We take a look at the best budgeting apps & banking services available in the UK.
With the aid of modern apps and banking platforms, your balance ⚖️ spending 🛍️ and budget 📊 doesn’t have to be more than a tap or two away.
In the UK there are a selection of free budgeting apps & banking services with features to help you manage your money.
Rather than having to manually import and categorise your spending against a budget, there are tools that can do it for you automatically – saving time and making it faster and easier to budget your finances effectively.
Budgeting Software & Apps
A list of software apps that can automatically categorise your spending and help you budget.
Money Dashboard
Using Money Dashboard you can connect any of the main UK bank accounts and automatically categorise debt/credit transactions against your budget.
Money Dashboard has a wide range of budgeting features, you can create budget planners, save money and plan towards your goals.
Money Dashboard is a free product.
Money Dashboard is available via web app, Android and iOS.
Plum
Sign up to Plum using Facebook Messenger, and Plum can help you invest you budget and save automatically.
Chat to Plum using Facebook Messenger, connect your bank accounts, and the app can automatically save or invest your money.
We currently have an exclusive deal with Plum offering a free £5 to Dumb Funded users.
Emma
With Emma you can add bank accounts and manage your spending, budget and assign your spending to categories.
Emma is a free service, though there is an additional offering called Emma Pro with more features and customisation options.
Emma is available on Android and iOS to use on your phone.
Yolt
Yolt uses Open Banking to pull in your data from all your bank accounts and credit cards.
You can see a combined view of all your accounts and transactions, different spending categories and insights.
Yolt is available on Android and iOS.
Banking Services
If you use one of the above listed apps you can pull in banking data from most popular banks.
We have also pulled together a quick list of banks that are good for budgeting and automatically categorise transactions.
Quick Compare Budgeting Friendly Banks
Best accounts for:
🙋 Personal 💼 Business 🌏 Travel 📊 Budgeting
| Service | Good For | Savings Interest | FCFS Protected | More |
| Starling | Budgeting, Saving | 0.25% – 0.5% | ✅ | More |
| Monzo | Budgeting, Safety | None | ✅ | More |
| Revolut | 🌏 💱 | None | No | More |
Starling Bank
Starling has a range of simple tools to help with budgeting and money management.
Users can see a quick view of spending across different categories and merchants, and save up money towards different goals.
Via the marketplace there are a range of additional services that can be connected up to your account.
Starling offer an interest rate on savings, which makes them a great choice for saving money from your budget.
Monzo
Monzo has a wide range of budgeting features that allow you to manage your money and stick to budgets.
Transactions are automatically categorised so you can see an overview of your spending across different categories.
You can set monthly spending budgets, keep track of daily spending, block gambling, and set aside money into savings pots.
Revolut
Revolut has a range of budgeting and money management analytics tools.
Transactions are automatically categorised and you can see an overview and regular updates of your spending habits.
With Revolut you get instant payment notifications and can exchange money into different currencies at market rates with no fees.