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Add to SafariWhen comparing YNAB vs Buckets, the Slant community recommends YNAB for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform budgeting apps?” YNAB is ranked 9th while Buckets is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose YNAB is:
Provides a 4 step method for budgeting money, that really makes budgeting simple and powerful.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Provides a method for budgeting
Provides a 4 step method for budgeting money, that really makes budgeting simple and powerful.
Pro Free trials available
YNAB lets you try it's software free for just over a month. This gives you a bit of flexibility when doing a monthly budget - 4 extra days to review your budget and determine whether YNAB helped out enough to justify the $5 price.
If you're a student, you can get an additional 12 months for free (for a total of 13 months) and after that you can get 10% off yearly subscriptions.
Pro Online web app
Pro Mobile apps for easy expense tracking
Pro Free online workshops.
YNAB regularly offers live workshops on a variety of different topics. These workshops include time for Q&A which is very helpful.
Pro Frequent updates.
The YNAB team does a great job of offering rapid response times to support requests, listening to user feedback and implementing commonly requested features into the app via frequent updates as well providing live financial workshops on a daily basis at no additional charge. All of these features make the subscription model well worth the cost to me.
Pro Easy to manage and flex budgets
I've tried several including Quicken desktop app and I just like the way YNAB works. It is easy to learn and actually works as advertised.
Pro Understands human beings and reality
It allows you to move around budget allocations. Sometimes you just need to spend that extra money in one category and take it out of another budget without losing control of the overall budget. It's flexible, clever and understands life.
Pro No monthly fee
Pro Budgeting closely integrated
While not perfect, the Buckets is the only offline budgeting desktop application which has budgeting as front-and-center as YNAB 4, and the developer is continually working on it, so hopefully it will be improved further.
Pro Untimed, free trial
Evaluate the app for as long as you need prior to purchasing.
Pro Syncs with your bank
Allows you to write private macros and import data securely from your bank.
Pro Import from YNAB4 Budget
You can upload your YNAB4 budget and you are ready to go.
Pro Imports Amazon transactions
This program will import and reconcile Amazon transactions.
Cons
Con Subscription based
Instead of a one-time purchase, you will need a subscription to use YNAB after the free trial. Subscriptions can be bought annually for $83.99, which is about $6.99 per month.
Con Data is stored in the Cloud
All budget data is stored in the cloud on AWS servers which are most likely based in the United States. HOWEVER, there is an option to save budget data locally as well.
Con Learning curve
There is a learning curve to the YNAB method.
Con Check Number/Transaction ID is not available
If you have checks or transaction IDs, you are forced to used the Memo field which is over used for memos and/or payees.
Con No payee field
The "memo" field is over used as a payee field within the program. If you use the "memo" for payee, you cannot have any other description of the transaction. If you use the "memo" for a memo, you cannot track the payee.
