very complicated budget for my business! Cannot recommend this enough - but you really have to want it for it to work!

Eleven Years and Use It Everyday. I’ve been a YNABer for over 11 years. It still remains the best budgeting software I’ve ever used. It is powerful, easy to understand, and can do as much or as little as you like. I’ve met coworkers who also use YNAB and we use it as conversation topics over lunch. Although, in recent years the new features have cluttered the experience, for me. Luckily, YNAB does have options to hide some of these additions if you don’t want to take advantage of them. I don’t like the subscription requirement or the move to an online only interface compared to the old local/non-internet platform. I paid $45 for my upgrade to YNAB4 years ago and then had to move to the subscription to keep budgeting when they moved to the web app. But YNAB wouldn’t be able to do the amazing things they’ve done without the regular revenue. So I understand it and continue to support the YNAB community with my dollars. This is the longest subscription product I’ve had so that says a lot.

Best budgeting software. I've used a lot of different budgeting software. YNAB is my favorite, and the only one that I've stuck with. You get the most out of it if you enter your transactions manually then just use sync to verify everything. Really happy that iPhone X is fully supported now. I realize that we are a small minority and I appreciate that the time was taken to update the app for us, even though it took a bit longer than I would have liked. I'm impatient. The website is where I do most of my budgeting. The app is great for entering transactions on the go and importing synced transactions. I've read a bunch of the one star reviews and I think they're all ridiculous. Some rate the app 1 star because of one bug they encounter. Others rate it one star and complain about things in a way that I can't even figure out what they're complaining about. Must be really frustrating as a developer. I just don't get it.

Like Every Dollar but better. I love this app. It lets me customize to my heart’s content, and it’s so easy to use. If you understand and buy in to the “every dollar has a job” concept and the idea of only being able to budget money already in your bank account, then this app will be a great fit. It subtly enforces a healthy money mindset, and I love that I can link it to my accounts and it remembers my patterns… for example it knows that Tom Thumb is usually assigned to groceries. And if I also get cleaning supplies, I can easily split out that transaction between my groceries and cleaning supplies categories. I also love trying to increase my Age of Money month over month. Can’t say enough good things. The only downer is if you have a small town bank that isn’t super up to speed on online banking… I switched to Chase just to get a better YNAB user experience.

A revelation!!. I am completely sold on YNAB and the app already! The customer service is absolutely amazing. I had trouble figuring out something in my budget and received personalized one on one help with a real human through the chat function at 7 am on a Saturday! My manually entered transactions “automagically” link as they’re imported. I had trouble linking one account but since it’s just a credit card I’m working on paying down I opted to link it manually, which works great too. I just love how much YNAB has helped changed my mindset about budgeting. There’s zero judgement and just the right amount of guidance. The app works almost perfectly on my iPhone XS. Sometimes the bottom menu bar vanishes but it comes back when I close and reopen the app. The simplicity of the phone app is great for on the go and the web browser app that it links with is even better. Keep up the great work!

Love it! No stress budgeting!. With the closure of Mint I was forced to find another budgeting tool. I tried many, but finally landed on YNAB, initially for the simple reason that it was the only one that could import and sync all of my accounts. What I quickly discovered is that the envelopes method (they don’t call it that, but that’s what it is) of budgeting YNAB uses greatly reduces my stress about money in a way that other budgeting methods cannot. A lot of reviews say there is a steep learning curve, but I didn’t find that to be the case at all. It just takes a little getting used to. Customer service is great - they immediately helped me set up two accounts that I had difficulty syncing, a service no other provider offered. YNAB uses multiple connecting 3rd party services, so they were able to solve my syncing issues easily. Very happy with YNAB and wish I had used it all along.

