beforeUbuy is a free expense tracker, budget planner and money manager in one. It reads your bank’s SMS alerts and logs every transaction automatically — no bank login, no manual entry, no spreadsheet.
Four apps’ worth of personal finance in one place — and the tracking part runs itself, which is the reason people actually keep using it past week two.
Expense tracker
An expense tracker you don't have to feed
Most expense tracker apps die the week you stop typing into them. beforeUbuy reads the transaction alerts your bank already sends you by SMS and turns each one into a logged expense — merchant, amount, account and category — within seconds of the payment going through. Nothing to type, no receipts to photograph, no statement to upload at month end.
✓Fully automatic on Android — nothing to open, nothing to remember
✓Categorises spending as it arrives, and learns your corrections
✓Cash and offline spends can still be added by hand in two taps
A budget planner that already knows what you spent
Set a monthly budget per category — groceries, fuel, eating out, subscriptions — and watch it fill in on its own as transactions land. Because the tracking is automatic, your budget is accurate on the 9th of the month, not just on the 1st. You get a nudge as a category approaches its limit, which is the only moment the warning is still useful.
✓Monthly category budgets with progress bars that update live
✓Overspend alerts before you cross the line, not after
✓Roll last month’s real numbers into next month’s plan
Bank accounts, credit cards, wallets and plain cash sit in one dashboard with a single running net worth figure. Credit cards show utilisation and due dates so a forgotten payment never turns into interest. Multiple currencies convert into one home currency, so the number at the top of the screen is the number that actually matters.
✓Bank accounts, cards, wallets and cash in one net worth view
✓Credit card balances, utilisation and payment due dates
✓Multi-currency accounts converted to your home currency
A savings goal without a date is a wish. Give each goal a target amount and a deadline and beforeUbuy works backwards to tell you what you need to put aside each month, then tracks whether you actually did. Auto-save moves the amount across on schedule so the goal progresses whether or not you remember it.
✓Target amount plus deadline, with the monthly figure calculated for you
✓Auto-save on a schedule so progress does not depend on willpower
✓Progress rings that make a half-finished goal impossible to ignore
From coffee runs to loan payments — every expense tracked, every goal in sight.
Sync With Your Phone
beforeUbuy syncs with your phone — reading your bank SMS and turning them into accounts, cards and transactions automatically on Android. No bank logins, no statements to upload, nothing to type. The iPhone app is in development.
All Accounts in One Place
Bank accounts, wallets, cash and credit cards in a single dashboard. See your total net worth update in real time.
Smart Goals & Auto-Save
Set savings goals with deadlines. Enable auto-save to put money aside every month without thinking.
Visual Budget Tracking
Create monthly budgets by category. Get alerts before you overspend — not after.
Smart Insights
Rule-based insights surface spending patterns, unusual transactions, and ways to save more each month.
Monthly Reports
Beautiful income vs expense breakdowns, category pie charts, and trend analysis — all in one tap.
Simple by design
Up and running in 3 minutes
01
Sync with your phone
Install from Google Play and allow SMS access. beforeUbuy reads only your bank alerts — never OTPs or personal texts, and no bank logins or passwords, ever.
02
Your dashboard builds itself
Accounts, cards and recent transactions appear automatically from your messages. Add budgets and goals in a couple of taps.
03
Watch your wealth grow
New bank messages keep syncing in the background. Get snapshots, summaries, and smart nudges that keep you on track — month after month.
9:41
Expense
Income
Transfer
Amount
$ 24
🍔
Food
💳
Checking
Dinner out
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
.
