Comparison

Budget Envelope vs Blocks

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

Head to head
About

Budget Envelope

Features
Read full description

Take control of your money — one envelope at a time. Envelope Budget brings back the simplicity of the classic cash envelope method, rebuilt for your phone. No spreadsheets. No bank logins. No subscriptions. Just you, your budget, and a few taps. The idea is simple: decide how much you want to spend in each area of your life — groceries, dining out, gas, entertainment — and create an envelope for each one. Every time you spend, subtract it from that envelope. When the envelope is empty, you're done spending in that category for the month. That's it. No complexity. No learning curve. You'll have your first envelope set up in under a minute. Why Envelope Budget? -Most budgeting apps are overwhelming. They want to connect to your bank, sync across devices, send you notifications, and show you charts you'll never look at. Envelope Budget does none of that. It respects your time, your attention, and your privacy. -Everything you enter stays on your device. Always. There are no accounts to create, no passwords to remember, and no data ever leaving your phone. Your financial life is your business.

About

Blocks

Features
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I built Blocks for myself. I get paid every two weeks. Most of my bills are monthly. Every budget app I tried wanted a subscription, my bank login, or both. So I made the app I actually wanted, and now I'm sharing it. Blocks is truly free. No ads. No accounts. No subscriptions. No locked features. No "premium" tier. New features ship to everyone, free, forever. Blocks collects nothing. No sign-up, no analytics, no tracking. Your budget lives on your device and syncs through your own private iCloud. Nobody else can see it, including me. Blocks does the work for you. • Paychecks appear automatically on payday, whether weekly, biweekly, or monthly, including 3-paycheck months • Recurring bills post themselves, labeled with who was paid • Variable bills (like electricity) remind you and carry an off-season cushion for expensive months • Month-end surplus can sweep to savings automatically, and the app tells you exactly how much to move at your bank • One glance shows what you can actually spend, with upcoming bills already set aside Blocks stays out of your way. • Whole dollars only, with no cents and no clutter • Log a purchase in two taps with a swipe, the Action button, or "Hey Siri, log groceries in Blocks" followed by "50 tacos" • Payee suggestions learn from your own history • An annual view shows income, spending, and savings across the year • Clean black-and-white design, native to iOS, beautiful in dark mode I keep improving Blocks for my own budget, and every update ships to you too. If it helps you, that genuinely makes me happy.

Screenshots

Budget Envelope4 screens
Blocks4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Blocks at 5.0 against Budget Envelope's 4.5. Budget Envelope's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Blocks holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 6 level
Budget Envelope versus Blocks: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBudget EnvelopeBlocks
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (2 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings2 — better1
Update frequency—Weekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTANNER HUNT FRANCISHirthik Bhojwani

In-app purchases

None

Budget Envelope

No in-app purchases

None

Blocks

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Budget Envelope free?
Budget Envelope is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Blocks free?
Blocks is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Budget Envelope or Blocks?
Blocks is rated higher. Budget Envelope averages 4.5 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while Blocks averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Budget Envelope or Blocks have ads?
Neither Budget Envelope nor Blocks shows ads.

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