Very good finance app. YNAB has proven to be pretty good, but not perfect. YNAB has been able to provide all of the things that I've needed to do to create a financial plan. When I put in an expense or income, I can give it a category, payee, name, and date. I can see a report of all of the expenses I've done, net worth, income vs. expense and many other reports in the forms of pie graphs, bar graphs, and line graphs. I can make several accounts to have different people manage their money, and can also put in money to be budgeted (put in or out) each week, month, or at other increments. The app provides a tutorial when you first get it, so it is making sure you have an idea on how to operate their complicated app. That brings the subject to its complicity. I believe that the app has many useful features, but for me many of these features are useless and unnecessary, in other words for people who only need a simple financial plan. I also don’t understand all of the functions of YNAB yet, and it would help if it were easier to understand everything the app has to offer. It’s also hard to find transactions from long ago if you need to edit them or just see what the payment was. Overall however, it is good and I recommend it for anyone making a financial plan of any kind. It could just be improved by being able to find past transactions, being a little more simple, and being easier to understand off the bat.

Life saver. Ever since I started using YNAB about 3 years ago it has drastically improved my money habits. I used to think of budgeting as restrictive and time consuming, but it’s the opposite. It saves you time and is more freeing because you already know where each dollar is going before you spend it. As soon as I got married I got my wife on board with YNAB. We got a joint bank account where all of our money goes and we sit down together on payday and budget out our money, which takes no more than 10 minutes now. It has helped so much. Our arguments about money have gone to near zero compared to when we were just dating and engaged. No more “who’s gonna pay for this?” Or “where did this money go?” You always hear about money being one of the main causes for fights in marriage, so I think this app is a must for married couples if you want to have more peace with your finances.

Saved us so much for years. I can say so many great things about YNAB and how helpful it’s been for our family’s budget. The iPad app especially is easy to use, customer service is human and always friendly, and there’s a helpful community at your finger tips if you have questions. The app itself is so much better than the one on a phone. It’s easier to add accounts, move money from category to category, and budget month to month. I only gave it four stars because it’s missing two incredibly important features that the web app has: searching and reports. If you want to look at say, how much you spent at Starbucks for the year, you can’t search at all on the app. This is a really basic feature and not having it on here is especially frustrating (you can’t access the web app through Chrome on the iPad either, it automatically redirects you to the iPad app). Since there’s a yearly cost to use the program I’d expect the app and web app to have identical features.

Makes budgeting a no brainer. I’ve gotten two families using YNAB so far and I spread the word to anyone who will listen. Using this budget program makes handling your finances so easy. My husband and I saved and bought a home successfully because of YNAB. Now that we’re in our home it helps keep us on track with saving for the future. I can’t believe how often I hear adults saying they only have $$$ in their account for the rest of the month and have no idea where each penny will be spent. I NEVER worry about bills being paid or how I’m going to pay for Christmas/big expenses because thanks to YNAB I’ve planned out how every penny is spent. The program is flexible and allows for you to be imperfect while you’re getting used to budgeting for the first time. I had at least 4 “Fresh Starts” before getting into the groove. This features gives beginners some grace and allows them to make mistakes without wanting to give up on budgeting entirely.

The first time I haven’t had money anxiety. Combine trying to pay off stubborn debt with a high APR and trying to plan a wedding, and you have a recipe for severe money anxiety, including panic attacks almost nightly for over a year. Enter YNAB. I had spent so much time being fearful about my money situation and getting frustrated that other forms of budgeting didn’t seem to work that I ignored the problem, which just made it worse. In one month of using YNAB, I learned real tools to pay off my debt, don’t spend more than I have, and actually have money to put in savings beyond what I’m putting towards my debt and the wedding for the first time in 5 years. I was hesitant to pay $15 for an app that should be helping me save, but I’ve managed to save WELL more than that and it’s paid for itself. I’m so grateful to this app, and can’t recommend it enough for anyone who is interested in financial stability, which always seemed so far out of reach for me.

