A budgeting app sees more about you than almost any other app on your phone: what you earn, where you shop, who you pay and what you owe. So before you pick one, it is worth checking what each privacy-focused budgeting app actually says it does with that data. We read the privacy policy, the App Store privacy label and the help pages of 11 budgeting apps in November 2026. This guide lists what we found, app by app, with a link to every source.
Disclosure: FloosYo is our app. It is listed below with the same checks we ran on every other app, and every FloosYo claim links to our public privacy policy.
What makes a budgeting app private
"Private" means different things on different apps. We checked six things that you can verify yourself on each app's own pages:
- Does it sell your data? What the privacy policy says about selling or sharing personal and financial data.
- Does it track you across other apps? Whether the App Store privacy label lists a "Data Used to Track You" section. Apple shows this section when the developer says it uses data to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies. Developers fill in these labels themselves.
- Can you use it without linking a bank? Whether you can add accounts and expenses by hand.
- Who connects to your bank? Which data aggregator (Plaid, MX, Finicity and others) handles the bank link if you turn it on.
- Where is the data stored? On a company's servers, or on your own device.
- Can you export and delete your data? Whether the policy lets you take your data out and delete your account.
Privacy-focused budgeting apps compared
Prices are US prices from each company's pricing page or App Store listing, checked in November 2026. "Tracks you" refers to the "Data Used to Track You" section of the App Store privacy label.
| App | Says it sells data? | App Store "Data Used to Track You" | Works without a bank link | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FloosYo | No | No tracking declared in the app's privacy manifest | Yes | $9.99/month or $99.99/year, 1-week trial |
| Lunch Money | No | Not listed | Yes | $10/month or $100/year, 30-day trial |
| Goodbudget | No | Not listed | Yes (manual by default) | Free; Premium $10/month or $80/year |
| YNAB | No | Not listed | Yes | $14.99/month or $109/year, 34-day trial |
| Monarch | No (financial data) | Not listed | Yes | $14.99/month or $99.99/year, first week free |
| Copilot Money | No (financial data) | Not listed | Yes | $109/year; monthly price differs between site and App Store |
| Actual Budget | No commercial use found | No official iOS app found | Yes | Free, open source |
| Rocket Money | Shares for joint marketing | Not listed | Partly (manual entry is Premium) | Free tier; Premium is pay-what-you-want |
| EveryDollar | No, but partners may collect data for ads | Listed | Yes (free tier is manual only) | Free; Premium $17.99/month or $79.99/year |
| Simplifi | Not without permission | Listed | Yes | $9.99/month or $84.99/year |
| PocketGuard | See policy | Listed | Yes (cash accounts and manual entry) | $74.99/year; several monthly tiers |
The privacy-focused budgeting apps, one by one
1. FloosYo
Platform: iPhone. Price: $9.99/month or $99.99/year, 1-week free trial. Bank link: optional, through Plaid.
From the FloosYo privacy policy (last updated October 19, 2026):
- No selling: "We do not sell your personal information. We do not rent or share your financial data with advertisers, data brokers, or marketing networks."
- Bank linking is off by default: "Bank linking is optional and stays off until you choose it." Your bank username and password are entered in Plaid's own screen and never reach FloosYo. The connection token FloosYo stores is encrypted at rest.
- Encryption: all traffic between the app and the servers uses TLS 1.2 or higher, and the databases and backups are encrypted at rest.
- Analytics: product analytics run on PostHog, hosted in the European Union.
- Export and delete: you can export your data from Settings, and delete your account in the app. After deletion, personal and financial data is permanently deleted within 30 days, with backups overwritten within about 30 more days.
- Two-factor sign-in: you can turn on an authenticator-app code in Settings.
The iOS app's privacy manifest declares no tracking. If you never link a bank, you add expenses by hand or by voice. Voice entries are transcribed and the text is sent to an AI provider for parsing, which the policy discloses, and the policy states that content is not used to train the provider's models.
2. Lunch Money
Price: $10/month or $100/year with a 30-day trial on the web (lunchmoney.app/pricing). The iOS in-app price is $150/year (App Store). Bank link: optional, through Plaid.
