Review Insights · App Store
YNAB
You Need A Budget LLC · 60,542 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
60,542 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 70 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"
36 negative reviews mention this · 51% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst finance program out there. YNAB is the worst financial program now. 10 years ago it was the best but now fast-forward 10 years later. The company is now in the garbage can. They have made so many software changes in the last five years that they have fundamentally g…" - marktaylor22
2
"been"
23 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Will not sync. I’ve been without account info for two weeks and they can’t fix it because they are too dependent on third parties for bank connections. Upped fees are also an issue" - App User45678
3
"update"
23 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst finance program out there. YNAB is the worst financial program now. 10 years ago it was the best but now fast-forward 10 years later. The company is now in the garbage can. They have made so many software changes in the last five years that they have fundamentally g…" - marktaylor22
4
"changes"
22 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst finance program out there. YNAB is the worst financial program now. 10 years ago it was the best but now fast-forward 10 years later. The company is now in the garbage can. They have made so many software changes in the last five years that they have fundamentally g…" - marktaylor22
5
"updates"
22 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst finance program out there. YNAB is the worst financial program now. 10 years ago it was the best but now fast-forward 10 years later. The company is now in the garbage can. They have made so many software changes in the last five years that they have fundamentally g…" - marktaylor22
6
"years"
20 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Makes no sense. I have worked nearly 30 years in a government budget office and can’t make heads or tails of this budgeting app. Its user interface is pretty to look at but very unintuitive to use. Also, it has no ability to track and analyze past expendit…" - Dark Chocolate 47
7
"transaction"
18 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "June 2026 update. You now have to do multiple clicks to clear a transaction. The interface was good, now it’s clunky looking. I wish they would keep it simple. It wasn’t broke before, it didn’t need to be changed. Update: 6/15/26 well their customer service…" - Sarasayshi
8
"user"
17 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Makes no sense. I have worked nearly 30 years in a government budget office and can’t make heads or tails of this budgeting app. Its user interface is pretty to look at but very unintuitive to use. Also, it has no ability to track and analyze past expendit…" - Dark Chocolate 47
9
"worse"
17 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Updates are getting worse!. Why do have to do more clicks now! It used to be simple and intuitive, now the UI has gotten complicated! Boo! Not a happy customer!" - NotAHappyCustomer_01
10
"making"
17 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Does nothing unless you pay. Very sneaky making me give you bunch of info, then make me sign up with email, then finally asking for money." - CodyCJ991
11
"every"
16 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst finance program out there. YNAB is the worst financial program now. 10 years ago it was the best but now fast-forward 10 years later. The company is now in the garbage can. They have made so many software changes in the last five years that they have fundamentally g…" - marktaylor22
12
"change"
15 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst finance program out there. YNAB is the worst financial program now. 10 years ago it was the best but now fast-forward 10 years later. The company is now in the garbage can. They have made so many software changes in the last five years that they have fundamentally g…" - marktaylor22
📋 All 70 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").
Makes no sense
I have worked nearly 30 years in a government budget office and can’t make heads or tails of this budgeting app. Its user interface is pretty to look at but very unintuitive to use. Also, it has no ability to track and analyze past expenditures, which is kind of important to preparing and managing a budget! If for some reason you like this approach to budgeting, you would be better off buying a couple dozen envelopes, writing spending categories on the front of each one, and filling them with cash at the beginning of each month to spend from. The app provides little additional value, costs over $100 per year, and is very clunky to use.
Worst finance program out there
YNAB is the worst financial program now. 10 years ago it was the best but now fast-forward 10 years later. The company is now in the garbage can. They have made so many software changes in the last five years that they have fundamentally gone against everything they originally believed in. This company literally just laid off their entire marketing team. They fired their social media team. And their CEO continues to take this company. The responses that we get from these software updates are canned and written by AI. There is nothing human about this company anymore.
Will not sync
I’ve been without account info for two weeks and they can’t fix it because they are too dependent on third parties for bank connections. Upped fees are also an issue
June 2026 update
You now have to do multiple clicks to clear a transaction. The interface was good, now it’s clunky looking. I wish they would keep it simple. It wasn’t broke before, it didn’t need to be changed.
