YNAB Reviews 

Difficult to restart after a lapse of several months, also post retirement event upheaval - we retired.

Great app, amazing insights, I almost cancelled because automatic import of transactions with fidelity has only worked for about 7 months of the last year but ultimately decided I could live with manually importing my transactions. The data and insight are just too valuable not to have if you have any sort of financial goals!

YNAB has really been able to help me see where my money is going. It gets a little tricky when using a credit card for purchases and then paying the credit card off each month but not impossible. It also takes a little while with any major life changes like buying a home. But once you've settled, everything is great. I review it almost daily and it really helps me understand how my cash flow looks like and what I'm overspending on. Overall a fantastic application.

I absolutely LOVE YNAB! I used to have to input every single transaction manually and reconcile with a bank statement monthly. Now, all my transactions come through automatically and I balance my account every week when I compare my balance with the bank balance.
Also, my husband always knows how much money we have available for any item by going into our "Plan." I also used to do sinking funds manually on a spreadsheet, which was very time consuming.
THANK YOU, YNAB!

First off, you’re never too old to start budgeting. Both my husband and I are 59.

Prior to YNAB, we would budget (it was really just expense tracking) for a few months and then fall off the wagon for months—or even a year or more.

Things came to a head about a year ago. We were incredibly stressed about money, even though we both make decent incomes. So instead of doing what I’d done in the past, I asked an AI to create a budget for us.

The AI asked me to enter all of our expenses. After I entered what I thought was everything, it prompted me about yearly renewals and other items I might have forgotten.

The AI came up with a great budget and, at the end, suggested that to stay on track we should consider using a budgeting app. It recommended YNAB, saying it would suit our needs perfectly.
The first thing I did after downloading YNAB was watch two of Nick True’s “Getting Started” videos.

The second thing I did was go through the previous 12 months of my checking account transactions. That helped me set up my categories—and inadvertently showed me exactly where all our money had been going.

As I was setting up the categories, I noticed there were quite a few sneaky subscriptions we were paying for but no longer used (or had completely forgotten about). I immediately canceled them. Some were surprisingly difficult to cancel—I had to hunt for the cancellation page on the website, email the company, or even call them.

We simply weren’t making enough money for everything we were spending on, and that’s why we had been living paycheck to paycheck. Actually, it was worse than that—we were constantly watching the bank balance, hoping an automatic debit wouldn’t hit before the next paycheck cleared. It was painful to let go of things we liked but clearly couldn’t afford, but it had to be done.

We now have our accounts connected to YNAB and use the auto-import feature. In the 12 months we’ve been using it, there have only been a few times when a transaction didn’t come over during the sync.

Every morning I check YNAB and approve/categorize the new transactions. It takes less than 30 seconds. I check it a few more times during the day as new transactions come in. My bank updates 4 to 5 times a day, which is incredibly helpful. Once a week I reconcile the accounts, and that takes less than 2 minutes.

Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about YNAB. It has helped us realize that “budget” is not a bad word. Budgeting actually brings order and calm, and it has finally allowed us to save money—something we had never been able to do before.

We now have sinking funds (I had no idea what those were before) and actual money in our savings account. We’re even earning interest—it truly boggles the mind.

To the makers of YNAB: thank you for creating such a wonderful app that even lazy slugs like me can stick with. It has been absolutely life-changing. While there’s a bit of a learning curve and some upfront work required, the payoff starts right away. It was amazing to still have money left in our accounts during our third and fourth weeks of using YNAB. That was such a huge win for us. Seeing how far we’ve come after a full year is absolutely incredible.

From the bottom of my heart, a thousand thank-yous.

It's been great overall! I myself have ADHD and have difficulty with budgeting. I have clients who also deal with the same struggles and I have reccomend it to them. YNAB has really helped me along with managing debt and my overall payment in a way thats easy and not overwhelming. The only suggestion would be better way for the transactions to be updated more frequently from bank account/cc to YNAB.

This tool has been easy to use and allows me to both know how much I currently have available in cash AND plan for what I want to do with it.

YNAB has been a great help to me in it organizing my finances. I love that it has the option to budget specific categories weekly, monthly, yearly, and etc. It also has some great features like a mortgage payoff calculator! I loved seeing how our extra payments affected the amount we would have payed in interest.

Cumbersomen to set up budget. Bank ties brake and have to be terminated and reset.

We have been using YNAB daily for a little over a year. As retirees and a fairly static cash flow it has made us more aware of our spending habits causing us to reevaluate from time to time why we are spending money in a specific category. It has helped identify the cause of the spending and has led us to a shift in our targets, whether up or down. We have benefited from using YNAB and recommend it.

Reauthorization killing me:( before Aug everything was fine with Amex Canada, but after I have to reauthorize every other sync

I started paying for Ynab in Feb 2025, but for a period I didn't use the app because it seemed a little complicated at first. Then in July 2025 i revisited the app after remembering I was paying for something I wasn't using and riding this wave of great success I was getting from losing weight and resolving my sleep apnea. Since I came back and really tried to work on the app and method, Ive been able to understand it and it has allowed me to come up with a debt destroyer plan I started in September 2025 where so far I've paid off $6600 in debt and was able to fund 2 large needed expenses of about $1300, all while being able to pay my normal bills and avoid being overdrawn in my account. I would have never of seen the true numbers of how to get underneath the chains of debt if it wasn't for Ynab. It might seem difficult starting off with ynab but you will thank your future self. My journey has just started but I hope to partner with ynab for many years to come.

I LOVE this app. I was a little hesitant in the beginning because it seemed like a lot to connect all my information and do the tracking but it makes being accountable for my spending so easy. The endless library of videos with tips and tricks are so helpful in getting organized and reframing the way I think about my money. I've been using it for a full year now and I'm obsessed and highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in taking better control of their finances!

I’ll be blunt. The app has helped me a lot in the year or so I’ve subscribed and I like it. I also will not be re-subscribing next year. The cost is too high (sure to be higher next year) and I’m entering all my data in manually now, so I’ll be switching to something free or cheaper.

YNAB has helped me get out of debt and build my savings while also spending money and enjoying life.

YNAB works well for me for budgeting. It's a little pricy, but the family plan has been worth paying for so that both my partner and I can keep track of our spending and better plan it. The envelope method used by YNAB is more flexible than a more classic budget and I find it much easier to work with since I'm sometimes living pay check to pay check. I very rarely have issues with the app/website and any time I have I've been able to get help to get it resolved very quickly. I personally find it pretty easy to use as well.

It's focus is moving forward with a budget and it does this well.
However, I miss the ability to run reports on costs incurred in the past. Like how much did I spend overall on...something.
It doesn't have a space for check numbers either but, I put the number into the memo section. Smh.

I watched youtube videos for some time and gained what seemed to be a functional understanding of YNAB. YNAB is directly linked to my accounts, and manages my savings, checking, venmo, and discovercard. However, each month, when I budget the new month, I review my accounts and YNAB incorrectly lists how much money I have in each account by thousands of dollars, and thereby makes it look like I have more money than I have overall. I manually have to adjust the money in each account, but I have to wait until there's no pending transactions or else it will stop matching again. After I do this, it tells me I have money ready to assign for all the months prior forever and ever, when I had $0 because everything was assigned and everything was perfect. It makes absolutely no sense and I waste hours of my time every month trying to figure out how to make the app match reality. Every adjustment I make throws off the rest of the system, and I can't make it fit. Very disappointed, and frustrated. Time to make a new budget and delete the old one...again.

This program has changed my personal finance life. If you commit to learning it, it becomes easy and even fun. Support is outstanding