Best Free Budgeting Apps in the UK With No Subscription

If you have ever downloaded a “free” budgeting app only to find the budgeting bit locked behind a monthly fee, you are not imagining it. Several popular UK apps have quietly moved their useful features into paid tiers, and two of the old favourites have shut down their consumer apps entirely. This guide cuts through that. Every app below does real budgeting for £0, and we are precise about exactly what you get without paying and where the paywall starts.

The quick answer

For most people, Snoop is the best free budgeting app in the UK right now. It links your existing bank and credit card accounts in one place, sets up budgets in a couple of taps, tracks bills and subscriptions, and warns you about price rises, all without asking for a subscription. There is a paid Snoop Plus tier, but the core budgeting you actually came for sits in the free app.

If you already bank with Monzo or Starling, you may not need a separate app at all. Both have proper budgeting tools built into their free current accounts. The trade-off is that they only track money held with them, not your other accounts.

If you would rather not connect a bank account at all, Goodbudget and Actual Budget let you budget by hand using the envelope method, with no open-banking link required.

For a fuller side-by-side ranking including paid options, see our main budgeting apps roundup and the longer budgeting apps buying guide.

Why the old favourites are gone

Two names still appear on a lot of “best free app” lists that should not.

Money Dashboard closed all consumer accounts on 31 October 2023. It had been acquired by ClearScore, could not find a sustainable business model, and pivoted to selling data services to businesses. If a roundup is still recommending it, that roundup is out of date.

Moneyhub is the newer casualty, and most competitor pages have not caught up. Moneyhub is shutting its direct-to-consumer app on 14 August 2026. It has already closed to new customers, is shipping no new features, and has refocused on its business products. So while Moneyhub still works for now, it is not a sensible app to build your budgeting habit around.

There is a useful lesson buried in both closures: if an app holds your financial history, export your data periodically so a shutdown never strands you. When Money Dashboard closed, the people who had exported their categorised spending kept years of history; the people who had not lost it.

The genuinely free aggregators

These apps pull your various accounts into one view, which is what most people actually want from “a budgeting app”.

Snoop

The strongest free, no-subscription-needed pick. Connect your banks and credit cards and Snoop shows your spending by category and by merchant, lets you set up budgets in a couple of taps with custom categories, and tracks your bills and subscriptions. It flags upcoming price rises, contract renewals, and switching deals, sends a weekly spending report, and tracks your credit score.

What £0 gets you: account aggregation across several accounts, custom-category budgeting, spending breakdowns, subscription and bill tracking with price-rise alerts, weekly reports, and credit-score tracking.

There is a Snoop Plus tier that adds deeper custom budgets, multi-card cashback offers, and unlimited account connections, but you do not need it to budget properly. The free app stands on its own.

Free because it is built into your bank

If you bank with one of the app-first banks, the budgeting tools come bundled with the free current account. The catch is the same for both: they only see and budget the money you hold with them, so they suit single-bank people rather than someone juggling accounts across several providers.

Monzo

Monzo’s free current account includes spending budgets by category (set a monthly cap on Eating out, for example), automatic transaction categorisation with custom rules and categories, and real-time notifications every time you spend. You get up to 20 Pots for separating savings and bills, a Salary Sorter that splits your pay into bills, savings, and spending the moment it lands, and the ability to pay Direct Debits straight from a Pot.

What £0 gets you: full category budgeting, custom categories, real-time spend alerts, Pots, and Salary Sorter, as long as you hold a free Monzo current account. Monzo Plus and Premium exist and cost extra, but the budgeting basics are free. Monzo only budgets Monzo money. You can read more on Monzo’s own budgeting help pages.

Starling Bank

Starling’s personal current account has no monthly fee and, unlike Monzo, no tiered upsell on the personal account, so there is no “gotcha” upgrade nudging you. You get Spaces (sub-accounts and virtual pots for goals and bills), redesigned Spending Insights with automatic categorisation, custom date ranges, interactive graphs, per-Space analysis, and virtual cards tied to individual Spaces.

What £0 gets you: Spaces, full Spending Insights, and virtual cards, with genuinely no monthly fee on the personal account. Same caveat as Monzo: it only budgets money held with Starling.

Free with no bank link required

For privacy-conscious budgeters, or anyone who simply prefers to enter spending by hand, these do not touch open banking at all.

Goodbudget

Built around the envelope (zero-based) method: you assign every pound to a category before you spend it. The free tier gives you 10 envelopes and manual entry, with no bank connection needed. If you outgrow 10 envelopes, a paid Plus tier removes the limit, but many households run their whole budget inside the free 10.

Actual Budget

An open-source, self-hostable budgeting app that follows the same zero-based approach as YNAB. It is free if you self-host, and it is a firm favourite in technical and Reddit circles for exactly that reason. You can enter transactions manually or import them. It asks more of you to set up than Snoop, but you own your data outright.

