Best budgeting apps in Australia

Wanting a budgeting app usually starts with a simple question: where did my pay go, and how much of the next one can I actually spend? Then you open an app store, find a dozen apps that all promise to answer it, and realise the screenshots don't show what actually matters. Can it see your bank? Can it cope with a pay that arrives every second Thursday?

We are building Clova, and it is our pick. We have ranked these eight apps for an Australian reader planning around payday, looking first at pay-cycle fit and Australian bank coverage, then cost and the effort of keeping the plan current.

What makes an app fit you

The first thing most budgeting apps ask for is your bank, and how they get in shapes how much typing you'll do and who ends up holding your data. In Australia, the system built for this is open banking, which runs under a government-regulated framework called the Consumer Data Right, or CDR. It lets you share your bank data with an app without giving it your banking password, and you choose what's shared and for how long (CDR). An app that receives data this way has to be accredited, meaning the government has checked it and approved it to receive the data, or work through a business that is.

The alternatives are older or simpler. With screen scraping, you hand your online banking login to the app or the company it uses to connect, which logs in and reads your account as if it were you. Some apps don't connect directly to Australian banks, so you type in what you spend or import a file of transactions downloaded from your online banking. And a bank's own app just shows the accounts you already have there. Whichever way it works, the businesses that receive your data are the ones you're trusting with it, so it's worth reading who they are and how to ask them to delete it.

Then there's your pay, and the detail most worth getting right is where your budget starts. If you're paid on a Thursday and your budget week or fortnight starts on a Monday, one pay gets split across two budgets, and both get harder to read. The same goes for a monthly pay on the 15th and a budget that resets on the 1st. Fortnightly pay adds one more wrinkle: most months bring two paydays, but usually two months a year bring three, so a month-by-month budget never quite lines up. That's why the table asks whether an app can budget in fortnights, and where those fortnights start. Our fortnightly pay guide works out how much of each pay to put aside for monthly bills, in any app or none.

The other seven are on iPhone and Android. Goodbudget, PocketSmith and YNAB also run on the web, and WeMoney adds desktop access on its paid plan.

Eight budgeting apps, ranked

App	All your accounts in one view	Fortnightly budgets	Cost, as listed	Who receives your bank data
1ClovaBudgeting app, ours	All your banks togetherOpen banking through Fiskil	Yes, from payday to payday; weekly, monthly and casual pay too	Free, all your banks includedPaid from A$7.99 adds secure AI features	FiskilThen Clova
2PocketSmithForecasting app	Several banks, on paid plansOpen banking; the free plan is typed in or imported	Yes, from a start date you choose	Free planBank feeds from A$9.99 a month billed yearly, or A$14.95 monthly	MastercardBasiq for older feeds; then PocketSmith
3FrolloBudgeting app	Several banks, freeOpen banking; screen scraping for some banks	Yes, start day not stated	FreeNo subscription	FrolloYodlee too, for screen-scraped banks
4CommBank InsightsTools in the CommBank app	CommBank accounts only	Yes, starts on payday	FreeIn the CommBank app	CommBankYour bank
5UpBank with budgeting built in	Up accounts only	Pay Day counts down to the next pay date you set	No monthly feeOn the account	UpYour bank
6GoodbudgetEnvelope budgeting app	Only what you type inOr import a bank file	Yes, from a start date you choose	Free planPremium US$10 a month or US$80 a year	No bank connectionGoodbudget holds what you enter
7YNABBudgeting method and app	Only what you type inOr import a bank file	No, targets can't be fortnightly	US$14.99 a monthOr US$109 a year, plus any tax	No Australian bank connectionYNAB holds what you enter
8WeMoneyBudgeting and credit score app	Several banks, freeOpen banking	Not stated	FreePro A$9.99 a month or A$98.99 a year in the App Store	WeMoneyVia Mastercard or Yodlee, among others

Ranked for Australian weekly and fortnightly pay: pay-cycle fit, Australian bank coverage, then cost and effort. We are building Clova and prefer it; this is a maker’s comparison of published information, not independent hands-on scoring. “Not stated” means we did not find it in the sources checked. Prices are as listed; App Store prices can differ.

What stands out about each app

1. Clova (ours, and our pick)

Clova is built around deciding where each pay goes, every payday. Clova splits your pay into allocations, amounts set aside for rent and bills, food, fun and savings, which always add up to the pay itself. Upcoming bills sit on a calendar up to your next payday, with what's left to spend shown beside them. Each plan runs from payday to payday, whether you're paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly, or get casual pay that changes each week.

Your everyday account, savings and cards from every bank you use come together in Clova, so the plan reflects everything you have, wherever your wages land. Each purchase goes into a category for you. Of the other apps here, only Frollo, WeMoney and PocketSmith's paid plans also bring several banks together.

That's why it's our pick: it answers how much of this pay you can actually spend, on your pay cycle rather than the calendar's. A bank connection through Fiskil under the Consumer Data Right is required, and our CDR policy explains the sharing. Clova is not independently accredited.

