Comparison

Buddy vs I Am Saving

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

Head to head
About

Buddy

This app helps you create and manage personal or shared budgets. Track expenses, connect your bank account for automatic transaction import, and gain a clear overview of your spending, income, and savings. It also features tools to split costs and settle up with others.

Highlights
  • Create personal budgets
  • Shared budgeting for couples/groups
  • Connect bank accounts for transaction import
  • Detailed spending and income overview
  • Expense splitting and settlement tracking
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Buddy helps you set up a budget and keep track of your expenses, either by yourself or together with your loved ones. Here’s what is waiting for you inside: BUDGETS Buddy will help you not to overspend on your well-earned salary by setting up a budget plan that fits you. Do you want a shared budget with your partner? Or keep the expenses between you and your mates fair on the vacation? No problem, just invite them and get a clear picture of who spent what. CONNECT YOUR BANK Import all transactions from your bank account into Buddy and see how your budget is doing. OVERVIEW We'll give you a beautiful & detailed overview of your spendings, income, and savings. SPLIT Split lets you know who paid what, and how to settle up. And much more for you to find. Take control of your finance today! Buddy offers a $9.99 monthly renewing and a $49.99 yearly renewing subscription to unlock Premium functionality. The purchase will be charged from your iTunes account if you choose to buy the Buddy Premium subscription. You can manage or cancel your subscription through the user settings in iTunes after the purchase. The subscription period ends with the same kind of subscription you already bought to the same price unless you turn off your subscription 24 hours before it renews. It is not possible to cancel your current subscription during the time your subscription is active. Privacy Policy: https://buddy.download/privacypolicy/ Terms & Conditions: https://buddy.download/terms-and-conditions/

About

I Am Saving

This app helps children learn to save money by setting savings goals, tracking income and expenses, and visualizing progress. It encourages good financial habits and congratulates users upon reaching their goals.

Highlights
  • Set savings goals
  • Track income and expenses
  • Visualize savings progress
  • Adjust goals anytime
  • Congratulates on achievement
  • Encourages good habits
Features
Read full description

If you give your child pocket money on a weekly basis, this app will help them learn to save. A parent or a child sets up a saving goal by telling the app what they'd like to save for, how much it costs, how much money they have now and how much they receive weekly. The app then visualizes the progress and tells the child mow long then need to keep saving. The app also helps form a good habit of logging incomes and outcomes. Every time the child receives pocket money or spends some, they open the app and input how much money they received or spent. After doing that, they see an updated progress towards their saving goal. The goal can be adjusted any time: may be the price of the thing they want has changed or you opted to start giving them a different amount of money every week. May the kid just changed their mind, that's totally fine. Finally, when the child has saved enough to buy what they wanted, the app congratulates them with their achievement and offers to set up a new goal. NOTE FOR PARENTS Help you child setting up their goal for the first time and encourage them to save by offering them a piggy bank or something similar. The app works best for children of ages 6–12. If the child doesn't yet know how to count money, offer them your help. PRIVACY We're taking children's privacy very seriously. The app does not collect or send any data. Nobody except you have access to your data. You own it and it stays on your device.

Screenshots

Buddy4 screens
I Am Saving4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: I Am Saving at 85% against Buddy's 48%. I Am Saving also leads on iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). Buddy's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (9.6K vs 132). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Buddy sells 11 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and I Am Saving sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Buddy holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Buddy has 9.6K ratings behind it against 132, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 48% of Buddy's written reviews are positive against 85% of I Am Saving's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Buddy ships an update every 9 days, I Am Saving every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Buddy versus I Am Saving: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBuddyI Am Saving
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (9.6K ratings) — better4.5 (132 ratings)
Positive reviews48.5% of reviews85.4% of reviews — better
Number of ratings9.6K — better132
Update frequencyEvery 9 days — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#84 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size169 MB19 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBuddy Budgeting ABVadim Belyaev

Customer experience

Buddy

All ratings9,567 ratings
Positive92.8%
Neutral3.0%
Negative4.3%
Written reviews889 reviews
Positive48.5%
Neutral11.9%
Negative39.6%

I Am Saving

All ratings126 ratings
Positive88.1%
Neutral2.4%
Negative9.5%
Written reviews48 reviews
Positive85.4%
Neutral8.3%
Negative6.3%

Bugs and requests

Buddy

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Recurring transactions not working as expected
  • Balance not carrying over to next month
  • Syncing issues between devices
  • Transactions disappearing or resetting
  • Inability to edit categories without creating new ones

Requested features

8 requests
  • Calendar view for transactions
  • Bill reminders and due date tracking
  • Ability to hide/exclude certain transactions
  • Savings/investment tracking
  • Multi-currency support
Show 3 more
  • Ability to reorder categories
  • Weekly budget view
  • Ability to split transactions

I Am Saving

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

11 purchases

Buddy

Subscriptions10
  • Buddy Premium7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Buddy Premium$4.991 Month
  • Premium$9.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Buddy Premium$9.991 Month
  • Buddy Premium7 Days trial$16.991 Year
  • Buddy Premium7 Days trial$24.991 Year
  • Buddy Premium7 Days trial$34.991 Year
  • Buddy Premium1 Year trial$34.991 Year
  • Buddy Premium7 Days trial$39.991 Year
  • Buddy Premium7 Days trial2 variants$49.991 Year
One-time1
  • Unlimited$49.99
1 purchases

I Am Saving

One-time1
  • Full Version$5.99

Questions

Is Buddy free?
Buddy is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is I Am Saving free?
I Am Saving is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Buddy or I Am Saving?
Buddy is rated higher. Buddy averages 4.7 out of 5 from 9.6K ratings, while I Am Saving averages 4.5 from 132 ratings.
Do Buddy or I Am Saving have ads?
Neither Buddy nor I Am Saving shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Buddy or I Am Saving?
Buddy ships an update every 9 days, and I Am Saving every 4 months. Most recently, Buddy was updated on October 29, 2026 and I Am Saving on October 26, 2026.

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