Money consistently ranks as one of the top causes of divorce in the U.S. Individual finances are stressful enough; when your finances intertwine with another person, that stress can be amplified.
Fortunately, budgeting apps may help couples reduce money-related anxiety in some relationships.
Reviewing your joint income and expenses can give you a fuller picture of your money situation, providing you a better foundation from which to make decisions about your future financial health. Not to mention, budgeting together can improve your financial communication and coordination.
If you’re looking to budget with your partner, the apps featured below can help you view your finances.
Table of Contents
The Best Budgeting Apps for Couples—Our Top Picks
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Best Paid Budgeting App
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Best Free Budgeting App
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Cost-Effective Budgeting App
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Primary Rating:
4.5
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Primary Rating:
4.5
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Primary Rating:
4.2
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Free 7-day trial, then $14.99/mo. or $49.99/yr.*
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Tools: Free. Wealth Management: Starts at 0.89% of assets annually.*
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$35.87/yr.* (50% discount)
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What Are the Best Budgeting Apps for Couples?
As mentioned above, there’s a significant element of subjectivity to budgeting apps—one person’s ideal user experience is another person’s overcomplicated interface.
We’ll try to acknowledge some of the softer points where we can, but we’ve rated the best budgeting apps on the measurables: quality and quantity of features, compatibility, price, and so on.
Read on as we rank our favorite budgeting apps for couple.
1. Monarch (Best Paid Budgeting App)
- Available: Sign up here
- Platforms: Web, mobile app (iOS, Android)
The Monarch budgeting app is frequently referred to as one of the best replacements for the now-defunct Mint app. We think that sells Monarch short—it’s one of the best budgeting apps we’ve reviewed, making it a suitable replacement for people looking to switch from most other personal finance tools, current or past.
Monarch lets you quickly connect every aspect of your financial life to a single, easy-to-navigate dashboard. The program supports more than 13,000 financial institutions—that’s savings, checking, credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, even investment accounts, from 401(k)s to IRAs to even 529s. You can track your spending and saving through easy-to-read charts, and view individual transactions in case you need to inspect any specific expenditures.
One of our favorite customizations is the budgetary breakdown. If you want, you can view your spending through a traditional category lens (so, housing, utilities, food, etc.), but Monarch’s default is an even simpler “flex budget” view that splits expenses into fixed and variable costs.
Past that, Monarch has a wide features list, including …
- Credit monitoring with monthly score updates and notifications for significant changes
- Custom reports that you can save and revisit whenever you want
- Spending forecasts
- Debt paydown goals
- Bill pay reminders
- Investment and net-worth tracking
Married, have a significant other, or simply want a financial or tax advisor to be able to view your account? Monarch’s partner collaboration is at the head of its class. You can grant access to a second person with a separate login at no extra cost, and you sync two peoples’ accounts and investments into a single view, allowing couples to manage their finances together.
Monarch has a single subscription tier (Core Plan) that provides access to all features. If you use our exclusive link, you can get started with a 7-day free trial—and if you use the code listed in the box below, you can get 50% off your first year’s subscription to Core Plan. (Note: While Monarch does have a mobile app, we recommend using our link to get set up and familiar with the website before moving to the app.)
- Monarch is one of the most comprehensive personal finance apps on the market, allowing you to view, track, and control your financial life from a single, dynamic dashboard.
- Connect your bank, credit, loan, and investment accounts. Monarch supports more than 13,000 financial institutions.
- Stay on top of your credit score with monitoring, monthly score updates, trend graphs, and notifications for big changes.
- Manage your finances by yourself, with a partner, or with an advisor. Monarch's partner collaboration makes it easy to combine finances or let an expert monitor your situation.
- Special offer: Get 50% off your first year of Core Plan when you use our exclusive link, use the code YOUNG50, and pay annually.*
- Investment/net-worth tracking
- Customizable budget goals
- Best-in-class partner/advisor collaboration
- Inherent, seamless user experience
- Significant savings when you pay annually*
- No free tier (just a 7-day free trial)
- No bill-lowering service
2. Empower (Best Free Budget Manager)
- Available: Sign up here
- Platforms: Web, mobile app (iOS, Android)
Empower is one of our top-rated financial services firms for people of any income level thanks to its suite of free-to-use tools.
