YNAB vs EveryDollar vs Savvy

You have been budgeting apps for a while or maybe you’re new to budgeting apps. Wherever you are, you are considering which budgeting app is the best for you and are deciding bewteen YNAB, EveryDollar and Savvy.

You know I am a budgeting fanatic, so I may include too much information in this article, but hopefully, you can skip around to what is most helpful for you.

How I Review Budgeting Apps

When I review budget apps, I have a methodology that must be in place. First, the app should be available on iOS and Android. Second, the app must have an option to automatically sync your accounts. Third, the app must have a free and paid version (YNAB the exception here). Fourth, customer service must be receptive.

There are numerous budget apps to choose from, but there were only 3 apps I wanted to compare. Amongst the effective ones are YNAB, the Dave EveryDollar app, and Savvy Budget and Debt Payoff Planner. Thus, we’ll be running a comparison between the three apps to acquaint you with the differences and similarities between them.

Here’s what we will discuss:

1. Budgeting Features
2. Debt Payoff Plan
3. Pricing
4. Security
5. Customer Service
6. Ads

Why is Mint not being reviewed?

I know you may be thinking right now. Why am I not reviewing Mint? Well, if you caught my article why I love budgeting so much, you’ll know why. I loved Mint back in 2009, but I haven’t felt that the product has continually innovated since Mint was purchased by Intuit.

While it meets some of my methodology above, it does not have accessible customer service, and I faced too many technical issues in the past that weren’t fixed.

You may have had a better experience, which I hope you did. But, I could not put it in the same category as the three provided above.

Quick Summary Breakdown

Here is a simple comparison chart to check out at a glance some of the ratings we would give these three apps on each of the features. To note; some of these apps have features not listed here, we created this comparison chart on some of the features they all have in common.

EveryDollar App Overview

EveryDollar rose to fame as soon as it launched because the app was founded by the famous personal finance guru; Dave Ramsey who is famous for 7 baby steps to achieve financial freedom. You know that I write a lot about Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey is a well-known individual that has radical but effective anti-debt views. He has written numerous books to teach his fans what he believes is the perfect ideology on money principles. His main aim is to bring his consumers out of debt and help them manage their debt status at an acceptable level. 

EveryDollar is an app that’s built to allow consumers to manually enter their monthly expenses and income to create a budget. The app makes use of zero-based strategy as the crux of its budgeting technique—this involves ensuring that every dollar in your purse is assigned to a category on the app. 

The app also uses a top-to-bottom zero-based budgeting method that requires users to enter their income and systematically split their expenses into each category. Dave Ramsey also provides in the app his recommended budgeting percentages.

The entire process is quite simple. You simply have to input your monthly income and what you want to spend in the entire month. You’ll be required to set up different budget categories and make an estimated budget for each category. After setting your categories, record what you’ve spent in each category at the point of purchase. 

If you’d rather cut out the fuss of manually entering what you’ve spent, then it’s best for you to subscribe to EveryDollar Plus. This is a premium version of the app, and it brings more convenience and accuracy. 

YNAB App Overview

YNAB stands for You Need a Budget, and it’s true. 

The app is structured on the philosophy of financial prudence and helps you improve your personal finance management skills while keeping tabs on your spending. 

The first version of the app only had a manual entry, but the company updated the app to automate financial downloading from major financial organizations. However, YNAB advises that newbies to budgeting enter their transaction details manually. 

YNAB also operates on the basis that every dollar you’re projected to earn should be assigned a job. So you either assign such funds to be saved or spent. 

Your YNAB is linked directly to your financial account to bring up your account balances and other transactions that might have occurred in your account in real-time. Apart from this, it also gives its users access to educational material that is both philosophical and tutorial in nature. 

If you make use of the platform conscientiously, you will have a better financial habit. And also improve your investment drive, which can help improve your net worth over time. YNAB has a large user base that has an absolute adoration for the platform mainly for its effectiveness in helping them make more money. 

While this platform is considered more expensive than some other budgeting apps, it delivers a better result than most of them. This is a perfect companion for people that are passionate about getting a hold of their finances. 

Savvy Budget and Debt Payoff Planner Overview

Savvy was developed in the past 2 years, so it is the newest of the 3 apps. Originally a debt payoff plan, the team quickly realized that a zero based budget could also be helpful to help people eliminate debt and provide financial freedom.