Update: 6/15/26 well their customer service is run by AI and doing a poor job. I emailed asking a question about wanting to cancel but I wanted to make certain I would avoid a refund back on my original form of payment that I no longer have the account for. Their “customer service agent” did not answer my question nor confirm if I wanted proceed with cancelling my subscription. They CANCELLED my account and I didn’t even have time to download my latest account file. It would have been 9 years down the drain had I not downloaded a copy 3 days before. Customer service is a joke.
Update: 6/15/26 well their customer service is run by AI and doing a poor job. I emailed asking a question about wanting to cancel but I wanted to make certain I would avoid a refund back on my original form of payment that I no longer have the account for. Their “customer service agent” did not answer my question nor confirm if I wanted proceed with cancelling my subscription. They CANCELLED my account and I didn’t even have time to download my latest account file. It would have been 9 years down the drain had I not downloaded a copy 3 days before. Customer service is a joke.
Over 100 bucks
Wouldn’t buy unless you are ready to spend over 100 bucks to use… kind of counter intuitive to my goal downloading this app
Updates are getting worse!
Why do have to do more clicks now! It used to be simple and intuitive, now the UI has gotten complicated! Boo! Not a happy customer!
Used to be good but increasingly annoying updates
Every unnecessary update makes a previously simple task slightly harder for no reason. Things that used to be one click are now 3, menus get rearranged, the layout is reformatted, all these compounding inconveniences result in an increasingly unpleasant user experience. Every time it’s arbitrary and adds nothing but is clearly change for the sake of saying it was updated. Looking into alternatives after years of use.
UI/UX Breaking Point
YNAB doesn’t listen to users. Period.
The iOS UI/UX gets worse with every update. More friction, more clicks, appalling what YNAB has become.
The iOS UI/UX gets worse with every update. More friction, more clicks, appalling what YNAB has become.
Too labor intensive
Had high hopes for this but it is way too labor intensive and requires you to go to
Through every line item on your spending to assign it.
The UX is very weak. I’m disappointed and will not renew.
Through every line item on your spending to assign it.
The UX is very weak. I’m disappointed and will not renew.
Does nothing unless you pay
Very sneaky making me give you bunch of info, then make me sign up with email, then finally asking for money.
Moving in the wrong direction
New leadership is backwards. Degrading app updates, a reduction in content, and overall out of touch with users. Used to be amazing, now it’s garbage.
Getting Worse
Been using YNAB for years and the app just gets worse. The price goes up and all we get is “blurple” and a more confusing UI. Every change makes the workflow in the app less efficient. Read your reviews. You are alienating your customer base. You’ve pushed me to look for alternatives and I’m starting to test them in hopes of finding something better. The concept is so good and has helped me so much. Stop ruining your own product.
App is Getting Worse
YNAB keeps going backwards. The app is worse than it used to be, hiding necessary options to “reduce visual clutter”. It also no longer syncs with banks it used to connect to.
Going consistently downhill
The YNAB mobile app designers and developers have entered the phase of "change for changes sake". So many of the UI/UX changes that have been made recently violate basic principles of UX. More scrolling and more taps for what used to take one tap. Most recently, approving a matched transaction. You now have to scroll down, tap a widget to expand hidden details that used to be in plain sight, and then approve. Just one example. Ridiculous. We are preparing to cancel our subscription, a lot of good alternatives out there now who don't seem to hate their users.
Give us meaningful improvements instead of trivial changes.
It would be nice to have meaningful updates instead of trivial changes. I’ve stuck with the product for years, but it seems to no longer give me a reason to stick with it. Look at what your competitors are doing and give us real improvements.
