First, the obvious disclosure: I’m building Sprigly, one of the apps in this comparison. I’d rather tell you that in the first sentence than let you work it out by paragraph four. My promise for the rest of this page is simple: real prices, real tradeoffs, and honest recommendations, including the ones that point away from my app.
Envelope budgeting is one method with many names. YNAB calls it giving every dollar a job. Ramsey people call it zero-based budgeting. TikTok calls it cash stuffing. The idea is always the same: assign your money to categories before you spend it, so the question “can I afford this?” has an answer that isn’t a guess.
How I compared
Every price and feature below comes from the vendor’s own pages, not from a review round-up, and every one of them is linked so you can check it yourself. Prices checked on 2026-09-18. They are in US dollars, they exclude tax, and they change often — if you are reading this months later, click the links before you trust the numbers.
I did not test every app for a full month. What I compared is the part that is checkable and that people actually choose on: what it costs, whether it connects to your bank, where your data ends up, and which platforms it runs on. Where an app is better than Sprigly, I say so.
At a glance
| App | Price | Bank sync | Data location | Platforms | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YNAB | $14.99/mo or $109/yr | Yes | YNAB’s servers | Web, iOS, Android | People who want sync plus the best teaching |
| Actual Budget | Free, open source | Optional, with your own API keys | Your own server, or your browser | Web, desktop, mobile via your server | Technical people who want to own the whole stack |
| Goodbudget | Free tier; $10/mo or $80/yr | Yes on Premium, US banks only | Goodbudget’s servers | Web, iOS, Android | Couples running shared envelopes |
| EveryDollar | Free tier; $17.99/mo or $79.99/yr | Yes on premium | Ramsey’s servers | Web, iOS, Android | People working the Baby Steps |
| Sprigly | Free while in beta, paid at 1.0 | No, by design | On your phone | Android; iPhone later | People who won’t hand over a bank login |
Where the main apps stand
YNAB is the deep end, and the polish shows. $14.99 a month or $109 a year, with a 34-day free trial, bank connections, subscription sharing with up to five other people, and the best educational material in the category by a distance. The price stings, and it has climbed repeatedly over the years, but I know people who’d cancel their streaming services before they’d cancel YNAB. If you want bank sync and a mature ecosystem and the subscription doesn’t bother you, YNAB is still the reference.
Actual Budget is free, open source, and quietly excellent. The catch is the word “host”: most of what makes it good — syncing between devices, using it on your phone, bank integration — needs a server you run yourself, whether that’s Docker on a machine at home or a small cloud host. Bank sync is built in, but you bring your own API credentials from GoCardless (EU/UK) or SimpleFIN (US/Canada), and those providers set their own terms. If Docker doesn’t scare you, Actual might be all you ever need. If it does, the setup will fight you. I recommend it constantly to technical friends.
Goodbudget is the veteran of digital envelopes, and the thing I used to say about it is now out of date. The free tier is real — 10 regular envelopes, 10 “more” envelopes, one account, two devices and a year of history — and Premium is $10 a month or $80 a year for unlimited envelopes and accounts, five devices, seven years of history, and automatic bank sync for US banks. I previously described Goodbudget as manual-entry-only by philosophy. That is no longer true: if you want envelopes and automatic imports, Premium does both, as long as your bank is in the US. Outside the US it stays a manual app. It shows its age in places, but it has been doing patient envelope budgeting since before it was trendy, and it shares between partners well.
EveryDollar is the Ramsey option. The free version does manual zero-based budgeting for as long as you like; premium is $17.99 a month, or $79.99 a year after a 14-day trial, and adds automatic transactions via bank connect, a debt payoff tracker and coaching. If you’re working the Baby Steps, it plugs into that world neatly. Outside that world, the free tier is thinner than Goodbudget’s and the monthly price is above YNAB’s.
Sprigly is mine, so grade this paragraph accordingly. It’s envelope budgeting with one structural difference: there is no bank connection at all. Your budget lives on your phone and is never sent to us, and Sprigly never asks for your bank login. Manual entry with one-tap reconciling, envelopes, savings goals, seven currencies, and your own exportable backups. It’s in open beta right now and free while it is — the full release will be paid, and I’ll publish what it costs before that happens. It’s Android only today; iPhone comes later. Beta means rough edges, and pretending otherwise would be silly.
What the prices don’t tell you
Two things are worth separating, because the pricing table flattens them.
The first is where the data goes. YNAB, Goodbudget and EveryDollar are cloud apps: your budget lives on their servers, which is what makes sync and bank imports possible in the first place. That is a reasonable trade and millions of people make it happily. It is simply a different trade from Actual’s (your server) or Sprigly’s (your phone), and it’s worth choosing on purpose rather than by default — I wrote about what handing over a bank login actually involves separately.
The second is how much of the price is the method. None of these apps invented envelope budgeting, and none of them will make it work for you. What you are paying for is convenience, teaching, or both. If you want the method for nothing, a spreadsheet still works, and the beginner’s guide is the whole thing in ten minutes.
The honest decision tree
The way I see it:
- Bank sync is non-negotiable → YNAB, or EveryDollar premium if you’re in the Ramsey system, or Goodbudget Premium if you’re in the US and want envelopes with imports.
- You’re technical and price-sensitive → Actual Budget is hard to argue with.
- You want simple, free and manual → Goodbudget’s free tier is right there.
- The thing stopping you is handing an app your bank password → that’s the exact problem I’m building Sprigly to solve.
Whichever you pick, the method matters more than the app. Every tool on this list works if you open it on payday.
Sprigly is a calm envelope budgeting app. Your budget lives on your phone and is never sent to us. Sprigly never asks for your bank login. The open beta is free on Android. Get it on Google Play · On iPhone? Get notified.
Sprigly is a calm envelope budgeting app. Your budget lives on your phone and is never sent to us. Sprigly never asks for your bank login. The open beta is free on Android.