Best budgeting apps in Canada

YNAB gets into the minutia of your money and connects to all your financial accounts. It also offers debt tracking, budgeting and goal-saving features. The app’s methodology is centred around four main rules:

1. Give every dollar a job – actively decide how you want to spend your money rather than buying things haphazardly without a goal.

2. Embrace your true expenses – pay bills as soon as possible.

3. Roll with the punches – stuff happens, so know when you need to adjust your budget and do so responsibly.

4. Age your money – save money so you’ll no longer have to live paycheque-to-paycheque.

These principles have helped many users get a firm hold on their personal economies and won the app legions of loyal fans.

YNAB really differs from other budgeting apps in its educational approach, which emphasizes teaching users better financial skills and developing good spending habits that go beyond just mindlessly using the app. The company even offers free (for members) courses on things like managing debt and how to create a budget. YNAB is one of the best budget apps for iPhone and is also available for Android. Both iOS and Android users can try the app for a 34-day free trial period; afterward, it’s US$14.99 a month or $99 paid annually.

Get the YNAB app.

Connect with over 11,000 financial institutions from your bank and credit cards to your investment accounts and watch it all come together in one beautifully designed app.

You can customize your categories, create budgeting rules, track your net work, and collaborate with your partner or roommates (all without adding extra costs). It's money management made easy.

They don't work with crypto, nor do they pay your bills, but helping you stay on top of your investments, recurring bills (how much are you paying for all those subscriptions?), and getting personalized advice (from a chat wizard, but...still valuable)—we think Monarch is worth the money.

It's $14.99 USD per month, $99 USD when billed annually, but now that they've officially launched in Canada, you can save 50% on your first year AND get an extended free trial with code CANADA50.

PocketSmith stands out from other budgeting apps due to its impressive forecasting abilities. It can collate all your financial info (chequing balance, savings, investments, loans, etc.) and create accurate forecasts of your financial status up to 30 years into the future, based on the budgets you create. Different ‘what if’ scenarios can also be tested, in which you can adjust projected expenses, income levels, investment performance, and debts to get a glimpse of various financial outcomes for your future.

While most budgeting apps only connect to bank accounts in Canada and the United States, PocketSmith offers a rare level of integration with overseas accounts and foreign currencies. You can see the individual balances of your domestic and foreign accounts in their native currencies. You can also see the combined value of all your global assets and liabilities, tallied up and converted to the base currency of your choice.

Though PocketSmith does offer a free version, its functionality is far more limited than what you’ll get for a paid subscription. The free version supports a maximum of two financial accounts. It can only create financial projections up to six months into the future. It relies on you manually uploading your transactions and account balances rather than automatically syncing with your financial institutions. A paid version is available for as little as $7.50 USD per month, which is a worthwhile expense for two types of users:

1. Those who are serious about budgeting accurately to realize a major life event down the road, like a wedding, property purchase, or paying for college tuition.

2. Expats, digital nomads, dual citizens, and frequent traveller-types who make a lot of foreign purchases and/or have bank accounts in multiple countries.

Instead of having one app for budgeting, another for savings, and a third for earning rewards, KOHO bundles all of these financial musts into a single app that doubles as a prepaid payment card.

KOHO’s budgeting features allow you to easily reference which categories you spend most of your money in. Savings can be kick-started with RoundUp.

If, for example, you spend $3.25 on coffee, KOHO can round up that payment to $4.00 and move the $0.75 difference toward a savings goal that you’ve set. And KOHO’s prepaid card earns different levels of cash back, depending on whether you go for the card’s Easy, Essential, or Extra versions.

The combination of a financial app and a prepaid card is rare, but it’s not entirely unique because KOHO has a close competitor called Stack. KOHO and Stack offer similar budgeting functionality, but they do have other significant differences in their fee structure and rewards rates that may make one of the apps/cards a better fit for you than the other.

Moka isn't so much a budgeting app, but it's what you do with your money after you've budgeted it. You can't time the market. But, continual investment in the stock market, especially early on, could help you retire much sooner.

