Keep Above
Budgeting apps in the United States
In the United States there is no re-authentication clock set by law at present, so a bank connection breaks on events instead: a password change, a security change, or a consent expiring on the bank's own schedule. The twelve apps below are described from their own pages. Five of them are sold only in the United States, or only there on mobile. Keep Above has no connection to break and is sold in any country.
Written and maintained by Manandai Ltd, the company that makes Keep Above. This is our comparison, not an independent review. No app here is scored, rated or ranked. How we compare.
Every competitor cell is taken from that app's own help pages or pricing page, quoted where a quote exists, on 22 September 2026. Storefront availability is from a public Apple lookup call that anyone can re-run. Two vendors' sentences name their bank-connection provider and are paraphrased here rather than quoted, which is noted where it happens.
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Last verified 22 September 2026How often do US budgeting apps make you reconnect your bank?
Every other market on this hub has a number. In the United Kingdom an app must obtain your explicit reconfirmation at least every 90 days. In the European Union the interval is 180 days. In Australia a consent may run for at most 12 months. Ask the same question about the United States and there is no number to give you.
That is not because nothing was written. A federal rule containing a one-year cap on how long a collection may run without your reauthorization was finalised in November 2024. A court stayed its compliance dates on 29 October 2025, the regulator issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in August 2025, and as at 22 September 2026 the notice that would extend those compliance dates has not issued. So a rule exists and nothing in it binds today. The regulator's own compliance page is where that status is published.
What interrupts a United States connection instead is an event. That is not our characterisation of it. It is what the vendors say, and the closeness of the agreement is the thing worth seeing.
| What its own pages say sets off a reconnection | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Actual Budget | Its pages state nothing about a connection expiring, being renewed or being re-authenticated. The North American bridge service documents a cost, a refresh "one time / day, roughly every 24 hours", and that "the sync pulls at most 90 days of data from each linked account" — that last figure is a depth of history, not a consent period. | docs |
| Copilot | "For security reasons, your bank may ask you to re-verify your login credentials." When it does, "you'll see a notification badge by the account". No frequency is stated. | help centre |
| EveryDollar | "An interruption can occur when a change is made by the institution or the third-party bank connection providers." The cause is placed at the institution or the provider; no interval is given. | help centre |
| Goodbudget | "A broken connection is the most common cause of missing transactions. This can happen when bank passwords are changed and your bank needs re-authentication." It also names a case re-linking cannot fix: a new card number after fraud activity. | help centre |
| Monarch | The closest thing to a cadence anywhere in this set, and it is still not an interval: Monarch says some institutions periodically require you to re-verify your login credentials, and that this might be every few months, or more frequently depending on your bank's security settings. (Paraphrased — the vendor's sentence carries a typo, and repairing it silently inside quotation marks would misquote it.) | help centre |
| PayAnchor | Its one-page site states nothing about re-authentication, and it carries no help centre. Its bank connection is optional. | site |
| Quicken Simplifi | "Once approved, your bank maintains the connection until it either expires or you revoke access through your bank." The repair is a Fix It or Reauthorize button. No expiry length is stated. | help centre |
| Rocket Money | Event-driven. Rocket Money names a recently updated password as one cause, alongside a temporary issue at its connection provider, and the fix is to "click on Fix Connection and follow the on-screen prompts to relink your account". (The cause sentence names that provider, so it is paraphrased rather than quoted.) | help centre |
| YNAB | YNAB describes a bank wanting to confirm it is really you, says some banks require this more frequently than others as institutions make site and security updates, and documents an "Authorization Required" connection status. No interval is given. | help centre |
Why do US apps all describe reconnection the same way?
Read down that column and the same shape appears seven times from seven companies that did not coordinate: your bank may ask, some institutions periodically require, until it either expires, when bank passwords are changed, a change made by the institution, a recently updated password, some banks require this more frequently than others. The remaining two document nothing about it at all.
So the honest answer to how often a United States budgeting app makes you reconnect is that nobody publishes one, because the trigger is not on a calendar. It arrives when your bank does something. That is a different answer from the one the other markets give, and it is worth having in plain words rather than as a gap in a table.
Which US budgeting apps can you use outside the United States?
Five of the twelve are restricted, and four of those five say so themselves. The sixth column of a feature list rarely mentions it, so it is set out on its own here, with the test anyone can re-run.
