Goodbudget: envelope budgeting with a real free-forever tier
Goodbudget splits money into virtual envelopes and shares the budget across a household. Its free tier is genuinely permanent — we check what the subscription adds on top.
Goodbudget digitizes a specific, old budgeting method: split your money into envelopes for categories, and you can only spend what's left in each one. No bank sync in the free tier — you decide what goes where, deliberately.
What it gives you
A genuinely permanent free tier. Ten regular envelopes and ten annual envelopes, ad-free, with no expiration — most apps in this roundup gate everything behind a trial that ends.
Built-in sharing. A budget syncs across a spouse's, family member's, or roommate's phone and the web, backed up automatically, so everyone spending from the same envelopes sees the same balance.
Envelope-shaped reports: spending by envelope as a pie chart, income versus spending, and a debt payoff tracker.
What it costs
Manual entry in the free tier — automatic bank sync is a subscriber-only feature. Anyone who wants transactions to import themselves, the way Rocket Money or Monarch do by default, pays for it here.
A subscription is still there for unlimited envelopes and accounts, five shared devices, and seven years of transaction history — the free tier's ten-envelope cap is real, and some households will hit it.
Who it's for
People who want to budget with envelopes specifically, or who want a household budgeting app that never requires payment to keep working. For automatic bank sync from day one, Rocket Money's free tier includes it.
The rest of the picks are in our best budgeting apps roundup.
Common questions
- Is Goodbudget available on Android?
- Yes, on both iPhone and Android. We checked both stores on September 21, 2026, and the Play developer name (Dayspring Partners) matches the App Store seller (Dayspring Technologies, Inc.).
- What languages does Goodbudget support?
- Of the languages this site covers, the App Store lists: English. The store page shows the full list for your region.
- Is Goodbudget free?
- The free tier is ad-free and permanent, not a trial: 10 regular envelopes and 10 annual envelopes, per the developer's own description. A subscription removes that envelope limit and adds automatic bank sync, more devices, and longer transaction history.