Best app for actually sticking to a budget once you make it. I have a degree if Family Finance. I know how to budget. I used an offline version of the YNAB system for years growing up. Fast forward to marriage…my husband didn’t like budgeting and my system. The short version is that YNAB allowed us to finally stick to our budget and was simple enough for my spouse to do it too. I’ve shared this system with my teenage children and they love it. It’s better than other apps (we tried them). Importing transactions saves me so much time! Our budget is better than ever and part of that is YNAB. I recommend this app all the time as a college adjunct professor of Family Resource Management, to friends, to family. The best budgeting all is one you’ll use, and we’ve found YNAB to be the best at tracking your categories and spending—which is the real issue with sticking to a budget. 👍🏻👍🏻

Life changing app. I have too many apps to count but this is the first I ever reviewed. On New Years Eve, I made a resolution to simplify financially. I was disgusted by the overspending of Christmas and as usual, found myself heading into the new year with a bunch of financial obligations that I hadn’t planned for. This app seemed highly rated so I decided to give it a chance. Wow - best decision ever! It took me a few weeks to get the hang of it but now that I have I would never consider leaving. We view our spending so differently - it’s all planned in advance and there are no surprises anymore. In nine months I have paid down $56,000 on our Home Equity line, increased my credit score by 40 points and feel 100% in control of my financial destiny. One tip is to link your accounts immediately. I was manually transcribing the information from my credit card and bank accounts. Once I auto linked the accounts it cut my time way down. Thanks YNAB!

FINALLY!!!. I have always tried to be responsible and stay on top of my finances and monthly expenditures. However NONE of the many computer programs made it ALL make sense until NOW!!!! I am able to see the little mistakes I was making every month that kept me feeling like spending on non-essentials or just treating myself digging a ditch and a personal crime...but YNAB is my “get out of jail free” card! I can see CLEARLY where every penny is going and where it’s coming from! I’m organized, saving, paying down debts, and guilt free!! It might not all make sense at first, but I promise you if you work at it just a bit, the tutorials are amazing and the whole spirit of the company is friendly, approachable, and helpful! The (yearly or monthly) cost (which is not that much for what it’s done for me) is well worth it!! I actually look forward to each month’s budget because I already know, I’m going to win! 🙌🏾💰 I feel like I’ll never be in the dark about my monthly bills, finances, and savings again! THANK YOU! #iloveynab

‘Plaid’ integration really messed up USAA account holders. I’ve been happy with YNAB in general. In Spring 2020, YNAB started using a 3rd-party system, Plaid, to get updates from banks. For some banks, this probably went fine. For USAA bank, which requires 2-factor authentication, the interaction to sync with bank accounts went from a couple extra taps to about 15, including re-entering a password every time you want to update and receiving TWO separate SMS codes. It’s a drag, and it makes using YNAB a lot less fun than it used to. I talked to YNAB customer service (which is personal and responsive and generally great, btw!) early on about the bad interaction pattern. They were aware and sympathized, and warned that this could take several months to resolve. I’m a developer, too, and I understand that some issues need to be delayed while you handle the really pressing issues. But, after three months, every time I use YNAB, there’s a handy reminder that I’m paying them $85/ year to not be a priority. If you’re a USAA account holder, know that YNAB has been really great in the past, and may be again.. but you’re in for some frustration and stonewalling for the moment.

App needs more functionality. I am a Mint user looking for an alternative and did the 1 month free trial. Unfortunately while the concept is good and there is some functionality in the app, it seems that a large number of functions are only available through the PC version. I rarely use my computer and am looking for an app, like Mint, that met my needs 99% through the app. Wishlist for the app: -the ability to organize accounts into categories (for example credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts) -the ability to analyze income by category (or even by who/where it’s coming from) -the ability to enter credit card payment due dates so I can keep track of where I’m at with them -the ability to analyze anything—there are no reports or graphs available in the app other than the “age of money” graph I really like the YNAB concept and now am torn about what to do—whether to limp through with this app and try to change my lifestyle so I power up my old laptop more often. Or whether to look for another app that has the ability to “assign” cash to budget categories, to help me stay on track. This app is best for people who use their computer mostly and use the app secondarily. Or who don’t care about the features I listed on my wishlist. I just can’t justify spending so much on an app that doesn’t do so many of those basic things. I hope YNAB invests in making its app as robust as Mint’s (which isn’t even that great in some ways, but was more functional than this).

