Comparison Tables

Compare the amazing features of the first real budget software on the planet with the same-old ineffective, traditional, paycheck-by-paycheck budgeting offered by EveryDollar

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

Platform

Desktop/Laptop (Windows, macOS with Windows emulation software such as Parallels)

Online/Mobile app

License

$39.95 after 60-day free trial

Free (track spending manually)
EveryDollar Plus - $129.99/year

Charts/graphs

EveryDollar Plus

Calculators

ramseysolutions.com

Calculate net worth

Manual (saved history)

Financial roadmap feature

Calculate debt-to-income ratio

Manual (saved)

ramseysolutions.com

Store contact and access information for bills, credit cards and any other contact

Optional (account numbers and passwords not used)

Account numbers, user names and passwords

Available world-wide

United States and Canada

Index

Budget Spaces

Bills

Budgeting

Debt

Checking Account

Credit Cards

Income

Sinking Funds

Spending

Savings

Budget Spaces

Think of a budget space as a file folder in which you have all of the tools you need to manage the income that flows through the budget space's checking account.

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

A new budget space is inactive until bills are paid for the first time

Clone a budget space to facilitate playing "what if?" without affecting the cloned budget space

Create a budget that begins on a future date for an event (e.g. getting married, starting a small business)

Advance Plan feature

Unlimited number of budget spaces

Designed to be one per household budget

Married couples only need one account. Each account has access to 1 email address.

Budgeting

A budget is defined as an estimate of income and expenses for a specified future period. For personal budgeting, the concern is how the income flowing into your household will be used for a future period of twelve months. Being able to see your cash flow for the coming year gives you two advantages.

(1) You can see, in advance, if your current spending will result in planned overspending, in any of the future 12 months, in time to make adjustments.
(2) You have the ability to play "What if?" with any part of your spending plan to see how a change you are contemplating will affect your future cash flow.

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

All-inclusive cash flow plan (income, spending, bills, credit cards, sinking funds, savings) for next 12 months

Cash flow plan is automatically organized into twice monthly bill pay dates

Net cash flow (income minus expenses) is calculated twice each month on bill pay dates

Future cash flow is planned so that net cash flow each month for the next 12 months is positive

A negative net cash flow over the next 12 months is an advance warning of planned overspending

Share budget

Print, ZIP, export (comma or tab delimited) entire budget or share a budget backup folder with or without contact information

Export transactions from EveryDollar Plus
Print budget with browser's print function

Traditional monthly budgeting and expense tracking paycheck-by-paycheck

Zero-based budgeting

Budget by putting limits on spending categories for the next month

Checking Account

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

In each budget space, manage the income flowing through one checking account

Automatically maintain transaction register

Use transaction file downloaded from bank website

From any bank website with user defined transaction map

Manual or semi-automatic balancing of monthly statements with downloaded transactions

Import transactions from any number of accounts

EveryDollar Plus

Income

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

Automatic projection of deposits from all expected incomes for next 12 months

Projected incomes can have a normal paycheck amount received on any schedule, an hourly work schedule or be unpredictable

Manual entry of checking account deposits

EveryDollar Plus
Manual Paycheck Planning

Ignore paydays except to record deposits

Alerts when scheduled deposits are due

Optional AutoDeposit feature

Play "what if?" with any budgeted or anticipated income over the next 12 months

Spending

Failure to control out of pocket spending is the usual reason people get in trouble with their finances. Having a consistent amount of weekly spending money, regardless of when paydays happen, is the key to successful budgeting.