Useless, confusing updates pushed out constantly that change the layout and functionality
Unfortunately I have to update my YNAB review again. User since 2019, preached the YNAB way to dozens of my friends and used it to get out of debt. This company does not value user feedback, user experience, or its employees. I thought being a beta tester would help shape the direction of the app, but they don’t even send major UI updates to the beta testing pool before shoving them into the official app. In the past 1 year they have pushed several major, confusing updates to the app layout and interface, where each one has changed the location of buttons (right side to left side), the flow of major tasks (opening to a home page instead of the budget), and required more clicks (half of the transaction screen options hidden by a “See More!” tab). Entering a transaction is the backbone of daily use, but has been made more difficult and time consuming. Many changes were obviously flawed in ways that proper beta testing feedback could have prevented (for example, extremely poor color differentiation between future and past transactions), but since user experience isn’t a priority, they ended up rolling back and fixing these issues after they were released to the general user base, causing more updates and layout/color changes that were completely unnecessary. They have not added popular requests such as spending reports that users have requested for over 10 years. There used to be “Four Rules” of the YNAB method, but they quietly removed those and replaced them with gimmicky made-up words such as “spendfulness.” YNAB spent several years building up an online community for users to interact and teach each other, but they just inexplicably fired some of their most popular social media staff and class trainers with 3 hours notice - after sending us an email survey asking how we feel about using AI in our budgets. Apparently there is a new CEO, and I think the shutdown of their main competitor Mint has given them a god complex. All major signs of active ensh*ttification are blinking red, as they destroy all of their community goodwill for the sake of some arbitrary user engagement metrics. It’s the perfect example of the antisocial rot festering within tech companies these days.
Change it back!!!
I’m really disgusted with the update. I have been a YNAB user for a decade. I really hated giving up my YNAB Classic but stuck with it. This latest version is absolutely trash.
UI continues to get worse
Every update is worse. More and more clicks. More things hidden. Less intuitive. Ads popping up. Very frustrating as a longtime user to constantly get worse and worse UI updates
Price hike HORRIBLE updates
They doubled the price - shady shady shady - move to something else.
Constant updates that make the
Product worse. You have to click a separate screen to CLEAR a transaction. HORRIBLE RUN AWAY CHOOSE SOMETHING ELSE
Constant updates that make the
Product worse. You have to click a separate screen to CLEAR a transaction. HORRIBLE RUN AWAY CHOOSE SOMETHING ELSE
Not worth the money
App is going downhill. Lake of reporting and forecasting make this a no go. They are refusing to modernize to a modern formula with real world needs like alerts and credit card data like utilization of debt pay off options for multiple debts at the same time. Honestly I recommend investing in another app that staying with the times instead of putting lipstick on a pig.
The app is no longer worth it! Pop up ads in paid sub? Nope!!!
What happened to YNAB? It’s not the same app anymore! UI changes that makes things more difficult, increasing subscription prices, and now POP UP ads in a $130 subscription. Nope - not having it. I’m going to zero out my YNAB subscription category and find something that will work for my Actual Budget!
Gone downhill & showing now ads
Been a YNAB subscriber for nearly a decade. A simple app that performed exactly what you wanted has become bloated and laggy, not to mention a massive pain to use & navigate. The UI, and therefore the UX, has changed drastically for the worse. Just get back to your roots. And don’t ever show another cross-sell notification advertising the CEO’s new “book”. I pay for this app, I don’t want to see ads of any kind
UI/UX getting worse over time
Every few months they change core parts of the UI that degrade the experience. What used to take a couple seconds and clicks to do now takes 5x that amount. Multiply that by thousands of transactions and re-training muscle memory. I wish they would stop trying to fix what isn’t broken. I firmly believe the UI designers do not use this app.
Can you guys stop messing with the app out of boredom?
Like why are we trying to fix something that’s not broken? /: come on
Poor Design Changes
The gradual downgrade of the design and features of this app that make entering transactions more time-consuming, plus firing their main marketers, and making you pay for info sessions (after paying for the app) just makes it a poor experience overall. The leadership team has gotten greedy and are sacrificing the customer experience for $. I no longer recommend this budgeting app to others.
Cool idea, terrible execution - poor customer service model
This financial model this app is trying to go for is a great concept and I really wanted to love it so I could justify paying after the free trial, but I kept having an issue with the balance of my accounts not being accurate even though my accounts were linked. This is a pretty big issue for me because to justify paying for this is because of the supposed “ease” that they can allow when everything is linked and automatically recorded, meaning you can just categorize and look, but that wasn’t happening for me. The issue was a little complicated to a point where their ai customer service assistant couldn’t figure it out and wanted me to email customer service. I asked to call, I felt like I could do it in 5 minutes as a call, whereas it would take hours to days to resolve this issue with written communication. They have no way to schedule a live chat or phone call, solely email… and it took multiple days to receive answers. So, no, I’m not going to pay for this. Also, if the other option is to look through a large amount of long videos that usually don’t answer the specific issue I’m having for the hope that after hours I’ll have an answer is also not a good response to the customer service aspect that this app/company has.
