Comparison

Budget Box vs Surplus

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Budget Box

Easily track expenses, manage bills, and create budgets to save money and build wealth. Organize your spending with daily reports and visualize your financial habits.

Highlights
  • Expense tracking
  • Budget creation
  • Bill organization
  • Daily spending reports
  • Customizable interface
  • Monthly and yearly budgeting
Features
Read full description

Take control of your expenses and budgeting with Budget Box. Easily create monthly or yearly budget and track your expenses with this expense tracker. Many are already using this expense tracker to save cash, spend wisely, and build wealth. Start using this tracker to budget your money the right way. Budget Box can help you to: • Save time: Easily organize your spending and bills • Save money: Know when you are overspending and cut back • Track your spending: Keep tabs on your personal expenses and see daily reports all in one place • Create a budget: Manage cash flow and picture your spending behavior How It Works 1. Select a category 2. Enter and confirm the amount (and a comment, if you want) 3. Set up monthly or yearly budget 4. Track your progress with easily accessible statistics 5. Tap and hold the home screen icons and rearrange them to suit your needs 6. Swipe left or right to see daily reports and gorgeous statistics Features • Simpler than most apps • No time constraints – you can use it monthly or yearly • Tap and hold to rearrange icons • Easy interface to work with Eliminate debt and save more each month with Budget Box – the monthly expense tracker and personal budget planner. Download this spending tracker now and start seeing the difference in your finances! ** Are you loving our app? We’d love to hear about it! Please take a moment to leave us a nice review. It really helps! ** While you’re in the sharing mood, go ahead and throw us a like on Facebook too, THANKS. We appreciate your support greatly! You inspire us to make more great apps like Budget Box, Money Box, Debt Free Box and others. Budget Box is a free application with powerful features to easily track your expenses. There's also a Budget Box Premium subscription which includes additional features, such as multi-device synchronisation, annual and monthly budget, beautiful reports and statistics, export capabilities. - Payments will be charged to your iTunes account at confirmation of purchase - You can choose between a monthly or yearly Budget Box subscription -Budget Box Premium costs $4.49 monthly, $13.49 annually (prices can vary depending on your country) - Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase - Your subscription will automatically renew, unless you have turned off auto-renewal at least 24 hours before the end of the current period 
- When your subscription auto-renews, the same iTunes Account as the initial purchase will be charged the same amount as the initial purchase - After cancelling your subscription, your subscription will remain active until the end of the purchased period - Terms of Use: https://smartfinanceapps.com/budget_box_terms_and_conditions.html - Privacy policy: https://smartfinanceapps.com/budget_box_privacy_policy.html

About

Surplus

This app helps you manage your monthly finances by tracking income, expenses, and upcoming payments. It provides insights into your spending habits, categorizes transactions, and offers customizable reports. Sync your accounts automatically or manually for a clear overview of your leftover spend.

Highlights
  • Monthly income and expense tracking
  • Categorization of spending
  • Customizable reports with CSV export
  • Transaction grouping
  • Home and lock screen widgets
  • Automation via Shortcuts app
Features
Read full description

Surplus is a monthly expense tracker that takes into account your monthly income, expenses and upcoming payments to provide you with a clear overview of your leftover spend. -- Spend Wisely -- Know how much you have left to spend, including your subscriptions and installments. -- Profile Your Spend -- Categorize your expenses into meaningful groups that drive insights into your spend profile. This can include popular budgeting methods such as the “50/30/20 budget rule” or the “80/20 budget rule”. -- Adaptable Workflows -- Manual or automatic, easily sync and categorize transactions from all your accounts. -- Transaction Collections -- Group related transactions across buckets and time. They can be themed around trips, shared expenses or anything you'd like! -- Widgets -- Customize your home and lock screens with widgets that showcase your leftover spend, upcoming transactions and buckets. -- Interactive Reports -- Customizable reports for your historic and upcoming spend with support for CSV Export. -- Shortcuts -- Automate your expense tracking with actions configurable via the Shortcuts app. Examples include triggering an expense entry when leaving your favorite coffee shop or scheduling spend summaries on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Actions can be run via Siri, Apple Watch and the Shortcuts app. -- Privately Synced with iCloud -- All financial data is stored on your device(s) and synced privately via your iCloud Account. We do not store any personal information or transaction data on our servers. Surplus is free to use with pro features that can be activated via in-app purchases. Surplus Pro can be purchased as a one time payment or as a recurring subscription. Current pricing and purchase offers are available in the app. By downloading and using Surplus you agree to our terms and conditions: Terms of Use https://surplus.app/terms Privacy Policy https://surplus.app/privacy Surplus is an indie app developed and maintained by Omar Inam. If you have any questions or feedback please feel free to contact me through Twitter @_oinam

Screenshots

Budget Box4 screens
Surplus4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Surplus at 83% against Budget Box's 11%. Surplus also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.5) and update cadence (monthly vs every 3 months). Budget Box's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Budget Box sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.49 per month and Surplus sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Surplus holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 26 and 28 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 11% of Budget Box's written reviews are positive against 83% of Surplus's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Budget Box ships an update every 3 months, Surplus monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 20, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Budget Box versus Surplus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBudget BoxSurplus
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (26 ratings)4.8 (28 ratings) — better
Positive reviews11.1% of reviews83.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2628 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsMonthly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size30 MB67 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNatalia AlekseenkoDev Harvest LLC

Customer experience

Budget Box

All ratings26 ratings
Positive84.6%
Neutral7.7%
Negative7.7%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive11.1%
Neutral0.0%
Negative88.9%

Surplus

All ratings27 ratings
Positive96.3%
Neutral3.7%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral16.7%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Budget Box

Subscriptions2
  • Budget Box Premium Monthly$4.491 Month
  • Budget Box Premium Yearly$13.491 Year
4 purchases

Surplus

Subscriptions3
  • Surplus Pro Monthly$3.991 Month
  • Surplus Pro Yearly$14.491 Year
  • Surplus Pro Yearly$29.991 Year
One-time1
  • Surplus Pro Lifetime$29.99

Questions

Is Budget Box free?
Budget Box is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Surplus free?
Surplus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Budget Box or Surplus?
Surplus is rated higher. Budget Box averages 4.5 out of 5 from 26 ratings, while Surplus averages 4.8 from 28 ratings.
Do Budget Box or Surplus have ads?
Neither Budget Box nor Surplus shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Budget Box or Surplus?
Budget Box ships an update every 3 months, and Surplus monthly. Most recently, Budget Box was updated on September 20, 2026 and Surplus on October 22, 2026.

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