Leaving YNAB After 6 Years – Pricing is the Final Straw

I’ve been a loyal YNAB user for the past six years, and today, I finally decided to leave. I wanted to share my experience, especially regarding pricing, which I know has been a major concern for many users.

I’m from India, and I’ve always been one of the very few subscribers from here. Even though I couldn’t use key features like automatic bank syncing (which is U.S.-centric), I still stuck with YNAB because I loved their budgeting philosophy and UI. But over the years, the subscription cost kept rising, and at $110 per year, it’s just too much—especially for someone living in a developing country like India, where purchasing power is much lower.

A few years ago, I even reached out to YNAB’s support team, suggesting a variable pricing strategy similar to what Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube offer. For example, Netflix Premium costs $24.99/month in the U.S. but just $7.50 in India. Many global companies do this to make their services accessible worldwide, but YNAB never considered it even after i requested them. Sadly, India doesn’t have a good budgeting app like YNAB, but I finally found a best alternative which is "Actual". While I miss some features of YNAB here but it mostly satisfy me as an alternative.

Seeing so many others on this subreddit voice similar concerns about YNAB’s high subscription cost, I felt it was time to move on. I still believe YNAB is a great product, but the pricing model is making it harder for users—both in the U.S. and globally—to justify staying.

I hope YNAB reconsiders its pricing strategy before more long-time users decide to leave.

To those still using it, happy budgeting! And to anyone else who has switched—what alternative are you using?