Changes
Please stop making changes for the sake of making changes. First you took the most useful information(cleared, uncleared, working balance) and hid them behind menus. Now you’ve made it so creating a transaction is so painful I don’t even want to use the app anymore. Now when creating a transaction I can’t easily select inflow or outflow. 1 click has now become 3. Then on to selecting a category. The main source of money(my bank) is now all the way at the bottom. So instead of two quick clicks it’s a click, scroll past all transactions I only use once per month, down to select the thing I use most. Now for the most egregious change, why did you move the cleared and repeats behind the more dropdown. Now photo and memo is in its place, probably the least used option. Now entering a quick transaction that’s cleared is multitudes more clicks more than it should be. Why are yall making changes for the sake of making changes. The new overhaul with main functions spread across multiple redundant screens was already too much, now this nonsense? Yall have a good product, but you’re going to push me to find something better if you don’t think hard about the viability of these changes.
Another horrible UI update
Another update that added more taps to enter transactions. Why is there multiple taps to go from intake to spending? What was wrong with the old enter transaction screen?
App keeps getting worse
UI updates keep happening for no clear reason. They make the app slower (long animations, pauses during tragedies) and harder to use (hiding features, burying functionality). UX has taken a backseat to pretty screenshots
Really gone downhill…
Recent UI changes have been terrible. They add multiple taps to do things now that used to only take one tap. They have hidden features I use all the time like “clearing” a transaction. They even changed the B in their name from Budget to Plan but didn’t update the name of the app to YNAP. Whoever is making decision over there in 2026 is missing the mark and upsetting the loyal userbase… who might just be jumping ship in the next 12 months. Stop making changes for the sake of changes.
Directionless
I can’t believe how this company has lost its core. I’ve used YNAB since 2016 and I’ve never seen such poor updates. They’re aimless and pushing advertisements despite paying over $100 per year to use this service. I’ll be cancelling.
Recent updates ruined it
I love YNAB but the most recent update makes everything require an extra click or two just to mark transactions as cleared. Awful.
Another UI update that makes things worse
Not sure what’s going on over at YNAB these days, but updating the transaction view to add MORE clicks to do simple things like change from outflow to inflow or clear a transaction was a terrible move. Things users want to do, especially regularly, should take as few clicks as possible! The old transactions view was fine, adding photos was great, this change is terrible.
I’m out
I’ve been a user for almost 10 years now, but I can no longer support this app. It started years ago with random rate hikes and has cumulated into terrible AI customer service, changes and updates for the sake of changes and updates that make the program harder and worse to use, to surprise layoffs of beloved members of the social media team in a terrible economy. The CEO is so completely out of touch and the company gives zero effs what the users want. It’s been years of being ignored but I’m done - there are plenty of other options for much less money. This program was life changing for me but I cannot support them any longer.
Quit ruining your own product
I have been using YNAB for over a year now and it has definitely helped a ton. Now with the recent moves the company is making I am starting to look at alternatives.
Examples: suddenly firing their primary educational content creators, real human support turning into what seems to be AI customer support, constantly fidgeting with the UI to add inconveniences, and PUSHING ADS TO MY FRONT PAGE. I don’t care about your new book. I don’t want to see ads on a service I pay for.
Don’t think people don’t notice. You have a good product just stop messing with it before you alienate your customer base.
Examples: suddenly firing their primary educational content creators, real human support turning into what seems to be AI customer support, constantly fidgeting with the UI to add inconveniences, and PUSHING ADS TO MY FRONT PAGE. I don’t care about your new book. I don’t want to see ads on a service I pay for.
Don’t think people don’t notice. You have a good product just stop messing with it before you alienate your customer base.
App going downhill
I am a longtime customer and YNAB has done a lot to improve my finances, despite the steep price. I have had issues with aspects of it over the years, but stuck with it. Sad to see a recent trend of UI changes that make it less convenient to use, and to hear that employees many of us liked and relied on for helpful videos were laid off overnight. Will be switching to an alternative program, even if it less polished than YNAB.
