Expense Keep vs Simple Envelope Budgeting
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Expense Keep
This app offers a simple and fast way to track expenses and income, helping users manage their finances and save money. It allows for organizing funds into separate accounts or spending envelopes, with features for recurring transactions and detailed monthly history.
- Track expenses and income
- Organize money into accounts/envelopes
- Set up recurring transactions
- View monthly history and cash flow
- Create custom expense categories
- Transfer money between accounts
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Expense Keep is the simplest and quickest way to track your expenses. It will save you money and improve your financial health. Expense Keep has been downloaded over 500,000 times and ranked top 5 Finance app in 33 countries. "This is exactly what I was looking for. It has cut my spending tremendously. Couldn't be happier with this app." "I have never rated an app before but I feel so strongly about this app that I knew I had to share with everyone how great it is!" "All I wanted was a sole app to track multiple accounts. This does it. I love it and have deleted all of my other expense tracking apps." "This app is the only budget app that I could find which works well with a zero-based budget." "This is the best budget envelope app available. So beautifully designed and simple to use. Includes recurring transactions and transfers between envelopes." "This app is awesome! Super easy to use without requiring so much personal info like other apps (Mint)." "Finally an expenses tracking app that don't force you to connect every single bank account you have. This app is for those, like me, that like to keep their info as private as possible." "This app is helping me feel in much more control of my finances." "This app is fantastic. Don't know how i ever managed without it." "Awesome app. Easy to use. Quick to set up and quick to input transactions." "Have tried a number of apps to track expenses, and this one has everything I've been looking for." Expense Keep is a personal finance app built to be fast and designed to be flexible yet simple to use. Organize your money into separate accounts and track your expenses and incomes. Accounts can be used to track your bank account balances or as "envelopes" for your different spending groups. FEATURES: Accounts + Add/Edit/Delete accounts. + Set starting balance. + Organize your money into separate accounts. + View current balance of each account. Expenses and Incomes + Add/Edit/Delete entries for expenses and incomes. + Create custom expense categories. + Assign expenses/incomes to an account. + Set a date and note for each entry. + Select a category for expenses. Transfers + Add/Edit/Delete transfers. + Transfer money from one account to another. + Helps you stay on budget when you overspend in one account. Recurring Entries + Add/Edit/Delete recurring entries that get automatically entered. + Setup recurring expenses/incomes/transfers for each account. + Set repeat cycles of daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly and more. + Set a start date and end date for recurring expenses. + Or set recurring expenses to be ongoing with no end date. Monthly History + View all entries for current month. + Go back and see previous months' entries. + Go to future months and add entries ahead of time. Cash Flow + See how much you earned/spent for the month. + Cash flow bar chart helps you spend less than you earn. Expense Chart + Pie chart shows your expenses broken down into categories. + See where all your money is going. + Filter pie chart to show only the accounts you select. Report + CSV export Security + Passcode lock feature More features coming soon! Have questions, requests, or feedback? Send them to info@expensekeep.com If you enjoy using Expense Keep or found the app useful, please consider leaving a review. It helps us a lot. Thank you!
Simple Envelope Budgeting
Digitize your financial efforts with this straightforward budgeting app. It uses a color-coded envelope system to help you track spending, set savings goals, and avoid going over budget. Syncs across devices without ads or in-app purchases.
- iCloud Sync
- Savings Goals
- Color-Coded Envelopes
- Budget Overspend Indicator
- Search Function
- Ad-Free Experience
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All The Features You Want: - Syncs Via iCloud to All of Your Devices - Goals for Savings - Color-Coded Envelopes - Supports iPhone and iPad - Search Function to Quickly Find Envelopes - Filters for Viewing Specific Transactions and Expenses - Indicates When You Are Over Budget None of the Features You Don't: - No Ads - No In-App Purchases to Unlock Full Functionality - No Syncing with Your Bank Account (I've never found an app that does this in a useful manner anyways) Creating a budget is a crucial element of financial success. Without tracking your spending, even the fanciest of excel sheets are deemed useless. Simple Envelope is the easiest, quickest, and most efficient way to monitor and execute your budgets. Based on the physical envelope method, Simple Envelope is here to help you digitize your financial efforts so you can easily track your spending habits. Tracking family allowances? Instead of making trips to the bank, leave everyone's allowance in the bank and keep it all in digital envelopes instead! Simple envelope strives to make tracking your budgets as easy as 1,2,3! Simply create new “envelopes” with your budget's desired name and monetary amount. As you spend, add in your expenditures to see where and how you spend your money - Simple in and Simple out.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Expense Keep at Free against Simple Envelope Budgeting's $2.99. Expense Keep also leads on rating (4.4 vs 3.7) and review sentiment (77% vs 38%). Simple Envelope Budgeting's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On update cadence, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
Expense Keep is free to download; Simple Envelope Budgeting costs $2.99 up front. Expense Keep sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Simple Envelope Budgeting asks for nothing beyond the download.
Expense Keep holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Expense Keep has 1.7K ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 77% of Expense Keep's written reviews are positive against 38% of Simple Envelope Budgeting's.
Expense Keep ships an update every 6 weeks, Simple Envelope Budgeting monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 18, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Expense Keep | Simple Envelope Budgeting |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 4.4 (1.7K ratings) — better | 3.7 (11 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 77.5% of reviews — better | 37.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.7K — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tayson Nguyen | Frank Herring |
Customer experience
Expense Keep
Simple Envelope Budgeting
Bugs and requests
Expense Keep
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashes on launch after recent update
- Dark mode functionality is broken
- Recurring expense dates not updating correctly
- Unable to export data or send feedback in-app
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for multiple currencies
- Implement a monthly budgeting feature
- Allow customization of expense categories
- Improve data export and reporting options
- Integrate cloud backup and cross-device sync
Simple Envelope Budgeting
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Expense Keep
- Expense Keep Pro$19.99
Simple Envelope Budgeting
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Expense Keep free?
Is Simple Envelope Budgeting free?
Which has better reviews, Expense Keep or Simple Envelope Budgeting?
Do Expense Keep or Simple Envelope Budgeting have ads?
Which is updated more often, Expense Keep or Simple Envelope Budgeting?
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