A vast majority of people don’t like managing finances, track their expenses and incomes. However, they want to rack their expenses to stick to a budget or save some money. And here comes apps for personal money management. They can show users how they spend money more clearly.
Moreover, personal finance apps are a great way for startups to get their market share in the rapidly growing app development sphere. Let’s find out how to develop a personal money management app.
Table of contents
Types of personal finance management apps Best personal finance apps for managing money Essential features of a financial advisor mobile app Is your app secure? How much does it cost to develop a personal finance app How to monetize a personal finance app Conclusion
Types of personal finance management apps
There are lots of finance apps for Android and iOS, but we can be roughly divided into two main groups - manual-entry and so-called linked apps. Let’s have a closer look.
Manual-entry personal accounting apps
These are the simplest apps for tracking expenses and income. These apps require manual entry of all spending data. Manual-entry apps have a couple of useful features such as expense categories, expense analyzer, and planning.
Cons
Pros
❌ Risk of errors
✅ Security
❌ No data entry or synchronization
✅ Lower development costs
❌ Significant time cost
✅ More control over the data
Note: There are lots of ways to encourage people to manual entry data - intuitive interface design, challenges, and bonuses.
Linked personal finance apps
These apps are more advanced apps to track finances. To get the most out of linked personal finance apps, users need to connect their bank cards to their personal profiles. Then the app will automatically add and analyze every transaction.
Cons
Pros
❌ Expensive to develop
✅ Ease of use
❌ Need to invest much more in security
✅ High efficiency
✅ Automatic transaction updates
While developing budgeting apps with a financial advisor, you shouldn't forget about security, especially when it comes to linked apps.
At mova.io , we know how to make your app secure and reliable. Drop us a line in case of any questions.
Best personal finance apps for managing money
We scoured the Web and app stores to find the best finance apps for Android and iOS. And we compiled a list of must-use money management & personal finance apps to use and test before developing your own Android or iOS expense tracker app.
#1 - Mint
Platform: iOS and Android
Mint is the most popular personal financial management app on the market. The app brings together all accounts, bills, and more to manage finance in one place. Mint tracks all bills and sends notifications when payment time comes.
The app automatically updates and categorizes transactions to provide better insights into the user’s finances.
To get premium features like reports or SMS recognition, users have to subscribe to get advanced features. For $0.99 a month, users can get the most out of Mint.
#2 Quicken
Platform: iOS, Android, Web, Windows, and Mac
Quicken gathers all financial information including banking, retirement, investment, and credit card accounts under one roof. With the app, users can plan their budgets ahead and stick to them. Quicken provides a complete financial picture. Users can easily see what is going in and what is going out, check balances, and pay their bills on time.
Thanks to monthly reports, users can easier make buy or sell decisions. But the app isn’t free. The price starts from $34.99 a year.
#3 Spendee
Platform: iOS, Android, and Windows
Spendee is a well-thought personal finance manager app with a flawless UX design. The app can easily track all cash flows including bank accounts, e-wallets, and even crypto wallets. The app helps understand financial habits and leave unhealthy habits far behind.
Spendee can also set smart budgets to help users not to overspend in a chosen category. For example, User 1 sets the smart budget of $500 for food and when User 1 gets closer to the limit, Spendee alerts and helps avoid overspending.
The app works with multiple currencies, creates shared wallets, and syncs with banking accounts. Spendee has several plans - free and paid. Paid plans start from $1.99 a month.
#4 Monefy
Platform: iOS, Android, Windows
Monefy eases finance management for people. With its help, users can track their expenses and get a full financial picture. Monefy is a free manual-entry money management and personal finance app for iOS, Android, and Windows.
The app supports multiple currencies at once. Users can add transactions in U.S. dollar, Eur, etc. Moreover, Monefy can sync with Google Drive or Dropbox. For easy finance tracking, users can add smart widgets that can be used even on the lock screen. With Monefy, there is no chance to miss a transaction.
#5 Personal Capital
Platform: iOS and Android
Personal Capital is a free tool to keep track of finances. The app links banking accounts to analyze investments and spot any hidden fees. State-of-the-art financial tools give complete insights on how much users earn and how much they can spend.
