Expense vs AJournal
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Expense
Effortlessly monitor your finances with this intuitive spending tracker. Visualize your expenses with a clean line chart and gain insights into your spending habits. Customize categories and export your data for detailed analysis.
- Intuitive expense tracking
- Beautiful line chart visualization
- Monthly spending overview
- Customizable categories
- Export data to CSV
- Local data storage
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Expense makes tracking money easy and intuitive. • Simple and beautiful line chart • Fast expense tracking, enter amount and select a category, that’s it • Track where your money is going in monthly view • Export to CSV for further processing • Customize categories in settings • All of your data are stored locally and are not available to us
AJournal
This app combines digital planning with the tactile feel of handwriting. Organize your days, weeks, and months, set goals, and track habits using Apple Pencil or your finger. Choose from numerous templates or create your own custom layouts.
- Handwriting and text input
- Digital calendar integration
- Over 100 customizable templates
- Sticker library and custom stickers
- Reminders integration
- PDF export and iCloud sync
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AJournal is the all-in-one digital planner built around handwriting and your calendar. Use Apple Pencil to plan, journal, and reflect on pages where events from any connected calendar appear right alongside your notes. Choose from 100+ fully customizable templates or design your own to fit exactly how you think. Combine the mindfulness of handwriting with powerful organization tools — plan days, weeks, and months, set goals, and track habits, projects, and progress, all in one place. SUPPORTS HANDWRITING, TEXT & IMAGES - Write/draw with Apple Pencil or finger - Text input with Scribble or keyboard, with complete formatting support like fonts, colors, etc - Save links to a website or another planner page - Add images and resize, rotate, or object crop - Choose among over 2500 stickers to make your journal/planner fun and personal - Save your own images as stickers for easier access DIGITAL CALENDARS - Connect any digital calendar so all events will show up in daily/weekly planners - Write/Scribble/Type alongside the events from the digital calendars REMINDERS - Apple Reminders are integrated into daily planners STAY ORGANIZED - Navigate effortlessly through journals/planners by dates, weeks, months, and projects - Search function for inputted texts makes it easier to find a journal/planner OVER 100 TEMPLATES TO CHOOSE FROM & FULL CUSTOMIZATION - Over 100 templates with minimalist design and cover every need: daily/weekly/monthly planners, project planners, finance planners, meal/fitness/habit trackers, ATracker, etc - The templates are fully customizable, simply add/remove/rearrange/configure elements and set colors/headers - Personalize a page with your writing/drawing and save it as a template Aesthetic Backgrounds & Color Themes - Choose from over 100 backgrounds with different textures, styles, and seasonal themes. - Select from various tints and foregrounds. INTEGRATION WITH ATRACKER (OPTIONAL) - With over 2 million downloads, ATracker is a time tracking tool trusted by users worldwide. - Combined with task/goal tracking in ATracker, you can follow up on your progress in AJournal in real time. EXPORT & BACKUP - Export your journals/planner as PDFs to read in other tools or for keepsake - Create backups to keep your data safe SPLIT VIEW & SLIDE OVER ICLOUD SYNC - You can now use AJournal on your iPhone - AJournal data can be synced via iCloud (Active subscription needed) SUBSCRIPTION AJournal supports unlimited pages per day/week/month/year and projects with a subscription. This add-on is optional. • AJournal subscriptions purchased in-app renew monthly or yearly, depending on your plan. Plan pricing may vary by country. • Payment will be charged to iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase • Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period Users can try out AJournal without any limitation with a 7-day free trial. SUPPORT Visit http://Ajournal.pro or contact us at support@Ajournal.pro. Terms of Service: http://Ajournal.pro/TOS.html Privacy Policy: http://Ajournal.pro/policy.html AJournal - Organize your thoughts, keep track of your goals
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Expense at none against AJournal's 2. Expense also leads on ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (97% vs 77%). AJournal's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 6 months) and ratings volume (5.3K vs 112). On price, rating, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. AJournal sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Expense asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Expense against 4.7 for AJournal. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: AJournal has 5.3K ratings behind it against 112, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 97% of Expense's written reviews are positive against 77% of AJournal's.
Expense ships an update every 6 months, AJournal every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Expense | AJournal |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (112 ratings) — better | 4.7 (5.3K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 97.1% of reviews — better | 76.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 112 | 5.3K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 120 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | +4 |
| Developer | Shan Cao | WonderApps AB |
Customer experience
Expense
AJournal
User reviews
Expense
From 112 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Extremely simple and easy to use
- 🚀 Fast and efficient expense tracking
- ✨ Clean and minimalistic interface
- 🆓 Free to use with no ads
- 💡 Intuitive GUI
Room to improve
- 💡 Lacks search functionality
- 💡 No recurring expense option
- 💡 Limited category icon selection
- 💡 No subcategories
- 💡 Currency display can be odd
AJournal
From 5.3K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great integration with calendar and reminders
- 👍 Highly customizable templates
- ✨ Ability to create own templates
- 💡 Combination of digital and handwritten planning
- 🎨 Variety of stickers and colors
Room to improve
- 🐛 Sync issues between devices
- 🔒 Requires subscription for full functionality
- 📱 No iPhone app, only iPad
- 🖋️ Limited handwriting tools compared to other apps
- 🔍 Difficult to find some features or settings
Bugs and requests
Expense
Reported bugs
2 issues- Currency display issues
- No visible way to delete entries (user reported)
Requested features
28 requests- Search functionality
- Increased list of category icons
- Ability to use Emojis as category icons
- Set a recurring expense
- Add a 'memo' or text field for notes
Show 23 moreShow fewer
- Search function
- New icons for categories
- Option to add a 'sim' if money and it to tell me how much is left (per diem)
- Read from/write to the app with Shortcuts
- Annual summary feature
- Online help or FAQ in settings
- Exporting to select week or month
- Better category icons
- Subcategories
- Currency format tweaks
- Total cost row/cell for exporting
- Home screen widget
- Currency symbol (auto-set)
- Password protection
- Custom image option for categories
- Organize by week or bi-weekly
- Year-end summary
- Filter process for month/year outlook within the app
- Configure file export layout
- Auto-backup via iCloud
- Add button closer to screen edges
- iPad & Mac version
- iCloud sync
AJournal
Reported bugs
3 issues- Text boxes sometimes lose formatting or disappear
- Occasional crashes when switching between views
- Syncing issues causing data loss
Requested features
7 requests- Add PDF support
- Improve handwriting recognition and tools
- Implement iCloud sync
- Develop iPhone app version
- Add more customization options for templates
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Improve search functionality for handwritten notes
- Provide option for one-time purchase instead of subscription
In-app purchases
Expense
No in-app purchases
AJournal
- Monthly subscription7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly subscription7 Days trial$26.991 Year