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

Custom weekly allowance with neither planning nor tracking of how spent

Total allowance for each month automatically set aside

Play "what if?" with possible changes to weekly allowance over next 12 months

Track spending

EveryDollar Plus

Bills

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

Show all bills

Alerts when bill payments are due

Automatic scheduling of payments for any type of bill for next 12 months

Option to assign a payment lead time to a bill to automatically schedule payments in advance of the due dates

Automatic checklist for paying bills organized by the type of payment

Bills are paid and set-asides done on a bill pay date with money that is in the checking account on the bill pay date

Bills can be linked to either a sinking fund or short-term saving to automatically use the money in the linked sinking fund or saving to help make payments to the linked bill

Play "what if?" with any budgeted or anticipated bill over the next 12 months

Debt

* Base pay-off plan on your choice of the number of payments or a payment amount

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

* Create custom pay-off plan for one debt

Create custom snowball pay-off plan for multiple debts

ramseysolutions.com

* Create automatic amortization plan for high balance credit cards

Play "what if?" with any possible pay-off plan to see the effect of the plan on net cash flow for the next 12 months

Track debt balances

EveryDollar Plus
Credit cards only

Credit Cards

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

Optional 4-step method for managing charging activity to avoid paying interest or fees, identify fraudulent activity and clearly see the affect of charging on net cash flow

Use transaction file downloaded from credit card website

From any bank website with user defined transaction map

Manual entry or semi-automatic import and entry of downloaded credit card transactions

Manual reconciliation or semi-automatic reconciling of monthly credit card statements with downloaded transactions

Credit cards can be linked to either a sinking fund or short-term saving to automatically use the money in the linked sinking fund or saving to help make payments to the linked credit card

Collect transactions

EveryDollar Plus

Sinking Funds

You use a sinking fund to save up money to buy something in the future. Sinking funds can be short- or long-term.

> Short-term sinking funds are used to buy relatively inexpensive items within a short time frame. Earning interest on the money set aside for a short-term sinking fund is not a concern. The money stays in the budget space's checking account.

> Long-term sinking funds are for large purchases well into the future (e.g. down payment on a house). Earning interest or dividends on the money in a long-term sinking fund can significantly contribute to the growth of the fund. The money in a long-term sinking fund is set aside by transferring the money, via scheduled or unscheduled payments, from the budget space's checking account to an external saving or investment account.

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

Automatic calculation and scheduling of short-term sinking fund set-asides

The money automatically set aside for short-term sinking funds remains in the checking account

Automatic scheduling of calculated long-term sinking fund set aside payments to external accounts

Play "what if?" with any possible sinking fund to see the effect of the set-asides on net cash flow for the next 12 months

Manual sinking funds

Savings

Saving is the process of setting aside part of your current income for future use. The reason for saving your money can be anything. The lifespan of a saving plan can be:

> Short-term - the money stays in the budget space's checking account for immediate availability
> Long-term - the money is transferred, via scheduled or unscheduled payments, from the budget space's checking account to an external saving or investment account

A Real Budget

EveryDollar

Automatic scheduling of selected short-term saving set-asides (emergency fund, periodic savings, ongoing savings)

Scheduled short-term savings can be a percent of an income or a fixed monthly amount

The money automatically set-aside for short-term savings remains in the checking account

Automatic scheduling of calculated long-term saving set aside payments to external accounts (e.g. investments, retirement)

Play "what if?" with any possible saving to see the effect of the set-asides on net cash flow for the next 12 months

Manual savings

You're right. EveryDollar doesn't come anywhere close to matching the awesome features of A Real Budget.

It's time to get real with your budget.

Start your free 60-day trial today

Comparison Tables

Index

Budget Spaces

Think of a budget space as a file folder in which you have all of the tools you need to manage the income that flows through the budget space's checking account.

Budgeting

Checking Account

Income

Spending

Failure to control out of pocket spending is the usual reason people get in trouble with their finances. Having a consistent amount of weekly spending money, regardless of when paydays happen, is the key to successful budgeting.

Bills

Debt

* Base pay-off plan on your choice of the number of payments or a payment amount

Credit Cards

Sinking Funds

Savings

You're right. EveryDollar doesn't come anywhere close to matching the awesome features of A Real Budget.It's time to get real with your budget.

You're right. EveryDollar doesn't come anywhere close to matching the awesome features of A Real Budget.

It's time to get real with your budget.