Moreover, users can chat and get professional advice from financial advisors including financial plannings, fiduciary advice, etc.
Essential features of a financial advisor mobile app
Having analyzed dozens of Android and iPhone expense tracker apps, we’ve found out essential and advanced features.
Account aggregation
Personal expense tracker apps should assemble all types of banking accounts, including debit cards, credit cards, loans, and other details. In this case, your personal finance management app will become a one-stop app solution for financial management.
In this case, the app deals with sensitive data. A personal finance and budget app needs more protective layers to keep it secure and minimize the chances of losing any information.
Real-time updates
Real-time updates help users track their spendings. Personal financial advisor apps can add new transactions automatically and update account balance in the real time. And then there is no need to manually enter all the necessary data or manually update banking accounts.
Spending categories
Built-in categories help users get a full picture of how they spend their money. In most cases, users have no idea how much they spend on food, accommodation, or entertainment.
Moreover, built-in categories facilitate budget planning. For example, User 1 wants to put aside $100 a month but User 1 doesn’t know what expenses to cut down. With monthly reports and categories, User 1 gets full picture of expenses and finds out where he overspends.
Alerts and notifications
It’s one of the most crucial features for a personal finance app for iPhone and Android. When users forget to make payments on time, they get penalties. And your personal money management app for Android or iOS can save them from paying off more.
Consider sending alerts in case of:
Low balance
Suspicious transactions
Upcoming bills
Overspending
Changes in cost standards
Expense tracking
Expense tracking is the core of any personal money management app for iPad, iPhone, and Android. It helps users keep their expenses under control. Manual-entry apps rely more on users while linked apps can automatically add all transactions and parse messages received from banks.
Credit score
Credit score plays an important role when it comes to important purchase decisions such as a house or a car. It’s one of the major factors in making spending decisions.
Budgeting
Planning the budget and regular reports can help you win more users and make your app stand out of the crowd. Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly reports with graphics will become a considerable plus for users to choose your personal money management app for Android or iOS.
Synchronization and backup
No one likes losing data so backuping and synchronization will be great to add to a money management app. Consider synchronization with cloud storages such as Google Drive or Dropbox.
Additional finance tools to power up your app
The features mentioned above form the core of a personal finance app. And here you can find more advanced features for developing a superb app for finance management:
In-app calculator
Currency converter
Tax calculator
Credit calculator
Shopping list
You may also be interested in How to start?
Is your app secure?
Financial apps require sensitive data so security isn’t the last thing to consider. Users should trust your app and be sure that the data they provide is safe and sound.
How to make your expense tracker app secure?
Two-factor authentication
Encryption
Short-time sessions
Well-thought UX
Open-source libraries
How much does it cost to develop a personal finance app
Before discussing the numbers, let’s find out who you’ll need to build a fully-fledged personal finance app.
Your development team should include:
Business analyst
Project manager
Developers
UX/ UI designers
QA engineers (testers)
Manual-entry app
Apps that allow connecting a bank account
Development time (iOS + Android)
~3 months
~4 months
Development price (iOS + Android)
$12,000 - $16,000
$16,000 - $22,000
Note: When calculating the development cost, we used our average rate of $35/hour. But the final price may be higher or lower depending on many aspects such as the number of supported platforms, additional features, user interface designs complexity, and so on. And don’t forget about maintenance. Depending on the project complexity it can take from 10 to 30 hours per month.
Need an exact calculation? Contact us and we’ll estimate your project.
How to monetize a personal finance app
Most finance apps for personal finance management are free, but users should pay for advanced functionality. And this is the most common way to monetize a mobile app. Let’s find out all the ways to make money off your finance app.
In-app purchases
Cross-platform solution
Integrations with 3rd party apps or services
In-app ads
Final thoughts
Now you have a basic idea of how to develop and monetize a personal finance app. So it’s high time to hire a development team and get your app developed. At mova.io, every app idea becomes a reality, thanks to skilled app developers and designers. Drop us a line and we’ll build the app for you.
Have a question? Just write to us at:
📮 mail@mova.io