Lunch Money's policy says: "We do not sell your information to anyone for any reason" (lunchmoney.app/privacy). Its App Store label lists no "Data Used to Track You" and no "Data Linked to You" section, only crash diagnostics under "Data Not Linked to You." You can keep manually managed accounts and import CSV files instead of linking a bank.
3. Goodbudget
Price: free plan; Premium $10/month or $80/year. Bank link: optional on Premium, US only, through Plaid.
Goodbudget is an envelope budgeting app where you enter transactions by hand by default. Its policy says your data is "never sold or rented, to anyone, for any reason, at any time," and states that data is stored in the US on AWS (goodbudget.com/privacy). Its App Store label lists no "Data Used to Track You" section (App Store).
4. YNAB (You Need a Budget)
Price: $14.99/month or $109/year, 34-day free trial with no card (ynab.com/pricing). Bank link: optional, through MX or Plaid.
YNAB's policy says it does "not under any circumstances 'sell'" your personal data, and that data is "transferred, processed, and stored in the United States." The same policy says YNAB runs typical targeted advertising for its own service (ynab.com/privacy-policy). You can use YNAB fully without a bank by choosing "Add an Unlinked Account" (YNAB support). More on how it compares: YNAB alternative.
5. Monarch
Price: $14.99/month or $99.99/year, first week free (monarch.com/pricing). Bank link: optional, through Plaid, Finicity, MX or Spinwheel.
Monarch's policy says: "We will never sell your financial data." It also describes interest-based ads for its own service, and says it does not show third-party ads on its own sites (monarch.com/privacy). Manual accounts are supported (Monarch help). See also Monarch alternative.
6. Copilot Money
Price: $109/year. The monthly price is $9 on copilot.money/pricing and $18 on the App Store. Bank link: optional, through Plaid or Finicity.
Copilot's policy says: "We do not sell your Financial Information," and that financial data is "never used to generate or influence advertising" (copilot.money/privacy-policy). You can create "Track manually" accounts instead of linking (Copilot help).
7. Actual Budget
Price: free and open source (MIT license). Optional paid hosting through third parties. Bank link: optional, through GoCardless (EU and UK) or SimpleFIN (US and Canada).
Actual Budget is the only app on this list that stores your budget locally on your own device and lets you run your own sync server (actualbudget.org, GitHub). There is no company account holding your data unless you choose a hosted server. We did not find an official iOS app listed on its site.
8. Rocket Money
Price: free tier; Premium is pay-what-you-want, and Premium+ is $15/month (Rocket Money help). Bank link: through Plaid.
Rocket Money's privacy notice answers "Yes" to sharing "for joint marketing with other financial companies" and with affiliates for marketing, and "No" to sharing with nonaffiliates to market to you (rocketmoney.com/privacy-notice). Manual transactions are a Premium feature. More: Rocket Money alternative.
9. EveryDollar
Price: free; Premium $17.99/month or $79.99/year with a 14-day trial. Bank link: Premium only.
The free version is manual only, so it works without a bank by design. Ramsey's policy says it "does not sell your personal information," and also says partners "may collect personal information for interest-based advertising" (Ramsey privacy policy). Its App Store label lists "Data Used to Track You": contact info, identifiers and usage data (App Store).
10. Quicken Simplifi
Price: $9.99/month or $84.99/year on the App Store. Bank link: through Plaid or Finicity; manual accounts are available.
Quicken's policy says it "will not, without your permission, sell, publish or share" information that identifies you, and describes interest-based advertising cookies (Quicken privacy). Simplifi's App Store label lists "Data Used to Track You": identifiers and usage data.
11. PocketGuard
Price: $74.99/year, with several monthly tiers on the App Store. Bank link: through Plaid, Finicity or Salt Edge; cash accounts and manual entry are available.
PocketGuard's App Store label lists "Data Used to Track You": financial info, contact info, user content, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics. Read its full policy at pocketguard.com/privacy before linking accounts.
Budget apps that don't connect to your bank
If you would rather not link a bank at all, every app above except Rocket Money's free tier lets you add expenses by hand. The ones built around manual entry:
- Goodbudget: manual envelopes are the default.
- EveryDollar free: manual only. Bank connection requires Premium.
