Real Budget

Short version

RealBudget is an envelope budgeting app from Limitless Innovative Technologies LLC. You create envelopes, give each one money for a budget period, and record spending against them. The free plan covers that on the web and on one phone or tablet. A $3 a month Share tier adds invited members and use across several devices, and a $10 a month Sync tier adds automatic bank import in the US and Canada. It is a plain, narrow app on purpose, and it does that job with good store ratings.

Research-based, not hands-on. Written on 2026-09-30 from the vendor's home page, privacy policy and guide pages, the App Store listing and its version history, the Google Play listing, and a store-data summary site. I did not sign up, start a trial or connect a bank, and the web app itself shows no public content, so I did not see the screens beyond the vendor's own images.

How it budgets

You make envelopes for categories such as groceries, gas or savings, assign money to each, and watch what is left as you add transactions. Budget periods are flexible: monthly, weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, quarterly, yearly and more, with a choice to carry leftover funds forward. That makes it a good fit for people who budget by paycheck. Savings envelopes hold money for longer goals, and you can transfer between envelopes.

In December 2025 the App Store notes added an Income Tracking Mode, which tracks income for each period and uses it to guide how much you allocate, with recurring income, bank sync and optional hold amounts. That is the only recurring item I found. I saw no recurring bills, no reports besides CSV export, no debt or credit card handling and no reconciliation workflow. Those are blanks in my notes, not confirmed absences, and a few of them may simply be undocumented.

Cost

• Free: unlimited envelopes and budgets, manual entry, web plus one mobile device.
• Share: $3 a month. Real-time sharing, invited members and multiple devices.
• Sync: $10 a month, includes Share. Automatic bank import and spending estimates from past transactions during setup.
• A 30-day trial is offered to first-time subscribers on the App Store. The site shows no yearly price, so $36 a year for Share is just the monthly rate times twelve.
• One App Store reviewer says the developer offers the premium tier free to people who cannot afford it. I could not find that on the vendor's pages, so treat it as a reported claim.

Getting data in and out

• In: bank import on the Sync tier, US and Canada only. I found no file import.
• Out: CSV export of budget data, listed in the App Store description.

Privacy and security

The policy says it does not sell personal data, that bank credentials go to Plaid and never reach RealBudget, and that analytics and crash reports are opt-in. You can request a copy or deletion of your data, with deletion completed within 30 days, and Plaid-derived data goes when you delete your account. Bank access is described as read-only on the home page. It says data is encrypted in transit, and Google Play's data safety section says the same; I found no statement about encryption at rest and no independent audit, so I did not count either. The policy says budget data is stored in Firebase's Firestore.

Recent activity

The App Store shows version 3.8.4 from 22 July 2026, with a run of releases before it: onboarding changes in April and May, a text-only envelope list brought back in May, performance fixes in May and June, and a feedback option plus a way to hide bank accounts in July. The first release was on 30 December 2022. That is steady, small-team maintenance, but the changes are mostly polish, and I found no public roadmap.

What people say

The App Store lists 4.9 from 138 ratings and Google Play lists 4.7 from about 500 reviews with 10K+ downloads. Reviewers praise simplicity, free use, the visual envelope idea, easy sharing with a spouse, and a responsive developer. Reported complaints are small: notes are hard to see in the transaction list, the sharing options were hard to find for one reviewer, there is no transaction splitting, and it is glitchy at times. Store reviews are public, but I could not check who wrote them. I found no independent articles or forum threads about it, so outside coverage is still thin.

What is distinct

Not much, and the vendor says so with a page pitching RealBudget as a lighter alternative to a well-known budgeting app. Within that, the choices that do stand out are flexible pay-period budgets with carry-over, a cheap Share tier separate from bank sync, and income tracking that guides allocation.

Not confirmed

Recurring bills, reports, debt and credit card handling, reconciliation, multi-currency, offline use, file import and the web app's own features.

Who it suits

• People who want a free, simple envelope budget and are happy to type transactions in.
• Couples who want to share one budget for a low monthly price without paying for bank sync.
• People paid biweekly or semi-monthly who want budget periods that match.

Who might look elsewhere

• Anyone who wants reports, debt tracking, recurring bills or reconciliation.
• Anyone who wants bank sync outside the US and Canada, or a lower price for bank sync.
• Anyone who wants an independent security audit or a detailed public changelog and roadmap.

Notes

Ratings are set separately against a shared rubric.