Get in touch
Email hello@fluidbudget.io. Most messages get an answer within a few days.
It helps to say which iPhone and iOS version you have, whether you use Fluid Budget alone or share it as a family, and what you expected to happen. If a number looks wrong, the date and the amount are usually enough to find it.
Please leave out anything you would not want in an inbox. We never need your whole budget to answer a question about it.
Getting started
Setting up takes four short steps: hello, your monthly amount, your categories, done. No account, no email, no card.
Everything works offline from the first minute. Your two free months start when you finish setting up.
Joining someone else’s family instead? Tap Someone invited me on the first screen.
Adding an expense
- Tap the green drop in the bottom-right corner. It is there on every tab.
- Type the amount, pick a category, add a tag or two if you like.
- Save. It is stored on your phone the moment you tap, signal or not.
For an earlier day, tap the date at the top of the sheet. For rent, subscriptions and other regulars, turn on the repeat switch and Fluid Budget adds them on their day. You find them all under Recurring on the Budget tab.
To change or delete an expense, tap it in any list.
Money in, and the month’s end
Fluid Budget is one pot of money for the month, called the Budget. You put money in and expenses take it out. Put money in with Add money on the Budget tab, or let it go in by itself: in Settings → Monthly budget, add one automatic amount or several, each on its own day of the month.
What is left at the end of a month carries into the next one. If it goes below zero, it stays there until money goes in. No red, no warnings: it is simply where the budget is.
Prefer to put leftovers aside? In Settings → Monthly budget, set What’s left at month’s end to Goes to a fund (offered while every automatic amount comes in on the 1st). When a month closes, its remainder moves to the fund you pick. A month that ends below zero moves nothing. Changed your mind? Move it back from the fund’s history.
Categories and plans
Each category can have a monthly plan: what you expect to spend there. A plan is a way of looking, not a limit. Nothing is reserved, plans do not need to add up to your budget, and going past one changes nothing else. The bar simply shows where you are.
Tap a category on Home to see its month; the pencil opens its name, plan, colour, illustration and tags. Change the order in Settings → Categories, or turn on Order by spending there.
Apple Pay → Fluid Budget
Pay with Apple Pay in a shop, and Fluid Budget opens with the amount already filled in. It works on iOS 17 or later; you set it up once.
On iOS 27
- Open Settings → Apple Shortcuts → Set up Apple Pay and approve Add Shortcut.
- In the Shortcuts app, open the new Apple Pay → Fluid Budget shortcut. If the description editor appears, tap Edit. Expand the arrow after “tapped” and turn Automation on. Narrow it to some cards if you like.
On iOS 17 to 26
Here it is two pieces: a shortcut that says what to do, which the app adds for you, and an automation that says when, which iOS asks you to make yourself. The app’s Apple Shortcuts screen shows each step with a picture.
- Open Settings → Apple Shortcuts → Set up Apple Pay and approve Add Shortcut. Leave the shortcut as it is: there is nothing to change in it.
- In the Shortcuts app, open Automation and tap New Automation (or +).
- Tap Wallet (on iOS 17 and 18 it is called Transaction), choose your cards and Run Immediately, then Next.
- Under My Shortcuts, tap Apple Pay → Fluid Budget. That saves the automation.
Then pay with your phone at a terminal. Fluid Budget opens a new expense: check it and confirm. Cancel, and nothing is saved. The first time, Shortcuts may ask to allow Fluid Budget: tap Allow.
The first time you pay at a shop, pick its category. After that Fluid Budget remembers it, and in a shared family budget the other phone learns it too. No account and no key are needed for the shortcut, and it cannot read your Wallet history. If you set up an older “Fluid” automation in the past, turn it off so one payment does not run twice.
Projects, funds and Travel mode
The Projects tab is for money set aside to be spent on something: the house, a holiday, the car. A fund holds the money; a project inside it has a budget and shows what you have spent on it. Money moves between the monthly budget and a fund only when you move it. Savings and Travel are always there; make as many other funds as you like.
- Add puts money in, from your budget or from outside it.
- Move shifts money between funds, or back to the budget.
- Spend takes it out, for a project or not.
