Today’s expense apps aren’t just limited to adding expenses and income. They have become the ultimate finance tool with bank integration, detailed breakdown of expenses, multiple export support, and platform flexibility. Choosing a perfect app is a crucial process as it’s a head-scratcher to transfer data from one app to another. In this post, we will be covering two of the most successful and popular finance apps, Spendee and Wally. The comparison covers the interface, features, bank integration, cross-platform support, price, and more. Let’s jump in.
Cross-Platform Availability
Cross-platform availability is crucial in this category. Users need the flexibility to add transactions from any platform and screen. Spendee gains a lead with it’s availability on iOS, Android, and Web. Wally is only accessible on a mobile platform — Android and iOS. The comparison below will be based on iOS variants. Download Spendee for iOS Download Wally for iOS
User Interface
Both Spendee and Wally use a different UI language than a standard iOS one. Let’s start with Spendee. It uses the bottom four tabs to navigate through the menus in the app. However, the home screen is completely different from any iOS app. It consists of floating wallets with a name and final balance. Users can view the monthly charge and access the notification and Settings menu from the upper right corner. The default theme is green, but it also supports iOS night mode, which is a go-to option for me. Wally has a cleaner look with simplified information on the home screen. The app is divided into five-bottom bar tabs. The main highlights page displays last week’s spendings as well as recently used bank or manual accounts. I like how the major options, such as the ability to add transactions, search, and Settings, are easily accessible from the bottom menu. Sadly, Wally doesn’t support the iOS 13 dark theme, so you are stuck with white/cream UI, which does the job just fine.
Add a Transaction
This is a crucial one. After all, you are going to use this function multiple times a day. On Spendee, you can go to the wallet and hit the ‘+’ button at the bottom. One can add an expense, income, or make a transfer from the floating menu. In terms of options, one can add amount, date, note, attach a picture, select category, and set recurrence. Hit the tiny settings icon, and you can add new categories and ever merge the existing ones. Wally takes a slightly different route here. From the home screen, tap ‘+’ icon, and it straight away asks the action. From the following screen, one can add the amount, date, category, and even the location (missing in Spendee). On top of that, users can add tags too. After adding an expense or income, you can go back to the home screen and tap on the transaction to add additional details such as image, subtasks, note, and reminder. The highlight menu displays cool stats about the added transaction, which adds a personal touch for the user. Wally wins this round for me.
Features That Matter
Spendee covers all the basic ones with a couple of extra capabilities. The app lets you view transactions during a particular period. Users can set a detailed breakdown with pie and bar charts in the overview menu. One can also set budgets to a given category in a month. The other options include Face ID support, group sharing, bank integration, unlimited wallets, and more. Spendee supports iOS widget and you can long-press on it to quickly add an entry. For Wally, the major functions lie in the Insights menu. Swipe there and you can see the detailed breakdown of your spending, cash flow, and balances with informative charts. The calendar tab offers a neat view of the added transactions daily. Swipe left and the library menu will let you select from reminders, lists, notes, and comments. Sadly, there is no Face ID support, and the iOS widget menu is also missing.
Bank Integration
Both apps support a huge number of banks in various countries. The majority of US banks are included too. While adding a bank, Spendee detects your country and show the supported banks based on that. Choose your bank and add login credentials to sync the entries. The data is end-to-end encrypted. You can manually refresh the transactions by going into a wallet and swiping down from the top. Wally supports 15000 banks across 70 countries. Tap on the ‘+’ button and choose the US or International banks. Type a name, add necessary info, and you are good to go.
Share and Export
Both apps let you share the wallet with family members and business partners. With Spendee, go to wallet settings and add a member from the screen. Spendee allows you to export data to an excel file or a CSV format from the Settings menu. Wally terms it as a group and lets you add members to keep track of expenses simultaneously. It’s handy in households and small businesses. You can export both personal and group data in CSV format. Go to Settings and tap export all transactions.
Price
Both Spendee and Wally follow the freemium business model. Spendee is free to use, but features such as bank integration, wallet sharing, export, etc. come under Spendee Premium, which costs $12/year. Surprisingly, Wally has kept the bank integration in the free tier. Wally Gold opens up a host of functions at $27/year. Users can opt for specific packs with limited requirements to avoid higher subscription charges.
Manage Finances Efficiently
Both Spendee and Wally are more than capable of offering on iOS and Android. Spendee feels more polished, has an excellent dark theme, supports Face ID, and its relatively cheaper. Wally offers more features, flexible pricing, and a better free tier than Spendee. Next up: Wallet by Budgetbackers is another excellent cross-platform app. Read its comparison with Spendee to get a better idea between the two.