Love YNAB, but a couple of issues. I’ve been using YNAB for a couple of years and it has changed my life for the better. I am in a PhD program so my finances are quite lean. When I first started using YNAB, I felt very sad and anxious to see exactly how little money I have. But after sitting with the reality of my finances for a while, I began to feel more empowered and in control of my money. It did take a while for me to feel competent using this system. For example, I figured out just last month how and why it’s important to reconcile my accounts. I’m sure there are more features that I’ll learn as I continue. I love the app and will continue using it for the foreseeable future. However, I’m giving 4 stars because of some issues that others in recent reviews have mentioned, mainly that credit card payments get confusing, and that some of my accounts become unlinked quite frequently. I think the price is also kinda steep. I hope the app continues to get updated and improved, and I hope the price doesn’t go up over time.

Great app. I have used YNAB for a while and love it. I do use the app on a daily basis. I highly recommend this for people who want their budget to work with them instead of being a hassle. They make it easy to organize categories and adjust things as you go. I also love the charts and reports that they offer. One thing that is frustrating: the “cover with” feature. When you overspend in one category and want to simply and quickly cover it with another category. It is easy on the website but the mobile app is frustrating. The app offers to take money out of the category you have selected (which is always the one I want to ADD money to) and put it somewhere else. I don’t know why it doesn’t work the same way the website does. One thing I would like to see is something in the reports about projected debt payoff information and tools. I love to watch my net worth love but it doesn’t have any calculators that project pay off or reaching wealth goals. Overall an amazing app. Thank you guys!

Phenomenal. The app is very stable and the transition from web app to the phone app is seamless. Only thing missing from the app that bugs me is the inability reconcile your account. This functionality would be really nice to have. Can’t leave a review of the app without speaking to the service and the customer service at YNAB... again phenomenal. If you have issues keeping track of spending and planning for the future, this is the service for you. I’ve been on it for almost a year, and for the first time since being married, I have no credit card debt for the year. All bills have been cash flowed including several medical bills that included imaging and blood work. Always before I would have around 2k worth of debt by now, thanks to YNAB and simply knowing what I have coming in and out, no debt. Wish I had discovered YNAB, or at least budgeting, years ago.

Absolutely Incredible! Only one thing…. I love YNAB, I actually have an entire story about how I started my budgeting journey! YNAB is definitely the most user friendly and simple budgeting app that I have ever used. I’ve tried free alternatives that are good but definitely don’t offer the same quality of life features that this app does. I love this app and the team that has made it! The support I have gotten whenever I have questions or concerns has always been great! My only point that I can make that is difficult is as a student with a low income, $15 a month can add up and it becomes a bit hard to keep a consistent subscription. Budgeting has definitely improved my finances and YNAB is my favorite. I am happy that I was able to redeem my free year of college and it really helped as a freshman! I only wish there could be a student pricing plan! Thanks for creating such an intuitive and helpful app!

Almost perfect. I found YNAB on my search for a good billing app. I never knew I needed a budget app until I found YNAB. The only issue I have is that I sometimes forget when my bills are due and there isn’t a calendar or “billing” app function built into YNAB. So, I have to use two apps in order to accomplish what I want to get done. I can see myself no longer paying for YNAB after this year due to needing the billing function more than the budget function. I’m not sure if it’s something YNAB would create in the future, but it would be awesome to have a tab that is just for monthly bills like utilities and mortgage…etc. something that goes in order based on when it is due and is somehow integrated in with the budget and works with it. Being able to pay my bills on time comes before assigning my money to various places…that is my only complaint. So, it’s almost perfect, but for the money. It doesn’t do everything I want it to do.

Peace of mind. YNAB allows me to fully grasp where my money is going. I’m in a constant pursuit of taking advantage of credit card bonuses. I don’t carry a balance from month to month so to not accrue interest charges, but I could never fully grasp the cycle of cash inflow vs the credit card payment cycle. YNAB puts EVERYTHING together to show me how much cash I actually have even if my bank balances are higher. It automatically accounts for spending done with a credit card so that there’s no confusion on my part. All the reports and invaluable free resources YNAB provides is a massive cherry on top. I have tried many free budgeting apps, but nothing has given me the peace of mind that YNAB does. It is well worth the cost…and when the bill drops, you won’t be surprised by it because you’ll already have budgeted for it! If you’re still in search of your perfect budgeting solution, you should absolutely give YNAB a shot. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be saying “TAKE MY MONEY” before the free trial ends!