Stop frustrating manual-entry users with these updates
Response to the ynab response: My goodness, it is not a muscle memory problem. Is that the narrative to justify bad UX upgrades? If the original design of the app had several tap interactions, and a new upgrade introduced less taps, I would be posting a glowing review of how the latest upgrade reduced friction. Please stop infantilizing your users.
Original review:
To manually add an entry that is a deposit, I used to just tap on the amount and it would turn green from red. Now I have to make one extra tap to another screen.
The money movement type didn’t factor in the user experience before this change. Now to make a credit card payment, or to make a transfer, I have to go through several screens.
The option to mark the entry as cleared, or to do other tasks, now requires another button to see those options.
I don’t understand the rationale behind frustrating users of this app who still use it in a barebones manner. I don’t care that there is now a cool slider to make money move from checking to credit card. I simply don’t want to log into this app with dread each time there has been a significant update. Please value less taps on the app.
At this point i am willing to pay more a year just so you guys can hire more competent UX designers.
Original review:
To manually add an entry that is a deposit, I used to just tap on the amount and it would turn green from red. Now I have to make one extra tap to another screen.
The money movement type didn’t factor in the user experience before this change. Now to make a credit card payment, or to make a transfer, I have to go through several screens.
The option to mark the entry as cleared, or to do other tasks, now requires another button to see those options.
I don’t understand the rationale behind frustrating users of this app who still use it in a barebones manner. I don’t care that there is now a cool slider to make money move from checking to credit card. I simply don’t want to log into this app with dread each time there has been a significant update. Please value less taps on the app.
At this point i am willing to pay more a year just so you guys can hire more competent UX designers.
Latest Update
June Update: and now there are even more taps needed! I can’t even search for the account/credit card now when doing transfers or payments and have to scroll instead. As someone who has many different accounts it just keeps adding layers of frustration. The UI team really seems to be purposefully neglecting function.
Original: Just updated and really disliking how many extra clicks are involved. I started using YNAB for its simplicity, but now feel that the UI updates over the last several versions are making it more difficult to find/enter the basic functions which were the original appeal.
Original: Just updated and really disliking how many extra clicks are involved. I started using YNAB for its simplicity, but now feel that the UI updates over the last several versions are making it more difficult to find/enter the basic functions which were the original appeal.
Garbage changes
They keep adding unnecessary taps, for no reason. No way to revert back to a useful UI. Avoid this product. It’s no longer magical.
Insanely bad UX changes
I’ve been a YNAB user and subscriber for about six years. The YNAB service itself is fine, but I hate the app. The only thing that has really been consistent in all this time is the frequent changes made to the app that completely discombobulate the UX way more often than should happen. Having worked in product management and design myself, I get it, you always want to experiment with improvements and users aren’t going to love every change. What I find frustrating about the YNAB app team’s approach is that they keep making major changes to locations of frequently used functions in the app or completely changing user flows with little to no explanation. I find it hard to believe that these changes are improving anyone’s experience with this app. I feel like every time I sort of get used to the current workflow, they redesign it again. This most recent update has tucked a bunch of frequently used functions, like marking transactions as cleared, behind an extra click inside the transaction summary. It is an infuriating extra step and unnecessary friction. Why would you possibly need to make it harder for people to mark their transactions as cleared? That isn’t a destructive process that needs to be hidden.
I find myself using the app less and less these days and just going back to the website which changes much less often. Maybe that’s the developers’ goal? Who knows. I find it especially frustrating that the experience on the app does not mirror the experience of the UX on the website, and that is probably the biggest sin that these developers have commit committed. As a user, I should be able to seamlessly switch back-and-forth between desktop and Mobile and the UX should be an afterthought. I should not be having to consciously think about and dissect the user flows to re-orient every time I try to use your product. Budgeting is annoying enough as it is, stop trying to reinvent the wheel and just keep the UX consistent. PLEASE.
