Chickadee Bandit

Seven expense splitting apps, by what each one is for

Splitwise, Tricount, Settle Up, Splid, Spliit, Venmo Groups and ours, compared by price, free-plan limits, and whether the money moves in the app.

Compare › Expense splitting apps

Quick answer

For every feature and US payments, and a subscription: Splitwise. Free with no cap and no ads: Tricount. Uneven shares and several payers: Settle Up. One trip with no accounts: Splid. Free, no accounts and open source: Spliit. Friends who all use Venmo: Venmo Groups. People who live together, or two households sharing children's costs: ours.

Splitting costs is two different jobs. One is a trip or a dinner: a group that exists for a week, a burst of expenses, and one settle-up at the end. The other is a standing arrangement: flatmates, a couple with separate accounts, or two homes sharing the cost of the same children, where the ledger never closes. Most of the apps here are built for the first and will do the second. Ours is built for the second and will not do the first.

This list runs from the most features to the fewest, with ours last. We make one of the seven and it is marked. Prices and limits are from each product's own site or help pages, checked in October 2026; where a product publishes no price on its site we quote its App Store listing and say so.

The list

  1. Splitwise

    Best for: A group that splits often and wants every option, and will pay for it

    The most complete of these. It runs on iPhone, Android and the web, splits equally, by exact amounts, by percentage or by shares, and can simplify a group's debts into the fewest payments. In the US, Splitwise Pay moves the money from inside the app, and you can hand a balance to Venmo or PayPal. Pro adds currency conversion, receipt scanning with itemization, charts and search. Against it: four expenses a day is not enough for a trip or a shared flat, so in practice a regular user pays, and the price is not on its website.

    Cost: Free with a limit: its help centre says free users can add up to 4 expenses each day. Splitwise Pro removes the limit and the ads; its site publishes no price, and its App Store listing shows in-app purchases from $2.99 to $39.99. Pro is sold as a monthly plan, an annual plan, or an annual Duo plan for two people.

  2. Tricount

    Best for: A trip or a flat that wants a free ledger with no cap and no ads

    The straightforward free answer. It runs on iPhone and Android, works offline and syncs later, converts between currencies, lets each person's share differ when an equal split does not fit, and can be tried without signing up. It can send a friend a payment request for what they owe. Tricount belongs to bunq, a Dutch bank, and the app promotes bunq's card. Against it: there is no export inside the app, its help pages say to email support for a CSV, and its site lists no web version.

    Cost: Free. Its site says no ads, no limits and no daily expense cap, and its App Store listing shows no in-app purchases.

  3. Settle Up

    Best for: A group with uneven shares, or more than one person paying for the same thing

    Strong on the awkward cases: splits by weight when one couple shares a room, several people paying for one item, every currency with live exchange rates, and a settle-up that works out the fewest transfers. It runs on iPhone, Android and the web, works offline, and a group can be shared by link or QR code and opened in a browser. Against it: receipt photos, recurring expenses and Excel export are Premium, and the free version carries ads.

    Cost: Free with ads. Its site publishes no price; its App Store listing shows Premium at $3.99 monthly or $19.99 yearly, and a Group Premium that covers everyone in one group, from $5.99.

  4. Splid

    Best for: A single trip, entered on one phone or a few, with no accounts

    Built to be started in seconds. There is no sign-up: make a group that lives on your phone, or turn on sync so others can add expenses too. It converts between more than 150 currencies and produces a summary as a PDF or an Excel file, which is the tidy way to close out a holiday. It runs on iPhone and Android. Against it: no web version, no receipts and no recurring expenses, and you find out what is paid for inside the app.

    Cost: Its site says Splid is free. Its App Store listing shows two in-app purchases, Splid Plus at $3.99 and 2 Groups at $2.99; neither the site nor the listing says where the free version stops.

  5. Spliit

    Best for: A group that wants free, no accounts, and software it can inspect or host itself

    A web app, with an iPhone app alongside it. Nobody signs up: a group is a link, and whoever has the link can add to it. It splits evenly or by percentage, shares or amount, handles daily, weekly and monthly recurring expenses, attaches receipt images and can scan one to start an expense, and works out the fewest transfers to settle. The code is public and you can run your own copy. Against it: the link is the only lock, so treat it like a key, and it is built by volunteers and paid for by donations.