Travel mode: start a trip from the Travel fund and Home becomes the trip’s journal: the + asks only for the amount and what it was for, in the local currency. Fluid Budget converts it at the day’s rate and keeps that rate on the expense for good. Rates are saved on the phone, so it works offline, and you can always type one yourself. When you stop the trip, it moves to the fund’s Past trips. More on the Travel mode page.
Pocket money
On the Projects tab, tap Add a child to keep track of a child’s pocket money. Add puts money in, from your budget or from outside it (a gift from Grandma, say); Spend notes what they bought. Set an automatic amount, every week or every month on its day, in Settings → Pocket money or from the child’s page.
With an account, you can connect the child’s own phone or tablet: on the child’s page, tap the pencil and invite the device under Their own device. It shows only that child’s pocket money, read-only, with no account for the child.
Reports
The Reports tab has a page for every finished month: what went in, what went out, where the month opened and ended, and where the money went. Highlights pick out a few facts, like the category that led the month, the biggest day and the quiet days. Go back a month with a swipe or the arrows. It only reads, and it never judges.
Something is missing on the other phone
Each phone keeps its own copy, so an expense is saved the moment you tap save. It travels when the phone next has a connection, when the app comes to the front, or when you write something new. Pull down on a list to sync right away.
- Open Settings on both phones. Under your account it says whether the phone is up to date or still waiting. If the server refused something, a Sync section appears with the reason.
- Check that both of you are signed in and appear under Settings → Members.
- If the Sync section shows a message you cannot act on, send it to us word for word. It is the most useful thing you can include.
Subscription
Two months free from the day you set up. Then one yearly subscription, everything included, for the whole family. The App Store shows the price in your currency.
- No card up front. The free months need nothing from you, there is nothing to cancel, and nothing is charged unless you subscribe. The app shows the day they end under Settings → Subscription.
- One covers everyone. If one person in a shared family subscribes, everyone in it is covered, and their phones say so.
- Subscribe, restore or manage in Settings → Subscription. Your paid year starts the day you subscribe. Restore purchases brings back a subscription bought with the same Apple Account, on a new phone for example.
- Cancel in the App Store: tap Manage in the App Store on the Subscription screen, or open the Settings app → your name → Subscriptions.
What read-only means
If the free months end, or a subscription lapses, Fluid Budget becomes read-only. Nothing is deleted and nothing is locked away: every month, report and project stays there to read. Adding and editing come back when you subscribe, and the automatic amounts and recurring expenses that waited meanwhile catch up, each on its own date.
If the person who paid leaves the family, the others have 30 days to subscribe themselves. Deleting your account does not cancel an App Store subscription; cancel it in the App Store.
Leaving and deleting
- Leave a family (members): Settings → Members → Leave family. Anything your phone has not sent yet goes up first, then the phone is emptied of the family’s budget; what you added stays with it.
- Delete the family’s data (the Admin): Settings → Delete family data. On your own, it is the way to start over. Shared, it deletes the family’s budget from our server for everyone.
- Delete your account: Settings → Account → Delete account. It asks twice and says exactly what goes. A budget you created is deleted from the server, and your phone keeps its own copy. In a family you joined, the shared history stays, without your name, photo or notes, and your phone is emptied of the family’s budget, as when you leave. The privacy policy has the details.
If you cannot reach the screen, after losing a phone for example, email us and we will do it once we can confirm the request comes from the account holder.
Where your data lives
On your phone. Fluid Budget works with no account and no internet, permanently, and nothing is held back behind a sign-in. On your own, nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
An account exists for one reason: so a family can share a budget from several phones. Then a copy of it is kept on our server, and each phone still works offline and catches up later. The privacy policy lists exactly what is stored, and where.
The web demo
The demo on our home page, inside the phone, is the real app, running in your browser with a made-up family. Add expenses, move money, flip through Reports. Nothing you do there leaves the browser tab, and it forgets everything when the session ends. Accounts, invitations, Apple Pay and the subscription live in the iPhone app only.
Not built yet
So you are not looking for something that is not there:
- Android. Fluid Budget is iPhone-only for now.
- Exporting your data to a file. Until then, email us and we will help.
- Receipt scanning.
- Help pages in languages other than English. The app itself speaks English, Romanian, German, Spanish, French and Italian.
Notifications are not on the list, on purpose: Fluid Budget stays quiet.