Comparison
Tavera Money vs YNAB
YNAB is a good product with a real method and twenty years behind it. This page is an honest account of how the two differ — including the cases where you should pick YNAB.
Side by side
| Tavera Money | YNAB | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes — Basic, no time limit | No — 34-day free trial |
| Paid priceOne paid plan each — ours is the only tier we sell | $7.99 / mo · $69.99 / yr | $14.99 / mo · $109 / yr |
| Bank connections on the paid plan | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sharing with a partnerBoth include it — this is not a differentiator | Included, every plan | Included, up to 6 people |
| Method you have to adopt | None — categories and amounts | Zero-based, four rules |
| Budget without linking a bank | Included | Included |
| Month-end close with coachingRanked overspends, shortfall settlement, windfall guidance | Included | Not included |
| Built-in debt payoff engineSnowball, avalanche and custom, projected against a baseline | Included | Not included |
| Recurring bill detection from history | Included | Not included |
| Mobile apps | Not included | Included |
| Track record | New | Since 2004 |
| Sells your data | No | No |
YNAB figures checked against ynab.com/pricing on 10 August 2026. Prices in USD. If something here is out of date, please tell us and we will correct it.
Which one is right for you
Choose YNAB if…
- You want a method to follow, and the discipline of assigning every dollar a job appeals to you.
- Entering transactions on your phone as you spend is central to how you budget — YNAB has mature mobile apps and Tavera Money has none.
- You have used YNAB for years and your budget history lives there — only transactions transfer, not your category history.
- You value a long track record and a large community of users, guides and courses.
Choose Tavera Money if…
- You want to budget without paying — Basic is free forever, not a trial.
- You do want bank syncing, but not at $109 a year — Premium is $69.99 with the same unlimited connections.
- You want the analysis done for you rather than a method to adopt.
- The month-end close is the part you care about: what went wrong, whether it keeps going wrong, and what to do next month.
- You are paying off debt and want snowball, avalanche and your own order all costed against a minimums-only baseline.
- You want your recurring charges found for you from your own history.
Questions
Switching, honestly
Is Tavera Money cheaper than YNAB?
Yes, on both counts. Tavera Money has a genuinely free plan, which YNAB does not — YNAB offers a 34-day trial and then requires a subscription. And our one paid plan, Premium, is $7.99 a month or $69.99 a year against YNAB at $14.99 a month or $109 a year, with unlimited bank connections either way. Price is the easy part of this comparison; the method, the mobile apps and the track record are the parts worth thinking about.
Can I import my YNAB data?
Partly. You can export your transactions from YNAB as CSV and import them into Tavera Money with column mapping, validation and duplicate detection. Your budget structure and category history do not transfer automatically — you would recreate your categories, which usually takes a few minutes, and can then generate a starting budget from the spending history you just imported.
Do I have to learn a budgeting method?
No, and that is the main philosophical difference. YNAB teaches a specific zero-based method with four rules, and people who commit to it get a lot from it. Tavera Money asks you to set amounts per category and gets on with analysing what actually happens. Rollover is there if you want envelope behaviour, but nothing requires you to assign every dollar.
Does Tavera Money have mobile apps?
No. Tavera Money is a web app that works on a phone browser, but there are no native iOS or Android apps and no push notifications. YNAB has mature mobile apps. If entering transactions on your phone the moment you spend is central to how you budget, that is a real point in YNAB’s favour.
Try it alongside what you use now.
The free plan costs nothing and has no time limit, so you can import a few months of history and see whether it tells you anything you didn't already know.
No card required · Your data is never sold · Export it any time