- Actual Budget: manual by default, stored locally.
- FloosYo: bank linking stays off until you turn it on. Add expenses by typing or by voice.
- YNAB, Monarch, Copilot, Lunch Money: all support unlinked or manual accounts next to linked ones.
Manual entry means the app never receives your bank login or your full transaction history from an aggregator. It also means you type each expense yourself. If you want a simple way to see your month before choosing an app, try our free monthly budget calculator. No sign-up, nothing saved.
What happens when you link a bank
When you link a bank in a budgeting app, a data aggregator such as Plaid, MX or Finicity connects to your bank and passes your account and transaction data to the app. The CFPB's consumer guidance suggests checking what an app can access, whether it shares data with third parties, how long it keeps the data, and how to revoke access (CFPB).
The CFPB's personal financial data rights rule (Section 1033), finalized in November 2024, is under reconsideration. The agency published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on August 22, 2025 (Federal Register, CFPB). Until that process ends, what an app and its aggregator can do with your data is set mainly by their own privacy policies, which is why the policy quotes above matter.
To revoke access, remove the linked bank inside the app and also check your bank's own connected-apps settings. Want bank sync with fewer manual steps? See our guide to an expense tracker with bank sync.
How to check any budgeting app's privacy yourself
- Open the App Store listing and scroll to App Privacy. Look for a "Data Used to Track You" section. If it is there, the developer says it uses some of your data to track you across other companies' apps and websites.
- Search the privacy policy for "sell" and "advertis". Note whether "we do not sell" covers all personal data or only financial data, and whether the app runs interest-based ads.
- Find the aggregator. The policy usually names Plaid, MX, Finicity or another provider. That company has its own privacy policy.
- Check for manual accounts. The help center will say whether you can add accounts without linking.
- Check export and deletion. Look for how to export your data and how long the company keeps it after you delete your account.
Common questions
What is the most secure budgeting app?
No independent body rates budgeting apps for security. What you can compare is what each company states: encryption in transit and at rest, whether the bank login is handled by the aggregator rather than the app, and whether two-factor sign-in is available. FloosYo's policy states TLS 1.2 or higher, encryption at rest for databases and backups, and that your bank login is entered in Plaid's screen and never reaches FloosYo.
Is there a budget app that doesn't sell data?
Yes. FloosYo, Lunch Money, Goodbudget and YNAB all state in their policies that they do not sell personal data. Monarch and Copilot state that they do not sell financial data. Quotes and links are in each app's section above.
Can I use a budgeting app without linking my bank account?
Yes. Goodbudget, EveryDollar's free version and Actual Budget are built around manual entry. FloosYo, YNAB, Monarch, Copilot and Lunch Money let you skip bank linking and add accounts or expenses by hand.
Is there an offline budget app?
Actual Budget stores your budget locally on your device and works without a company server. The other apps on this list store data in the cloud.
Is Plaid safe to use with a budgeting app?
Plaid handles the bank login so the budgeting app does not see your password. FloosYo's policy states that Plaid does not sell your data. Plaid's own privacy policy describes what it collects. If you prefer not to share bank data at all, use manual entry.
Which budgeting apps track you on iPhone?
In November 2026, the App Store labels for EveryDollar, Quicken Simplifi and PocketGuard list a "Data Used to Track You" section. The labels for Lunch Money, Goodbudget, YNAB, Monarch, Copilot and Rocket Money do not.
What budgeting method should I use with a private app?
Any of them work with manual entry. If you are choosing a method, our guide to 50/30/20 budget apps covers the most common split, and the budget method calculator shows which split fits your numbers.
Sources
- Each app's privacy policy, pricing page, help center and App Store listing, linked in its section above, checked November 2026. App Store privacy labels are provided by developers and are not verified by Apple.
- FloosYo: privacy policy, last updated October 19, 2026.
- CFPB: What to consider when sharing your financial data; Personal financial data rights reconsideration.
- Federal Register: Personal Financial Data Rights Reconsideration, August 22, 2025.
Coming from another budgeting app? See how FloosYo compares to YNAB, Mint, Monarch or Rocket Money.
Which budget fits me: See which split fits the amounts you enter. Budget my income: Give every dollar a job before the month starts.