Moka accepts weekly or monthly contributions and pours that money into the S&P500 which, for the past 65 years, has outperformed the average personal financial advisor.

It might not help you budget, but i'll certainly budget for your retirement.

If you want the accuracy of an app that links to all your bank accounts, but you’re concerned that an app like YNAB might be too complicated and require too much interaction on your part, then PocketGuard is a worthwhile pick. Though it links to your bank and credit card accounts and gives you up-to-the-minute overviews of your financial situation, its overarching raison d’etre is simple: PocketGuard lets you know how much money you can safely spend without going into the red.

The app “guards your pocket” by making sure you only spend what you can afford once you’ve taken care of the essentials like paid bills and some regular savings. After you’ve paid bills and put aside some savings, the app gives you a clear overall picture of what you have left to spend. You also don’t have to worry about setting up a budget because PocketGuard makes one for you automatically based on your income, the bills you must pay, and your personal saving goals. PocketGuard basic is free and is also available for iOS. PocketGuard Plus helps you track cash spending, as well as bank accounts and investments, and goes for US$3.99 monthly or US$34.99 annually.

Expenses have never looked so beautiful. Spendee is a graphic designer’s dream with bold, bright colors and a lush design aesthetic that makes you want to tune in and see where you’re spending your money. But it’s not just a pretty face.

You can also set budget goals and manage bill payments, and it will also track your crypto wallet and E-Wallet. Similar to more advanced apps like YNAB, the paid version will also link to your bank accounts and provide a thorough overview of your financial activity.

Above all else, Spendee’s prime directive gives you a picture-perfect representation of your spending habits using beautiful charts, diagrams, and colorful columns. It’s intuitively laid out and even lets you upload photos to go with budget items you’re trying to save up for. It wants to make the user experience as enjoyable and accessible as possible so even the most financially challenged among us will understand our financial status. Spendee is also available for iOS and offers a free basic version. Paid versions cost either US$14.99 or US$22.99 annually and include extras like the capacity to link bank accounts.

Supported banks: Alterna, BMO, CIBC, Desjardins, EQ Bank, Meridian, National Bank, RBC, Simplii Financial, Scotiabank, Tangerine, TD, and more.

If you want to get a handle on your spending but don’t want an app to access your financial accounts, the no-frills Spending Tracker provides an excellent first step. It’s a pared-down app that focuses on keeping track of your spending. You simply enter your income and then manually enter the amount you spend whenever you make a purchase or pay a bill.

You can also set up a “Budget Mode” where you put in a maximum spending limit, and as you enter your expenses, you can see how close you are to reaching your spending cap.

Its streamlined, no-nonsense design makes it much more approachable for someone new to the world of finance apps and who doesn’t want to be overwhelmed by lots of numbers and details. While it may not look like much to fans of super-automated budgeting systems, money experts agree that consciously monitoring where your money is going is an essential first step in smart financial management. Of course, because it’s not synced to your bank accounts, it relies on your discipline to input your spending to provide an accurate overview of your finances. Those who don’t mind some regular data input will find Spending Tracker to be one of the best budget apps free of charge for both iOS and Android.

This user-friendly app will appeal to those who like to set boundaries on what they can spend every month and who favour saving methods that are easy to visualize. Unlike many other financial apps, Goodbudget focuses more on planning and limiting your spending rather than mapping your entire financial universe. It’s based on the ‘envelope method’ of saving money that was popular back when cash was king before credit cards. While cash is becoming an antiquated method of commerce, the principles of envelope budgeting are still sound.

Each month Goodbudget lets you put a maximum amount of “cash” into virtual envelopes that are each allocated to things like groceries, gas, and entertainment. During the month, you only spend what you have in each envelope; if there’s any left over, you can put it into savings. It’s an excellent way to eliminate careless spending, but to work, it depends on your dedication to update envelopes and not go over allocated amounts. Like Spending Tracker, it doesn’t have access to your real-world financial records, which can be a pro or a con depending on your cybersecurity concerns. The basic app is free for both Android and iOS. For US$6 monthly or US$50 annually, you have perks like synching envelopes across multiple devices.

Get the GoodBudget app.