Review Insights · App Store
YNAB
You Need A Budget LLC · 59,775 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
59,775 ratings
🎯 Build a better version
Top complaints - extracted from 20 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"
6 negative reviews mention this · 30% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
2
"every"
5 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
3
"issues"
5 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Many issues despite paying. I have so many problems with this app. The biggest being that I am spending money on this app and the features I pay for do not work. Namely, any feature that requires connection to my bank account. For about half the time I’ve been paying …" - Beennn100
4
"transactions"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
5
"money"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Charged for a subscription I never signed up for.. YNAB charged me for a subscription I didn’t sign up for. I never even opened it or used it beyond the day I downloaded it and didn’t even finish setting it up- so I asked for a refund and was denied. An app that’s supposed to help you save …" - kristynn82
6
"months"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Many issues despite paying. I have so many problems with this app. The biggest being that I am spending money on this app and the features I pay for do not work. Namely, any feature that requires connection to my bank account. For about half the time I’ve been paying …" - Beennn100
7
"user"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
8
"through"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
9
"makes"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
10
"sense"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
11
"spending"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
12
"find"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Long time user. Hate the Home Screen. Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to ma…" - Stevensflight
📋 All 20 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").
Charged for a subscription I never signed up for.
YNAB charged me for a subscription I didn’t sign up for. I never even opened it or used it beyond the day I downloaded it and didn’t even finish setting it up- so I asked for a refund and was denied. An app that’s supposed to help you save money instead took money from me. I’m so over every single app being a subscription now. Do not recommend.
Awful
The most frustrating app I’ve ever used. I couldn’t get it even with ChatGPT’s help.
Many issues despite paying
I have so many problems with this app. The biggest being that I am spending money on this app and the features I pay for do not work. Namely, any feature that requires connection to my bank account. For about half the time I’ve been paying for this app (4 months) my bank account activity would take over a week to update. But for weeks now, YNAB will not even connect to my bank account. I also find the interface quite awkward and unintuitive to use. It’s the type of thing you’ll probably need YouTube tutorials to understand.
Makes no sense
Nothing is intuitive or makes any sense. No idea what it’s doing or how exactly to use it. Makes zero sense. Canceled my free trial after 30 minutes was so frustrated.
No demo! Nothing
This app doesnt have any demo!! It will push you to open account then force to buy subscriptions or otherwise you cant have it. They dont think about the user at all! How would I know this app has the capacity to solve my solution that I was looking for. Not recommended!! ❌❌
App continues to decline
Every release comes new bugs and surprises. It shouldn’t be like this.The subscription cost does not equal app performance. The incessant swipes, unable to hide home page, and now the credit card logos. Who asked for them? I sure didn’t. So why do I have to deal with that?
Diminishing value proposition.
Updates add zero value. Little customization options. Feature requests go ignored; hidden behind “we look at every request but can’t respond to everyone”. No tiered pricing options for those who don’t use bank syncing. Price increases. Can’t wait to find an alternative.
Synching issues with banks
Unresolved for months
Too much talk
The onboarding experience talks too much and doesn’t provide an obvious skip or exit option. I prefer a faster, more flexible introduction. Because I couldn’t skip it, I chose to uninstall the app. Also, the app requires payment to use. There is no free version to try before committing. While there is a trial option, I’m not comfortable relying on trials in case I forget to cancel. I prefer having a limited free version so I can decide whether I truly like the app.
Doesn’t have a single function as a free app
This app doesn’t offer any free function as it should in this category. At this point just move to the paid app. Will also send an email to apple to complain.
Why does an app have an intro cutscene
I had to go through it twice just to realize this is a paid only app. now it has my email for no reason. thanks a lot
Duplicates problem
I’ve used this for 3+ years and never had any issues but as of recently the app is falling apart. Constant duplicate transactions coming through even after following supports guidelines to fix and unsync. It’s becoming a cumbersome headache to use this, will be finding a new budgeting app
Broken auto assign
I have been using YNAB for fifteen years and it was great. Now they changed the auto assign feature. I used to be able to auto assign the exact last month’s amounts to future months with one click. Now their “smart” system thinks it knows better and only assigns a tiny bit, not my full budgeted amount. Please return it to the old way.
