Expense Manager vs Costbook
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Expense Manager
This personal finance app helps you track and manage your expenses and income. It offers tools to understand spending habits, set budgets, and view financial progress through charts and reports. Organize transactions with folders and categories for better financial control.
- Expense and income tracking
- Monthly budget setting
- Organize expenses with folders
- Graphical spending reports
- Export to CSV and PDF
- Passcode lock for security
- Customizable themes
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Penny is a personal expense tracker app that let you track and control your money. Track your expense and income Understand where you spend your money Set and keep eye on your monthly budget Easy and Innovative Features: - Simple, attractive and easy to understand user interface - Track your spendings quickly and easily - Set budget to achieve your goal - Overview of current progress of your spendings - Create folders to organise expenses - Easy and Quick to add, edit and delete your transactions - Assign category to transactions - Sort by date, amount spent, name and category - Smart search using date range, amount range and word - Filter expenses on monthly, weekly, daily and yearly basis - Switch between budget view and available balance view Themes - Set your app theme with variety of different colours - Add different colours to folders - Graphical presentation as Donut and Bar view Settings - Set reminder to notify to add expenses so that you can not miss any transactions - Set date format to appear in app - Change app language of your choice - Passcode lock to secure your data Reports - Charts to track your spendings - Category grouping of expenses - See the percentage share of category Exports - Export reports as .csv and .pdf - Share expenses with your friends and colleagues using email, messages, notes, WhatsApp & etc - Upload to iCloud drive, Google drive, Dropbox and more Available in English, Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, German, Japanese, Korean and Turkish.
Costbook
Easily track personal expenses, set budgets, and manage shared costs. Scan receipts with AI to automate data entry and visualize spending patterns with insightful charts. Collaborate on group expenses and see who owes whom.
- Expense logging in any currency
- Budget setting per list
- AI receipt scanning
- Shared expense tracking
- Spending charts by category
- Home and Lock Screen widgets
- Apple Watch app
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Costbook is a simple, good-looking expense tracker. Log what you spend in seconds, set budgets and see where your money goes: your monthly spending, a trip, a wedding or any project. When costs are shared, invite others to a list and Costbook works out who owes whom. Friends join for free. TRACK YOUR SPENDING • Add an expense in seconds, in any currency • Separate lists for every budget: monthly spending, trips, events, projects • Set a budget for each list and see what's left • Charts by category, payment method and person • Search every expense across all your lists SCAN INSTEAD OF TYPING • Scan a receipt or bill and let AI fill in the amount, merchant, category and date • Keep receipt photos with every expense SHARE WHEN YOU NEED TO • Invite others with a link or QR code; they join for free • See who owes whom at a glance and record payments • Get notified when someone adds an expense WHEREVER YOU ARE • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, Live Activities • Apple Watch app for quick entries • iPhone and iPad, light and dark mode • App lock with Face ID or passcode • 34 languages • No ads COSTBOOK PLUS Free: up to 5 expense lists, scanning, and joining shared lists. Costbook Plus adds unlimited lists, sharing your own lists, sync across devices, map view, PDF/CSV export, printing, app lock and custom app icons. Choose a monthly or yearly subscription, or a one-time Lifetime purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel them in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://www.jupiteryazilim.com/costbook/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Costbook at 100% against Expense Manager's 50%. Costbook also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.8) and update cadence (every 2 days vs fortnightly). Expense Manager's advantage is iOS requirement (9.3 vs 17.0). 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
Both are free to download. Expense Manager sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Costbook sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.49 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Costbook holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 2 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 50% of Expense Manager's written reviews are positive against 100% of Costbook's.
Expense Manager ships an update fortnightly, Costbook every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Expense Manager | Costbook |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (4 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 9.3 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 48 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Janhavi Wagh | Mesut Altuncu |
Customer experience
Expense Manager
Costbook
In-app purchases
Expense Manager
- Upgrade to Pro$1.99
Costbook
- Costbook Plus (Monthly)7 Days trial$1.491 Month
- Costbook Plus (Yearly)7 Days trial$12.491 Year
- Costbook Plus (Lifetime)$29.99









