Local-first budgeting

Budget your month clearly.

Income, spending, savings and upcoming bills in one place — so you can see what matters without hunting around, or handing your bank login to anyone.

Get it on Google Play Coming to iPhone Soon

Free to use · No account required · No ads

The BudgetCat dashboard showing the amount left this month, a spending and savings breakdown, and upcoming bills.
  • No account required
  • Works fully offline
  • No ads, ever
  • Export anytime

What you get

Enough structure to be useful. Not so much that you quit.

BudgetCat is built around one question — what is left this month — and everything else exists to answer it honestly.

This month at a glance

One number for what is left, and the arithmetic behind it spelled out in plain words underneath. No dashboard archaeology.

Fast daily entry

Log spending, income or savings in a few taps from anywhere in the app. Add a category, a note or a receipt later, only if you want to.

Look ahead

Paydays and bills on a forecast calendar, reserves that spread uneven yearly costs across the months, and what your subscriptions really add up to.

Savings goals and accounts

Goals and account balances in one place, with a monthly savings rate and a forecast once you have a little history behind you.

Charts that stay readable

Every series is checked for colour-blind contrast, and pairs colour with texture — hatching, dots, marker shapes — so no reading depends on hue alone.

Your data, portable

Import from CSV or JSON with duplicate detection, and export everything whenever you like. Getting your own records out is never behind a paywall.

A look inside

The month, your goals, and what is coming.

Three screens past the dashboard. Each one answers a single question in plain words, with nothing buried three taps deep in a menu.

The Analysis screen, with a month explorer and spending broken down by category.

Analysis

This month by category, versus last month, and what is ahead.

The Savings screen, showing total saved, a monthly savings rate history, and goal progress.

Savings

Goals, accounts, and what you actually set aside each month.

The Look ahead screen, showing safe-to-spend cash flow, reserves and subscription totals.

Look ahead

Cash flow, reserves and subscriptions for the weeks ahead.

Privacy

Your budget stays on your phone.

BudgetCat is local-first. Your transactions live in a database on your device, not on someone else's server. There is no bank connection, because there is nothing to connect.

  • No account to create Open the app and start. Sign-in exists only for optional cloud backup.
  • Nothing leaves by default Cloud sync and backup are opt-in, and stay off until you turn them on.
  • You own your records Export to CSV or JSON whenever you like — free, on every tier.
  • No ads and no trackers Nothing about your spending is collected, so there is nothing to sell.

Pricing

Free is meant to last.

The free version is not a timed demo. You can budget with it for years and never pay a cent. Paid tiers unlock depth and convenience, never the basics.

Free

$0

Everything you need to budget month to month, forever.

  • Unlimited expenses, income and savings
  • Recurring items and savings goals
  • Custom categories and icons
  • Dashboard and monthly analysis
  • Backup export and import
  • No account, no ads
One-time

Pro

$9.99 once, not a subscription

Deeper history and the planning tools, unlocked for good.

  • Monthly Recap and Year in Review
  • Browse earlier months and years
  • Cash-flow forecast and reserves
  • Subscription insights
  • Richer category comparisons
  • Every future local Pro feature
Not yet

Backup Plus

$0.99 a month, or $7.99 a year

Optional cloud convenience, once automatic backup genuinely works.

  • Automatic encrypted cloud backups
  • Cross-device sync
  • Backup history and restore points

Prices in USD and may vary by region. Pro is bought once and stays unlocked — there is no recurring charge, and no feature you have already paid for will move behind another paywall later.

Questions

The things people ask first.

Do I need an account?

No. BudgetCat opens straight into your budget and keeps everything on your device. An account only becomes relevant if you later choose to turn on optional cloud backup.

Does it connect to my bank?

No, and that is deliberate. There is no bank linking, no screen-scraping and no third party holding your credentials. You add entries yourself in a few taps, or import a CSV or JSON file your bank exports.

What happens when I change phones?

Export a backup file from the Data screen and import it on the new phone. Export and import are free on every tier — you should never have to pay to move your own records.

Is there a subscription?

Pro is a one-time $9.99 purchase. A small optional subscription, Backup Plus, is planned for automatic cloud backup and cross-device sync, but it will not ship until that service actually exists and works.

When is the iPhone version coming?

Android comes first. BudgetCat is built with React Native and an iOS build already runs internally, but it has not been through App Store review yet, so there is no date worth promising. It is on the way.

Why a cat?

The mark is a ledger page with ears. Budgeting comes down to noticing where things go, which is a cat's entire skill set — and it made a better icon than a spreadsheet.

Start with this month.

Install it, add a couple of entries, and see where you actually are.

Get it on Google Play Coming to iPhone Soon