Very overcomplicated, unhelpful budgeting too.
The bank connections were not accurate, making it impossible to “Assign money” which also makes no logical sense from a personal “cash based” accounting logic. Spent over an hour trying to set up my plan only to leave frustrated and resorting back to chatGPT and an excel spreadsheet. Do not waste your time or energy.
Better out there
Heard great things but has to be one of the worst UI I’ve experienced. You can just delete information and start over. The “fresh start” just wipes the amounts in the fields but you can’t remove an account once it’s in there. Even if you “unlink” an account, it still has that account information there. After two hour of YouTube tutorials, I deleted the app and finding something else. The UI for Rocket, Every Dollar, and Monarch at far better
Long time user. Hate the Home Screen
Have used YNAB since YNAB 4. Have made it through all of the updates and changes ok. But the Home Screen makes no sense to me. (And even less idea why the spending tab exists) I can’t find a purpose for it in my flow. Supposedly it is to make it more intuitive, I don’t need “more” intuitive, I need three tabs: plan, accounts, and reflect.
Give the option to hide the home and spending tabs. And no matter what make an option to get rid of the red dot beside the home tab. I know that I have transactions to categorize. I will take care of them on my schedule.
New users that import all of their banking may benefit from these changes. Old hands who manually enter everything seem to be finding them to be annoying and in the way.
Also, the “fix” to have the app
Open to the last used tab doesn’t work. I get the home tab smacking me in the face every time.
My fix for this is to minimize my use of the app and just use the website. It works, but there are times the app would be useful to use, and I find myself skipping transactions just to wait until I am at my computer.
Give the option to hide the home and spending tabs. And no matter what make an option to get rid of the red dot beside the home tab. I know that I have transactions to categorize. I will take care of them on my schedule.
New users that import all of their banking may benefit from these changes. Old hands who manually enter everything seem to be finding them to be annoying and in the way.
Also, the “fix” to have the app
Open to the last used tab doesn’t work. I get the home tab smacking me in the face every time.
My fix for this is to minimize my use of the app and just use the website. It works, but there are times the app would be useful to use, and I find myself skipping transactions just to wait until I am at my computer.
Login Issues
I can’t login on my iPhone!
No coinbase credit card support
Really well made, but since this is something I really use it cannot keep track of it
App got a lot worse recently
I’m very frustrated they somehow got rid of “all accounts” in the phone app. I often want to search all my transactions, not just my spending. Why is something that is so simple on PC not available on iOS?
Additionally, the past several months I’ve had issues with credit card categories popping up yellow, even though all my spending is funded. After contact support, there is usually a refund (sometimes on a DIFFERENT card) that causes the math to malfunction.
Look, whatever algorithm you’re using needs to have this basic check: if all the transactions are categorized, and all the categories are funded, you should not have a “underfunded” label on a credit card.
Overall, YNAB is fine. I still miss when Mint worked for me; it did a lot more budgeting and a lot less “you have to think about money in our specific way.”
Additionally, the past several months I’ve had issues with credit card categories popping up yellow, even though all my spending is funded. After contact support, there is usually a refund (sometimes on a DIFFERENT card) that causes the math to malfunction.
Look, whatever algorithm you’re using needs to have this basic check: if all the transactions are categorized, and all the categories are funded, you should not have a “underfunded” label on a credit card.
Overall, YNAB is fine. I still miss when Mint worked for me; it did a lot more budgeting and a lot less “you have to think about money in our specific way.”
Burdensome UI Changes
YNAB user for multiple years.
I truly miss when the iOS app was purely for entering transactions on the go.
The UI changes over the years have forced me into only using desktop. It’s now too many clicks to enter a simple transaction.
I fear it will only get worse with time as I’ve never seen them back down from a single change based on feedback.
I truly miss when the iOS app was purely for entering transactions on the go.
The UI changes over the years have forced me into only using desktop. It’s now too many clicks to enter a simple transaction.
I fear it will only get worse with time as I’ve never seen them back down from a single change based on feedback.
Sentiment summary
95%
Positive (4-5★)
1%
Neutral (3★)
3%
Negative (1-2★)