Modest Finance vs Pluto Budgeting
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Modest Finance
Plan your financial independence by setting a net worth goal and budgeting towards it. Get real-time progress updates and AI-powered expense categorization. Avoid overdrafts with checking account balance previews.
- Financial independence planner
- Real-time progress tracking
- AI expense categorization
- Checking account balance previews
- Budgeting tools
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Meet your 24/7 personal financial strategist, providing personalized ideas and reports each week about how to grow your money. Link your accounts through Plaid, and the app builds a living financial model around your household: net worth, savings rate, spending patterns, and a timeline to your goals. It then turns your transactions into categories and a personalized feed of stories. Change something today, and watch your long-term outlook update instantly. What you get: - New reports generated each week tailored to your specific household finances and goals - AI-powered categorization that actually works — bills, flex spend, wedding, and custom categories - Spending insights by year, month, or week with automatic breakdowns - Financial independence timeline that updates daily as your accounts sync - Household dashboard for partners who share goals, not every transaction Built by product people who got tired of clunky finance apps. No spreadsheets required. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Pluto Budgeting
This app helps you manage your finances by budgeting based on your paycheck schedule, not calendar months. It calculates your safe spending amount and helps you save for irregular expenses, making financial planning simpler.
- Budgeting by paycheck schedule
- Real-time Safe to Spend calculation
- Incremental Savings for irregular expenses
- Smart transaction matching
- Pay Period Forecast
- Bank sync (Premium)
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Most budget apps tell you where your money went. Pluto tells you what you can safely spend today, and makes sure the big stuff is covered before you do. Budgeting by paycheck, not by month. Your bills don't care about calendar months. Rent is due on the 1st. Car insurance hits in March and September. Your paycheck lands every two weeks. Pluto works the way your money actually works. Tell Pluto your income schedule and your bills, and it creates a transaction for every upcoming occurrence (rent, utilities, subscriptions, insurance, all of it), organized by pay period. After setup it mostly runs itself: confirm a match and move on. You're comparing real transactions against your planned ones, not asking whether a coffee run counts as Shopping or Groceries. Safe to Spend: the number you actually need. Your bank balance doesn't know your rent is due in four days, or that your car registration lands next month. Safe to Spend does. It takes your current balance, your upcoming scheduled transactions, and what you've set aside for savings, then gives you one number per account, updated constantly. Never get blindsided by a big bill again. With Scheduled Savings, you tell Pluto about an irregular expense (car insurance, property taxes, holiday spending, an annual subscription) and it sets aside a little from each paycheck so the money is ready when the bill arrives. $600 car insurance due in six months? Pluto spreads it across your paychecks, roughly $46 at a time. By the time the bill hits, it's already funded. No scrambling, no overdraft. It works for anything outside a monthly rhythm: HOA dues, a family vacation, back-to-school shopping, a birthday you know is coming. Set it up once and stop thinking about it. Transactions that match themselves. When a bank transaction comes in, Pluto checks your planned transactions and suggests the match. You confirm or adjust, with no manual categorization and no month-end reconciliation. The Pay Period Forecast shows what's coming, so nothing lands as a surprise. A free tier you can actually run on. The free tier includes full scheduling, Scheduled Savings, and manual transaction entry. Premium adds automatic bank sync so transactions import themselves, plus priority support. Premium also connects Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Apple Savings. Pluto is $9.99 a month or $99 a year. No ads. No selling your data. Pluto exists because the alternatives were too simple to be useful, too complex to stick with, or too expensive to justify. What you get: • Safe to Spend, calculated per account in real time • Schedule-based budgeting by pay period, not calendar month • Scheduled Savings for irregular and annual expenses • Smart matching between bank transactions and your scheduled bills • Pay Period Forecast to see what's coming before it arrives • Bank sync via a secure, read-only connection (Premium) • Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Apple Savings support (Premium) Your money, finally making sense. Terms of Service: https://www.plutobudgeting.com/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Modest Finance at 13 against Pluto Budgeting's 1. Pluto Budgeting's advantage is iOS requirement (16.4 vs 18.0). On price, rating, update cadence 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
Both are free to download. Modest Finance sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $8.99 per month and Pluto Budgeting sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Modest Finance against 5.0 for Pluto Budgeting. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Modest Finance has 13 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Modest Finance ships an update every 4 days, Pluto Budgeting weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Modest Finance | Pluto Budgeting |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (13 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 13 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 35 MB | 66 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Modest Ventures LLC | Pluto Budgeting LLC |
Customer experience
Modest Finance
Pluto Budgeting
In-app purchases
Modest Finance
- Monthly Subscription7 Days trial2 variants$8.991 Month
- Monthly Subscription1 Month trial$8.991 Month
- Annual Subscription7 Days trial2 variants$80.991 Year
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- Annual Subscription1 Month trial$80.991 Year
Pluto Budgeting
- Pluto Premium$9.991 Month
- Pluto Premium (Annual)$99.001 Year
Questions
Is Modest Finance free?
Is Pluto Budgeting free?
Which has better reviews, Modest Finance or Pluto Budgeting?
Do Modest Finance or Pluto Budgeting have ads?
Which is updated more often, Modest Finance or Pluto Budgeting?
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