I find myself using the app less and less these days and just going back to the website which changes much less often. Maybe that’s the developers’ goal? Who knows. I find it especially frustrating that the experience on the app does not mirror the experience of the UX on the website, and that is probably the biggest sin that these developers have commit committed. As a user, I should be able to seamlessly switch back-and-forth between desktop and Mobile and the UX should be an afterthought. I should not be having to consciously think about and dissect the user flows to re-orient every time I try to use your product. Budgeting is annoying enough as it is, stop trying to reinvent the wheel and just keep the UX consistent. PLEASE.
Extremely long time YNAB user
I have been around since day one. When YNAB came to mobile I was beyond excited and I loved it for a decade or so.
But now they changed the UI/UX EVERY OTHER WEEK. It’s awful. Years and years of of muscle memory has been continuously undone by adding unnecessary changes just for the sake of making changes. Single clicks are now 5-6 clicks. This becomes extremely old very fast.
I have referred dozens of people to this app both unofficially, and officially. My wife have our finances tied into it together. And I’m at my breaking point.
They either need to make it customizable, or STOP WITH ALL THE CHANGES. I am currently building an automated Excel sheet that replicates YNAB minus imports and I’m very close to switching full time over to it. I pay annually for YNAB because it’s how I learned finances, but now I’m considering leaving it for good because it’s attempting to complicate all the rigid structure it has taught me throughout the years
But now they changed the UI/UX EVERY OTHER WEEK. It’s awful. Years and years of of muscle memory has been continuously undone by adding unnecessary changes just for the sake of making changes. Single clicks are now 5-6 clicks. This becomes extremely old very fast.
I have referred dozens of people to this app both unofficially, and officially. My wife have our finances tied into it together. And I’m at my breaking point.
They either need to make it customizable, or STOP WITH ALL THE CHANGES. I am currently building an automated Excel sheet that replicates YNAB minus imports and I’m very close to switching full time over to it. I pay annually for YNAB because it’s how I learned finances, but now I’m considering leaving it for good because it’s attempting to complicate all the rigid structure it has taught me throughout the years
Latest update makes things more complex
This is a budgeting app. Why do you have to click more than once to be able to choose if it’s an inflow or outflow? To make matters worse, instead of a one press of inflow or outflow, there are now FOUR options. Talk about confusing.
It seems like they are tracking some internal KPI about how often a user presses buttons on the app so they made it more complex for the users. Simplicity used to be the key with this app. The last few updates have been terrible.
Additionally, you now have to press “show more” if it’s a recurring transaction or to clear transactions. YNAB, what the heck are you doing? Long time user here that is finally getting fed up from the price increases and terrible UI updates to the app.
It seems like they are tracking some internal KPI about how often a user presses buttons on the app so they made it more complex for the users. Simplicity used to be the key with this app. The last few updates have been terrible.
Additionally, you now have to press “show more” if it’s a recurring transaction or to clear transactions. YNAB, what the heck are you doing? Long time user here that is finally getting fed up from the price increases and terrible UI updates to the app.
User Interface Disaster
Every update is adding more clicks and removing workflows I’ve done for years with YNAB’s software. It’s making me consider moving away from YNAB - and I’m a 13 year customer.
horrible update
why does ynab always come out with these stupid updates
Increasingly bloated and forgetting core functionality
Updated 06/2026: The latest update adds even more taps to existing functions. Click to get to a menu to get to something else. Click to unhide the cleared button and date. Add some clicks to transfer money between accounts. Literally make every task take twice as many taps and hide basic features.
And, no, it’s not just “muscle memory”, YNAB PR team, it’s that the app takes more time and effort to find/do basic tasks. It’s way too clicky now. It’s added friction.
Original: I’ve used YNAB for over 10 years, and the UI changes in the past year or so are actively making it harder to use. Things that took one click now take three, and they seem more focused on marketing and looking slick rather than core functionality. YNAB has a learning curve that is only getting steeper as they add extra steps/screens while making the basics harder to access. Never thought I’d be shopping for a new budget app, but it’s increasingly difficult to enter/categorize my transactions, roll with the punches, and find what I’m looking for. We had a good run, YNAB!
And, no, it’s not just “muscle memory”, YNAB PR team, it’s that the app takes more time and effort to find/do basic tasks. It’s way too clicky now. It’s added friction.
