MoneyCoach The European alternative to YNAB

MoneyCoach is a budgeting and expense app from MoneyCoach UG in Berlin. It runs exclusively on Apple devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro, and there is no web version or Android app. Users create category budgets with rollover and savings goals, track expenses and see bills, subscriptions and net worth in one overview. Family Sync shares accounts, budgets and goals across different Apple IDs. Unlike YNAB, the app works with monthly category limits according to the provider and does not require all income to be assigned.

Only in part, the app uses several US services that are disclosed in the privacy policy. Manually entered data stays on the device, and optional sync runs via Apple iCloud (Ireland/USA). Online Banking runs on Google Firebase with Cloud Functions in Belgium and Firestore in the EU, and access from the USA is possible. Limited information from new transactions is sent to the Google Gemini API for categorisation, and there is no separate switch for this: anyone who wants to avoid it does not use Online Banking. US banks are connected via Plaid (USA), European banks via GoCardless (EU/UK). Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics, Mixpanel, RevenueCat and Superwall are added for analytics, crash reports and subscriptions, and Analytics and Mixpanel can be switched off in the app. Slack is used internally for support and feedback messages, and Vercel for hosting and delivering the website.

The bank connection is optional, and manual accounts and expenses also work without it. The provider lists over 2,800 European banks via GoCardless, plus supported US banks via Plaid. Premium includes up to 4 bank logins and Premium Max up to 8, and according to the provider the bank login details stay with the bank. MoneyCoach MCP gives compatible AI clients read-only access to the user's own data and is off by default. On the Mac the MCP server runs locally, and Premium Max adds an optional cloud copy in Germany, off by default, for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Muse from Meta and Grok. Whatever a connected assistant retrieves is processed by its provider, in some cases also in the USA. For Grok, the privacy policy names neither an adequacy decision nor a data transfer contract, and the transfer rests there on explicit consent.