Savvy was built with the understanding that people love to be hands-on and hands-off at times. It allows you to automatically add your bank accounts and let Savvy import the transactions for you, and also has the capability for you to manually add your bank accounts and transactions.

The Savvy app is unique because the company built its own debt payoff method for you to get out of debt, allowing you to get out of debt, cheaper, easier, and faster. There are two main ways people pay off their debt, the Snowball method or the Avalanche method. The snowball method is prioritizing your smaller debts first and the avalanche method is prioritizing your highest interest debts first. The developers of Savvy saw that there was a problem with the snowball and avalanche method, there wasn’t an in-between. There are clear pros and cons to each, so they built Savvy to be that perfect middle.

There is a free and paid version of Savvy. The free plan allows you to add unlimited manual accounts, use the budgeting and debt payoff planner. The paid plan (with a free 30 day trial), allows you to add unlimited manual and auto accounts, use the budgeting, and the debt payoff planner.

Pricing

Winner: Savvy ($71.88), YNAB ($89), EveryDollar ($129)

As you may have guessed, both YNAB and EveryDollar and Savvy have different annual fees.

The Annual subscription for YNAB is $89 and you can opt for a monthly payment plan of $11.99. The platform also offers 34 days free trial to help understand how the platform works and the effect on your budget. Why 34 days? This is because you’d have just been acquainted with the nitty-gritty of budgeting after 30 days. And YNAB is giving you an extra month to ruminate on whether you’d like to continue or not. YNAB also gives students the opportunity to get a one-year fee waiver. 

EveryDollar on the other hand has both a free and paid version. For the free version, you’ll have to manually enter any transaction made from your account. Although experts advise that newbies start with the free version, it can get stressful if you regularly make purchases. The free version can also help you understand your spending pattern better as you’ll be manually entering the transaction. 

But for more convenience, it’s best to switch to the paid version. The paid version attracts an annual fee of $129. With this upgrade, transactions made from any of your connected bank accounts will be automatically logged in to your EveryDollar account. It also helps with budget preparation—thereby cutting the time you spend tracking your financial transactions. 

Savvy has a free version and paid version. The paid version does not have an annual version, but the app charges $5.99 per month, which works out to $71.88 annually.

Unique App Features

Winner: EveryDollar, YNAB and Savvy

Savvy Features

Savvy offers it’s own debt payoff algorithm, that allows you to get out of debt cheaper, easier, and faster.

1. Personalize your budget: 

• Create your own personal budget and track your debt payoff progress
• Quickly adjust any budget changes
• Easily see which budgets are not set up yet and see how much money you are saving each month

2. Keep track of your monthly expenses

•  Automatically or manually add your bank accounts and transactions.
• Have the ability to manually add any transaction you would like, at any time.
• Easily keep track of what is going in and out of your accounts each month.
• Have an easy-to-read calculator to see how much money you saving each month.

Savvy Debt Payoff Free Plan

• Unlimited Manual Accounts
• 100% use of the budgeting platform
• Track monthly expenses
• Texting customer support
• No Ads

Savvy Debt Payoff Planner Paid Plan

• Unlimited Auto Accounts
• 100% use of the budgeting platform
• Track monthly expenses
• Texting customer support
• No Ads

EveryDollar Features

Why does EveryDollar stand out? This is primarily due to two reasons, the founder of the app and the features it offers. Here are some features that of the EveryDollar app you’ll be interested in: 

1. Create your personal budget: 

• Have your personal budget ready in a few minutes 
• Budget in your mobile app and on your desktop 
• Quickly adjust your note, budget lines, debt payment, and other financial details before the month ends
• Set up customize reminders so you don’t fall behind on payments 

2. Track your monthly expenses 

• Track your expenses and manage your spending on the go 
• Access to numerous budgeting lines to aid splitting of your transactions 
• Have knowledge of your financial standpoint by taking a glance at the tabs with your plan, remaining, and spent part of your budget. 

EveryDollar Plus

Here are the features you’ll enjoy if you subscribe to the premium version of the app: 

• Link your bank account to your EveryDollar account to enable automatic dollar transactions. 
• Use the platform to view and manage all your accounts. 
• Get reports detailing your spending and income to know how far or close you are to your goals. 
• Requests and inquiries from subscribers are prioritized over others. 
• Have access to numerous educational materials like Legacy Journey, Smart Kids, the New Budgeting That Actually Works, and Financial Peace University. 

