Fintech is a thriving sector nowadays. The Internet of Things, neural networks, cloud solutions, and blockchain transform how individuals handle their finances. Now mobile apps are critical to getting all of these technologies to customers, particularly those born in the 2000s who can’t picture their life without a smartphone.
These digital changes also gave rise to so-called personal finance applications, which help you budget your money by allowing you to manage and analyze all of your expenses and incomes from multiple payment services and credit cards in one location.
You can create a budget app for a successful business: demand is continually increasing, yet there is no clear winner among existing options. Surf has a lot of expertise with fintech applications: we’ve produced one app for crypto exchange and four banking apps so far.
If you’re thinking about making one, this post is for you — we will look at how to create a budget app, its cost, and the features you can include in it.
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Mint is a famous free application for keeping track of personal finances. The software keeps track of all transactions, subscriptions, and expenses for the user and provides a complete analysis of their spending habits and net worth.
A feature known as ‘Mintsights’ provides personalized advice about how to save money. Users may also use the app to keep track of their tax funds, pay bills, and obtain a credit score for free.
Before you create a budget app, take a look at this one. After a month’s free trial, YNAB costs $11.99 a month, but somehow it remains one of the most favorite budgeting apps. By setting money objectives, the app analyses expenses and assists users in getting out of debt and improving their financial health. The app’s crew offers live help 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and hosts interactive webinars about personal finance topics.
Pocketguard is a simple app that records spending patterns, keeps track of bills (and even helps users get better rates on them), and allows users to create financial goals. The app’s basic version is free, but a premium edition costs $7.99 a month and includes features like customizable spending categories, debt payoff planning, and transaction export.
Again a free app with nearly 3 million users is Personal Capital. The application provides tools for monitoring investment portfolios and generating retirement savings, in addition to setting long and short-term goals, personal recommendations, and cash flow tracking.
When users switch between their desktops and phones, a desktop version of the application provides a smooth experience. Before you create a budget app, learning from the already famous ones will help you avoid mistakes and repetitiveness.
The rising number of personal finance applications puts pressure on banking industry players, who work relentlessly to provide money management solutions within their apps. Some examples of banking apps featuring sophisticated financial management tools are Ally Mobile and Alliant Mobile Banking apps by Ally Financial bank holding company and Alliant Credit Union.
Chatbots linked with iMessage and Facebook Messenger, and standalone applications are other significant competitors to budget apps. Chip, Digit, and Cleo are three of the most prominent services.
When people connect their banking accounts on the chatbot’s website, AI-driven algorithms begin studying their transactions and sending helpful recommendations via messages about how to work on improving spending patterns and general financial health.
A few of them, like Plum, save money immediately and allow users to earn interest on it. Chatbots get stronger as more people use them; the more data AI analyses, the better it generates correct recommendations.
You need to understand the working before you create a budget app. For new users, the onboarding process should be as quick and straightforward as possible: in addition to registration through phone number or email, don’t forget to include Facebook and Google connections for quick sign-up.
Following sign-up, each user will be able to connect their existing payment services and bank accounts, such as Webmoney, PayPal, and others, using secure APIs such that the application may begin recording transaction history.
We recommend incorporating basic demographic questions, such as marital status, gender, and age, that users can answer at onboarding or later if they like; this information can be utilized to provide more personalized savings and spending recommendations.
After users link their banking accounts, the software begins analyzing and recording their transactions automatically. It’s critical to have many options for non-trackable transaction input, such as unlinked accounts or cash. That can be accomplished by using a home screen widget, integrating voice assistants like Siri, or using the phone’s camera like a rapid receipt scanner.
The software should then begin categorizing expenses based on information from payment services and banks and, if no data is available, recognize them using machine learning and AI algorithms. Also, don’t forget to provide the ability to alter categories and manually tag transactions, as this will give consumers more control over their finances.
People wouldn’t want to get distracted by another set of long lists and spreadsheets, so the analytics overview should be given in a straightforward and modern-looking format. Charts with animation and appealing graphics are the most distinctive approach to demonstrate expense breakdown.
Remember to figure out a dark theme color scheme in terms of visual design, as many users will be using the application at night, post-work, and some other activities.
Once Surf collaborated on an application for the Twim cryptocurrency exchange, we utilized bright orange typefaces with shades of a white and dark background to make late-night traders’ eyes less strained and prevent the release of melatonin, the “sleep hormone.”
After getting a sense of where the money’s going, the user can set personalized goals, such as reducing spending in certain areas, saving a specific amount of money, or sticking to a monthly budget. Integration with e-stores and popular marketplaces APIs might also be an intriguing feature that allows users to designate specific products as their goals.
When the software learns about the user’s financial habits and traits, the algorithms can forecast how much they will spend on each spending category in the coming period, thereby acting as a personal budget planner app.