    Cost: Free, with no ads, no account and no limits. It is open source and funded by donations.

  6. Venmo Groups

    Best for: Friends in the US who all use Venmo already and want to pay in the same place

    The one entry where the ledger and the payment are the same app. Members add expenses, Venmo splits each one equally among the group, the amounts can be edited, and you settle by paying through Venmo, or by marking something paid if the money moved another way. Against it: everyone needs a Venmo account, a group holds at most 30 people, Venmo is a US service, and the splitting is basic beside every app above.

    Cost: No charge for the feature in Venmo's help pages. It is part of the Venmo app, and Venmo's usual fees for some kinds of payment still apply.

  7. Chickadee Bandit

    That's us

    Best for: People who live together, or two households raising the same children, and want the ledger beside everything else they share

    One app in a household library, built for standing arrangements and not for a weekend away. Log who paid, by category, with the receipt, and split evenly, by exact amounts, or by a rule saved for the category, so groceries are always 50/50 and the kids' activities always 60/40. Each person has a running balance, and settling up records that a payment was made. In a shared space between two households, either side can ask for a reimbursement and both countersign it. Against it: everyone in the split has to be a member of the household or the space, so it is no use for a group of friends; there is one currency, no recurring expenses, and no money moves in the app. For a trip with friends, use one of the others, or our free splitter, which needs no account.

    Cost: $6/mo or $60/yr for the whole household, up to 10 members, with every app in the library. 30-day trial, no card, no ads.

Prices and features are from each product's own site as of October 2026; where a product has a head-to-head page here, its entry restates that page. Products change — always check the other product's site for current details.

Choosing between them

  1. If you split costs all year and want every option, Splitwise, and expect to pay for Pro.
  2. If you want free with no daily cap and no ads, Tricount.
  3. If shares are uneven or several people pay for one thing, Settle Up.
  4. If it is one trip and nobody wants to sign up for anything, Splid.
  5. If you want free, no accounts, and code you can read or host, Spliit.
  6. If everyone is in the US and already on Venmo, Venmo Groups.
  7. If the people splitting share a home, or share children across two homes, ours.

What free really means

Every app here can be started without paying, and the limits differ a great deal. Splitwise's free plan stops at four expenses a day. Settle Up's shows ads and keeps receipts and recurring expenses for Premium. Splid is free up to a point its own pages do not spell out. Tricount and Spliit are free without a cap: one is owned by a bank and promotes that bank's card, and the other is built by volunteers. Ours has no free plan: it is a household subscription with a 30-day trial, and the splitter is one of the apps that come with it.

Whether the money moves

Most of these only keep the record. You pay each other however you already do, and mark it settled. Two move money themselves: Venmo Groups, because it is Venmo, and Splitwise in the US through Splitwise Pay or a hand-off to Venmo or PayPal. Tricount sends a payment request. Ours records a payment and, between two households, has both sides countersign a reimbursement, which is a record of agreement and not a transfer.

Who has to sign up

This decides how much friction there is on the first evening. Spliit and Splid need no account from anyone. Tricount can be tried without one. Settle Up shares a group by link that opens in a browser. Splitwise and Venmo Groups are built around accounts. Ours needs every person in a split to be a member of the household or the shared space, which suits people who already are and rules out a group of friends.

If you only need the sum

For a single settle-up you may not need an app. We publish a free expense splitter that runs in the browser with no account: type the names and what each person paid, and it works out the fewest payments that settle it. A second free page divides rent between housemates.

The feature list is not fixed

Every other product on this page is a fixed set of features: it does what it does, and a need it did not anticipate gets a no. Chickadee Bandit is built from small apps, and a household can add one of its own. An admin describes the app in a paragraph on the Apps page and the hub builds and installs it, using the AI credits that come with every plan; someone who writes code can start from any of the open-source apps and install their own version from a URL. A custom app gets the same checks as the ones we ship: it declares what it reads and writes, keeps its data in your household's own database, and the hub refuses anything it did not ask for.

How to build a custom app for your household

Where this list comes from

We make one of the products on it, and it is marked. Every claim about another product was checked against that product's own pricing and feature pages on the date above — not against another review site — and where we could not find a published price we say so rather than quote one. The order is by what each product is for, not a ranking of merit.

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