The free Personal Dashboard makes it easy for people to add all their financial accounts (including credit cards, savings, checking, loans, and tax-advantaged investment accounts) in one place.
Empower offers a number of investing and personal finance tools that you’d expect from a free service, such as the Savings Planner, Retirement Planner, and Financial Calculators—all intuitive and well-built.
But where I think Empower really shines is its free Investment Checkup tool. The tool assesses your portfolio risk, analyzes past performance, and even provides a target allocation for your portfolio. Many people don’t realize how much of their varying mutual funds and ETFs overlap with one another—but the tool can actually help you identify overweight and underweight sector investments (maybe you have too many assets in utilities and not enough in health care) and assess your true diversification.
You can even compare your portfolio to both the S&P 500 and Empower’s “Smart Weighting” Recommendation, which suggests that investors more equally weight their portfolios across size, style, and sector—unlike the S&P 500, where the biggest stocks have the most effect on the portfolio, and there are huge differences in how much each sector is weighted.
Another exceedingly useful tool is the education planner. This tool calculates the estimated cost for your child’s dream schools with a clear breakdown of how much to contribute to their tuition, and it can even model different scenarios such as enrolling out-of-state or the tax implication of different 529 plans.
Use our exclusive link to sign up for the Empower Personal Dashboard. If you have $100,000 or more in investible assets, you’ll also be able to schedule a free initial 30-minute financial consultation with an Empower professional.
- Empower offers both a free set of portfolio, net worth, and cash flow tracking tools, as well as paid asset management service.
- Link Empower to your bank and investing accounts, credit cards, and more to see a single view of useful information and data, including your net worth.
- Empower Advisory Group offers a comprehensive wealth management service known as Personal Strategy. This managed account solution provides clients with discretionary investment management, personalized portfolio construction, and access to financial planning support. Accounts investing $100k to $250k receive unlimited advice and retirement planning help from financial advisors, as well as a professionally managed ETF portfolio with reviews upon request. Higher asset tiers offer access to dedicated advisors, estate planning, and tax specialists, plus additional investment options like access to private equity.**
- Special offer: If you have $100k+ in investible assets, sign up with our link to schedule a free initial 30-minute financial consultation with an Empower professional.
- Free portfolio tracker (Dashboard)
- Free net worth, cash flow, and investment reporting tools (Dashboard)
- Tax-loss harvesting (Personal Strategy)
- Dividend reinvestment (Personal Strategy)
- Automatic rebalancing (Personal Strategy)
- Low investment expense ratios (Personal Strategy)
- High number of investment accounts supported (Personal Strategy)
- Low $100k minimum for investment management (Personal Strategy) compared to traditional advisors.
- Moderately high investment management fee (0.89% AUM) compared to other online advisors (Personal Strategy)
- No dedicated advisor unless you have $250k+ in assets
3. Quicken Simplifi (Best Expense Tracker App)
- Available: Sign up here
- Platforms: Web, mobile app (iOS, Android)
Quicken Simplifi is a useful budgeting app that can help you progress toward your financial goals with confidence.
Simplifi allows you to build monthly budgets yourself, or it will create customized budgets generated automatically based on your income, expenses, and savings. It also provides budget suggestions, and it helps you track progress toward saving goals. The app provides a comprehensive view of your finances, too, syncing up with your bank accounts, credit cards, brokerage and retirement accounts, mortgages, even private investments.
If all of this makes Simplifi seem like a lighter version of Quicken … well that’s because it pretty much is. Quicken literally markets the service right alongside Classic Deluxe, Classic Premier, and Classic Business & Personal, and Simplifi is both cheaper and features fewer options than all three programs.
That said, Simplifi does have a few perks of its own that keep it from truly feeling like “Quicken Lite.” For one, it has a dedicated mobile app—one of my biggest gripes about Quicken is that it only has a “mobile companion app” that syncs up with the desktop versions. Simplifi can also automatically detect bills and identify subscriptions, and, unlike Quicken, it can separate those categories.
