Cash Compass never asks for your bank login, doesn't run third-party trackers, and stores data in your iCloud — privacy isn't a marketing claim, it's the architecture.
Apple-native · No bank logins · iCloud sync
Cash Compass doesn't connect to your bank because it doesn't import transactions automatically. There's no Plaid integration, no Yodlee, no credential pass-through service. Apps that auto-sync hand your bank login to a third-party aggregator — historically the largest source of breach risk in personal finance apps. Cash Compass eliminates that surface entirely by relying on voice, receipt photo, and manual entry.
Premium iCloud sync uses CloudKit, which means transactions are stored in your personal iCloud account — the same place your Photos and Notes back up to. We don't operate a server-side database of your financial data. There's no Cash Compass cloud to breach, no team that can read your spending, no ad-tech buyer to sell anonymized data to. The architecture is structurally private by design.
The Cash Compass app binary does not include third-party analytics SDKs that profile user behavior across apps. There are no banner ads, no popup ads, no Plaid-targeted credit card upsells. The business model is simple — premium subscriptions fund development — which removes the incentive to monetize attention or behavioral data. The PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy manifest declares this transparently for App Store reviewers.
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 minimum needed to operate the app: transactions you enter (amount, category, merchant, date, optional notes), app settings (currency, language, theme), subscription status (via Apple's StoreKit, which we read but don't write to). We do not collect: your bank credentials (we never ask for them), your real-time location, your contacts, your photos beyond receipt scans you take, your browsing history, your behavior across other apps. Voice transcription uses Apple's on-device Speech framework — audio is processed locally and not uploaded. Receipt OCR uses Apple's local Vision framework. Transaction data syncs to your iCloud via CloudKit if you have premium and iCloud sync enabled — that data sits in your iCloud account, not on our infrastructure. The App Store privacy label reflects this minimal-data posture.
No. The privacy guarantees apply equally to free and premium users. The only behavioral difference is that premium users can enable iCloud sync (which uses CloudKit — Apple's infrastructure, encrypted by Apple), while free users have local-only storage on the device. Neither tier shares transaction data with us, third parties, ad networks, or data brokers. There's no premium "more privacy" tier because we don't offer less privacy on free in the first place. Compare to apps that gate "hide my data from advertisers" or similar behind a premium upgrade — Cash Compass doesn't do that because there's nothing to hide that we'd otherwise share.
Mint (before shutdown) used bank-sync via Intuit's aggregator and ran ads targeted partly using your transaction data. Monarch uses Plaid for bank-sync, stores transaction history on Monarch's servers, and the privacy policy permits aggregated data analysis. Copilot uses Plaid and stores transaction history on Copilot's servers. Rocket Money uses Plaid plus operates a subscription-cancellation business that requires deeper bank access. PocketGuard uses Plaid. The pattern: any auto-sync budget app necessarily stores your bank-derived transaction history on a server you don't control. Cash Compass deliberately doesn't auto-sync, which eliminates this entire surface. The trade-off is real — you log transactions yourself — but the privacy gain is real too.
Cash Compass's App Store privacy label declares the minimum data types we use: contact info (only if you sign in with Apple), user content (your transactions, stored locally or in your iCloud), identifiers (Apple's IDFV for device-tier subscription validation, not user-level tracking), and diagnostics. None of these data types are linked to your identity for advertising or data brokerage. The PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy manifest, which Apple now requires for App Store submission, declares which Required Reason APIs the app uses — things like UserDefaults and file timestamps — with clear justifications. We do not use third-party SDKs that collect data across other apps. If you have specific privacy questions for legal or compliance reasons, the privacy policy at swiftapplab.notion.site is the canonical document.
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.
No bank logins, no third-party trackers, no ad targeting. Your transactions live in your iCloud, not on our servers.
Download Cash Compass on the App Store