Comparison

Expense Log XL vs Expense tracker | Simple Spend

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

Head to head
About

Expense Log XL

Features
Read full description

Track what you spend โ€” in seconds, on your phone, without a subscription. Expense Log XL is a manual expense tracker for people who want their money in their own hands: type the amount, tap a category, done. No bank logins, no accounts, no cloud, no ads. AN EXPENSE IN 3 SECONDS โ€ข A big numpad and big category buttons โ€” one tap saves the expense โ€ข 10 ready-made categories, or build your own with your own icons โ€ข A note or a different date only when you actually need one SEE WHERE THE MONEY GOES โ€ข This month's total at a glance โ€ข Every category with its share, as bars and percentages โ€ข Swipe left or right to walk through your months โ€ข Search your notes CSV EXPORT THAT ACTUALLY WORKS Date, Amount, Currency, Category, Note โ€” a clean UTF-8 file with BOM that opens correctly in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. Commas and quotation marks inside your notes stay intact instead of breaking the columns. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Everything stays on your iPhone. No account, no server, no cloud sync, no analytics, no advertising. Your expenses are nobody else's business. HONEST PRICING Adding expenses is always free and never limited. Your first 14 days open everything. After that, the free version keeps this month in full, plus backup. One purchase unlocks every past month, CSV export of any period and one-tap recurring expenses. Forever, with no subscription.

About

Expense tracker | Simple Spend

Features
Read full description

Simple Spend is the super simple manual expense and budget tracker for iPhone. Set a monthly budget, log your daily expenses and recurring bills, and get on top of your finances! - Super fast expense logging - One monthly budget with pace and forecast - Create folders for trips or projects - Add recurring bills that auto-post on their due date - Custom categories - Insights: daily average, month-over-month trend, category breakdown, recurring bill progress Pro - Currency conversion - No limits - Widgets for lock & home screens - CSV export - Bill due date reminders $9.99 for lifetime access. PRIVACY FIRST: No bank linking, no screen-scraping, no third party or AI ever sees your transactions. You log what you spent, it stays on your device, and syncs only through your own private iCloud account, the same way Apple's own apps sync. There's no account to create and no login screen.

Screenshots

Expense Log XL3 screens
Expense tracker | Simple Spend4 screens

Verdict

The call

Expense Log XL and Expense tracker | Simple Spend are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters โ€” price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them โ€” neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Expense Log XL sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Expense tracker | Simple Spend sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Expense Log XL versus Expense tracker | Simple Spend: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterExpense Log XLExpense tracker | Simple Spend
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksโ€”
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS17.0 โ€” better18.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size3 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerihor RomanenkoKim Walker

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Expense Log XL

One-time1
  • Unlock Forever$8.99
1 purchases

Expense tracker | Simple Spend

One-time1
  • Simple Spend Pro$9.99

Questions

Is Expense Log XL free?
Expense Log XL is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Expense tracker | Simple Spend free?
Expense tracker | Simple Spend is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Expense Log XL or Expense tracker | Simple Spend have ads?
Neither Expense Log XL nor Expense tracker | Simple Spend shows ads.

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