FreeBudget

Short version

FreeBudget is a free, web-based budgeting app (installable as a PWA) run by Budget Social Inc, a US company. You set a monthly limit per category and watch spending against it, with optional rollover per category. Around that sit recurring schedules, loan tracking, net worth, reports and shared budgets for up to five people. The core is free; the one paid piece is optional bank linking through Plaid, at $0.99/mo for two accounts and $0.50/mo for each extra one.

Research-based profile, not hands-on testing. Written on 2026-10-06 from the vendor's own feature pages, FAQ, privacy, security and terms pages, its blog and press page, and one independent blog review. I did not sign up, start a trial or connect a bank.

How the budgeting works

• Each category gets a monthly limit and a fill bar shows how much you have used. An actual-vs-budget report puts plan and spending side by side and exports to PDF or CSV.
• Rollover is configured per category. You choose what happens to unspent money and, separately, to overspending (carry it, ignore it, or deduct it from next month). The budget page shows planned, rollover and effective amounts.
• Recurring schedules (weekly, biweekly, monthly, yearly) create transactions on each due date, can be paused or given an end date, and can carry a split template. The vendor warns they can duplicate bank-synced transactions if you use both on the same account.
• Loan tracking records balances, rates and payments, and splits each payment into principal, interest and fees so only principal counts toward payoff. Loans also count as liabilities in net worth.
• Shared budgets let up to five people work from one budget with their own logins, edit or view roles, transaction reviews (a question sent to another member) and an activity log.

It is category-limit budgeting, not zero-based or envelope funding; I found no vendor page describing either workflow.

Cost

• Free: budgeting, manual entry, CSV import, reports, loan tracking and shared budgets, per the vendor's FAQ and feature pages.
• Bank linking: $0.99/mo for the first two accounts, $0.50/mo per account after that. The vendor describes this as covering its provider costs.
• The FAQ says optional premium features are planned later and the core stays free. There is no pricing page (the /pricing URL returns 404), so future pricing is unknown.

Bank sync, import and mobile

Bank linking uses Plaid and covers US and Canadian institutions, including cards, loans and investment accounts. Manual entry and CSV import stay free; imports let you map columns, save a template and flag likely duplicates before confirming. There is no native iOS or Android app, only the PWA.

Privacy and security

The vendor states no ads, no sale of personal data, TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and AES-256 at rest, and says it does not store bank credentials. The privacy policy describes account deletion, and exports are available. The code is closed and I found no named audit or certification. The security page mentions two-factor authentication for staff access to production, not a sign-in option for users, so I did not count it as user MFA.

Who it suits

People in the US who want a free, no-frills web budget with rollover, recurring items, loan tracking and a shared household view, and who are fine without a native app. Households that want one budget for up to five people get that without a fee.

Who may struggle

Anyone who wants a native app, zero-based or envelope-style assignment, reconciliation against statements, true multi-currency accounting, or users outside the US (the terms say US residents only).

Not confirmed

Founding year; a reconcile or cleared-vs-pending workflow; user two-factor sign-in; separate multiple budgets per account; any independent security audit; future premium pricing. Independent user feedback is thin: I found one blog review (which carries an affiliate disclosure) and creator videos listed on the vendor's own press page, and I could not open Reddit.

Vendor pages that disagree

The budgeting page says unspent budget does not carry over automatically, while the separate rollover page documents per-category rollover. I treated the rollover page as the more specific description.

Bottom line

A free, active, fairly complete web budget for US households, with the main trade-offs being no native app, no documented reconciliation or zero-based workflow, and very little independent track record so far.

Ratings are set separately against a shared rubric.