Finance

Expensa: an iPhone budget that fills itself in without a bank login

Most budgeting apps want to read your bank account through an aggregator. Expensa is built on the opposite idea: it never asks for a bank login at all, and still fills most of your budget in on its own.

Apple Pay does the logging

You set up one Shortcut, once. From then on, every time you pay with Apple Pay, Wallet passes the amount, merchant and date straight into your budget, with Apple Card or any card added to Wallet. Expensa suggests a category from your own history, and it needs fewer corrections over time. Everything Apple Pay does not cover, such as cash, transfers or a bill paid another way, goes in by voice, by hand or from an imported file. Voice entry takes several expenses in one sentence and splits them into separate entries you review before saving.

Budgets that warn before, not after

Each category can have its own limit on a monthly, weekly or custom cycle with automatic rollover, a live bar of what is left, and a warning before you overspend. Smart Allocation proposes a split of a total across categories, and every number stays editable. Personal, household, business and trip spaces stay separate, a partner or family can join a shared space through iCloud with no extra accounts, and more than 150 currencies are handled with live rates, keeping each transaction's original amount, converted amount and that day's rate.

Privacy, and what it costs

There is no bank login, no aggregator and no sign-up. Data lives on your iPhone and in your own iCloud; the developer states there is no Expensa server holding your transactions. Expensa is free to download with a capped free plan, and Premium lifts the caps and adds AI categorisation, category budgets, analytics, shared spaces and multi-currency entry. The listing names no Premium price, so check current terms in the App Store.

The honest take

Automatic logging covers Apple Pay taps only, several headline features sit behind Premium, it is iPhone only, and it launched in spring 2026, so it is still building its track record. If you pay mostly with Apple Pay and want a budget that fills itself in without handing anyone your bank credentials, it is a well-thought-out, privacy-first pick. It is an expense tracker, not financial advice.