The test is a public Apple lookup call. One call on the United States storefront returns four results for Copilot, Quicken Simplifi, Rocket Money and EveryDollar. The same four ids on the New Zealand storefront return none. And the control that makes it mean something: YNAB, Goodbudget, NEKO, PayAnchor and PayCheck Budget all return a result on that same New Zealand storefront, so the call plainly works there. A store page returning 404 would not have shown that.
| Sold outside the United States | Price, as the vendor states it | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Actual Budget | Installable anywhere. No App Store listing at all, and the official mobile apps are deprecated in favour of a responsive web app. | Free and open source, MIT licensed. Self-hosting is the user's own cost; the vendor's docs price third-party hosting at about $2.00 a month, and the North American connection bridge at $1.50 a month or $15 a year. | docs |
| Copilot | No. The vendor states that it supports United States financial institutions only and is "only available in the US App Store". New Zealand lookup returns nothing. | $95 a year, shown as "$7.92 /mo" billed yearly; $13.00 a month on the App Store. One-month trial. No free tier. | pricing |
| EveryDollar | Mobile app, no: "The EveryDollar mobile app is not available internationally (including Canada)." Premium cannot be bought outside the United States. The free web version is usable from anywhere. | Free version. Premium "$17.99 per month when billed monthly" or billed annually at $79.99. 14-day trial for new users. | help centre |
| Goodbudget | Yes. On the New Zealand storefront. Its bank sync remains United States only. | Free tier. Paid tier published in United States dollars; the App Store shows local tiers elsewhere. | plans |
| Keep Above | Yes, any country. Verified on the New Zealand, Australian, United Kingdom and United States App Store storefronts and on Google Play in all four, on 22 September 2026. | Free tier including the projection. Premium from US$6.99 a month; local store pricing varies. | App Store |
| Monarch | United States and Canada only. New Zealand lookup returns nothing; United States returns a result. | Core "regularly $99.99/year"; Plus "$199 per year"; seven-day trial at sign-up. No free tier, and no vendor page states a monthly figure. | help centre |
| NEKO | Yes. On the New Zealand storefront and on Google Play. | Free to download with in-app purchases. The free tier includes the forecasting calendar; premium adds statement tracking, loans and statement import. | site |
| PayAnchor | Yes. On the New Zealand storefront, Google Play and the web. | Free at "$0/month"; Pro "$7.99/month or $79.99/year"; a "14-day free trial" with "No credit card needed". | site |
| PayCheck Budget | Yes, but iOS only. On the New Zealand storefront; the vendor's site links to no Android version. | Introductory pricing of $3.99 a month for the first 12 months and $29.99 a year for the first year, against a standard $7.99 a month and $79.99 a year in the store. 30-day trial, no card. No free tier. | site |
| Quicken Simplifi | United States and Canada only. New Zealand lookup returns nothing. | List price US$6.99 a month billed annually, which is $83.88 a year. The pricing page today shows $3.99 with $6.99 struck through, so that is a live promotion rather than the list price. No monthly-billed option. | pricing |
| Rocket Money | No. "Rocket Money is only available to users located within the United States and with U.S. based banks." The restriction is on users, not only on institutions. | Free at "$0/month"; Premium "$7–$14/month" on a pay-what-you-think-is-fair basis; Premium+ $15 a month; seven-day trial. Monthly only, no annual plan, and the vendor notes the Premium range is subject to change. | help centre |
| YNAB | Yes. On the New Zealand storefront. Its direct import "currently supports select US, Canadian, UK, and EU Banks" and names no Australian or New Zealand bank. | "$109 USD* paid annually" or "$14.99 USD*/month", with a 34-day trial. No free tier. | pricing |
What does each US budgeting app ask you to keep doing?
The re-authentication column above is about the connection. This one is about the rest of the week: what lands in front of you to approve, categorise or type, and whether anything is projected forward from it.
| Bank connection | What it asks you to keep doing | Forward projection, and how far ahead | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Actual Budget | Optional, and you supply your own provider credentials. The North American route is a separate paid bridge. | Categorise; rules are built from your behaviour; reconcile at a cadence you choose. Schedules are entered once, each with a choice of posting itself or waiting for approval. | A Balance Forecast report exists and is labelled experimental. Nothing past 12 months is documented. |
| Copilot | Onboarding begins with one; manual accounts are also offered. United States institutions only. | New transactions land in a "To Review" queue. | None documented. Cash Flow is retrospective, and the vendor says it does not take unpaid recurring items into account. |
| EveryDollar | Optional and Premium-only, and Premium is not sold outside the United States. | On the free version, every transaction by hand. On Premium, each imported transaction dragged onto a budget item. | Within the month, on Premium. Paycheck Planning "helps you plan for the current month"; the schedule copies to the next month, which is a template carried over rather than a projection. |
| Goodbudget | Optional; its sync is United States only. | Confirm an envelope for each synced transaction, or enter by hand. Scheduled Fills post themselves. | Its help pages state that it does not support future forecasting. |
| Keep Above | None. Nothing to connect, and nothing to reconnect. | Enter each bill and your income once; keep the balance current now and then. Nothing to approve, nothing imported to categorise, and no spending history is kept. | 30 years, on the free tier and the paid one alike. The balance and the money set aside for later bills are projected day by day. |
| Monarch | The documented first step. Manual accounts exist, and the vendor recommends them where an institution cannot be connected. United States and Canada only. | Reviewing and refining categories over time. Recurring statuses are set automatically from the sync. | On the Plus tier only, run to an end-of-plan date you set. A Save Up goal's own chart carries a dotted projection line. |
