Actual Budget
- Company typePrivate
- Founded-
- HeadquartersWakefield, United Kingdom
- Headcount—
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingSoftware
Actual Budget firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Actual Budget
- Legal name
- Actual Budget
- Website
- https://actualbudget.com
- Company type
- Private
- Operating status
- Operating
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Actual Budget is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Wakefield
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Markets served
Actual Budget business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Personnel
Revenue model
- Donations via Open Collective: The project accepts donations through Open Collective, a platform for open-source project funding. This provides a voluntary contribution model from users who wish to support development.
- PikaPods Hosting Referral: PikaPods hosts Actual Budget on their platform and donates 20% of fees to the Actual Budget Open Collective, creating a referral-based revenue stream.
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels6 records
Actual Budget product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Actual Budget is a free, open-source personal finance application that helps individual users manage their money through envelope budgeting methodology. The product enables users to track accounts, import and categorize transactions, sync bank data via goCardless and SimpleFIN, generate financial reports, and migrate data from competing tools like YNAB. It runs as a local-first application with optional end-to-end encryption, allowing users to retain full ownership and control of their financial data without subscription fees.
Product overview
Actual Budget is a single, unified personal finance application built around the Envelope Budgeting methodology. The core product (Actual Budget) serves as the primary budgeting and transaction management application, supported by a self-hosted sync service for multi-device synchronization and a developer API for custom extensions. Together, these components provide a complete local-first, privacy-focused financial management solution.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Quantifiable outcome
- Users can save hundreds of dollars per year by eliminating paid budgeting app subscriptions
Companies that use Actual Budget
Customer profileSegments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Actual Budget technology and API
TechnologyAPI detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration4 records
Feature9 records
Actual Budget partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- PikaPodscorePikaPods provides managed hosting for Actual Budget, allowing users to deploy the application in approximately 2 minutes without technical expertise. PikaPods donates 20% of fees paid by Actual Budget users to the project's Open Collective. This partnership makes self-hosting accessible to non-technical users while providing a funding mechanism for the open-source project.
- goCardlesscoreGoCardless integration provides bank syncing functionality for users in the European Union and United Kingdom, enabling automated transaction import directly into Actual Budget.
- SimpleFINcoreSimpleFIN integration provides bank syncing functionality for users in the United States and Canada, enabling automated transaction import directly into Actual Budget.
Scale indicators2 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights4 records
Actual Budget competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Lunch Money: A modern indie PFM tool with budgeting, transaction management, and developer API. Overlaps with Actual on envelope-style budgeting and developer extensibility, but is subscription-based and cloud-hosted.
Broad incumbents
- Rocket Money: A consumer subscription and budgeting app with bank-sync, bill negotiation, and savings features. Overlaps with Actual on budgeting and bank sync but operates as a fully managed, VC-funded cloud service.
- Monarch Money: A modern subscription-based PFM platform that emerged after Mint's shutdown. Competes for the same household budgeting and net-worth tracking use cases as Actual, but with a fully managed cloud experience and paid subscription model.
- Copilot Money: A mobile-first, design-forward PFM app with bank sync, budgeting, and investment tracking. Serves a similar design-conscious, privacy-aware consumer segment but is iOS-only and subscription-based.
- Empower Personal Dashboard: Free net-worth-tracking and budgeting dashboard (formerly Personal Capital). Overlaps with Actual's net-worth and cash-flow reporting features but is tied to a wealth-management business.
- PocketGuard: A consumer budgeting and expense-tracking app with bank sync. Targets a similar mass-market budgeting audience but as a closed, ad/subscription-supported cloud product.
Direct peers
- Buckets: A cross-platform envelope-style budgeting tool with both self-hosted and cloud options. Targets the same envelope-budgeting methodology and privacy-conscious segment as Actual.
- Firefly III: An open-source, self-hosted personal finance manager built on Laravel. Targets the same privacy-conscious, self-hosting user base with similar budgeting, account tracking, and reporting capabilities.
- YNAB (You Need A Budget): The leading commercial envelope-budgeting app. YNAB is Actual Budget's primary named competitor; Actual is explicitly positioned as a free, privacy-focused YNAB alternative and offers a built-in migration tool for YNAB4 and nYNAB users.
- GnuCash: Long-standing open-source personal and small-business accounting software. Competes in the same self-hosted PFM category with double-entry accounting, though it is more complex and desktop-centric than Actual.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Actual Budget social profiles
Digital presenceActual Budget financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Actual Budget leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Actual Budget funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Actual Budget M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Actual Budget
What does Actual Budget do?
Actual Budget is a free, open-source personal finance application that helps individual users manage their money through envelope budgeting methodology. The product enables users to track accounts, import and categorize transactions, sync bank data via goCardless and SimpleFIN, generate financial reports, and migrate data from competing tools like YNAB. It runs as a local-first application with optional end-to-end encryption, allowing users to retain full ownership and control of their financial data without subscription fees.
Is Actual Budget a public or private company?
Actual Budget is a private company. It is classified as unknown and is currently operating.
When was Actual Budget founded?
Actual Budget was founded in -1.
Where is Actual Budget based?
Actual Budget is headquartered in Wakefield, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does Actual Budget make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Donations via Open Collective is the primary driver. The others are pikaPods Hosting Referral.
Who are Actual Budget's main competitors?
Lunch Money is listed as an emerging player. Broad incumbents are Rocket Money, Monarch Money, Copilot Money, Empower Personal Dashboard and PocketGuard. Direct peers are Buckets, Firefly III, YNAB (You Need A Budget) and GnuCash.
Does Actual Budget have an API?
Yes. Actual Budget provides a fully-featured API that runs on local data. Developers can use the API to write custom importers or build their own features. Developer documentation is at actualbudget.org/docs/api.