Persistent Issues with Amex Connection in YNAB - Disappointing Experience. I have been using YNAB for a while, hoping to streamline my budgeting process, especially with my Amex accounts. However, my experience has been marred by consistent and frustrating connectivity issues. Despite numerous attempts and following all suggested troubleshooting steps, the connection to my Amex account never seems to work reliably. The problem isn’t transient; it’s been a recurring issue that hampers the core functionality of the app for me. What adds to the disappointment is the lack of effective support from YNAB’s customer service team. Each time I reached out, I received generic responses that did not address the specific nature of my problem. This ongoing issue has significantly impacted my ability to track my finances accurately, which is the primary reason I turned to YNAB in the first place. As a customer, I expected a more reliable service and proactive support, especially for such a crucial feature. Unfortunately, this experience has left me questioning the overall reliability of YNAB for my financial management needs.

This app changed my life!. Seriously this is the best app/service I’ve ever used. I never really could get into budgeting. I tried a few apps and spreadsheets over the years but never could stick to it and it just seemed too hard. I was never someone who was paycheck to paycheck so I didn’t value budgeting the way I probably should have. This service take a little adjusting to at first. It is different than most budgeting systems out there and it is worth the time to invest in a few minutes to a few hours in watching their instructional videos to learn how to use the app. Once you are all setup and start tracking your spending and setting up goals you’ll think about your finances in a totally new way. Just download the app and start your free trial. You won’t regret it! Also,in addition to the YNAB support there are Facebook groups if you have additional questions and want to talk to actual users.

Get it!. My husband and I have a big goal — pay off debt and save for a $100k home renovation… and we were looking for a tool to assist us in making this happen. We make a decent amount of money, save for retirement and had an emergency fund, and thought we were doing ok financially (not top notch… but our credit is great and we lived a good life). Within one month of downloading the app and getting serious, this app illuminated so much that we weren’t paying attention to: small subscriptions that both of us were paying for, things we paid for we didn’t need/use, and money we were spending in the wrong places (like paying off debt with 0% interest instead of debt with higher rates). Within two months, the average amount of money in our checking/savings account almost quadrupled (with every cent accounted for in the app)… and we started intentionally setting financial goals. We love watching our net worth increase every month…. we love knowing exactly how much we have agreed to spend on various projects/events… and we weirdly like saying no to things when we know it will take away from our goals. The app gives us flexibility… and also serves as a communication tool. Every time we get paid, we have conversations about goals. I have started telling everyone I know about the app! It’s the best $15 I spend each month.

Product is decent, customer service is poor. Yes, they’ve doubled the costs as everyone in the reviews has mentioned. That, in of itself, isn’t a bad thing but how it was communicated and rolled out was very poor. Especially since the early OG users were promised a grandfathered rate and there were no reasonings for the increase. This is all poor customer service, so keep that in mind if you plan on subscribing. Onto the product, it’s a pretty decent products with some nice features (goals, recurring transactions, budgeting, basic reports) but I’ve found myself more annoyed that my bank imports are constantly disconnected. I still track every transaction but I rely on my accounts staying up to date with the various bank interest and fees that if I go too long without a sync there inevitably pending imports to reconcile which are very annoying. Their reports are basic and the previous YNAB 4 version had far superior charts. Overall, a decent app with poor customer service. I’m still going to pay for the service because it’s valuable to me, but once a stronger competitor comes along I’ll be the first one in line go try it out.

