Keep Above
Keep Above vs PocketSmith
Both apps forecast your daily balance years ahead, and the difference is what feeds the forecast and what you pay for the horizon. PocketSmith forecasts from bank feeds or manual entry plus repeating budgets, over 6 months on its free plan and 10, 30 or 60 years by paid tier. Keep Above forecasts from bills you entered once, with no feed, over 30 years on its free plan and on Premium alike.
Written and maintained by Manandai Ltd, the company that makes Keep Above. This is our comparison, not an independent review, and no winner is named on this page. How we compare.
Every PocketSmith fact below is taken from PocketSmith's own published pages, linked beside it. Features and prices change. Check each provider before deciding.
Spotted something out of date? Email support@keepabove.com and we correct or remove it within five business days.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by PocketSmith. Product names are trademarks of their owners.
Last verified 21 September 2026What each one is
PocketSmith
A New Zealand personal finance app built around a calendar and a cash-flow forecast. It connects to banks in 49 countries, including New Zealand and Australia, and also takes manual entry. Its plans page sets the forecast horizon by tier: Free, Foundation, Flourish and Fortune.
Keep Above
A forward-looking budgeting app with no bank connection and no spending record. You enter each bill and your income once and keep your balance current, and it works out the balance you would need to cover everything coming and projects that and your reserved funds ahead day by day, up to 30 years.
| Keep Above | PocketSmith | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank connection | None, by design | Optional; 49 countries, including New Zealand and Australia | site |
| Manual entry | The whole model | Supported, including accounts used for scenarios only | learn centre |
| Forecast horizon | 30 years on the free plan and on Premium alike | 6 months free; 10, 30 or 60 years by paid tier | plans |
| What feeds the forecast | Bills and income you entered once | Bank feeds or manual entry, plus repeating budgets | plans |
| Recurring bills | Entered once, projected forward | Repeating budgets project forward automatically | learn centre |
| Imported transactions | No import | Confirming them is optional but recommended | learn centre |
| Money set aside for later bills | Reserved funds, projected with the balance | Budgets, with a Safe Balance feature in beta | learn centre |
| Spending history | None shown | Yes, categorised | site |
| Free tier | A budget you're paid into plus one more of any kind, and the full 30-year projection | Yes, with a 6-month projection | plans |
| Price | Premium US$9.99/yr or US$2.49/mo in the US; local pricing set by the stores | From NZ$9.99/mo billed annually, to NZ$26.66 for the 30-year tier | plans |
How far ahead do Keep Above and PocketSmith forecast?
This is the one pairing on the site where both apps do the same unusual thing: project a daily balance years into the future rather than budgeting the month in front of you. So the useful question is not whether they forecast, it is how far and on what plan.
PocketSmith's plans page sets four horizons: 6 months on the free plan, then 10, 30 and 60 years as you move up the paid tiers. Sixty years is further than anything else in our table reaches, and if a multi-decade horizon is what you are after, that is worth knowing.
Keep Above has one horizon, 30 years, and it is the same on the free plan as on Premium. The difference is therefore not really about length. It is about where the horizon sits relative to the price, and about which of the two ways of arriving at a projection suits you: one that needs no bank feed, or one that can use one.
Why do PocketSmith's own pages give different answers?
Worth flagging rather than quietly picking the number that suits us. As at 21 September 2026 the plans page states 60 years for the top tier, and the home page and features page agree. Two other pages, the cash-flow forecasts tour and the YNAB-alternative page, still say 30 years.
We cite the plans page, because it is the page that governs what you actually get on each tier. If you are comparing, check it yourself rather than a review, including ours.
What is different day to day?
PocketSmith's forecast improves as your real transactions arrive and you confirm them, which is why confirming is recommended even though it is optional. It is a forecast that learns from a record.
Keep Above has no record to learn from. Its forecast is only ever as good as the bills you entered and the balance you last typed, which is a genuine limitation and the reason the balance is the one thing it asks you to keep current.
Can PocketSmith plan a trip, split bills or track a home loan?
PocketSmith's pages describe labels that total a trip's costs, a what-if scenario for a wedding's planned costs, guides to sharing expenses as a flat or a couple, and mortgages and loans tracked as debts beside the home as an asset. They state nothing about a shopping list.
