Banktivity

Banktivity is personal finance software for macOS, iPhone, and iPad made by IGG Software, a company focused exclusively on Mac and iOS development. It's designed as an all-in-one account and investment tracker that consolidates your complete financial picture into a single application running on your Apple devices. For more than 20 years, tens of thousands of people have relied on Banktivity to manage their money, giving it a track record of stability and continuous development that speaks to the company's commitment to the product. If you own a Mac and iPhone or iPad, Banktivity syncs your financial data across all your Apple devices, so your account information is current whether you're checking it from your computer or your phone. The seamless syncing across Apple's ecosystem is one of its core strengths: you can start budgeting on your Mac, review your net worth on your iPad, and check your cash balance on your iPhone without worrying about data freshness. It's built specifically for macOS and iOS, which means you get native integration and performance that web or cross-platform apps often can't match, with smooth animations and responsive interfaces. That ecosystem lock-in is both its greatest strength and its most obvious limitation: if you ever switch to Android or Windows, you're leaving Banktivity behind with no easy migration path.

Connecting to Your Banks

Banktivity connects to over 14,000 banks for automatic transaction syncing, a figure that covers the vast majority of mainstream US financial institutions. The app uses a secure connection to pull your transactions from your financial institutions without storing your login credentials on the company's servers. Your data is protected with end-to-end encryption, which is a significant privacy feature: Banktivity cannot see your financial information even on its own systems. This means when your transactions sync, Banktivity has visibility only into the aggregate and categorized data you see in the app, not the raw account credentials. Once connected, your transactions sync across your Mac devices, though the site does not specify how often this sync occurs (hourly, daily, on-demand), whether you can manually trigger a refresh, or exactly what happens if a bank changes its connection method or access is temporarily interrupted. The 14,000-bank figure suggests most mainstream US institutions are covered, but the site does not clarify whether credit unions (which often use separate systems) or smaller regional banks are included, though the breadth suggests reasonable coverage. The site emphasizes privacy and encryption but does not disclose whether Banktivity uses Plaid (a third-party aggregator that many apps use) or direct bank APIs (which offer tighter integration). If knowing the exact connection method matters to your decision, you'd need to dig into the full documentation or contact their support team.

Budgeting and Investment Features

Banktivity uses envelope budgeting, a zero-based approach where you allocate every dollar to a spending category before you spend it. You create customizable budgets tailored to your life, track actual spending against them in real time, and view reports showing where your money went over any time period. The envelope method is concrete and powerful for people who want to control spending rather than just observe it after the fact. Beyond budgeting, Banktivity includes investment portfolio tracking where you can track holdings, calculate internal rates of return on investments, track individual lot capital gains (important for tax planning), and compute IRR on specific stocks you sell. You can model retirement scenarios with different spending levels, savings rates, and return assumptions, then set a target retirement date and track your progress toward it in real time. The app calculates your net worth across all accounts including checking, savings, credit cards, loans, and investments, presenting it as "the one number that tells you if you are actually making progress." This breadth is genuinely impressive: a single app handles day-to-day budgets, investing, and long-term retirement planning rather than forcing you to juggle multiple tools or spreadsheets. The combination appeals to people who want a comprehensive financial dashboard rather than a specialized budgeting tool that ignores investments and long-term goals.

Pricing and Free Trial

Banktivity does not list prices on its homepage or the captured pages, which is a notable omission for a paid app. The site offers a 30-day free trial and mentions multiple subscription tiers ("any level of Banktivity"), but the actual cost for each tier is not shown on the captured pages. No credit card is required to try Banktivity, which removes a friction point and lets you genuinely evaluate the app on Mac, iPhone, and iPad without commitment. The 30-day trial period is substantial enough to evaluate whether the app fits your workflow and whether the features justify the cost (once you find out what it is). However, the absence of published pricing on the main site is a significant gap for a money management app, since the choice between a free or low-cost alternative and a paid subscription is often the deciding factor. You'll need to download the trial or navigate to the pricing page to see what each tier costs, what's included in each level, and whether any features require additional payment.

Who It Suits Best

Banktivity suits Apple users with macOS and iOS devices who want a native, comprehensive finance app that syncs seamlessly across devices. It's ideal for people who own investments and want to track retirement progress and net worth alongside daily budgeting, all in one place rather than juggling multiple apps or spreadsheets. It appeals to people concerned with privacy and security, since the company encrypts data end-to-end and doesn't store your banking credentials. The combination of budgeting, investing, and retirement planning tools makes it especially valuable for people who want an integrated view of their complete financial life. It's less suitable for anyone with an Android phone or Windows computer, since Banktivity runs exclusively on Apple platforms. If you use both Apple and non-Apple devices in your household or work, you won't have a consistent experience or data sharing across your ecosystem. There's no mention of a free forever tier, so ongoing use beyond the 30-day trial requires a paid subscription, and the pricing isn't published on the site. If your financial institution isn't in the 14,000-bank network (unlikely for major US banks but possible for credit unions or regional institutions), you'd need to verify compatibility before committing. For Mac-centric households managing everything from day-to-day spending to investments and retirement, Banktivity delivers an unusually complete toolset in a native app.