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Budget spreadsheet or budgeting app?

Free guide · updated 2026-10-31

A spreadsheet gives you total control, costs nothing, and suits people who enjoy entering and reviewing numbers by hand. An app suits people who want the record to keep itself: purchases arrive on their own, categories fill in, and the month is visible without a weekly catch-up session. The best choice is whichever one you will still be using in three months, and for most people the deciding factor is how much typing they are willing to do.

How do they compare?

SpreadsheetBudgeting app
CostFreeFree tier or a subscription
Getting purchases inTyped or pasted from an exportArrive on their own once connected
Time per week30 to 60 minutesA few minutes to review
Control over layout and formulasTotalWhat the app offers
Works on the phone at the tillAwkwardBuilt for it
Who sees your dataYou and your cloud driveYou and the app's service; check its privacy policy

When is a spreadsheet the better choice?

  • You enjoy the weekly ritual of entering and reviewing, and the typing itself keeps you mindful.
  • You have unusual needs: a shared house with odd splits, a side business mixed with personal spending, or a plan built around your own formulas.
  • You do not want any service to hold your transactions.

If that is you, keep the spreadsheet. The export guide makes getting bank data into it faster.

When is an app the better choice?

  • You have started a spreadsheet more than once and stopped within a month.
  • Most of your spending is small taps you forget by evening.
  • You want to know where you stand today, not after Sunday's catch-up.

The usual reason spreadsheets fail is not discipline. Every purchase becomes a small chore, and chores lose to busy weeks.

Can I use both?

Yes, and plenty of people do. Let an app collect purchases as they happen, then export a CSV each month into the spreadsheet you like for the long view. Tally exports your transactions as a CSV whenever you want.

Common questions

Is a budgeting app safe?

It depends on the app. Read how it connects to your bank, what it stores, and whether you can export and delete your data. A spreadsheet avoids the question, at the cost of typing.

What is the simplest spreadsheet budget?

Three columns, date, merchant and amount, plus one total per category at the top. Anything more is optional.

Read next

Who wrote this

Tally is an iPhone budgeting app. It reads the accounts you connect, files every purchase on its own, and shows one number: what is safe to spend today. It imports a statement as a PDF, CSV or text file when a bank cannot be connected, and keeps one budget across 32 currencies. Free to download; the paid plan is $7.99 a month or $79.99 a year with a seven-day trial.

Get Tally on the App Store