Review Insights · Google Play
YNAB
ynab.com · 24,840 ratings · ★ 4.6
4.6
★★★★★
24,840 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 44 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"ynab"
9 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "After a break, downloaded just to see what the recent reviews were all about. Instantly disappointed and uninstalled. Been using YNAB since YNAB4. My partner refuses to use it. I'll stick with the web app. If I were king for a day: "skip" b…" - Leonel M
2
"subscription"
7 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Why not charge right off the bat? They get you to fill out your info just to force you into a subscription before you can do anything at all." - Kitija Vintere
3
"service"
6 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "this app has 0/10 customer service. you can't call them and they have generic responses and can't help you if your problem doesn't fit in that generic response. use rocket money or something else besides this app." - Nick
4
"account"
6 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Updating review. now that my free trial is over, all notifications of transactions to approve, etc. have stopped. The long delays syncing to my bank account are even worse. I'm still waiting for a transaction from 10 days ago to show! I agr…" - B
5
"expensive"
5 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Updating review. now that my free trial is over, all notifications of transactions to approve, etc. have stopped. The long delays syncing to my bank account are even worse. I'm still waiting for a transaction from 10 days ago to show! I agr…" - B
6
"years"
5 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "constantly making changes no one asked for and that move away from the core ynab purpose from years ago. forums online and multiple support tickets show that ynab doesn't listen to their customers so don't bother trying. at least make the c…" - Patrick K.
7
"price"
5 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I'm updating my review once again. previously it went from 5 stars to 2 stars. We are now unfortunately down to 1 star. My last review mentioned the home page feeling like an ad even though this is a paid service and there are no tiers in a…" - Brock Belmonte
📋 All 44 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Why not charge right off the bat? They get you to fill out your info just to force you into a subscription before you can do anything at all.
this app has 0/10 customer service. you can't call them and they have generic responses and can't help you if your problem doesn't fit in that generic response. use rocket money or something else besides this app.
Updating review. now that my free trial is over, all notifications of transactions to approve, etc. have stopped. The long delays syncing to my bank account are even worse. I'm still waiting for a transaction from 10 days ago to show! I agree with other users that the ads are unwarranted given how expensive this subscription is
After a break, downloaded just to see what the recent reviews were all about. Instantly disappointed and uninstalled. Been using YNAB since YNAB4. My partner refuses to use it. I'll stick with the web app. If I were king for a day: "skip" button for the one-time welcome animation, login prompt before said animation, "not for me" button for For You items, options to hide fields I'll never use, fewer clicks to reorganize categories. At least I quickly caught up on transactions.
constantly making changes no one asked for and that move away from the core ynab purpose from years ago. forums online and multiple support tickets show that ynab doesn't listen to their customers so don't bother trying. at least make the changes behind a toggle rather than force them. automatic clearing and the "home" tab are two of the latest examples. I wish I hadn't just upped for another year because this garbage is only getting worse
horrible customer service
I'm updating my review once again. previously it went from 5 stars to 2 stars. We are now unfortunately down to 1 star. My last review mentioned the home page feeling like an ad even though this is a paid service and there are no tiers in aware of. The team responded telling me that was educational content and not ads. This morning as I logged in to start budgeting I had an actual pop up ad to order their new book. I guess the price increases were not enough, ads are now in the platform too.
I can no longer recommend YNAB. What made me try YNAB was the respect and human touch that YNAB's creators were able to deliver. It truly made me think the price was worth it despite price hikes. However, it seems management thinks those humans were no longer worth it. As a result, YNAB is no longer a product I find interesting. It's quite a shame how easily bad management can destroy a product's image.
it's an amazing app. the best in the market. but I can't give more than 1 stars because it's stupidly expensive...
YNAB is headed downhill fast. Every app update makes the UI worse, showing less information and requiring more button clicks just to increase engagement. They have also now included pop up ads promoting their own products to PAID subscribers. After many years I'll be moving to a different service.
App has gone downhill while price increased. The company doesn't seem to listen to what customers want.
Customer service has gone downhill. Looks like they have fired most of their staff.
Moved to Actual Budget. YNAB is definitely not worth the price increase for what it is.
After YEARS of using the app, I've finally decided to quit. The constant UI changes, the price hikes, the AI implementation (and the downfall of your customer service because of that) I've had enough.