We've also put a lot of care into how Clova looks and feels, because a budget you enjoy opening is one you're more likely to keep. It's completely free to use, including connecting all your banks. The paid version, from A$7.99, adds the secure AI features we're proudest of.

2. PocketSmith

PocketSmith, a New Zealand app, is built around a calendar and a forecast. Put in your pay and your bills and it projects where your balance is heading, up to ten years out on its cheapest paid plan, which can show you a tight month well before you get there, as long as you've told it about all your bills. Its budgets can be fortnightly and start on any date, so they can begin on your payday.

The catch is cost. The free plan has no automatic bank feeds and stops at two accounts and 12 budgets, so to connect your banks at all, you're looking at a paid plan, from about $10 a month if you pay for the year or about $15 month to month. PocketSmith bills accounts set to Australia in Australian dollars, and its plans page shows the local price. It reaches your bank through an accredited company, Mastercard for new connections and Basiq for older ones, so your data passes through one of them first. It's designed around the website, with its phone app, PocketSmith Sidekick, as a companion, so it suits you if you don't mind setting things up at a computer.

3. Frollo

Frollo costs nothing at all, with no ads and no subscriptions, which makes it the obvious way to find out whether a connected budgeting app suits you before paying for one. It keeps track of your recurring bills and warns you when there isn't enough money for one that's coming up, a warning that's hard to give yourself. We've found the app itself awkward to get around, though, so give it a few weeks before deciding whether connected budgeting suits you.

It's accredited under the CDR, and its one real catch is for banks that aren't on open banking: for those, Frollo's terms say its data partner can use screen scraping instead, so if one of your banks is in that group, we'd think twice before connecting it. Budgets can be weekly, fortnightly or monthly, but Frollo's help says the period is set independently of your pay cycle and doesn't say whether you can choose the start day, so it's the first setting we'd look at.

4. CommBank app (Insights)

For anyone whose pay already goes into CommBank, the budgeting tools may already be on your phone. They're called Insights, they come free with the CommBank app, and they can show your spending by week, fortnight or month, with each period starting and ending on your payday (CommBank). That's the feature we'd look at first, because it keeps each pay in one budget whatever your cycle. You can choose which accounts count, joint ones included, and move a transaction that's landed in the wrong category.

The catch is that it works with the accounts in your CommBank app, so if your rent comes out of another bank, check whether that account can be included, and CommBank is rolling Insights out gradually, so you might not see it yet. In return, the tools use accounts CommBank already holds, so there's no new app to give your bank data to.

5. Up

Up is a bank rather than a budgeting app, but budgeting is built into it. It's a brand of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank that only exists as an app, and it has no monthly account fee. Its Spendable Balance takes out what you'll need for upcoming bills and shows what's left, and its Pay Day feature does the same up to the next pay date you set, which Up says works with weekly, fortnightly or monthly pay. It's a countdown to payday rather than a budget split into categories. That kind of number is the one we'd most like everyone to have, because the balance in your account is usually bigger than what you can safely spend (rent day has a way of pointing that out).

The catch is that the tools only work on money held in Up, so your pay, or a regular transfer of it, needs to land there. Switching banks is a bigger step than downloading an app, but for some people it's simpler than connecting one.

6. Goodbudget

Envelope budgeting is one of the oldest ways to manage money, and Goodbudget puts it on your phone. You give every dollar an envelope, like rent, groceries or a holiday, and spend from each one until it's empty; our envelope budgeting guide explains the method. Its automatic bank sync covers US banks only, so here you type each purchase in or import a file. For plenty of people that's a reason to look elsewhere. For others it's the appeal, because typing in the coffee is a small moment of deciding whether you wanted it.

It's one of the easier fits for a fortnightly pay, because you can set a budget period of every two weeks starting on your payday, and the free plan is enough to find out whether envelopes suit you. If you go on to pay, Goodbudget, a US company, has said its website prices are in US dollars, so expect the Australian amount to be higher than the number on the page.

7. YNAB

YNAB, short for You Need A Budget, is a method as much as an app: give every dollar you have right now a job before you spend it. We like the idea of deciding up front, though the method only works if you keep doing it every payday. One subscription covers up to six people, which helps if you budget as a household.

In Australia it asks the most of you. Its direct bank import covers selected banks in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU, so here you enter transactions yourself or import a file, and its prices are in US dollars, after a 34-day free trial if you sign up directly. Its targets, the amounts YNAB helps you set aside for each expense, can't be set fortnightly, so on a fortnightly pay you'd be working around weekly or monthly ones. For someone who wants the method above all, that may still be worth it.

8. WeMoney

WeMoney puts your accounts, budgets and debts beside your credit score, the number credit bureaus such as Equifax and Experian work out from your borrowing history, which lenders check when you apply for a loan or a card. It updates the score monthly, or daily with Pro. We'd think of it as a debt tracker with a budget attached rather than the other way round, which is exactly right if you're paying off a card or getting ready to apply for credit.

