Balance Guide Lite vs Buddy
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Balance Guide Lite
Easily manage your finances and plan your budget. This app helps you track your account balance, upcoming bills, and spending habits. It offers forecasting for future finances and allows for quick correction of your balance without needing to enter every transaction.
- Dark mode
- Recurring transaction setup
- Financial forecasting
- Pie charts and graphs
- Customizable categories
- PIN security
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HOW MUCH MONEY WILL YOU SAVE ? A guide to your account balance, simple to use and not aimed at accountants. Makes it easy to plan a budget and see the status of your account with upcoming bills and see where your money is going. With Balance Guide you can quickly setup your recurring bills and deposits and produce a forecast of your finances for the months ahead. Later, you don't have to worry about entering all your transactions from your bank statement with the added bonus that you can easily correct your balance at any time. FEATURES - Dark mode - NEW - Multiple Accounts, transfer between account (ONLY AVAILABLE ONCE UPGRADED) - Setup recurring transactions for forecasting - Forecast calendar (ONLY AVAILABLE ONCE UPGRADED) - Now includes optimisation for iPhone X, XR and XS Max. - Clear / light colour scheme - All accounts summary information (not available for iPhone 4s / ONLY AVAILABLE ONCE UPGRADED) - Pie charts / graphs to show your financial status - Backup / Restore with Dropbox (ONLY AVAILABLE ONCE UPGRADED) - Simple customisable of categories to group your transactions e.g. "Utility Bills" - Tutorial / walk through showing you how to get started - Help pages, if you need to read about functionality in more depth - Correct balance at any time, so you don't need to enter all your transactions - PIN security, to protect your information from prying eyes REVIEWS This App is so good! ***** Really easy to use, looked at loads of others, but this has all you need. Your income v outgoings and lets you know where you stand on a monthly basis! I will and do recommend! Great App. Excellent tool ! ***** I have been looking for a handy app to organise my finances for ages. This is simple to use & very helpful when planning ahead. Would highly recommend Checkout our Demo video - http://youtu.be/3NrxZE_yFag SUPPORT Balance Guide uses the default currency set on your device, so there’s no complicated setup / installation. If you need help there are several methods available. Firstly, the tutorial, which is a kind of walkthrough. There’s also helps pages, providing in depth information. How to ask questions and contact us - - Use the contact form via my website, I'm happy to help. - Follow the app on twitter http://twitter.com/BalanceGuideApp - Like the app on facebook https://www.facebook.com/balanceguideapp NOTE: I'm unable to respond to bug reports left in reviews. Each new version wipes out all old reviews so please take the time to leave a review for the new version. As it’s not possible to reply to reviews on the app store, please use the new feedback features to tell us what you think. You can also join our beta programme and gain access to new features early.
Buddy
This app helps you create and manage personal or shared budgets. Track expenses, connect your bank account for automatic transaction import, and gain a clear overview of your spending, income, and savings. It also features tools to split costs and settle up with others.
- Create personal budgets
- Shared budgeting for couples/groups
- Connect bank accounts for transaction import
- Detailed spending and income overview
- Expense splitting and settlement tracking
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Buddy helps you set up a budget and keep track of your expenses, either by yourself or together with your loved ones. Here’s what is waiting for you inside: BUDGETS Buddy will help you not to overspend on your well-earned salary by setting up a budget plan that fits you. Do you want a shared budget with your partner? Or keep the expenses between you and your mates fair on the vacation? No problem, just invite them and get a clear picture of who spent what. CONNECT YOUR BANK Import all transactions from your bank account into Buddy and see how your budget is doing. OVERVIEW We'll give you a beautiful & detailed overview of your spendings, income, and savings. SPLIT Split lets you know who paid what, and how to settle up. And much more for you to find. Take control of your finance today! Buddy offers a $9.99 monthly renewing and a $49.99 yearly renewing subscription to unlock Premium functionality. The purchase will be charged from your iTunes account if you choose to buy the Buddy Premium subscription. You can manage or cancel your subscription through the user settings in iTunes after the purchase. The subscription period ends with the same kind of subscription you already bought to the same price unless you turn off your subscription 24 hours before it renews. It is not possible to cancel your current subscription during the time your subscription is active. Privacy Policy: https://buddy.download/privacypolicy/ Terms & Conditions: https://buddy.download/terms-and-conditions/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Balance Guide Lite at 88% against Buddy's 48%. Balance Guide Lite also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 18.0). Buddy's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.2) and update cadence (every 9 days vs every 5 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Balance Guide Lite sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Buddy sells 11 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Buddy holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Buddy has 9.6K ratings behind it against 12, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 88% of Balance Guide Lite's written reviews are positive against 48% of Buddy's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Balance Guide Lite ships an update every 5 months, Buddy every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Balance Guide Lite | Buddy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (12 ratings) | 4.7 (9.6K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 88.2% of reviews — better | 48.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 12 | 9.6K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | — | #87 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 70 MB | 169 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Mindwarp Consultancy Ltd | Buddy Budgeting AB |
Customer experience
Balance Guide Lite
Buddy
Bugs and requests
Balance Guide Lite
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Buddy
Reported bugs
5 issues- Recurring transactions not working as expected
- Balance not carrying over to next month
- Syncing issues between devices
- Transactions disappearing or resetting
- Inability to edit categories without creating new ones
Requested features
8 requests- Calendar view for transactions
- Bill reminders and due date tracking
- Ability to hide/exclude certain transactions
- Savings/investment tracking
- Multi-currency support
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- Ability to reorder categories
- Weekly budget view
- Ability to split transactions
In-app purchases
Balance Guide Lite
- No Ads, Multiple Accounts + Dropbox backup$2.99
Buddy
- Buddy Premium7 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Buddy Premium$4.991 Month
- Premium$9.991 Month
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- Buddy Premium$9.991 Month
- Buddy Premium7 Days trial$16.991 Year
- Buddy Premium7 Days trial$24.991 Year
- Buddy Premium7 Days trial$34.991 Year
- Buddy Premium1 Year trial$34.991 Year
- Buddy Premium7 Days trial$39.991 Year
- Buddy Premium7 Days trial2 variants$49.991 Year
- Unlimited$49.99
