ReadyCentsWhat Liquid Budget does well.
Worth saying plainly, because picking a budgeting app is personal and Liquid Budget is a real option.
- Zero-sum envelope budgeting organised with categories and buckets
- Account reconciliation, including a Smart Reconcile flow
- Multi-currency support
- A 45-day trial, which is generous
What ReadyCents does differently.
A free tier rather than only a trial
Liquid Budget publishes a $5 a month price with a 45-day trial. ReadyCents keeps manual budgeting, envelopes, goals, imports, the calendar and reports free with no expiry, and charges when you want managed connections.
Connection choice
ReadyCents offers managed Plaid slots or your own SimpleFIN or Lunch Flow account, so the sync provider is a decision you make rather than one made for you.
Planning beyond the ledger
Alongside reconciliation, ReadyCents includes a calendar and projected budget, net worth, debt and FIRE insights, reimbursements, tax tracking and household workspaces.
A self-hosted option
If you would rather run it yourself, a one-time $39 personal license lets you host ReadyCents on your own infrastructure.
ReadyCents against Liquid Budget.
Every claim about Liquid Budget comes from its own public material and was accurate when written.
| What matters | ReadyCents | Liquid Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Budgeting approach | Zero-based digital envelopes. Assign the cash you have, then use the live Ready to Budget breakdown to see why the total changed. | Zero-sum digital envelope budgeting organized with categories and buckets. |
| Ways to bring transactions in | Manual entry, YNAB migration, CSV and bank-file imports, managed Plaid slots, or your own SimpleFIN or Lunch Flow connection. | Linked-bank transaction and balance import, mobile entry, and one-click budget import. |
| Credit-card workflow | Funded spending reserves payment cash automatically. Optional overspending carryover remembers the originating card when debt is covered later. | Official materials advertise credit-card payment allocation, debt tracking, and smarter card handling without publishing the full calculation. |
| Planning beyond envelopes | Calendar, projected budget, reports, net worth, reimbursements, debt and FIRE insights, tax tracking, and household workspaces. | Account reconciliation, Smart Reconcile, multi-currency support, debt tracking, and mobile transaction entry. |
| Current public price | Free manual budgeting forever. Connected Premium is $9.99/month, $26.99/quarter, or $74.99/year. A one-time $5 pass unlocks 60 days of Connected Premium without a subscription. | $5/month with a 45-day trial. No current official public annual price was found. |
What switching actually involves.
Start from a file
Bring your history across with CSV or bank-file import rather than retyping it. Imports match against anything you have already entered.
Rebuild envelopes as groups
Buckets and categories map onto ReadyCents envelope groups and envelopes, so the structure you already use has a direct equivalent.
Reconcile as you go
Reconciliation confirms where money really is, while the budget explains what it is for. ReadyCents expects you to use both.
You depend on multi-currency support or its specific reconciliation flow. Those are real strengths and ReadyCents does not try to claim them.
You would rather not pay to budget by hand, want to choose your own sync provider, or want planning, tax and reimbursement tools in the same place.
Free forever to budget by hand, $9.99 a month for Connected Premium, or a one-time $5 pass for 60 days of the connected experience.
Try it before you decide.
Manual budgeting, envelopes, goals and imports are free for as long as you like. If you want to see bank sync first, the 60-day pass is one payment with no renewal.