Fundamentally changed how I view my money. I’m not one to write reviews, but this app has been life changing for me. The ability to choose which accounts to include and exclude has allowed me to isolate the exact view I need into my finances. Other apps automatically pull in every account, which for me meant shared accounts with my partner and savings accounts. What I really wanted was to see only my personal active spending accounts. This app allows for that. So now I have an accurate running balance that includes my credit card balances and my bank account. It helps me keep from spending more on my credit cards than I can pay off per month. The other thing the app does is require you to review and approve every expense that comes through. When I used Mint, the automation was actually very unhelpful because it would constantly miscategorize without validating so it always felt overwhelming when I checked in, like I needed to untangle a mess. YNAB makes suggestions based on your previous categorizations, but leaves the final decision to you. After using this app for a year now, I can confidently say I am so much more aware of my spending patterns. Where I used to be like “ugh where did all my money go?!” Now I’m acutely aware of my spending patterns and habits. I’m able to predict, plan ahead, and spend/save with much more confidence and intentionality. Also their customer care folks are wonderful! Thank you, YNAB!!

Long-time happy user. I’ve been using YNABs products since 2014, including their apps, and have never had a single issue. Not one. It just works every time and is very easy to use. We YNABers are pretty fanatical, I’ll admit. So if you’re on the fence know this: I “find” extra money **every single month** because of YNAB. When I divorced seven years ago, I was really worried about making ends meet. Because of YNAB, not only have I been able to make ends meet, but I can travel, pay for my hobbies, and I paid cash for my brand new Forester last year. I was sad to see YNAB move to a subscription based model a few years ago, but I understand they need to pay their bills too and I like supporting local businesses who pay their employees a fair wage. And the money I’m now able to save and “find” well exceeds the cost. I’m a lifetime subscriber for sure.

Declining usefulness. I’ve used YNAB for a few years now. It started out as being so helpful to my life after I struggled to use a cheaper app that required entering every transaction. While I was very careful it somehow always got off. This app being far more expensive said it automatically uploaded transactions so you didn’t have to worry about missing. I invested in it and for a long time it was useful. However a few years ago a credit card disconnected and I unknowingly went over budget that took months to overcome. This has now happened multiple times with increasing frequency. They always default to “you can manually enter expenses” but if I wanted to do that I would have stuck to the cheaper apps. I will not be continuing with YNAB after the renewal comes up. They keep losing connections now and I have no desire to pay such a high price to have my credit cards and bank accounts constantly disconnecting. The last disconnection I experienced took almost a year to fix (from May to March) and now not even a month later another account disconnected. Hopefully the improve soon and will not cause more damage to future and remaining customers.

Checking account balanced to penny for over a year. This app and way of budgeting has changed my life over the past year. Even though I have plenty of money I would get overdraft charges because I had no visibility into exactly how much was in my account since transactions were floating all over the place. Now every time I get a paycheck, I budget every dollar into different categories. When an expense happens, I add it to my register and take it out of the appropriate category. I manually enter transactions I make and mark them when they’ve cleared. It literally takes me less than five minutes a day to do this - not exaggerating. I have been able to save so much money on the side because I always know how much money I have to work with at any given time. I have been not so great with money my whole life. This system has changed everything for the positive.

Best personal finance software hands down. I rarely write reviews but I’ve been using YNAB for 7 years and there is nothing like it. I have my whole family on it and it’s changed all our lives. It’s the best software I’ve ever seen and used for personal finance and I cannot recommend this enough. I recommend it to anyone who opens up about personal finance woes with me. Those who take my advice and try it never go back. I know the initial cost can be a burden but it’s life changing and it’s less than a mediocre sandwich a month which people spend all the time without thinking. Once you get past the learning curve you’ll be forever changed and enhanced. You learn that the ways you thought about money beforehand were based on bad assumptions and you will reword your brain to be more successful with money and see your finances on a timeline where you honor your future self. This builds a sense of calm and certainty that only builds one’s confidence. I cannot rave enough about YNAB

Bugs need fixing. I’ve used YNAB in the past and loved it. I’ve switched to iPhone and so far this has some annoyances. I re-subscribed to the service and the app closed while trying to “load” the a screen that, I’m guessing, would confirm my subscription. I never got that screen. I did get the charge and the receipt email but the YNAB service apparently can’t match that to my account. I’ve contacted Customer Service and can update this rating based on their response. I’ve never had this issue with almost any other subscription even if the apps closes. On iPhone they also need to update the login screen (I’m on iPhone 12). If you aren’t using Google or Apple for the account, you can enter an email but you can’t scroll down to see that you’re entering a password (to count characters, or just to see it’s being entered) and the screen won’t automatically move down after entering your email. Small annoyance but still really annoying to have to guess that I entered the correct number of characters for the password while I’m typing it.