As for joint budgeting? Quicken Simplifi users can budget together using the “Space Sharing” feature. If your partner creates a free Quicken ID, you can share full access to your data without giving them your login credentials.
Try out Simplifi to see if it’s the budgeting app you need.
- Simplifi allows you to see all your finances in one place by connecting your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, 401(k), and other investments in a single dashboard.
- Save more money and plan better through goal setting.
- Know where your money goes through insight into spending across categories, tracking upcoming bills and building a projected cash flow.
- Get an automatically generated spending plan customizable to your needs.
- Wide range of compatible accounts
- Intuitive dashboard
- Robust budgeting tools
- Savings goals
- Comprehensive, easy-to-read reports
- No free version/free trial
- Savings goals don't link to accounts
4. YNAB (Best Spending Tracker)
- Available: Sign up here
- Platforms: Web, mobile app (iOS, Android), Apple Watch app
YNAB is a “zero-based” budgeting app that provides an experience similar to the envelop budget system. It determines how much money you have, what your expenses are, and when your expenses need to be paid.
It’s also something of a double-edged sword. YNAB gives users an extremely acute level of control, but initial setup and ongoing management are more involved than other apps. That said, YNAB does provide plenty of resources to help you get used to its budgeting system.
YNAB is also a rarity in that it doesn’t just allow for couples budgeting; you can budget as a family. The YNAB Together feature allows you to invite up to five individuals to join your YNAB Together group for the price of a single subscription.
- You Need a Budget (YNAB) is an award-winning software platform which uses a proven method to teach you how to manage your money and get ahead.
- Budgets update automatically and in real time, and can be accessed on your computer, phone, or tablet.
- Customizable
- Allows for multiple budgets
- Difficult for beginners
- No bill tracking or bill pay
- No investment tracking features
Related: 6 Disadvantages of 401(k) Plans Every Investor Should Know
5. Quicken (Best Financial Management App With Business Features)
- Available: Sign up here
- Platforms: Desktop app (Windows, Mac OS), web, mobile app (iOS, Android)
Quicken has been around for several years and widely been used as a powerful personal finance solution.
You can use the app to track expenses and make budgets as a couple, as well as handle several other personal finance management needs. Quicken provides a consolidated view of your finances in one customizable dashboard, leveraging information from your accounts and activity to understand and manage your spending better. The app also helps you keep tax information up-to-date and will even create tax reports.
Quicken’s dashboard is among the best in the industry. We found the interface intuitive, and that’s a common refrain in user reviews.
The functionality of Quicken extends beyond just personal finances, however. The app covers useful financial management needs of your small business and rental properties you may own and operate as a couple. Use our link to sign up with Quicken.
- Use the Quicken family of personal finance and money management software to see your financial life in one place.
- Create a custom comprehensive budget, track your investments and plan for retirement.
- Stay on top of spending and track what's left to pay bills that you can easily view and manage.
- Review your investment portfolio and monitor performance.
- Multiple versions for differing needs
- Wide range of compatible accounts
- Bill pay reminders
- Real estate features
- Excellent customer support
- No free version or free trial
- Mobile app is only "companion" software
- Several features not available on Mac
Related: Best Kid Debit Cards
6. Wealthfront
- Available: Sign up here
- Platforms: Web, mobile app (iOS, Android)
Wealthfront is perhaps best known for its robo-advisory service and investing tools. But the Wealthfront Cash Account is a digital banking and money organization app that helps users manage their everyday finances and long-term goals while paying no account fees.
Pay bills, access 19,000 no-fee ATMs, direct deposit checks, deposit checks with the mobile app, get FDIC insurance up to $8 million through Wealthfront’s program banks, and enjoy a high APY on your savings.. You can also track your net worth by linking external accounts, make customizable savings goals, and automate your savings by setting up recurring transfers into your goals or your investments.
Meanwhile, Wealthfront’s Joint Cash Accounts allow you to do all this with a partner while enjoying up to $16 million in FDIC insurance.