Each kind in the table is a budget of its own in Keep Above, with its own screen in the app. The free plan holds a budget you're paid into plus one more of any kind; Premium holds more.
| Keep Above | PocketSmith | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A trip, with its places and the people going | The dates and places, each cost split between the people going, and a settle-up at the end | Labels group a holiday's transactions across categories, to find the trip's total cost | learn centre |
| One big dated day, such as a wedding or a move | An estimate for each cost, its deposit and payment dates, and the costs split between people | A what-if scenario can hold planned wedding costs to show their effect on the forecast | learn centre |
| Bills split with the people you live with | Each person's share of each bill, which anyone on Keep Above can take into a budget of their own. No money moves | Guides to sharing expenses as a flat or a couple, with labels showing what each person still owes | learn centre |
| Birthdays and other days you buy for | What each day would cost, with a share set aside from a budget you're paid into on each payday before it | Its sinking-funds page lists gifts; an annual budget is shown as weekly and monthly amounts | sinking funds |
| What you buy regularly | A cupboard showing how much of each thing is left, and a list for each shop of what would run out before the next | Its pages state nothing about this | learn centre |
| What owning each thing costs a year | What each thing costs a year, from what you paid, its running costs and what it would sell for | Assets on a net worth report, each with a value and a yearly appreciation or depreciation rate | learn centre |
| A home loan | Each portion's balance and rate, when a fixed rate ends, what you pay, and the interest it would cost from here | Guides to tracking a mortgage's balance and payments, with the home added as an asset that offsets the loan | learn centre |
| Loans and buy-now-pay-later plans | Side by side, with what is still to pay and what goes out in each pay cycle | A loan added as a debt on the net worth page, with budgets that forecast its repayments | learn centre |
What PocketSmith does that Keep Above does not
- Connects to banks in 49 countries, including New Zealand and Australia, so transactions arrive on their own.
- Reaches 60 years ahead on its top tier, further than anything else in our table.
- Keeps a categorised record of what you spent, and reports across it.
- Improves its forecast from your real transactions as they arrive.
- Offers a free plan with a 6-month projection and no time limit.
- Has a Safe Balance feature, in beta, working on the same question Keep Above's safe line answers.
What Keep Above does that PocketSmith's pages do not document
- Projects 30 years ahead on the free plan, with no paid tier required for the horizon.
- Works out the balance you would need today to cover every bill still coming, and shows how far your balance sits from it.
- Projects money set aside for later bills alongside the balance rather than as a separate budget to fill.
- Asks for no bank connection at all, so there is nothing to connect, reconnect or support in any country.
- Plans a trip with its dates, places and the people going, and one big dated day with a deposit and payment schedule for each cost, splitting the costs of either between people; PocketSmith's pages state nothing about these.
- Keeps a list of the days you buy for with what each would cost, and shows how long each thing in a regular shop lasts and what each thing you own costs a year; PocketSmith's pages state nothing about these.
- Shows when a home loan's fixed rate ends, and what loans and buy-now-pay-later plans take in each pay cycle; PocketSmith's pages state nothing about these.
Where PocketSmith's own pages state nothing on a point, the tables above say so rather than calling the feature absent.
Our comparison, not a review. Every PocketSmith fact here is taken from PocketSmith's own published pages and linked beside it, those in the first table on 21 September 2026 and those about other kinds of budget on 28 September 2026. 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 far ahead does PocketSmith forecast?
Its plans page sets the horizon by tier: 6 months on the free plan, then 10, 30 and 60 years on the paid tiers. Two other pages on its own site still say 30 years for the top tier, so the plans page is the one to check.
How far ahead does Keep Above forecast?
30 years, on the free plan and on Premium alike. The horizon is not what Premium buys; more budgets and the rest of the built-in tools are.
Can PocketSmith be used without a bank connection?
Yes. It supports manual entry, including accounts used only for scenarios, so the forecast can run on figures you type. The difference is that its forecast is built to improve as real transactions arrive and are confirmed.
Can PocketSmith plan a trip or split bills with other people?
Its pages describe labels that total a trip's costs across categories, and guides to sharing expenses as a flat or a couple, with labels showing what each person still owes. In Keep Above a trip and bills split with the people you live with are each a budget of their own, and anyone on Keep Above can take their share of a bill into a budget of their own.
Which one should I use?
That is not a question this page answers. If you want a categorised record of spending and bank feeds in 49 countries, one of these two does that and the other does not. If you want a multi-decade projection on a free plan with no connection to maintain, the position is reversed.