EveryDollar Review: A Budgeting Tool to Get Back on Track (2024)

EveryDollar is a budgeting app powered by Ramsey Solutions. The app bills itself on its straightforward approach to zero-based budgeting and offers a simple way to see your financial accounts in one place, create a customized budget, and get insights into how you spend.

The catch? The free version of the EveryDollar budgeting app is bare-bones. If you want helpful features—without manual data entry—you’ll need to pay for EveryDollar Premium. In our EveryDollar review below, we’ll review the features of both the free and paid versions to help you determine whether it’s the right budgeting app.

How does EveryDollar work?

EveryDollar is a digital budgeting platform for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. To get started, sign up for a free account and download the app to your smartphone.

How to use the free version of EveryDollar

The free version of EveryDollar allows you to create a customizable zero-based budget and create savings funds to track how much you’ve saved toward a goal, such as a wedding, vacation, or new car.

You’ll need to create your budget in the app before a month begins (and then fine-tune it before each subsequent month begins). Because it’s a zero-based budgeting app, every dollar you make must be accounted for. You’ll need to enter your income and expenses accurately for this to go smoothly.

You then need to return to the app throughout the month to track each paycheck (or any other form of income) and every single expense, whether it’s an automatic bill payment or a simple debit card swipe for a cup of coffee. You’ll also track various savings funds, where you move money earmarked for larger savings goals.

This can get tedious—and if you’re a more experienced budgeter, you can likely just do this in Google Sheets or Excel. Thus, for many, the real value of EveryDollar only comes from the paid version.

How to use the paid version of EveryDollar

EveryDollar Premium adds several features on top of the basic budgeting and savings funds of the free version:

• Bank connectivity
• Financial road map
• Paycheck planning
• Goal setting
• Group financial coaching
• Custom budget reports
• Smart tracking recommendations
• One-click tracking

The single most important part of the paid version is being able to connect to your bank. Because your bank accounts are connected, direct deposits into your account and payments from your account are loaded into the app. You must still drag and drop those transactions in the app to attribute them to your budget, but no manual entry is required.

You can share this monthly budget with someone else, such as a spouse, parent, or child, and you can track your net worth over time. Paycheck planning helps you spend around your paydays, so you’re never at risk of overdrafting.

Other features of the paid version of EveryDollar we like include:

• You can get a downloadable CSV file of your budgets.
• You can get due date reminders for your recurring bills.
• You can split transactions to attribute them to two different portions of your budget (for example, if you bought new shoes in the same transaction as your weekly groceries).

However, these features can’t compete with some other popular budget apps, such as You Need A Budget, Quicken Simplifi, and Monarch Money. EveryDollar is better for people who follow the Dave Ramsey financial model and are actively working to get out of debt and establish savings.

Those with more sophisticated budgeting needs, such as tracking investments and personalized spending plans, should consider other personal finance companies.

How much does EveryDollar cost?

EveryDollar offers a free account to anyone online or through the mobile app, but the features are quite limited. If you know anything about budgeting, you can do the same work, perhaps more efficiently, with a spreadsheet.

You can unlock some more helpful features by purchasing EveryDollar Premium, paying monthly or for a year in advance. In August 2024, EveryDollar costs:

• $17.99 a month.
• $79.99 a year.

The annual subscription results in $135.89 in savings across 12 months, but you need to be able to budget for the full cost in one specific month each year.

Right now, EveryDollar offers a 14-day free trial for new users.

What do customers say in EveryDollar reviews?

Customers have mixed feelings about EveryDollar. A simple scroll through Reddit (the Dave Ramsey subreddit is an excellent place to read actual EveryDollar customer reviews) shows that Dave Ramsey loyalists love the app and say it makes sense for his financial model. However, others complain about all the tedious data entry required, particularly for the free version.

Apple users appear to be happier with the EveryDollar app than Android users. Many Android reviewers mention app crashes and complain about the budgeting app’s manual nature.

How does EveryDollar compare to other budgeting apps?

EveryDollar is terrific for people actively working to get out of debt, particularly those following Dave Ramsey’s plan. But other budgeting apps might be a better investment for everyone else—those who need basic expense monitoring or want more premium features, such as investment tracking or retirement planning.

For what it offers, EveryDollar Premium feels quite expensive. The annual plan is cheaper than competitors such as You Need A Budget and Monarch Money, but those apps offer far more features (and their monthly plans are cheaper).

Pros and cons of EveryDollar

Still trying to determine whether EveryDollar is right for you? Here are several pros and cons to consider:

How to sign up for EveryDollar

Signing up for EveryDollar is easy. If you already have a Ramsey account, you can use that to sign in online or via the mobile app, which you can download for iOS and Android. If you don’t have a Ramsey account, just provide basic info to create one before you start.

Once you’ve created your account, you can begin designing your customized budget. It’s helpful to do this on a computer rather than a smartphone. It can be tedious and time-consuming, but you must account for every bit of income and expense you plan to incur.

FAQ

How safe is EveryDollar?

EveryDollar is safe and secure to use. The platform employs bank-level encryption to protect your financial data. It uses third-party security audits to ensure its systems are robust against potential threats.

Because EveryDollar doesn’t store your bank login credentials and relies on a secure connection to pull in your transactions, you can feel confident that your personal information is protected.

Is the EveryDollar app worth the money?

The EveryDollar app could be worth the money if you’re committed to the zero-based budgeting method and want a streamlined, easy-to-use tool that integrates well with the broader Ramsey Solutions financial approach. The paid version, EveryDollar Premium, offers additional features such as bank account syncing and enhanced reporting.

The investment may be justified if these features align with your budgeting needs. However, the budgeting apps we listed above offer more features.

Is there a free version of EveryDollar?

Yes, there is a free version of EveryDollar. It provides basic budgeting features, allowing users to manually track their income and expenses using the zero-based budgeting method.

However, it does not include bank account syncing or advanced reporting, which are available in the paid version, EveryDollar Premium.