The core app is free, and Pro, which you can try for seven days, adds things like desktop access and unlimited custom categories. On pay cycles, it asks for your payday and how often it comes, which is promising, though it doesn't publish which frequencies you can pick. It's accredited under the CDR, so it connects through open banking, and its CDR policy sets out how that data is handled.

How to choose for the way you're paid

We'd look first for a budget that starts on payday, keeping each pay and its costs together. Clova plans that way for every pay cycle. Of the apps you can download today, CommBank's Insights does it for weekly, fortnightly and monthly pay, Up's Pay Day counts down to the pay date you set, and Goodbudget and PocketSmith let you pick the start date yourself. With Frollo and WeMoney, we couldn't find how the budget lines up with your payday, so it's worth checking in the first week. If your shifts change from week to week, the amount is more of a problem than the date, and living on one steady amount, with the extra from big weeks kept for quiet ones, will do more than any app. Our guide to budgeting on casual income explains how.

Where your pay lands matters next. If your pay, your bills and your spending all run through one CommBank or Up account, the tools already in that app see everything, so we'd try them before downloading anything. If you bank somewhere else, open your own bank's app first in case it has something similar. Once your money is spread across banks, with pay in one, savings in another and a credit card somewhere else, a connected app is what brings it together, and the choice comes down to what you want from it. Frollo is free. PocketSmith adds a forecast and payday start dates, at a price. WeMoney is the one to look at if debt is what you're watching most closely.

That leaves the money question: is a paid app worth it? On a tight pay, we'd start with a free one and only pay once you know what's missing, whether that's a forecast, a particular method or more accounts than a free plan allows. An app that costs a few dollars a week has to save you more than that to earn its place. If you're weighing up names from overseas lists, compare their methods and supported countries before assuming they'll fit your Australian accounts. And if you'd rather type everything in, Goodbudget's free plan costs nothing to try.

Before you connect your bank

The screen that asks for your bank is a good place to slow down. If an app uses open banking, it should appear in the government's Current providers directory, either itself or through the accredited business it works with, so look it up there before you agree. If it asks for your online banking login instead, that connection isn't using open banking, and CommBank warns that giving your login to another business may break its terms (CommBank), so look at your own bank's terms and ask the app how it protects your login before you go ahead. Our open banking guide goes through the permission screens step by step.

Give it a few paydays

If you've downloaded a budgeting app before and stopped opening it after a couple of weeks, that isn't a failing. Often it just didn't fit the way you're paid, or asked for more typing than you wanted to do. Give the next one a couple of months before you judge it, because the first few weeks of any budget are mostly finding out what you really spend, and the numbers rarely match the plan straight away. If it still doesn't fit by then, try another. Keep the one you find yourself opening on a tight week.

A note from us

We believe the useful test is whether an app helps with the week that is hardest to manage. Our ranking reflects the pay-cycle approach we are building Clova around.

How we checked

We ranked the apps for an Australian reader planning around payday. Pay-cycle fit and Australian bank coverage come first, followed by cost and the effort of maintaining the plan. The order is our judgement from published features, not independent hands-on testing. A different priority can change which app fits best.

Each app was held to the same four questions: how it gets your transactions, who receives your bank data, what it costs and in which currency, and whether it can budget in fortnights that start on your payday. Every competitor fact comes from the app's own website, help centre, policies or Australian App Store listing, or from the government's Consumer Data Right register. Facts about Clova come from Clova's own published FAQ, app page and Consumer Data Right page, and from us as its makers. Clova connects your bank through Fiskil under the CDR, as its Consumer Data Right page explains. Connecting a bank is required to use Clova. We did not install or test the apps, open accounts or connect banks, so nothing here describes how an app feels to use. The views in each section are ours, based on what each app publishes.

Prices are shown as each app listed them in the linked sources. Where a website lists prices in US dollars we've kept them in US dollars rather than converting them, because the exchange rate moves. Prices in the App Store and Google Play can differ from website prices, and Australian storefronts may show Australian-dollar prices, so check the currency at checkout. PocketSmith's plans page showed Australian-dollar prices when we checked from Australia, and other currencies from elsewhere. Goodbudget's plans page doesn't name a currency; its statement that website prices are in US dollars is the linked forum reply. PocketSmith's statement that budgets can start on any date is from the linked PocketSmith blog post. Goodbudget's two-week budget period comes from its changelog. WeMoney's prices are the Australian App Store's; its website lists Pro at $9.99 a month or $99 a year.

We left out Moneysmart's TrackMySPEND app because we couldn't confirm from a current Moneysmart page that it's still available. "Fortnightly budgets, and where they start" records what each app says about fortnightly budget periods, not a test of how well each one works; "Not stated" means we couldn't find it in the sources we checked. Weekly budgets are noted only where an app publishes them. "Who receives your bank data" names each app and the bank-connection companies it says it uses; it doesn't cover every service provider an app uses.

This is general information, not financial advice, and it doesn't consider your circumstances. Apps change their prices and features often, so check the app's own site before you sign up.