The software begins to function as a personal financial counselor, offering its users the best methods to cut spending, recommending investing alternatives, reminding them about bills, recurring payments, and so on, using budget forecasts and expense analysis data. Additionally, the app can offer users exclusive discounts on clothing, vacations, and other services and things, which can monetize the app through agreements with various businesses.
The app can employ push and in-app notifications and emails with monthly reports to connect with customers. Implement notification options that allow you to turn off and on specific sorts of messages for a more tailored experience.
Fintech apps handle and store a lot of personal information. A single example of a security breach made public might permanently damage the app’s reputation. Many potential users have reservations about the safety of budgeting apps.
Therefore it’s crucial to explain the security procedures in-depth and ensure the required security standards after launch. That is why investing in high-grade encryption and thorough testing of the budgeting app is critical. Every third-party integration must also be adequately checked for security. When you create a budget app, keep all of this in mind.
When Surf was working on a new edition of the UniCredit banking app, we tested every line of code. That was primarily accomplished through autotests, which accounted for approximately 65 percent of all testing and saved substantial time and money – for example, automating 75 percent of sanity tests (which are performed by testers rather than programmers) reduced total testing hours from 18 to 6.
The autotests were developed in Gherkin, a simple language for testers to comprehend, enabling a smooth transition of the program to the UniCredit team.
The following are some of the most important security aspects for a personal finance app:
As Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies become more popular, consumers must link their crypto wallets to a budgeting tool. Cryptocurrencies account for a significant portion of many people’s investments, and a portfolio analysis without crypto will be incomplete.
It is critical to keep users interested for an application to be a long-term success. When it comes to the not-so-fun topic of money management, this can be accomplished by gamifying the process of achieving financial objectives and saving.
When you create a budget app, you can make it a little bit more fun by rewarding customers for their accomplishments through a tier or achievement system. Beautiful animations and images highlighting how little frequent savings add up to a significant sum of money over time will also help users comprehend the app’s impact on their financial wellness.
The budget software should act as a tool for tracking savings and expenses and as a mentor and advisor to its users to help them live better lives. The software learns about the customer’s behavior. It can deliver helpful advice on how to minimize spending, get out of debt, and boost credit scores by leveraging the power of Al and big data because the app is always on the user’s phone.
It can teach them about investing concepts and budgeting solutions in a non-binding and time-efficient manner, making it a good substitute for extensive web articles or financial classes.
In general, the cost of developing a budget app is from $80,000 to $90,000. The final amount is determined by various criteria, including the size of the team, the number of features, and the technological stack chosen, among others. We go over all of them in detail in our article on mobile app development costs and timelines, but we’ll go over the most relevant ones here.
You’ll have to design two unique Android and iOS, written in a different programming language (Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android). While this method allows you to make the most of platform resources and produce apps with low bug risk and excellent speed, it’s also expensive because you’ll have to maintain two teams of developers working on two different products.
Cross-platform frameworks, on the other hand, allow developers to create apps for Android and iOS from a single codebase with minor changes and adjustments. Cross-platform development surpasses native development in terms of cost because you’ll only need one team of developers to produce apps for both platforms but have somewhat higher hourly rates.
For example, when Surf created apps for the Rigla pharmaceutical chain, we saved 40% of the client’s initial budget by employing a cross-platform approach.
We have experience building banking apps using both cross-platform and native frameworks at Surf. We use Flutter for cross-platform development, a recent framework that stands out above other technologies thanks to its highly flexible UI, extensive testing capabilities, and outstanding performance.
The number of features included in your budget app reflects the total cost of development. Depending on the complexity, each integration with a payment provider or device’s hardware takes a set number of hours to create.
As a result, it’s best to start with an MVP (minimum viable product) that contains the most distinguishing and crucial aspects of the future app. You’ll have a better idea of what features to include and which can be taken out or postponed entirely to save resources by testing the usability of this prototype.
The pay of your team members is determined by where they live. You don’t have to restrict your best talent by the local town and even country because developers can quickly work remotely. Hiring offshore expertise can help you save money without sacrificing quality.
For example, while US workers expect to be paid $100 or more per hour, Russian or Ukrainian developers expect to be paid $35-40 per hour for a code of comparable (if not superior) quality.
As more people try to gain better financial management, they can achieve this objective by creating a budget app while also providing a valuable commercial opportunity for the inventor.
A modern personal finance app must provide all required capabilities for analyzing, presenting, and forecasting customers’ costs, as well as individualized ideas and guidance, as well as the most significant level of security.
There are many ways to monetize such an app, including paid subscriptions for premium features, partnerships with marketplaces and advertisers. A productive personal finance app could be sold to a multinational corporation, perhaps with a bank hoping to secure a position within the industry.
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