Most budgeting apps open with the same request: connect your bank. Type the login you use for your real money into an app that is not your bank.
A lot of people stop right there. And then they never start budgeting at all, because they assume that step is mandatory.
It isn’t. There is a whole category of apps that work without ever seeing your bank credentials — and since Mint shut down in 2024 and sent millions of people shopping for a replacement, it’s worth knowing which ones they are.
Why people say no to bank linking
Not paranoia. Four fairly concrete reasons, and most people who refuse have at least two of them.
Your credentials go to an aggregator
The app usually never sees your login — a middleman does. Plaid, the best known of them, agreed to a $58 million settlement (final approval July 2022) over allegations that it collected more financial data than users expected through those credentials.
Connections break
Banks change their login flow, add a verification step, expire a token. The sync stops, nobody notices for three weeks, and the budget you trusted is quietly wrong.
Your bank may not be supported
Coverage is excellent for large US and UK banks and patchy everywhere else. If you bank in Latin America or with a small local institution, "just connect it" often isn't an option at all.
Some money is nobody's business
A full feed pulls in every transaction from every account — including the ones that have nothing to do with the household. Plenty of people would rather choose what gets seen.
What “no bank access” actually means
This is the part almost every comparison skips, and it’s the one that decides whether you’ll still be using the app in March. “No bank access” covers three very different amounts of work.
1
You type everything
Every coffee, every bill, by hand. Maximum privacy, maximum discipline — and the level most people abandon in week three, which is why the app that "didn't work" usually worked fine and the data entry didn't.
2
You bring the statement file The narrow middle
You download the CSV or OFX your bank already gives you and drop it in. No credentials leave your hands, you choose which account and which month, and a hundred transactions arrive in one action. This is the level people actually sustain — and the one with the fewest options.
3
Sync exists, but you can leave it off
The app supports linking and doesn't force it. Fine today; worth knowing that the manual path in a sync-first app tends to get less attention over time.
How we compared them
Every claim below comes from each app's official pricing or help pages, checked in August 2026 — this is not a hands-on test, and we say so rather than implying twelve months of use we didn't put in. Where the official source no longer publishes a number, we don't print one. And SameNest is ours, so read that card with the bias it deserves.
The apps
YNAB
Best for: people who want the method, not just the numbers
How money gets in: typed by hand, or file import — you can run it entirely unlinked.
The catch: the most expensive on this list, and the method has a real learning curve. You don't buy software, you adopt a system.
$14.99/mo · $109/year · 34-day trial
Goodbudget
Best for: envelope budgeting shared between two people
How money gets in: typed by hand. Bank sync exists on paid plans but only for US banks.
The catch: no file import at all. Manual here means manual, forever.
Free tier · Premium $10/mo · $80/year
EveryDollar
Best for: starting free, today, with zero setup
How money gets in: typed by hand on the free plan; bank connection is the paid upgrade.
The catch: the free plan is the manual plan by design, so the whole product nudges you toward linking. No file import either.
Free · Premium $17.99/mo · $79.99/year
Actual Budget
Best for: privacy-first people who don't mind setup
How money gets in: file import — QIF, OFX, QFX, CAMT.053 and CSV — or by hand.
The catch: you are your own IT department. Syncing between two people means hosting it yourself, and that filters out most households.
Free and open source
SameNest
Best for: one person, or a couple, who want to see where the month goes
How money gets in: import the bank statement (CSV, Excel or PDF), or enter expenses by hand, one at a time. Categorise once and, if you share a home, everyone sees the same month. We never ask for your bank credentials.
The differentiator: the AI does the boring part — it proposes a category for every line of the statement and flags duplicate charges before you accept them — and everyone gets a private personal space inside the shared household.
The catch: it sets no spending limits. It shows where the month went; it won't warn you when you go over. If you want that, YNAB or Goodbudget.
$4.99/mo · 30 days free
Feature comparison
| Feature | YNAB | Goodbudget | EveryDollar | Actual | SameNest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works with zero bank access | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Statement / file import | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Accepts the statement as a PDF | — | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Categorises itself, with AI | Manual rules | — | — | Manual rules | ✓ |
| Flags duplicate charges on import | — | — | — | — | ✓ |
| A private personal space inside the household | — | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Shared, or solo | ✓ | 2 devices free | ✓ | Self-host | ✓ |
| Expenses alongside chores and pantry | — | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Running in minutes, no method to learn | — | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Envelope / zero-based budgeting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Free tier | 34-day trial | Limited | Manual plan | Free | 30-day trial |
| Price | $14.99/mo · $109/yr | $10/mo · $80/yr | $17.99/mo · $79.99/yr | $0 | $4.99/mo |
Which one should you pick?
You want a method that changes how you spend, and you'll do the work: YNAB.
You want envelopes, for two people, for free: Goodbudget.
You want to start tonight and pay nothing: EveryDollar.
You want your data on your own machine and you're comfortable setting things up: Actual Budget.
You want to see where the month went — alone or with your partner — without handing over a login, with no method to learn and no afternoon of setup: SameNest.
Everything free asks you to type, and almost everything that stops you typing asks for your bank login. Statement import is the narrow middle — you keep your credentials, and you don’t spend your evenings on data entry.
Your statement, not your password
Import the file your bank already gives you and both of you see the same month — no credentials, no aggregator, no spreadsheet.
30-day free trial
$4.99/mo
after the trial · 1 extra member included · then $1.99/mo each
Try free — 30 daysNo credit card required
The bottom line
Refusing to link your bank does not mean giving up on budgeting — it means choosing how the numbers get in. If you want the discipline of envelopes, YNAB and Goodbudget are the serious answers and neither needs your login. If you want free and private above all, Actual Budget is remarkable and expects some setup in return. And if what you actually want is for two people to see where the month went without either of you typing a hundred lines or trusting an aggregator, that’s the gap SameNest was built for: import the file, the AI proposes the categories, you just review.
If more than one person is spending, the next question is how you divide it — the complete guide to shared household expenses covers the three methods that actually stick, and where the money lives is a separate decision from who pays what.
Try it free for 30 days — the statement file is all we need.