Wealthfront also offers either individual or joint cash accounts. And you need just $1 to get started. Sign up for Wealthfront Cash today.
- Wealthfront Cash is a digital banking app that lets you pay bills, send and deposit checks, and more with no account fees.
- Set your savings on autopilot: You can make recurring transfers into your investments or customizable savings goals. And with Cash Categories, you can easily parcel out your money while staying organized.
- Access 19,000-plus free ATMs nationwide. Wealthfront also will reimburse two out-of-network fees (up to $7.50) per month.
- Cash accounts come with a Visa debit card.
Related: Original Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage: How Do These Plans Differ?
7. Buxfer
- Available: Link here
- Platforms: Web, mobile app (iOS, Android)
Buxfer is a personal finance and budgeting app designed to give users a comprehensive view of their money and spending habits all in one place.
The app supports for secure automatic syncing from more than 20,000 banks and financial institutions worldwide. An intuitive dashboard allows you to see balances and transactions from checking, savings, and credit accounts without juggling multiple tools.
One of Buxfer’s strongest features is its budgeting and expense tracking tools. You can set weekly, monthly, or yearly spending limits, use envelope budgeting to allocate income across categories, and get real-time alerts when you exceed your budgets. This helps you spend less on unwanted categories and save for things such as travel or big purchases. The app also lets you categorize and tag transactions with custom rules, so you get detailed insights into where your money goes. Other helpful features include multiple currency support, nested tags for organizing expenses, IOU tracking for shared costs, and mobile access with alerts.
Helpfully, Buxfer also allows users to share access with not just a partner, but other family members, and even accountants and financial advisors.
Related: Seeking Alpha vs. Motley Fool: Which Stock Service Is Better?
9. PocketGuard
- Available: Sign up here
- Platforms: Web, mobile app (iOS, Android)
PocketGuard is a comprehensive personal finance app that helps you budget, track your net worth, achieve your financial goals, and even lower your bills.
The app can automatically pull transaction data and categorize your spending through linked checking, savings, credit, and other financial accounts. Beyond basic budgeting, you can set financial goals and track progress, while the app’s insights show spending patterns to inform better decisions.
A standout feature is its “Leftover” view, which calculates how much spendable money you have after accounting for bills, savings goals, and necessary expenses. This helps you avoid overspending and stay on track with your monthly plan. PocketGuard also can find and cancel subscriptions, and it partners with Billshark to negotiate better rates for cell, cable, WiFi and other bills (and it claims an average success rate of 80%).
Beyond basic budgeting, you can set financial goals and track progress, while the app’s insights show spending patterns to inform better decisions. With bank-level security and intuitive charts, PocketGuard is designed to make personal finance clearer and more manageable.
PocketGuard doesn’t have dedicated couples features, but it will allow multiple people to sign into the app from different devices using the same credentials, so you can use it as a joint personal finance app.
Sign up for PocketGuard and try it free for seven days.
- PocketGuard provides a secure place to get a holistic view of all your financial accounts, making it easier to budget, track your cash flow, determine your net worth, and more.
- PocketGuard's free plan includes budgeting, spending reports, cash tracking, accounts and transactions aggregation, bills and income tracking, and anti-fraud technology.
- PocketGuard plus includes everything in the free plan, plus a debt payoff planner, unlimited budgets, unlimited savings goals, data transfer, storage, and more.
- Compatible with accounts from thousands of financial institutions
- Personalized spending results
- Savings goals
- Eliminated free plan
Related: Retirement Plan Contribution Limits and Deadlines for 2025 + 2026
Best Budgeting Apps for Couples
Transparency and communication come as essential elements to relationships in general, but especially when couples start to share their finances. That being said, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula for coordinating finances with your significant other.
Some couples choose to split expenses 50/50, others based on income levels, and still others choose systems that work for them, but wouldn’t for different couples.
Whichever system works best for you, choose the right finance app(s) that best fits with your approach. Budgeting apps make it simple to involve partners and reduce the burden of financial planning.
Use budgeting as an opportunity to bond and look towards your (financial) future together.
