Key takeaways
The best banking apps let you set a budget and manage your money automatically.
Look for automatic spending categorization, savings tools, bill and alert tracking, and no monthly fee.
A banking app with built-in budgeting can replace a separate paid budgeting app for many people.
Chime® offers Spending Insights, automatic categorization, Savings Round-Ups, and automatic savings with no monthly fees.
Juggling one app for your money and one for your budget gets old fast. Rather than checking your balance in one place and logging your purchases in another, consider an app that can do both.
Use this guide to learn what to look for in a banking app with budgeting tools and how automatic tracking can beat manual entry, so you spend less time typing and more time making progress.
What makes a banking app good for budgeting?
Not every banking app helps you budget. The useful ones share a handful of features that do the heavy lifting for you. A budget is really just a plan for how you spend your money, and the right app makes that plan easier to keep. Here’s what actually matters when you compare your options.
Automatic spending categorization. Your purchases sort themselves into categories like groceries, gas, and bills as they post, so you skip the manual entry.
Real-time balance and transaction alerts. You can see charges as they hit, which helps you catch mistakes and stay on top of your balance.
Savings tools. Look for savings goals, round-ups, and automated transfers that move money aside automatically.
Bill and subscription tracking. Due-date reminders and a running list of recurring charges help you plan and spot subscriptions you forgot about.
No monthly fee. The best tools are the ones you can use without a monthly fee eating into your money.
One dashboard. When your money and budgeting tools live in the same place, you get a clear picture without bouncing between apps.
Automatic categorization and real-time updates remove the manual work and make a banking app genuinely useful for budgeting.
Banking apps vs. standalone budgeting apps: which do you need?
There are two main options for budgeting on your phone. Choosing the right one for you depends on where you keep your money.
Banking apps with built-in budgeting let you spend and manage your money from one account. These often fee-free apps automatically track that account's activity. If most of your spending flows through one checking account, this is probably the best option.
Standalone budgeting apps can connect to several accounts at once, which helps if you spread your money across several places. The trade-off is cost: many popular standalone apps charge a subscription fee.
So how do you decide? If your pay, spending, and savings mostly sit in one place, a banking app with budgeting tools can cover you without a subscription. If you bank at several places and want a single screen that pulls it all together, a standalone app may be worth paying for.
How automatic spending tracking works
Automatic tracking sounds technical, but the idea is simple. Your app does the tracking so you don’t have to. Here is what happens behind the scenes.
Transactions are categorized as they post. When you buy groceries or fill up on gas, the app puts the purchase in the right category.
Category and merchant breakdowns show where your money goes. You can see how much you spent on restaurant meals, groceries, or bills each month at a glance.
Alerts flag unusual or recurring charges. A heads-up on a surprise charge or a forgotten subscription gives you the chance to cut waste.
Automation removes the willpower problem. You don’t have to remember to log anything, which is the step most people forget when they track spending by hand.
The result is a budget that keeps itself current. Instead of guessing where your money went, you can open the app and see it laid out for you.
How we chose the best banking apps with budgeting tools
No single banking app is the best choice for everyone. Different apps stand out for different needs, whether that’s automatically tracking spending, managing bills, setting savings goals, or viewing accounts in one place. We evaluated each app using publicly available information and compared the budgeting and money management features that may matter most for everyday use.
Our review focused on:
Spending tracking and categorization: Whether transactions are automatically organized into spending categories and how easily you can see where your money goes.
Budgeting tools: Features for setting budgets, reviewing spending patterns, planning upcoming expenses, and tracking recurring bills or subscriptions.
Savings features: Whether the app offers savings goals, round-ups, automatic transfers, or other tools that can help automate saving.
Alerts and account insights: Real-time transaction alerts, balance updates, spending insights, and other notifications that can help you keep track of your money.
Fees: Monthly account or subscription fees and other costs that may apply when using the account or its budgeting features.
Ease of use: How easily you can manage spending, saving, and other everyday money tasks within the app.
Account connectivity: Whether budgeting features track activity within one account or can bring together information from multiple linked accounts.
