Comparison

Smart Spend vs Surplus

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

Head to head
About

Smart Spend

This app helps you actively understand and transform your spending habits through hands-on learning and financial insights. It offers customized budgeting tools, engaging trivia, and advanced analysis without linking bank accounts, prioritizing your privacy. Receive daily feedback and earn rewards for improving your financial discipline.

Highlights
  • Active spending and savings tracking
  • Financial pattern identification
  • Spending knowledge trivia game
  • Customizable budgeting (Cash Pool, MicroBudgets)
  • Advanced search and filter tools
  • Privacy-focused, no bank linking
  • Siri integration and iOS widgets
Features
Read full description

Revolutionize Your Finances with Smart Spend – The Active Budgeting App Why Smart Spend? Unlike traditional budgeting apps, Smart Spend focuses on empowering you to understand and transform your spending habits actively. Our approach is hands-on and educational, ensuring that you're not just tracking expenses but learning from them. Key Features: - Hands-On Learning: Track spending and savings actively, without linking bank accounts. - Financial Insights: Discover patterns in your spending and identify saving opportunities. - Spending Trivia: Engage with our unique trivia game to test your spending knowledge and improve your 'Smart Score'. - Customized Budgeting: Tailor your budget with features like 'Cash Pool' and 'MicroBudgets' – perfect for irregular incomes and special occasions. - Advanced Analysis: Utilize powerful search and filter tools to dissect your spending. - Privacy First: Your data stays on your device. No need for personal details or bank logins. What Sets Us Apart? - Forever Free: We believe that managing money shouldn't come with a price tag. - Real-World Impact: Quickly see how everyday purchases affect your budget. - Innovative Modes: 'First Mile' and 'Cash Pool' cater to unique financial situations. - Interactive Learning: Earn trophies and points as your spending habits improve. - Convenient Integration: Use Siri for entries, import .csv files, and enjoy iOS widgets. - Daily Feedback: Receive personalized spending notifications each evening. Our Philosophy: We believe in old-school budgeting where you're aware and in control. It's about practice, repetition, and leveraging technology and discipline to meet your financial goals. Start Your Journey Today with Smart Spend! Download now to transform your financial habits, save more, and enjoy a healthier financial life. Privacy Policy: https://smartspendapp.com/privacy User Agreement: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

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

Smart Spend4 screens
Surplus4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Smart Spend at none against Surplus's 4. Smart Spend also leads on update cadence (every 8 days vs monthly) and ratings volume (258 vs 28). Surplus's advantage is device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. Surplus sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Smart Spend asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Smart Spend against 4.8 for Surplus. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Smart Spend has 258 ratings behind it against 28, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 85% of Smart Spend's written reviews are positive against 83% of Surplus's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Smart Spend ships an update every 8 days, Surplus monthly. Both last shipped on November 3, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Smart Spend versus Surplus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSmart SpendSurplus
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (258 ratings)4.8 (28 ratings) — better
Positive reviews84.6% of reviews — better83.3% of reviews
Number of ratings258 — better28
Update frequencyEvery 8 days — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size75 MB67 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperScicotherapy Labs LLCDev Harvest LLC

Customer experience

Smart Spend

All ratings258 ratings
Positive94.2%
Neutral3.1%
Negative2.7%
Written reviews39 reviews
Positive84.6%
Neutral5.1%
Negative10.3%

Surplus

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

Bugs and requests

Smart Spend

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App crashes immediately upon opening after update
  • Hourly income input glitch, defaults to $45
  • Cannot edit/delete previous entries
  • Cannot edit bill information, only delete and re-enter

Requested features

8 requests
  • Visualize cash pool growth
  • Add additional income sources (bonus, etc.)
  • Ability to change savings by numbers, not just percentage
  • Show difference when adding a purchase to see remaining spendable amount
  • Add more themes/color options
Show 3 more
  • Watch compatibility for quick transactions and basic overview
  • Option for weekly expense entries
  • Ability to edit bill information directly

Surplus

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Smart Spend

No in-app purchases

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 Smart Spend free?
Smart Spend is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Surplus free?
Surplus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Smart Spend or Surplus?
Surplus is rated higher. Smart Spend averages 4.7 out of 5 from 258 ratings, while Surplus averages 4.8 from 28 ratings.
Do Smart Spend or Surplus have ads?
Neither Smart Spend nor Surplus shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Smart Spend or Surplus?
Smart Spend ships an update every 8 days, and Surplus monthly. Most recently, Smart Spend was updated on November 3, 2026 and Surplus on November 3, 2026.

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