I launched a finance app with no bank syncing, on purpose
Humble Ledger went live on iOS and Android this week, and its core feature is something most finance apps treat as a limitation: you enter everything by hand.
Most apps are built around Plaid and automatic syncing, with manual entry as an afterthought. I track money the opposite way. Logging each transaction myself keeps me honest about where it goes, and it means no bank logins and no aggregator sitting between me and my accounts.
The other piece is multi-currency done properly. My money crosses borders, so each transaction stays in its own currency at that day’s exchange rate, and everything rolls up to one home currency for reports.
Pricing: free trial, then $6.99/mo or $59.99/yr. There’s also a Founders Lifetime for a one-time price, limited to early supporters.
If you try it, I’d genially value your feedback. Critical feedback is the most useful kind right now. I’d much rather fix a rough edge you found than read about it in an App Store review.
https://humbleledger.com
Can you tell what the product is offering once you enter all your manual transactions? Finance App is pretty broad sweeping. Is this budgeting? account balancing? forecasting? subscription monitoring? financial advice?
Fair question. It's a manual-first, multi-currency expense and net worth tracker. Let me break down the core features.
Income/Expenses breakdown - can see where your money went by category or tag.
Budgets - weekly/monthly/yearly budgets set per category.
Recurring transactions - track your weekly/monthly/yearly subscriptions
Net Worth tracking - manually enter you net worth across different accounts per month and track it over time.
Multi-currency - track your expenses in the currency you spend in, but have everything roll up to your home currency. This is really only a feature used by expats and nomads that are typically spending in multiple currencies.
Humble Ledger is intentionally manual entry only, no bank syncing. When users manually enter their expenses they have a better understanding of where their money is going.
Thank you. This is great. I truly agree that staying hands on gives a better understanding of where you are. Good on you!
I'm super interested in the finance category for personal use (not corp) and using manual entry or giving the option for sync. I have this idea that isn't looking back on transactions though, instead looking forward. It 's helping the consumer to understand their financial picture and what levers they can pull to help in a financial pinch or planning ahead, and the impact of pulling on their available levers (e.g., tax implications, penalties, capital gains/losses, etc.) given their scenario.
This is often what a financial advisor would for a person, but many people don't trust/want a financial advisor. In fact, my financial advisor has access to a "modeling" tool but doesn't offer it to consumers. But I'm very hands on...I want to play/model for myself. Additionally, my experience with financial advisors is that some specialize in a area and still can't answer various pieces of the convo.
So, in my mind, this idea I'm noodling on, would be a starting point for a person to evaluate where they are, understand potential options & related implications, but also never tell the user how to handle for themselves. If this is out there already, I haven't seen it.
Love it. I am one of those people that don't have much trust in financial advisors given previous experience working with a couple. But I like the idea of "modeling" myself to see how it might affect my portfolio or taxes in the future
Hi, I’m a software engineer interested in AI SaaS. I’m looking to connect with other developers and founders.
Happy to connect. I'm @parentsystems on X if you are on there. Would love to see what you are working on
Your real competitor is not Mint, it is the spreadsheet your ideal user already keeps, and that framing should drive the pricing page. The manual-entry crowd already believes in the work, so sell them the multi-currency rollup they cannot easily build themselves and the $59.99 year becomes an easy yes. And cap the lifetime tier hard, those are your best users and you will want their recurring revenue later.
Thanks for the feedback. The debated the lifetime tier a lot, and it's definitely capped. But I would be happy to have a set of users that are committed to using the app. If they are willing to pay that up front then I am certainly willing to not charge them for anything in the future and just continue making sure the app provides value to them
Transaction rates are pull throughout the day and recorded in the database to have daily historical rates. The conversion happens on the transaction date, not when the user records it. So if I manually record a transaction today that happened yesterday, as long as I enter yesterday's date on the transaction it will convert based on yesterday's rates. Each transaction will have it's local currency amount and home currency conversion amount. Then everything is rolled up for reports.
