Cash Compass shows your spending and income as clean pie, bar, and line charts across daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views — the budget spreadsheet replaced by visuals you'll actually open.
Apple-native · No bank logins · iCloud sync
The headline chart in Cash Compass is the income-vs-expenses view — two bars or two lines side by side, showing whether your month is in surplus or deficit. Most budget apps bury this behind a tabs-and-filters dance; Cash Compass surfaces it on the charts view immediately. The clarity matters: knowing your cashflow direction is the single most important budget signal, and it shouldn't take three taps.
Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly — choose the window that matches your question. Pie, bar, stacked bar — choose the chart type that matches your visual preference. The same underlying data renders in any combination, so you can flip from "this week's dining spending" to "yearly total entertainment" in a tap. Compare to spreadsheets where building a new view requires reconfiguring formulas; here it's instant.
Charts are free for the first seven days after install, which is enough time to see whether the visualization matches how you think about money. After seven days, the chart view requires premium ($29.99/year). Premium also unlocks unlimited voice and receipts, iCloud sync, CSV export, and Apple Family Sharing. Compare to YNAB's $99/year or Monarch's $14.99/month — Cash Compass premium is the cheapest chart-included option that doesn't run ads.
Voice, photo of a receipt, or 3-tap manual entry — every method takes under 5 seconds.
Cash Compass picks the category automatically. Override once and it learns your pattern.
Weekly chart shows where money went. Adjust caps before the month is over, not after.
The charts view has two main controls: data type (expenses, income, or net cashflow) and chart type (pie, bar, line). Pie chart shows category breakdown of the selected data type for the chosen time window — useful for "where did my money go this month." Bar chart shows category totals or per-day totals — useful for "what's my biggest line item." Line chart shows trends over time — useful for "is my dining spending creeping up." Time windows are daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, swapped via a segmented picker. Underneath, all charts pull from the same transaction database, so they're always consistent with your dashboard. The visual style is clean — twelve-color palette, no animations beyond simple transitions, no chart junk.
Charts are free for the first seven days after install, then require premium ($2.99/week or $29.99/year). The seven-day window is meant to be a real trial — long enough to see whether the visualization helps you, not so long that the value of premium becomes invisible. After day eight, the charts view shows a paywall card with a brief explanation; tapping any chart type prompts an upgrade. The dashboard (which shows recent transactions and basic category totals) stays free permanently, so you don't lose all visual context if you don't subscribe. Most users who pay do it within the first month, either for unlimited voice (the most common reason) or for the charts. Annual at $29.99 is cheapest of the major budget app subscription tiers and includes everything bundled.
YNAB's reports are powerful but oriented around its envelope-budgeting mental model — income/outflow/net worth/spending breakdowns. They're great if you've internalized YNAB's method, dense if you haven't. Monarch's charts are visually polished and include net worth tracking, but Monarch costs $14.99/month. Copilot's charts are also polished and include trend analysis ($13/month). Mint had decent charts before shutdown. Goodbudget's charts are envelope-focused. Cash Compass takes a simpler approach: a small number of well-chosen chart types across four time windows, no net-worth tracking (since there's no bank-sync to compute balances), no advanced reports. The bet is that most users want clarity, not analytic depth, and the simpler chart set is more often opened than YNAB's richer set.
Customization is intentionally limited — you pick the data type (expenses/income), chart type (pie/bar/line), and time window (day/week/month/year), and the chart renders. You can't currently change colors, hide specific categories, or compare two arbitrary date ranges side by side. The design philosophy is to keep the charts view focused so it stays fast to read; competitors that offer dozens of customizations often produce charts users never open. For exports, you can take an iOS screenshot of any chart (Volume Up + Side button) and share it. The CSV export (premium) gives you the underlying transaction data so you can build any custom chart you want in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. For users who want analytic depth, the CSV → spreadsheet workflow is the right path; for everyone else, the built-in charts cover the common questions.
Built native for iPhone, iPad, and Mac with iCloud sync. Works offline.
No bank logins, no Plaid, no data sales. All data lives in your iCloud.
Manual entry, charts, category tracking — all free, forever. Premium is optional.
Pie, bar, and line views across daily through yearly. Seven days free, then premium for ongoing chart access.
Download Cash Compass on the App Store