Budget Fury keeps the parts of YNAB most people actually use — give every euro a job, envelope-style categories, plan before you spend — without a subscription and without a bank connection. It is free with a one-off $29.99 lifetime unlock. What you give up is automatic transaction import and shared multi-user budgets.
What people actually value in YNAB
Ask long-time users why they stayed and the answers cluster tightly, and they are almost all about the method rather than the software:
- Give every dollar a job. No money sits unassigned. This is zero-based budgeting, and it is the single most effective idea in the product.
- Category balances you check before spending. Functionally envelope budgeting, with the same point-of-sale question.
- Age of money / spending last month's income. A genuinely good idea and the one thing on this list that Budget Fury does not reproduce directly.
- Roll with the punches. Moving money between categories when you overspend, without treating it as a failure.
The first two are the load-bearing ones, and they are method, not technology. Any app that implements them properly gives you most of what you came for.
What you genuinely lose
Two things, and they are real. An honest comparison says so rather than burying them.
Automatic transaction import. YNAB pulls transactions from your bank. Budget Fury does not connect to banks at all, so you enter expenses yourself or import a CSV periodically. If a live feed is the feature you cannot live without, stay where you are — this is not a small difference and no amount of framing changes it.
That said, it is worth being clear-eyed about what the feed costs. Manual entry is the thing that makes you notice spending as it happens, which is why so many people run YNAB in manual mode by choice. The friction is doing work.
Shared budgets across users. YNAB supports multiple people in one budget. Budget Fury syncs across your own devices through your iCloud account — iPhone, iPad and Mac — but there is no multi-user account, because there is no account at all. For couples who each need to log spending from separate Apple IDs, this is a real limitation.
What you gain besides the money
The price is the headline — free, with a one-off $29.99 lifetime unlock rather than $109 every year — but three other things come with it.
No bank connection to maintain or worry about. No aggregator holding a standing read on your accounts, no re-authentication when your bank changes its login, and Apple's privacy label reading Data Not Collected. More in budgeting without a bank connection.
Goals that are funded, not just tracked. Savings goals and sinking funds take their contribution out of the budget at the top of the month, so what you are saving for competes with spending money rather than inheriting whatever is left.
A rolling twelve-month forecast. Recurring expenses and goal contributions projected a year forward, which is a planning tool YNAB's month-focused model does not really offer. See forecasting the year ahead.
Who should switch, and who shouldn't
Switch if you already run YNAB with the bank connection off; the renewal price is the reason you are reading this; you want your savings goals inside the budget rather than in a separate tracker; you are on Apple devices; or privacy is a real constraint rather than a preference.
Don't switch if the automatic feed is what makes you keep up; you share a budget with a partner on a different Apple ID; you rely on Age of Money specifically; or you have years of YNAB history whose reporting you actively use.
Budget Fury is free to download and premium has a trial, so the cheapest way to answer this is to run one month in parallel. A month of real use settles it far better than any comparison table, including this one.
Move a YNAB budget to Budget Fury
- Export your YNAB data as CSV
YNAB exports your budget and register as CSV. Take the register — the transaction list — which is what carries your real spending history.
- Import the register
In Budget Fury, use Settings → Import and map the date, description and amount columns. You keep your history, so your category averages are correct from day one rather than after three months of rebuilding.
- Rebuild your categories as fixed expenses and envelopes
YNAB keeps everything in one category list. Budget Fury separates them: bills and subscriptions become Fixed expenses with a recurrence, and your variable categories become Expense Envelopes with monthly limits.
- Turn your YNAB savings categories into goals
The categories you were using as sinking funds and savings targets become Goals, each with a target and a date. They are now funded from the budget at the top of the month rather than being a category you remember to fill.
- Assign every remaining euro
Work the remaining figure on the Budget screen down to zero by raising an envelope or a goal. This is “give every dollar a job”, in the same shape you are used to.
- Run both for one month before you cancel anything
Keep YNAB until its renewal and enter a month in both. You will know within four weeks whether losing the automatic feed costs you more than the subscription did.
Common questions
Is there a free YNAB alternative for iPhone?
Budget Fury is free to download and use, with premium features on a free trial and a one-off $29.99 lifetime unlock rather than a yearly subscription. Goodbudget and Actual Budget are other options worth looking at, each with different trade-offs.
Does Budget Fury do zero-based budgeting like YNAB?
Yes. The budget screen shows income minus fixed expenses, envelopes and goals; working that figure to zero is the same discipline as giving every dollar a job. See the zero-based guide.
Can I import my YNAB data?
Yes — export your register as CSV from YNAB and import it, mapping the date, description and amount columns. Your history comes with you.
Can my partner and I share a budget?
Not as separate users. Budget Fury syncs across your own devices through your iCloud account, so a shared Apple ID or a shared device works, but there is no multi-user budget. If that is essential, YNAB does it and Budget Fury does not.
Does Budget Fury connect to my bank like YNAB?
No, and it never will — that is the design. You enter expenses yourself or import a CSV when you want history. It is the main thing you give up, and for a lot of people it is the main reason to switch.
One month in parallel will settle it
Free to download, free trial on premium, $29.99 once for a lifetime unlock. No subscription, no bank connection, no account.