Kittysplit

Kittysplit is a free online calculator for splitting shared expenses among friends, roommates, or family groups. The app runs in any web browser without requiring installation or registration, making it accessible to anyone with a link. It was founded in 2012 by a group of developers in Berlin who were frustrated with the complexity of Excel sheets when trying to settle up after a group ski trip. The core product has remained true to that origin: it is designed to answer one question, who owes what, without pushing you into ongoing account management or subscriptions.

No Signup, No Apps, Just a Link

Kittysplit works through a shared link called a Kitty. One person creates a Kitty by naming an event (a ski weekend, a bachelor party, a shared rental house) and listing the participants. They then send a link to everyone involved. No one needs to create an account, download an app, or remember a password. Each person taps the link, opens it in a browser or mobile app, and adds the expenses they paid. Because there is no central login, Kittysplit works across devices seamlessly. A friend on an old Android phone, a work laptop, or a borrowed Chromebook can all contribute to the same Kitty from their link.

Kittysplit has no bank connections and no automated syncing. This is a deliberate design choice. Instead of importing transactions, you manually enter what people paid and for what. This means the app works anywhere in the world and with any currency, because it is not trying to read banking data, it is simply tracking who paid what. The tradeoff is that you must do the data entry yourself. For a weekend trip, this is minimal work. For ongoing household budgeting, manual entry becomes tedious.

The app is genuinely free for groups up to 9 people. You can create as many Kitties as you want, track unlimited expenses, add comments to expenses (including emojis), and settle up without paying anything. Kittysplit does not show ads and does not lock basic functionality behind a free trial that expires.

The Split Options and Math

When you add an expense to a Kitty, you specify who paid and then choose how to split it. The default is to split equally among everyone in the group. You can override this by choosing to split by fixed amounts (one person gets charged 10 USD, another 23 USD), by shares (one person gets one share, another gets two shares), or by percentages. For couples and families, this matters. If one partner spent the night away and should not split the dinner bill, you can adjust it. If one person in a rental house decided not to join a group activity, you can exclude them from that expense only.

When you are ready to settle up, Kittysplit shows you exactly who owes whom and optimizes the settlement. Rather than Person A paying Person B, Person B paying Person C, and Person C paying Person A in a triangle, the app finds the fewest possible transfers to close out all the debts. This is the algorithm most people manually fumble through on their own, and Kittysplit automates it.

Kittysplit supports multiple currencies within a single Kitty, but only if you upgrade. The app fetches current exchange rates and converts everything back to a base currency so you can see the total in one number. Exchange rates are updated every 12 hours from swop.cx, and when you edit an expense, the rate refreshes only if you change the date. This attention to historical accuracy is a small detail that matters when traveling, you are charged at the rate that was true when you actually paid, not at today's rate.

The Super Kitty Upgrade

For groups larger than 9 people or with more complex needs, Kittysplit offers the Super Kitty upgrade for 3.00 euros, paid once per group. Everyone in the group gets access to the upgraded features regardless of who paid. There is no recurring subscription and nothing to cancel. The person who upgrades simply initiates it, and Kittysplit adds the cost to the Kitty as an expense that gets split like everything else, so everyone chips in a share of the upgrade cost.

Super Kitty raises the group size limit to 100 people and adds several features. You can attach receipts and photos to expenses (proof of what was paid for). You get a read-only link you can share with people who want to see the settlement but not edit the Kitty. You can see insights showing what you spent by category. The app includes preset splitting templates for couples (who might split most things equally but adjust for individual purchases) and families (who might use shares based on household members). You still get CSV export with Super Kitty; that is free even on the base Kitty.

Who This Works For

Kittysplit is built for one-off group events and temporary shared expenses, not for ongoing household management. If you are splitting the cost of a ski weekend, a bachelor party, a house-sitting rental, or a group vacation, Kittysplit excels. Everyone knows the event is temporary, the manual entry is finite, and settling up at the end is straightforward.

For couples or families with ongoing shared expenses, Kittysplit becomes a tool for specific situations rather than a daily budget manager. You might use it to split a joint vacation, but for weekly grocery bills and mortgage splits, you would need an app designed for continuous tracking. Kittysplit is intentionally simple; it does not try to be a full household budget app.

Kittysplit is funded by the one-time upgrade fee and by donations. The core team consists of three developers in Berlin: Jonas Adler, Andreas Follmann, and Luzian Wild. The app has been continuously maintained since 2012, which is remarkable for a project that began as spare-time work in a group of developers who taught themselves to code specifically to solve the ski-trip settlement problem. The team built it on open-source tech including Elixir, Phoenix, and PostgreSQL.

For groups solving a specific settle-up problem, Kittysplit is a time saver. The math is transparent, the interface is straightforward, and you can walk away without creating an account or installing an app. The lack of bank connections means it works internationally, and the one-time upgrade cost is fair if you need it. If you need continuous household budgeting, look elsewhere. If you need to split a trip, a party, or a one-time shared expense, this is the tool that does exactly that and nothing more.