Comparison

Dispatch vs Budget Flow

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

Head to head
About

Dispatch

Features
Read full description

Type your money. One line at a time. Dispatch is an envelope budget you write like a note. Your balance is not money you can spend: all your money already has a job. Dispatch helps you give it one, then track every expense in a single line. HOW IT WORKS • Fund the month's envelope: "Salary 5000". • Split it into postes (Rent, Groceries, Transport…) until "To dispatch" reaches zero. • Spend in one line: "25 Groceries bread". Amount, poste, note, account, date: in any order. • Built-in maths (4.50*30), dates in plain words (yesterday, monday, 15/10) and autocomplete. ALWAYS KNOW WHERE YOU STAND • Home shows what's left to allocate and what went over. • A banner warns you when a poste is spending too fast. • Adjust your postes mid-month to cover an overspend. • Track a poste live on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. YOUR ACCOUNTS, AS THEY REALLY ARE • Running and savings accounts, with aliases for faster entry. • Transfers between accounts, fees included. • Expected vs actual balance: spot a forgotten expense instantly. • Attach a refund or a top-up to its expense and see the net cost, receipt photo included. SAVINGS & PROJECTS • Set money aside for a goal and track its progress. • Pin your key projects; use or release savings when you need them. STATISTICS • Am I moving forward? What's taking up room? What's changing? Three questions, clear answers across months. WITH YOU EVERYWHERE • iPhone and iPad, with a list-and-detail layout on iPad. • Apple Watch: log an expense in a few taps. • Widgets for the Home Screen and the watch. • Synced with your own iCloud. YOUR PRIVACY • No Dispatch account, no ads, no tracking. • Your data stays in your iCloud. • Hide your balances and protect them with Face ID; shake to hide everything. • Full backup and restore, attachments included. Works with any currency. In English and French.

About

Budget Flow

This personal finance app helps you manage your money privately. Track accounts, set custom budget buckets, and monitor your progress towards financial goals. Your data is end-to-end encrypted and only accessible with your PIN.

Highlights
  • Multi-account tracking
  • Smart budget buckets
  • Fixed expense management
  • Multiple income streams
  • Goal tracking
  • Category progress overview
  • Manual expense logging
Features
Read full description

Budget Flow — private budgeting that grows your money. Plant your habits. Grow your money tree. Budget Flow is a personal finance app built around a simple idea: every dollar should have a job, and no one but you should ever see where it goes. Track all of your accounts in one place. Sort each paycheck into Needs, Wants, and Savings buckets. Watch your goals fill in as the months go by. Get an at-a-glance picture of what's on track and what needs attention — without handing your financial life to a tech company. PRIVACY BY DESIGN — YOUR DATA IS YOURS ALONE Budget Flow is end-to-end encrypted. Your financial data is encrypted on your device with a key derived from a PIN you set. We use industry-standard algorithms (NaCl XSalsa20-Poly1305 + PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512), and our server only ever sees ciphertext. Not Budget Flow staff, not our hosting provider, not anyone without your PIN can decrypt your numbers. We don't sell your data, share it, or run analytics on it. A NOTE ON THE PIN Because Budget Flow is truly end-to-end encrypted, your PIN is the only thing that can decrypt your data. If you forget it while you're still signed in, you can reset it with a code sent to your email and your data stays intact. But if you're locked out entirely, your data cannot be recovered — not by us, not by anyone. This is the cost of true privacy. Keep your PIN somewhere safe. FEATURES • Log an expense in one line — Type "coffee 12" and you're done. Budget Flow works out the amount, the date, and the right bucket, and learns how you categorize as you go. Dates work too: "gas 40 monday" or "vacation 800 june." Prefer to talk? Tap the microphone on your keyboard and say it instead. • Smart budget buckets — Create custom buckets like "Rent," "Groceries," "Vacation fund," or "Emergency savings." Allocate by percentage of income or fixed dollar amount. Link each bucket to the account it pulls from. • See the shape of your budget — Buckets render as a pie chart, biggest share first, each slice labelled with its percentage. Tap a slice to open that bucket. Prefer a list? Show either view, or both. • Multi-account tracking — Checking, savings, cash, as many as you like. Balances update as paychecks land and money moves between accounts. • Fixed expenses, handled — Add subscriptions, loans, and recurring bills with their pay frequency. They're applied to your buckets each month based on actual payment dates. • Multiple income streams — Track recurring paychecks (weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, annual) and one-off variable income for freelance or side gigs. • Goals you'll actually hit — Set a target amount and a date, and Budget Flow projects whether your linked savings bucket will get you there, then tells you how much more you'd need each month if you're short. • Category coverage at a glance — The home screen shows overall progress for Needs, Wants, and Savings, and flags any account that's fallen short of what its buckets have accrued. Tap any category for an item-level breakdown. • Reminders that keep you honest — A daily, weekly, or monthly nudge to log what you spent, at whatever time you choose. Scheduled on your phone, so nothing about your spending leaves it. • Account transfers — Record transfers between your own accounts, and balances stay accurate without double-counting. • Your data on every device — Sign in on a new phone, enter your PIN, and your budget is there. Your PIN still never leaves your device. • CSV export — Download a full record of your accounts, transactions, transfers, income, and goals as a CSV any time. Your data is always portable. • Face ID unlock — Optional biometric access after your first PIN. • Hide-balances mode — One tap masks every dollar amount across the app. Great for using it in public. • Light, dark, or system — Comes in emerald green. Defaults to dark mode. Built for people who want to actually understand where their money is going without any hassles.

Screenshots

Dispatch4 screens
Budget Flow4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Dispatch at fortnightly against Budget Flow's every 2 months. Budget Flow's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Dispatch ships an update fortnightly, Budget Flow every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and November 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Dispatch versus Budget Flow: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDispatchBudget Flow
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS18.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size16 MB43 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJEAN-FRANCOIS N'GUETTA REGIS ANIMANPEARLE MANISH SHAH

In-app purchases

None

Dispatch

No in-app purchases

None

Budget Flow

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Dispatch free?
Dispatch is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Budget Flow free?
Budget Flow is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Dispatch or Budget Flow have ads?
Neither Dispatch nor Budget Flow shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Dispatch or Budget Flow?
Dispatch ships an update fortnightly, and Budget Flow every 2 months. Most recently, Dispatch was updated on November 8, 2026 and Budget Flow on November 13, 2026.

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