Free, but watch the paywall

Two well-known apps still have a free tier, but their budgeting value has been shrinking. We are including them honestly rather than as clean free picks.

Emma

This is the one to read carefully. The free tier, Emma Basic, now connects only 2 bank logins. Several features people think of as core have moved to paid plans: custom budget categories, offline-account tracking, and net-worth-over-time are Pro-only, while bill reminders and cashback are Plus-only.

What £0 gets you: basic spending categorisation, basic budgeting, and subscription spotting across up to 2 accounts. That is fine for one or two accounts, but multi-account households hit the paywall quickly. User sentiment in 2026 has turned noticeably more critical about how much has moved behind a subscription. You can see exactly what the free tier includes on Emma’s own Basic plan page. If you are weighing Emma against the alternatives, our Emma vs Snoop vs Plum comparison goes deeper.

Plum

Plum is really a saving and investing app with budgeting attached, rather than a budgeting-first tool. The free Basic tier is built around automated saving: the AI auto-save algorithm with Round-Ups and Pay Days, one customisable savings Pocket, access to Cash ISA, Easy Access and LISA products, and stock price alerts. Plum’s deeper spending analysis, branded Spend Insights, sits on a paid tier rather than the free plan.

What £0 gets you: automated saving and access to Plum’s savings and investing products, but weaker budgeting than Snoop. If your goal is to nudge yourself into saving rather than to run a strict budget, that may be exactly the trade you want. Plum’s paid ladder is currently Plus, Boost, and Max, which add more automations, more pockets, spending analysis, and higher interest. Note that older articles still quote a “Pro” and “Premium” tier; those names are outdated. For a closer look, read our Plum review.

What about YNAB?

You will see YNAB recommended a lot, and it is genuinely good, but it is not free and has no free tier; it is a paid subscription only. We mention it as the contrast: if you are willing to pay for a strict, hands-on zero-based system, YNAB is the benchmark. If you want the same envelope discipline for nothing, Actual Budget or Goodbudget get you most of the way.

Are free budgeting apps safe?

The apps that link to your accounts do so through Open Banking, which is regulated by the FCA. A few facts worth holding onto:

• Providers must be authorised as Account Information Service Providers (AISPs) to enrol in the Open Banking Directory.
• For budgeting apps, access is read-only. They can see your balances and transactions, but they cannot move your money or make payments.
• You never hand the app your bank login. You approve access through your own bank’s secure flow, using its normal Strong Customer Authentication (2FA), and a token is issued instead.
• Your data is protected under GDPR, used only for the purpose you approved, and you can revoke access at any time.

The official Open Banking guide on why it is safe is worth two minutes if you are nervous about connecting an account. And if the idea still does not sit right, that is exactly what the no-bank-link options (Goodbudget, Actual Budget) are for.

Frequently asked questions

Which UK budgeting apps are actually free with no subscription? Snoop is the strongest all-rounder that needs no subscription for core budgeting. Monzo and Starling include free budgeting tools inside their free current accounts. Goodbudget and Actual Budget are free and need no bank link. Plum and Emma have free tiers, but more of their budgeting features have moved to paid plans, so read the small print.

What is the best free alternative now that Money Dashboard and Moneyhub are closing? Money Dashboard closed in October 2023 and Moneyhub is shutting its consumer app in August 2026. For an app that aggregates multiple accounts in one place like they did, Snoop is the closest free replacement. If you bank entirely with Monzo or Starling, their built-in tools may be enough on their own.

Is Emma still free, and what do you get without paying? Emma still has a free tier called Emma Basic, but it now connects only 2 bank logins, and several features have moved to paid plans, including custom budget categories, offline accounts, net-worth tracking, bill reminders, and cashback. For free you get basic spending categorisation, basic budgeting, and subscription spotting across up to two accounts.

Can I budget without linking my bank account? Yes. Goodbudget gives you 10 envelopes on its free tier with manual entry and no bank link, and Actual Budget is a free, open-source, self-hostable app that works manually or with imports. Both follow the envelope or zero-based method, so you assign every pound a job by hand.

Are budgeting apps safe, and can they move my money? Budgeting apps that connect to your accounts use FCA-regulated Open Banking and have read-only access, so they can see your transactions but cannot move money or make payments. You approve access through your own bank’s secure login, never by sharing your banking password, and you can revoke access whenever you like.

Do I need a separate app if I use Monzo or Starling? Often not. If most of your spending runs through a single Monzo or Starling account, their built-in budgeting (categories, Pots or Spaces, and spending insights) covers what most people need. You would only add an app like Snoop if you want to combine several different banks and cards in one view.