Cilantro vs YNAB
YNAB is a method as much as an app — give every dollar a job, reconcile daily, change your behavior. For the people it clicks with, it's life-changing. Cilantro asks the opposite: nothing. It's observe-only — it watches the accounts you already have and tells you what changed, with no budget to build and no daily upkeep.
| Cilantro | YNAB | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual price | $69.99/yr ($5.83/mo) | $109/yr |
| Monthly price | $8.99/mo | $14.99/mo |
| Core idea | Watch & alert — observe-only | Zero-based budgeting ("give every dollar a job") |
| What you do to use it | Link accounts. Nothing to maintain. | Assign every dollar, reconcile regularly. |
| Unusual-charge & anomaly alerts | ✓ Built in | — |
| Auto-detected trip recaps | ✓ Across both cards, any currency | — |
| Subscription price-change tracking | ✓ | Manual, via categories |
| Behavior-change budgeting method | Not the goal | ✓ Its whole point |
| Partner / household sharing | ✓ One sub covers your household | ✓ Up to 6 people, one sub |
| Platforms | iPhone | iOS, Android, web |
When YNAB is the better choice
If you want to actively change your spending behavior and you'll do the work — assigning every dollar, reconciling, following the method — YNAB is the gold standard, and few things beat it for getting out of debt or breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. It also has Android and shares with up to six people. If that's you, use YNAB.
When Cilantro is the better choice
If you've bounced off YNAB because the daily upkeep didn't stick — you're not alone — Cilantro is the low-effort opposite. There's no budget to maintain: it watches your accounts and surfaces only what's worth knowing, like an unusual charge or a bill that crept up, and recaps your trips automatically. It costs less per year, and it's the only one of the two that flags anomalies for you instead of waiting for you to notice.
Now on iPhone · 7-day free preview · one subscription covers your household.