Founders Lifetime was offered mostly as a revenue bridge to fund the launch but also to treat those early users as a core group for feedback on the app and future roadmap. It's only for a limited number of slots which will be removed when it's reached.
manual entry is such an interesting call ngl, everyone's chasing plaid/auto-sync but you're right that it kills the awareness part. one thing I'm wondering about on the multi-currency side, are you using live spot rates per transaction or something like a daily fix for the rollup? that detail always trips up cross-border tools
Right now I'm using a daily rate for fx rates. I know that's not exactly what the rate is at transaction time because it can fluctuate throughout the day. But I think it's "good enough" for a couple reasons.
I don't think user's want to record a transaction with date/time (down to the exact minute). I think date is enough. So that means fx rates down to the minute aren't necessary.
If my base currency is USD and I spend THB in cash, the actual conversion that probably matters is what it was when I withdrew from the ATM. Because that's where it actually is affected by my home currency. However for me I don't track the ATM withdrawal. I track it when it's spent at a restaurant, shop, etc.
I know this doesn't provide an exact down to the penny view of the spending. But I think it's good enough for the average user.
that makes sense, the ATM withdrawal point especially. this is actually pretty close to something we built into Worldesk.ai, checking if the rate you got was fair against the live market rate at the time. since it's aimed more at cross-border transfers rather than personal finance tracking, it's not really competing with what you're building, might even be useful on the backend if you ever want to double check the fx data feeding your rollups. it's free too, so no harm checking it out if you're curious
Oh that's interesting. Well done on building that. I'm curious how often you see drastic differences in rates across banks on a day to day basis. I always assumed they were all relatively close but I bet there are certain instances where rates might have a wider margin
honestly, it varies more than people think, the gap can be bigger than people assume, especially depending on provider markup and how liquid the currency pair is
the 'constraint is the pitch' framing is the interesting part to me. manual entry isn't a missing feature, it's the whole product, same way multi-currency-done-right is. that's a hard thing to hold onto though, because every review is going to nudge you toward adding sync 'just as an option', and the second you do the honesty story blurs.
i made a similar bet on a totally different product (a youtube analytics thing, algolens) where i refuse to store the user's data or invent scores, even though competitors do both. the constraint scares some people off but it's the whole reason the ones who stay actually trust it. so i'd guard the limitation harder than the roadmap.
the thing i'd watch is what parent systems already flagged, week-one abandonment. friction-as-value only holds if the friction stays small. curious what your day-2 vs day-14 entry counts look like once you have them.
Going manual-first is a bold bet, and I kind of respect it. Most finance apps assume sync equals value. For some people, the friction of logging is the product.
Multi-currency with day-of-rate rollups is the stronger differentiator for me than “no Plaid.” That’s a real pain if your money crosses borders.
One risk: honesty-through-friction only works if entry is fast enough that people don’t abandon after week one. Onboarding speed probably decides this.
I built Make it RAIN for creators monetizing products, so I’m mostly watching how you pitch the intentional limitation. “No bank sync, on purpose” is clear. Keep that as the headline.
If I tried it, the first thing I’d test is how painful a 10-transaction day feels on mobile.
Thanks for the feedback. I specifically tried to focus on transaction entry speed. Because I manually enter my transactions right as they happen, I also want speed to be as fast as possible. I’m not sure I’m fully there yet but I think I’m on the right track.
Making manual entry the core feature instead of a fallback is an interesting positioning choice.
For the right audience, the habit of recording each transaction is part of the value, not friction. That's a very different promise than most finance apps make.
I agree. I know some people that love the ease of syncing their banks for transactions.
For me, because I pay cash (in Thai Baht currently) most of my transactions have to be manually tracked anyways. And so I got into the habit of tracking transactions right as they happen. I found syncing with Plaid just forced me to review transactions after the fact and remember what they were for. Instead of logging immediately as they happen.
Appreciate the context.
The habit vs convenience tradeoff is the interesting part here.
Would be curious to hear more about what you've learned from users around this.
What's the best email to reach you on?
My DMs are open on X @parentsystems
Thanks, appreciate it.
I don't use X much for conversations. Email is easier for me — what's the best email to reach you on?