Coming from YNAB
CAPITOR as a YNAB alternative — where it fits, and where it doesn't
YNAB is a serious budgeting tool with a method behind it, and this page isn't going to pretend otherwise. It is for people who want two specific things YNAB doesn't set out to do: a to-do list that lives in the same place as the money, and an app that is free and works without an account. If neither matters to you, keep YNAB.
What stays familiar
The habits you already have still work
Accounts and categories
- Accounts, cards, cash and deposits — in any currency, several at once
- Categories with budgets; envelope-style budgets carry the remainder over
- Transfers between your own accounts, kept out of income and expenses
- Recurring payments and subscriptions
Reports
- Spending by category, month by month
- Net worth and how it moves
- A calendar of expensive days
- Export to CSV and PDF
Getting transactions in
- File-based import: CSV and Excel from your bank
- Paste the text of a statement, or drop in a screenshot of your banking app
- Duplicate detection when the same statement comes in twice
What's different
Four things you won't find in a budgeting app
A task can be a payment
- "Pay the internet bill, 29" is a task with an amount, an account and a category
- Tick it off — the transaction is written and the balance moves
- Bills, rent and loan payments live on the calendar, not in a separate app
Capital, not only spending
- Property with an inventory, debts, deposits — one net-worth figure
- Debt payoff plan: snowball or avalanche
- A quit habit becomes savings you can watch compound
Offline and private by default
- No account needed; everything works on the device
- Cloud backup, AI insights and desktop sync are opt-in
- No bank logins, ever
Free
- Free, with no advertising in 2026
- A paid Premium tier arrives in 2027; the essentials stay free
- Six interface languages: English, Russian, Greek, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese
Move your data
Bring your transactions with you
Step by step
- In YNAB, export your transactions to a CSV file (YNAB offers this from the budget settings).
- In CAPITOR open Finance → Import statement and choose the file. CAPITOR reads CSV and Excel and looks for the date, amount and description columns.
- Check the preview: categories are suggested from the descriptions, and anything already present is flagged as a duplicate.
- Confirm. Accounts you don't have yet are created on the way.
Budgets and category targets don't transfer automatically — those you set again in CAPITOR, which usually takes a few minutes for a typical household budget.
Honest bit
When YNAB is the better choice
Stay with YNAB if
You want direct bank import — YNAB connects to select banks in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU; CAPITOR deliberately never connects to a bank, so transactions arrive by file, text, screenshot or by hand. You are invested in the envelope method as a discipline, with its education and community around it. Or you need one subscription for up to six people — CAPITOR's family sharing is simpler than that today.
YNAB is priced at $109 a year or $14.99 a month after a 34-day trial, with no free plan (as listed on ynab.com at the time of writing). CAPITOR is free. That difference matters to some people and not at all to others; you know which you are.
YNAB is a trademark of its owner; CAPITOR is not affiliated with it. Facts about YNAB are taken from its public website and may change.