Basis vs Blocks

Basis is a budgeting app built on one old rule: pay yourself first. Most apps track what you spend and call whatever's left at the end of the month "savings". For most people, that number is zero. Basis flips the order: on payday, your saving rate comes off the top — like a bill. What's left is what you budget, across categories you define. Then, at the end of the period, nothing settles silently. You close the month yourself: every overspent category gets an explicit decision, cover it from savings, or carry it and start next month tighter. Leftovers sweep into savings with one tap. Basis doesn't just track saving. It causes it. THE METHOD • Save first: your saving rate is set aside on payday, before any budgeting happens • Budget the rest across your own categories: rent, groceries, whatever fits your life • Close each period deliberately: settle overspends, sweep the surplus MEASURED AGAINST YOU, NOT A RULEBOOK • Every category charts this period against your own usual pace — "13% under your usual at day 13" • Average per day, projection to period end, and your past periods as bars: drift is visible before it becomes a problem • The capital chart draws the money you've kept across every payday, from your first period to today FAST TO LIVE WITH • Log an expense in two taps with the custom keypad • Or scan the receipt: the text is read on-device and the photo never leaves your phone • Recurring expenses post themselves • Home-screen widgets for quick logging and an at-a-glance balance AND IT'S COMPLETELY PRIVATE No bank link, no account, no cloud. Basis runs entirely on your phone. FREE FOREVER No subscription, no ads, no in-app purchases, no premium tier. Basis has no running costs, so it has no price. That's the whole deal.

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.