I've been using this app for 4 years and it was so helpful. However recently there have been many really bad design choices. The UI is incredibly hard to use now. They fired key members of their marketing team. I will be finding a new platform going forward. YNAB is now too much of an uncaring corporation.
it infuriates me when apps make you answer 20 questions and make you sign up with your email....... and then its a completely paid app. they really need to tell you that before you do all the garbage. make the app paid from the app store or something.
New update hides the floating button to enter transactions on a screen nobody asked for or wanted. If you aren't already a YNAB user find a different system. They needlessly update to solve problems that don't exist and you will have to relearn everything monthly when they change it up again. re: response: transaction+ is only on two screens actually and the long press takes 3x as long. You clearly don't even use your own app. 6/4/26 another useless update makes you spend more time clicking ...
too expensive
Getting ads for the owner's book? In a $100+ yearly paid subscription? I'm not sure why Jesse thinks it's worth alienating his app's user base to pump up his preorder numbers, unless the "one question" he's trying to answer is "how to torch your company's credibility in the tackiest way possible?"
1 star for annoying me and forcing me to leave a review
Rubbish app
even alarm app will start demanding subscription very soon 🥲 and the response is automated to further advertise "pricing", practically not addressing concerns about apps charging for simple no-brainer services
Uninstalled as soon as I realized it's $15/mo with no free tier. I can make an Excel sheet with a little extra effort, and it's free. Just having this all isn't going to save you, if you're serious about building a budget, you can muster the strength to do it manually.
Great app, but direct import breaks every month negating the main thing I pay for.
Too Expensive for none American Clients
Stupidly confusing and frustrating. Does not provide any sort of clarity on how app works, and if you connect bank does not match up at all
free trial but give us your credit card info
Used to be great: straightforward and clear. I clawed myself out of debt using it. Beautiful! Now it's needlessly complicated with background decisions about my money made by ynab programmers with no ability on my end to simplify it.
First open of the app and there is a non skip able ad for the app. Then it treats you like an idiot through the entire sign up process. Like you stumbled into downloading the app by accident. If they are willing to waste my time signing me up i have no trust that the app is worth my time.
Won't connect to banks. Fails authentication.
You get through the prompts/questions and then are asked to log in and sign up to an almost $200p/y subscription. Garbage.
It wants you to pay a monthly subscription.
App is too expensive and no free option, it is not intuitive to use. I have been looking for an everydollar equivalent in Canada which links to your bank account....this is not it
The whole purpose of downloading this app is to monitor my spending. and you have a monthly subscription for that. how do I say no in swahili?
keeps "forgetting" my bank account
$15 a month for budgeting app. No thank you.
There's an unskippable propaganda cutscene that tells you how happy you are with the app upon initial install I'm not trusting an app that treats me like a child with finances
all seems nice untill you have to pay. please that info should be at beginning
Please let me select prefered card manually instead of recommending automatically. My wife and I both use the app on the same budget, she has her own card, I have my own, but the app keeps suggesting whoever last added an expense in a category. So if she buys groceries, and then I, the app suggests her account. It's so anoying, I keep having to do the extra step almost every single time. Just leave the option to select a preferred account on a device. It's been awhile, still the same issue.
The "updates" progressively make this app worse. It feels like the developers are deaf to the requests of those using the app daily. It is incredibly frustrating and makes it harder to use every update. I am looking forward to someone making a better and cheaper option.
YNAB, you are losing your base. The app has gone progressively downhill since I first started using it over 5 years ago. I will likely leave this year if they try to raise prices despite a reduction in quality.
it has unnecessary quirks that makes the functionality difficult like the inability for negative balances to transfer into the next month and requirement to physically "assign" each dollar. perhaps it's just geared for a very ignorant person who has never ran a budget before.
I wanted to see what the app is about and test it quickly. Installed it and it goes through a quick setup asking bunch of questions. Great. Except at the end after all the work I have done it asks me to create an account. No, thank you. Put your account creation dialog first, so i know not to waste my time. This design choice is bad and misleading, and they know exactly why they are doing it. If the app does this from the start, i trust it will continue to do so throughout. No need to test it.
Should be renamed to You Need To Reactivate an Account
Sentiment summary
90%
Positive (4-5★)
2%
Neutral (3★)
8%
Negative (1-2★)