Has a bit of a learning curve, but still GREAT!. I still haven’t learned everything about it, but enough to track my finances. There was a bit of a learning curve but it was worth it!Their support is fantastic. The Private Facebook group, where you post questions and problems, have people there willing to help out even during a holiday! There are only 2 things I feel would make YNAB complete. 1. A way to back up, and restore. I like to do projections and the Web version doesn't allow for that like the old version did. With the old version, I could correct a mistake through restoring a backup. But in doing this I NEVER HAD TO LEARN about the app. The Web version has forced me to learn and become better at it. You can get a 34-day free trial, followed by a 2nd free 34 day trial upon asking. This should give one enough time to see if YNAB is a good fit. I recommend YNAB for all!

Best Budgeting App Out There. Let me start by saying that YNAB is the best budgeting app out there, and I’ve tried pretty much all of them. That being said, it’s not perfect, and I find it lacking some key components. Chief among them is the ability to see planned income VS scheduled expenditures. Maybe I’m wrong, but there’s no easy way to see how much money I expect to earn in a given month, compared to scheduled bills for the month. I get paid weekly, and that amount varies based on overtime, so what I end up doing is planning week by week, but I have no way of knowing if I’m meeting my obligations for the month without constant review of scheduled transactions. If I look through the budget, all underfunded categories appear in yellow, but there’s no hard and fast method to see all bills for the month compared to what I expect to earn for the month, in order to see how much discretionary spending I can afford for the month. Otherwise, the methodology behind YNAB is fantastic and is laser focused on budgeting. If you struggle with your personal finances, You Need A Budget!

Great app with TERRIBLE sync issues. I’m a primarily AMEX credit card and HYSA user and this has turned into a syncing NIGHTMARE for me! At the beginning I had no problems with syncing transactions but now I’m constantly having to reauthenticate to all my Amex accounts every single day. If you use AMEX, do not use this app. And don’t come at me with oh you should manually import everything. This is a paid service and it should work as intended without compensating. This app is so integral to my daily life that I can’t really move off the platform so I tolerate this. I should love this app but it’s hard to experience this issue day in and day out only to hear it’s not a problem with YNAB, rather a third party service. That designation doesn’t matter to your customers. We pay YNAB for a subscription and third party services are as much part of your product as your native service is. To me they’re one in the same. Fix this and I’ll be a loyal customer for life but when my subscription comes due I’ll be considering other alternatives.

A life saver. I love this program because of the support team!!!!!!! I have been using it for at least a year. I live on retirement and have a limited income. Staying on top or my finances is very important to to me. I used to be extremely stressed about not spending too much money. No more. This program helps me keep on to of how much I can spend for everything. I love the goals for each category so I can see what is coming down the road and am on top of any money needed. Any time, I have ANY issues, I write a note to support and they are simply amazing. They set this program apart from any other financial or budgeting software. I highly recommend it. I also love that no one can get into my financial information. I enter each transaction my self so I am not connected to any bank or credit care. I reconcile it every day and with one checking and one credit card account, I takes me maybe 10 minutes. Then I relax and know where I am and the stress is gone!

Keeps you on track. This app is just absolutely awesome, it helped me gain so much in such a short time I was able to set up my budget. It offers carry over of your income for instance let’s say you have a particular savings where you put money in every month it rolls over to the next month wants it untouched and love that about it. The app allows to create goals let’s say you have a debt to pay off in a certain date it advises the amount you must put away a month and if you don’t go track it adjusts to it can gives you the new figure and also tells you what you need to stay on track. You can see past month expenditures and it helped me too really allocate money properly each month and I was able save a lot more cause of this I became more aware of what I am spending my money on am so glad for this app. Thank you to the creators of this app. Probably to only thing that was a bit difficult for me was the payment only offers yearly and not monthly. But they have good reasons and it is worth it.