| NEKO | None. "NEKO never asks for your bank credentials." Statements can be imported, with nothing saved until you approve it. | Accounts, bills, income and spending, entered by you or lifted from an imported statement and approved. | "Projected daily balance as far ahead as your bills and income go", and it sits in the free tier. |
| PayAnchor | Optional. | Bills, incomes and the checking balance, unless a connection is added. | To the next paycheck, against a cushion. Savings buckets on Pro carry projected completion dates. |
| PayCheck Budget | None. No bank linking and no account to create; the data sits in your own iCloud. | Paychecks and bills, with unlimited one-off paychecks for irregular income. | "Your cash flow, next 30 days" — a running balance across upcoming paychecks and bills. |
| Quicken Simplifi | Optional; manual accounts are documented and a connected account can be switched to manual. United States and Canada only. | A Review column exists but is not mandatory. An unmatched recurring item needs linking to a transaction or marking as paid. | "Check your balance up to a year in advance." One subscription, so no tier gate. |
| Rocket Money | Required. There is no manual bank account. | Income cannot be entered by hand at all: "You cannot add income manually at this time. Our app must detect your payroll", and it asks for a minimum of three consistent paychecks first. | Month level. No future-balance projection is documented. Payday View shows the bills due before your next payday and a figure for what is safe to spend. |
| YNAB | Optional. Direct import covers select banks in four regions; file import is offered elsewhere. | Imported transactions wait for your approval. A scheduled transaction lands unapproved and is auto-approved only if an import matches it. | None documented. Of a scheduled transaction before its date, YNAB's own wording is that "It will not yet affect your plan." |
Which US budgeting apps actually budget by pay cycle?
American budgeting vocabulary is full of paychecks, and three apps in this set use it for three different mechanisms. A feature list flattens them into one row, so they are separated here.
- Rocket Money's Payday View is a view built on detected payroll. You cannot type your income in, and it wants around three consistent paychecks before the view works.
- EveryDollar's Paycheck Planning is a planning view inside the current month, on the paid tier. The budget underneath stays monthly.
- NEKO's recurrence is a rule on an item — weekly, biweekly, monthly or a custom interval — rather than a budget period. Its category limits reset monthly.
- Keep Above runs the whole cycle on your pay: weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly, twice a month or monthly, laid out payday to payday.
Who does Keep Above suit in the United States?
Keep Above suits someone paid on a cycle who wants to know what is safe to spend before the next pay, and who would rather type a balance in now and then than approve an import queue. It has no connection to re-authenticate, so none of the column above applies to it, and it is sold in every country rather than one.
It suits you less if you want your spending captured and categorised for you, or a record of where the money went. Keep Above keeps no spending history at all. That is the trade, and on this page it is worth stating plainly, because for most of the apps above automatic capture is the entire product.
Our comparison, not a review. Every competitor fact here is taken from that app's own pages, or from a public storefront lookup, on the date shown. Projections described here are conditional on the figures a person enters and on nothing changing. This page takes no account of your circumstances. Nothing here is financial advice.
Keep Above
Enter each bill and your income once, and keep your balance current now and then. Keep Above works out the balance you would need to cover everything coming, and projects your balance and your sinking funds — which it calls reserved funds — forward. No bank connection.
Common questions
How often does a US budgeting app make you reconnect your bank?
There is no published interval, because in the United States no law sets a re-authentication clock at present and no vendor in this set names one. A federal rule containing a one-year cap was finalised in November 2024 and its compliance dates were stayed by a court in October 2025 while the regulator reconsiders it. What interrupts a connection instead is an event: a password change, a security change, or a consent expiring on your bank's own schedule. Seven US vendors describe it in those terms on their own help pages.
Which budgeting apps are only available in the United States?
Of the twelve apps on this page, five are restricted. Copilot states it supports US financial institutions only and is sold only in the US App Store. Rocket Money says it is available only to users located within the United States with US-based banks. EveryDollar's mobile app is not sold internationally, though its free web version is usable anywhere. Quicken Simplifi and Monarch are sold in the United States and Canada. The other seven, Keep Above among them, are sold more widely.
Is there a US budgeting app that forecasts your balance?
Several document one, and the horizons differ by an order of magnitude. Quicken Simplifi states a year in advance on its single subscription. Monarch runs a forecast to an end date you set, on its Plus tier only. Actual Budget has an experimental Balance Forecast report with nothing documented past 12 months. NEKO projects a daily balance as far ahead as your bills and income go, in its free tier. Keep Above projects 30 years on either tier. Copilot, YNAB, Goodbudget and Rocket Money document no future-balance projection.
Can you use a budgeting app in the US without connecting a bank?
Yes, and there are two different ways of doing it. Some apps log what you spend: you type each purchase in, or import a statement, and the app adds it up afterwards. Others work forward from bills and income entered once and a balance you keep current, which is what Keep Above, NEKO and PayCheck Budget do. YNAB, Goodbudget, Actual Budget and Quicken Simplifi all document a manual mode alongside their connection. Rocket Money is the one app here with no manual option at all.