Rather than ranking these apps from first to last, we highlight the budgeting strengths of each one so you can choose the app that best fits how you manage, spend, and save your money.
Budgeting tools built into the Chime app
Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank (see disclosure 1) , and its app was built to help everyday people make financial progress. That includes a set of budgeting and savings tools that help you keep track of your money with no monthly fees. Here’s what you get with Chime.
Spending Insights. This breaks down your expenses by category, merchant, and month, right in the app. Parent categories like Food and Drinks roll up child categories such as Groceries, Restaurants, and Coffee Shops, so you can zoom in on where your money goes.
A Bills view. Spending Insights includes a Bills view that lists your recurring bills, plus a Bills Planner and a Left to Spend figure to help you plan your spending for the rest of the month.
Automatic categorization. Your debit card transactions are categorized as soon as they post, so there’s no manual entry to keep up with.
Savings Round-Ups. Meet your digital piggy bank. Chime automatically rounds up your debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and deposits the change into your savings account. (see disclosure 2)
Save when you get paid You can set aside part of every paycheck automatically. Set it and forget it, and enjoy seeing your savings balance increase. (see disclosure 3)
Personalized Savings Goals. You can create up to 10 customizable goals, which makes reaching them feel more doable.
Chime Savings . Your savings can grow at up to 3.75% APY (see disclosure 4) with qualifying direct deposit, with no monthly fees and no minimum balance requirements.
There’s a rewards angle, too. Chime Plus™ (see disclosure 5) , unlocked with at least one qualifying direct deposit of $200 or more per month, adds 2% cash back on a spending category you choose (see disclosure 6) and 2.75% APY on Chime Savings.
(see disclosure 4) Chime Prime™PRM 1, unlocked with $3,000 or more in qualifying direct deposits per month, adds 5% cash back (see disclosure 6) on a category you choose monthly (see disclosure 6) and up to 3.75% APY on Chime Savings.
(see disclosure 4) That connects your budgeting with saving and earning, all in one app with no monthly fees.
Other banking apps with budgeting tools to know
Chime is one option, and it helps to see the wider landscape. Here are other apps with budgeting features so you can compare for yourself.
SoFi®. SoFi offers a budgeting dashboard called SoFi Relay that tracks spending across linked checking, savings, credit cards, and loans. (see disclosure 7)
Ally®. Ally uses "buckets" to organize spending into categories and set savings goals with round-ups. (see disclosure 8)
Capital One®. Capital One offers several budgeting tools. You can view your recurring payments in the app, get spending insights from virtual assistant Eno, and track your expenses with the Map Your Spend tracker. (see disclosure 9)
Bank of America. Bank of America offers spending and budgeting tools, plus a virtual assistant called Erica that can help you identify forgotten subscriptions and other recurring charges. (see disclosure 10)
Each of these apps can suit a different need, so the right pick depends on where you already bank and which tools you’ll actually use.
How to start budgeting with your banking app
Ready to put your banking app to work? You don’t need a spreadsheet or a finance degree to start spending smarter. Follow these steps to get going.
Turn on transaction alerts. This puts every charge in front of you, so nothing slips by unnoticed.
Review one month of Spending Insights. Look at your category breakdown to see where your money actually goes.
Pick a budgeting method, like the 50/30/20 rule. A simple framework gives you more autonomy over your spending.
Set one or two savings goals and automate them. Set up a recurring transfer or Savings Round-Ups, so saving happens automatically.
Cut unnecessary spending. Find a subscription you no longer use and cancel it. Even a small win adds up.
Revisit monthly. Check in with your budget once a month to adjust your goals as needed to stay on track.
Each of these steps helps you work toward your financial goals, and you can start with just one today.
Make your budget work for you
The best banking app for budgeting is the one with tools you’ll actually use. When tracking happens automatically, and your savings and rewards live in the same place, budgeting stops feeling like a chore.
Chime pairs automatic spending tracking with automatic saving (see disclosure 2) and no monthly fees so your everyday banking can help you move forward. Get started with Chime today.