# The best app to track your spending: how to choose one in 2026

> Kesef, a spreadsheet, your bank's app, splitting apps and those that connect to your account. What fits each case, and what each one does NOT solve.

_Comparisons · Published 2026-09-02, updated 2026-10-03_

If you're looking for an app to log your expenses, the list of options is long
and nearly all of them promise the same thing. This post gets to the point: what
to check before installing anything, which one fits your case, and why.

## Quick summary

- **You want to log your expenses and understand where your money goes** →
  **Kesef**.
- **You also share expenses with someone** → **Kesef**, because it's one of the
  few that does both in the same place.
- **You handle more than one currency** → **Kesef**, with the conversion locked
  to the day of the expense.
- **You need a one-off calculation or to model scenarios** → a spreadsheet, for
  that specific job.

## What an expense app needs so you're still using it in three months

Almost no app gets abandoned for lack of features. It gets abandoned because of
friction. These five decide it:

1. **Logging has to cost less than ignoring the expense.** If it takes more than
   ten seconds, sooner or later you'll skip it. Count the taps from opening the
   app to the expense being saved.
2. **No cap on the free plan.** A daily cap shows up precisely on the day you
   logged the most — a trip, a move — and that's the day people stop.
3. **Recurring expenses.** Rent, utilities, subscriptions and instalments are
   half a household's spending. If that half has to be retyped every month, you
   won't last.
4. **It has to work with cash.** In much of the world it's still a big share of
   spending, and no bank connection sees it.
5. **You can get your data out.** That's what keeps your history from depending
   on a company continuing to exist.

## 1. Kesef

**What it is.** A personal finance app that also splits group expenses. You log
by hand, by voice, or by setting recurring expenses up once.

**Why it comes first.** Because it covers all five above **on the free plan**: no
cap on expenses or groups, recurring expenses, 150+ currencies, and JSON and CSV
export without paying anything.

And above all because it solves together what almost everything else solves
separately: **your share of a shared expense lands in your monthly summary.**
It's the difference most underestimated when choosing, and the one most obvious
three months in.

**When it fits.** If you want to understand where your money goes. If you share
expenses with a partner, with roommates or on a trip. If you handle more than one
currency. If you'd rather not hand over banking credentials. And if you want to
start today: it works fully without creating an account.

**When it isn't for you.** Kesef is logged by hand or by voice: it doesn't import
anything from your bank on its own. If what you want is everything appearing
without you touching it — and your bank supports that — you won't find it here.
It also doesn't do envelope budgeting or multi-year projections: it's built for
the month you're living, not for planning retirement.

**Price.** Free, with ads and no expense cap. Pro is USD 5 a month or USD 35 a
year (with a 14-day trial on the yearly plan): it connects your Mercado Pago account so payments log
themselves, adds unlimited voice logging, removes the ads and adds Excel export.

## 2. Apps that only split expenses

**What they are.** Splitwise, Tricount and similar: they record what you divide
with other people and work out who owes whom.

**When they fit.** When the group already has them installed and it's a one-off
event — there the advantage isn't the app, it's that nobody has to install
anything.

**Their limit, which is structural.** They're **shared** expense apps: what you
spend alone — the coffee, the fuel, the subscription — doesn't live there. So if
you also want to understand your own spending, you need a second app or a
spreadsheet, and half of what you spend never appears in the same summary.

Kesef does both in one place, and that's why it's worth it even when all you
wanted was to split: you split the same way, and you end up with your complete
month as well. Add to that the fact that Splitwise's free plan has a daily expense
cap that shows up right on the second day of a trip.

It's developed in
[Splitwise alternatives](/en/blog/splitwise-alternatives) and
[Tricount alternatives](/en/blog/tricount-alternatives).

## 3. A spreadsheet

**When it fits.** For what a spreadsheet does better than any app: unusual
calculations, modelling, and projects with an end date. Crossing two categories,
modelling three rent scenarios, closing out the kitchen renovation.

**Its limit.** The moment of logging. Opening a spreadsheet on your phone,
waiting for it to load, finding the row and typing across four columns, against
three taps. That difference is what decides whether the tracking survives month
two. It also doesn't scale to shared expenses — one person ends up doing all of
it — or to two currencies, because the day's rate has to be pasted by hand,
expense by expense.

What actually works is using both: the app records every day, and you export a
CSV when a calculation comes up that the app doesn't do. The full comparison is in
[spreadsheet vs expense app](/en/blog/spreadsheet-vs-expense-app).

## 4. Your bank's app or your wallet

**When it fits.** For seeing that account's transactions, which is what it's for.

**Its limit.** As a spending system it isn't enough, for three concrete reasons:
it can't see cash, it can't see what you paid with another wallet, and the
merchant picks your category rather than you. If your money moves through a bank,
a wallet and cash — which is normal across much of the world — none of those apps
has your complete month.

## 5. Apps with a bank connection

**When they fit.** If your bank is supported, if you're comfortable handing over
online banking credentials, and if nearly all your spending goes through that
account.

**Their limit.** Across much of Latin America the open banking infrastructure
doesn't exist or half-works. And even where it works, automatic import can't see
cash, doesn't pick your categories — what arrives is the merchant's registered
name, landing wherever the algorithm guesses — and doesn't know which part of a
shared expense is yours.

Which is why a method that works the same for cash as for cards pays off more
than it looks. It's in
[tracking without connecting a bank](/en/blog/track-expenses-without-connecting-a-bank).

## 6. Paper and memory

We mention it because a great many people use it, and because it has a real
virtue: writing by hand forces you to look at the expense once, which is half the
value of tracking.

It stops working the moment you want a total by category, a comparison between
two months, or to share the tab with someone.

## So which one?

The short rule: **the best app isn't the one with the most features. It's the one
that gets you logging your expenses every day.** Everything else depends on that.

And by that standard, the answer for most people is the same: an app with no cap
on the free plan, with recurring expenses, that works with cash, and that also
keeps your shared expenses in the same place. Kesef is built for exactly that.

## Trying Kesef

It's free, it's on iPhone and Android, and you don't need an account or any
connection to start. If it hasn't helped after three months, you export your data
as JSON or CSV and take it with you.

## Frequently asked

**What's the best free app for tracking expenses?**
The one that doesn't put a cap on the free plan, because that's the limit that
filters most. Kesef has no cap on expenses or groups, and adds recurring
expenses, multi-currency and export without paying.

**Do I need to connect a bank?**
No. It's a shortcut that half-works in much of the world and still leaves out
cash, real categories and shared expenses.

**Is Excel still useful?**
For calculating and modelling, yes. For logging every day, no: there it loses on
friction, and friction is what decides whether the tracking survives.

**Does it work if I only want to split expenses with friends?**
Yes, and you get your own complete month as well. With an app that only splits,
what you paid doesn't enter your personal summary: you have the group's tab but
not your own.

## Sources

Data about other products checked on 2026-09-02.

- [Tricount — qué pasó con Premium](https://help.tricount.com/articles/what-happened-with-tricount-premium)
- [Splitwise — Pro](https://www.splitwise.com/pro)

## Download

- iPhone (App Store): https://apps.apple.com/app/id6758053806
- Android (Google Play): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kesef.app

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