0
⌫
Add Expense
9:41
Goals
4 active · $40,200 saved total
44%
Overall Progress
$40,200 of $91,000 saved across all goals
🚗
New Car
Due Dec 2026
30%
$7,200 / $24,000
✈️
Italy Trip
Due Jun 2026
84%
$3,800 / $4,500
🏠
Home Down Payment
Due 2028
34%
$27,200 / $80,000
💻
MacBook Pro
Due May 2026
84%
$2,000 / $2,400
9:41
Reports
April 2026
Income vs Spending
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
IncomeSpending
Spending by Category
Food28%
Transport16%
Shopping22%
Bills14%
Other20%
Why this one
How beforeUbuy compares to other budget apps
Budgeting apps generally pick one of three trade-offs: connect to your bank and ask for credentials, make you type everything, or hand you a spreadsheet. Reading bank SMS is a fourth option, and it avoids the worst part of each.
beforeUbuy compared with bank-linking budget apps, manual expense trackers and spreadsheets
beforeUbuy
Bank-linking apps
Manual trackers
Spreadsheets
Getting set up
Grant SMS access — about 3 minutes
Log into each bank through a third party
Nothing to set up
Build the whole thing yourself
Bank credentials needed
Never — no bank login, ever
Yes, handed to an aggregator
No
No
Effort per transaction
None — it logs itself
None, when the connection holds
You type every single one
You type it and maintain the formulas
When a bank is unsupported
Still works — SMS alerts are universal
That account is invisible
Works, if you keep typing
Works, if you keep typing
Cash spending
Quick manual add in two taps
Usually missed entirely
Manual
Manual
Cost to start
Free plan, no card required
Often subscription-only
Free to cheap
Free
Want the plan-by-plan breakdown instead? See beforeUbuy pricing — the free plan covers 3 accounts, 2 savings goals and 90 days of history, with no card required.
Who it’s for
Built for people who want the tracking to just happen
People who have quit three budgeting apps already
If manual entry is the reason the last one did not stick, the automatic part is the whole point. The app stays current even in a month where you never open it.
Anyone juggling several accounts and cards
Salary in one bank, spending on two cards, a wallet for daily payments. One dashboard beats checking four apps to answer “how much do I actually have?”
Savers with a specific target
A trip, an emergency fund, a deposit. Goals with deadlines and auto-save turn a vague intention into a monthly number you can actually hit.
Privacy-minded people who refuse to share bank logins
No bank credentials, no aggregator sitting between you and your bank. beforeUbuy reads the alert messages your bank already sent to your phone — nothing more.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Yes — there is a free plan that never expires and does not ask for a card. It covers up to 3 accounts, 2 savings goals, monthly budgets, basic reports and 90 days of transaction history. Paid Plus and Pro plans raise those limits and add continuous auto-sync, unlimited goals, exports and longer history.
It reads the transaction alert messages your bank already sends you by SMS and converts each one into a categorised transaction — merchant, amount, account and date. On Android this runs in the background once you grant SMS access, so transactions appear within seconds of the payment going through.
No. beforeUbuy never asks for bank credentials and does not use a bank aggregator. Because it works from SMS alerts rather than a bank connection, it also works with banks that no aggregator supports, and it can never move money — the app has no payment ability at all.
Android is live on Google Play today, with background SMS sync. The iPhone app is still in development and is not on the App Store yet — join the early-access list on the download page and you will get the TestFlight invite as soon as it opens.
Yes. Cash never generates an SMS, so you add those in two taps from the quick-add screen. Cash sits alongside your bank accounts and cards in the same net worth view and counts toward your category budgets.
Data is encrypted at rest with 256-bit AES and in transit with TLS 1.3, and is never sold or shared without your explicit consent. beforeUbuy reads only bank alert messages, not personal texts. You can permanently delete your account and all associated data at any time from Settings.
Bank-linking apps need your credentials, break when a bank changes its API, and simply cannot see accounts at unsupported banks. Reading SMS alerts sidesteps all three: any bank that texts you about a transaction works, no credentials change hands, and there is no connection to re-authorise every few weeks.
About three minutes. Install the app from Google Play, sign in with email or Google, and grant SMS access — your accounts, cards and recent transactions then build themselves from bank messages already on your phone. Adding budgets and savings goals takes another minute or two.
