Comparison

Bills io vs Surplus

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

Head to head
About

Bills io

Organize and track all your recurring and one-off expenses with this privacy-focused finance app. Get timely notifications for upcoming bills and analyze your spending patterns. Data syncs securely across your Apple devices via iCloud.

Highlights
  • Organize bills with tags
  • Track expenses by account
  • Log payment history
  • Export data to Excel/Numbers
  • Receive bill notifications
  • Sync across Apple devices
Features
Read full description

Know exactly where your money goes — without giving up your privacy. Bills io is the simple, privacy-first way to track your recurring expenses, subscriptions, and one-off bills. No bank connection required. No data sold. No algorithms watching your finances. Just you and your bills, organized. YOUR MONEY. YOUR DATA. Bills io syncs privately through your iCloud account using Apple’s CloudKit. Your financial data never touches our servers — we literally can’t see it. Everything stays between you, your device, and your iCloud. STOP LOSING MONEY TO FORGOTTEN SUBSCRIPTIONS The average person is paying for 2–3 subscriptions they’ve forgotten about. Bills io helps you see every recurring charge in one place so nothing slips through the cracks. BILL TRACKING Organize bills with tags and accounts. See exactly how much hits your credit card each month across all your subscriptions — then plan around it. PAYMENT LOG Record payments as you make them. Add notes with Markdown support for links and details. Export everything to CSV whenever you need it. OVERVIEW & NOTIFICATIONS See what’s due this week or month at a glance. Get notified before auto-withdrawals hit or when it’s time to pay manually — all handled locally, never from a server. WORKS ACROSS APPLE DEVICES iPhone, iPad, and Mac. One purchase, everywhere you already work. ◆ FREE TIER Bills io is free — and we mean it. The core experience is fully featured with no paywalls on the essentials. Premium is there if you want deeper organization tools or just want to support an indie developer keeping your data private. ◆ PREMIUM Bills io is fully usable for free. Premium adds powerful organization upgrades for power users — and if you love the app, it’s the best way to support independent development. Available as monthly, annual, or a one-time lifetime purchase. ◆ Payment graphs & average monthly cost charts ◆ Collections, filtering by account & tags ◆ Face ID / Touch ID lock ◆ Custom notification times ◆ CSV export for bills & payments ◆ Payment notes ◆ All future premium features Privacy Policy: https://billsio.com/pages/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://billsio.com/pages/tos/ EULA: 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

Bills io4 screens
Surplus4 screens

Verdict

The call

Bills io and Surplus both sit at 4.7 stars, but that hides the real split: 83% of Surplus's written reviews are positive against 74% of Bills io's. Surplus also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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. Bills io sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 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

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Bills io against 4.8 for Surplus. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 34 and 27 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 74% of Bills io's written reviews are positive against 83% of Surplus's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bills io ships an update every 6 weeks, Surplus monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 18, 2026 and June 4, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Bills io versus Surplus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBills ioSurplus
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (34 ratings)4.8 (27 ratings) — better
Positive reviews73.7% of reviews83.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings34 — better27
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksMonthly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS26.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size45 MB67 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperStudio Ember LLCDev Harvest LLC

Customer experience

Bills io

All ratings34 ratings
Positive91.2%
Neutral0.0%
Negative8.8%
Written reviews19 reviews
Positive73.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative26.3%

Surplus

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

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Bills io

Subscriptions2
  • Premium (1 Month)$0.991 Month
  • Premium (1 Year)$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Premium (Lifetime)$39.99
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 Bills io free?
Bills io 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, Bills io or Surplus?
Surplus is rated higher. Bills io averages 4.7 out of 5 from 34 ratings, while Surplus averages 4.8 from 27 ratings.
Do Bills io or Surplus have ads?
Neither Bills io nor Surplus shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Bills io or Surplus?
Bills io ships an update every 6 weeks, and Surplus monthly. Most recently, Bills io was updated on September 18, 2026 and Surplus on June 4, 2026.

Other comparisons