YNAB Unique Features

Here are the features you’ll enjoy if you have an account on the YNAB app: 

Bank Syncing

Syncing is not unique to these three apps, but it is a unique feature to many other budgeting apps that were not reviewed. The app has a feature that allows you to easily link your YNAB account with your bank account. This way, you will always have current information on the state of your account.

Transaction Matching

Would you rather enter your transactions yourself? You’re allowed to. YNAB ensures that your manually entered transaction is matched with the transaction it downloaded from financial institutions. 

Goal Tracking

Beyond being an expense tracker, the app allows you to set goals and see their expected date of fulfillment. 

Great Reporting

You’ll have a visual, well-detailed, and trends to help gauge your progress. 

Security 

Winner: EveryDollar, YNAB and Savvy

EveryDollar uses a multi-factor authentication system. It also has an impressive encryption technology that it employs to keep the data of its users safe. The company has a well-protected on-site data center where it keeps the data of its users. 

YNAB  has a user policy that contains numerous promises to keep the data of its users safe. YNAB has kept to its promise since 2004 that it launched as it hasn’t been rocked by any privacy scandal. Just like other top budgeting apps, it also has a two-step verification procedure for guaranteeing users’ data. 

Savvy uses a data aggregator that uses bank level encryption to keep your data save. Savvy does not store any bank user names and password, and the transactions provided in the paid version are read only.

EveryDollar, YNAB, and Savvy have taken considerably meaningful steps to guarantee the safety of their platform. The apps only read your balance and new transactions from the accounts you’ve linked to it. Millions of accounts are linked to the platform and most of them attest to the fact that most are well-kept so that you don’t have to fear the loss of data. 

Customer Service 

Winner: Savvy

EveryDollar has top-notch customer service if you’re using the paid version of the app. You should enjoy good customer support if you’re paying for something. Paid users have access to phone support while those using the free version can only send emails. 

YNAB also has a top-notch customer service support system. Customer support experts are distributed in different parts of the world to handle the peculiarity of its diverse market base.

On Savvy, you can text a customer support agent about an issue regardless of whether you are on the paid or free version. I found that the response rate was quite quick.

Ads

Winner: YNAB and Savvy

EveryDollar has ads for other Dave Ramsey products in the free version for the Ramsey Plus upgrade. You can also see advertisements for Ramsey providers in the Ramsey Pros section.

YNAB on the other hand is ad-free since users are mandated to pay for the platform. That way, the company already has a way to generate revenue for itself. 

Savvy has no ads on either the paid or the free version. I appreciate when a company can pay for its expenses with the paid version to not put glaring ads on the free version.

What they’re best for 

YNAB is best for people that want to have a glance at their financial details and understand everything going on there. YNAB fits the bill of individuals with an interest in zero-based budgeting. Individuals that want to have a high degree of control over the content of their budget may also prefer this budgeting technique over EveryDollar.  

EveryDollar is the best option for fans of Dave Ramsey and individuals that consider his advice good enough to follow. The focused and clean user interface is also a perk for those with an interest in such. 

Savvy Debt Payoff Planner is best for those who either would like to have all of their debt payoff progress, budgeting, and financial management in one place or who is a Dave Ramsey reformer. Savvy shows that you can get out of debt cheaper, easier, and faster than the snowball method.

Verdict: Which is the best? 

Different users have their expectations from budgeting. While everyone wants to have better finance, how everyone wants to get there differs. As such, it’s safe to conclude that the best financial app depends on your budgeting preference. Although I find that Savvy is the best option, as I love Dave Ramsey and am paying off debt but I do find that some of what he teaches a bit out of date. I think the snowball method is great but sometimes like the forethought that you may find yourself paying off a lot more debt than you need.

If you’re a fan of a basic, focused, and simple budget, then EveryDollar may appeal to you best. But if you’d rather opt for something sophisticated and detailed, your choice should be YNAB or Savvy Debt Payoff Planner. If you’d rather prefer a free-to-use platform, then your options are the EveryDollar app and Savvy Debt Payoff Planner.  

However, irrespective of the budgeting app you choose, as long as you stick with it, your finances will be healthier than when you started using the platform. After all, that’s your primary reason for downloading a budgeting app.  

Summarily, the best app is one that you prefer and choose to stick with. The most expensive of the three apps is EveryDollar at $129 per annum, which obviously won’t make you broke and they will help reduce your debt level considerably. 

So make your choice, start taking steps as dictated by your preferred app, and budget your way into financial freedom. You definitely will be proud of the decision you’ve taken.