Original: I’ve used YNAB for over 10 years, and the UI changes in the past year or so are actively making it harder to use. Things that took one click now take three, and they seem more focused on marketing and looking slick rather than core functionality. YNAB has a learning curve that is only getting steeper as they add extra steps/screens while making the basics harder to access. Never thought I’d be shopping for a new budget app, but it’s increasingly difficult to enter/categorize my transactions, roll with the punches, and find what I’m looking for. We had a good run, YNAB!
Latest update
UPDATE: NEW UI means MORE CLICKS to make anything happen. Ugly colors aside, this is NOT a user friendly upgrade.
YNAB will no longer connect to my bank through Plaid or Mx, and customer service gave up and told me to go manual. Manual works, but I shouldn't have to do this.
UPDATE January 2026: YNAB is not as sleek or as quick to use as it once was. However, their customer service email staff did respond to my problem quickly and fixed my issue quickly. So the customer service was excellent. Now we just need the people in charge of the app design to get back to a philosophy of minimum taps to get to what you want and move the bloat off the front page and out of the budgeting process and into a different screen or remove bloat entirely.
UPDATE September 2025: I just unsubscribed due to the latest update's obfuscating and time wasting nonsense. It's not about "MuScLe MeMoRy." It's about wasting my time and making it take more clicks and eye-tracking to accomplish simple tasks.
App is even worse now. Been using this app for years, and it progressively gets more unnecessarily complex without adding any useful features.
It takes EVEN MORE TAPS to do what you used to be able to do in one or two. Pointless sliders, affirmations, and other time consuming nonsense force me to spend more time on this app than ever before. Some idiot executive probably wants us spending all out time in YNAB, but the whole reason I liked it to begin with is because it made tracking my budget fast and easy.
Way too much white space now. App is actually harder to read visually. Update 8/5/2021: PLEASE get rid of Ready to Assign. I will never use this, and it takes up space on the screen. I now have to scroll to after clicking an item to be able t see the item as I allocate money to it. To be budgeted was perfect. Stick with what works.
YNAB will no longer connect to my bank through Plaid or Mx, and customer service gave up and told me to go manual. Manual works, but I shouldn't have to do this.
UPDATE January 2026: YNAB is not as sleek or as quick to use as it once was. However, their customer service email staff did respond to my problem quickly and fixed my issue quickly. So the customer service was excellent. Now we just need the people in charge of the app design to get back to a philosophy of minimum taps to get to what you want and move the bloat off the front page and out of the budgeting process and into a different screen or remove bloat entirely.
UPDATE September 2025: I just unsubscribed due to the latest update's obfuscating and time wasting nonsense. It's not about "MuScLe MeMoRy." It's about wasting my time and making it take more clicks and eye-tracking to accomplish simple tasks.
App is even worse now. Been using this app for years, and it progressively gets more unnecessarily complex without adding any useful features.
It takes EVEN MORE TAPS to do what you used to be able to do in one or two. Pointless sliders, affirmations, and other time consuming nonsense force me to spend more time on this app than ever before. Some idiot executive probably wants us spending all out time in YNAB, but the whole reason I liked it to begin with is because it made tracking my budget fast and easy.
Way too much white space now. App is actually harder to read visually. Update 8/5/2021: PLEASE get rid of Ready to Assign. I will never use this, and it takes up space on the screen. I now have to scroll to after clicking an item to be able t see the item as I allocate money to it. To be budgeted was perfect. Stick with what works.
YNAB since 2019
The recent June 2026 UI changes are horrendous. Revert back to inflow/outflow at the top and also not having a “show more” at the bottom for the flags and the cleared button. The UI management team should be fired. Back to 5 stars when you revert.
Pop up ads
I don’t pay over $100 a year to be served pop up ads
Constant UI changes for no reason
I’ve been a long time subscriber. The constant UI changes are getting on my nerves. Once you get used to them, the devs completely change the app for no increase in functionality or purpose. I would consider different budgeting apps
Used to be great…
The new changes were unwanted, not intuitive and threw me for a loop with trying to figure out how to put in a credit card payment. The clear button used to be so easy, now it’s an extra click. It seems YNAB forgot to do usability testing.
+ 20 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
95%
Positive (4-5★)
1%
Neutral (3★)
3%
Negative (1-2★)