The 4 Best Apps To Keep Track of Credit Card Spending in 2025

Key Takeaways

• Expense tracking apps, such as YNAB, Monarch Money, MoneyPatrol, and Copilot, can help you monitor credit card transactions, balances, payments, and utilization to simplify credit card management.
• You can avoid surprise overspending and late payments with real-time transaction updates and personalized alerts.
• Each app offers unique features, whether you want detailed budgeting support, comprehensive financial planning, or visual tools for quick updates.

Managing your credit card spending is essential for maintaining a healthy financial life, but you might find it challenging, especially if you’re juggling multiple credit cards.

It’s easy to overspend, miss payment due dates, and lose control of your credit card usage if you’re not organized. Those mistakes can be costly and result in late payments, fees, and negative impacts to your credit score.

Financial tracking apps are designed to simplify financial management. Some apps track credit cards as an expense without considering individual transactions, but others offer greater credit card integration features that can make it easier to see how credit cards fit into your overall finances. Features may include real-time credit card transaction updates, budget management (including credit card expenses), and credit utilization monitoring. You can expect a credit card tracking app to help you with key reminders, including payment due dates and upcoming recurring payments. The right app can help you stay within your budget on credit card purchases, manage debt, and keep tabs on your overall financial picture.

There’s an app to help you with credit card tracking, whether you’re focused on detailed budgeting or want comprehensive financial overviews and real-time alerts. Read our guide to explore the best apps for tracking credit card spending and managing your money.

Credit Card Spending App Overview

Let’s get started with a high-level comparison of top credit card tracking apps so you can get an idea of what each app costs, its major features, and who it’s best suited for.

1. YNAB (You Need a Budget)

YNAB (You Need a Budget) is a highly rated budgeting tool that takes a zero-based budgeting approach to ensure every dollar is accounted for. The app delightfully refers to this process as making sure every dollar has a job — a great way to make your money work for you! You link your bank and credit card accounts to track balances, spending, and payments.

One of YNAB’s best features is its credit card tracking. Unlike many other budgeting apps that only account for credit card purchases when you pay your bill, YNAB automatically adjusts your budget when you make a credit card purchase. That way, you can align your budget with your credit card spending and be confident that you have enough to pay your bill in full when it comes due.

Here’s how it works: YNAB sets up a credit card payment category when you add a credit card account. As you make purchases on your credit card, YNAB moves money in your budget from the appropriate category (like groceries) to your credit card payment automatically. You can also manually input expenses for greater control.

Best features:

• Credit card expense tracking
• Budget-sharing options for up to 6 people
• Split transactions into multiple categories
• Targets for spending and savings goal tracking
• Loan planner to calculate payoff dates for debt
• Spending and net worth reports

Cost: $14.99 monthly or $109 annually with a 34-day free trial

Apps: App Store, Google Play

YNAB is good if you:

• Want every dollar aligned with specific financial goals
• Prefer detailed control over your finances and credit card payments
• Need to manage credit card debt and plan structured payoffs

Bottom Line:

YNAB is best for detailed budgeting and proactive credit card management. It helps you save in advance for credit card payments, so there are no surprises. It’s particularly useful for families with shared budgets for up to 6 people.

2. Monarch Money

An all-in-one financial tracking app, Monarch Money combines credit card expense tracking with broad financial planning. It tracks all of your credit card transactions in real time and categorizes them in your financial overview.

You can use AI to detect categories but can also manually review and set rules so the app matches specific merchant transactions to the correct category. You can see your net worth, how much you spend each month — on credit cards or otherwise — and be able to find transactions all in the same app.

If you’d prefer less structure, you can use flex budgeting, which allows you to categorize expenses by fixed, flexible, or nonmonthly, rather than using category budgeting. With bill syncing, you can map credit card accounts to the accounts on your Equifax credit report. That offers a more comprehensive view of your credit activity and history related to your spending.

Each month, you get a monthly summary of your finances, including top expense categories, cash flow, and changes to your net worth. You can set spending limits and track progress toward your goals to help prevent overspending. You also get actionable insights into spending trends across all of your credit card and other financial accounts.

Best features:

• Real-time credit card expense tracking and categorization
• Monthly financial summaries with cash flow analysis and top expense categories
• Household collaboration that brings separate and joint accounts together
• Forecasting including nonmonthly expenses so you can avoid surprises
• Plans for goals alongside your monthly budget

Cost: $14.99 monthly or $99.99 annually

Apps: App Store, Google Play

Monarch Money is good if you:

• Want broad financial planning alongside credit card tracking
• Share finances and need to manage separate and joint accounts
• Want to track net worth, including assets such as real estate

Bottom Line:

Monarch Money’s AI-driven categorization helps you save time and see your credit card spending hot spots. It’s great at handling flexible, nontraditional budgets, and syncing accounts with your Equifax report is a great way to get a more holistic view of how your credit card spending relates to your credit report.

3. MoneyPatrol

MoneyPatrol connects all of your financial accounts — from your credit cards to investments — and monitors transactions to give you alerts and insights. You can set and manage budgets, get bill reminders, check your cash flow, and more.

The credit card tracking features on MoneyPatrol are robust. In addition to tracking your expenses, it reports on your credit card usage, rates, balances, and payments, so you always know where you stand. It’s a great way to keep track of your total credit limit, credit limit available, and credit utilization.

With MoneyPatrol’s reporting capabilities, you can see your spending trends and patterns and the top merchants and categories. You can also get weekly, monthly, and yearly summaries and text and email alerts and insights.

Best features:

• Money management alerts for upcoming bills and recurring charges
• Insights into credit usage, rates, balances, and payments
• Weekly and monthly budgets to track your spending
• Calendar view with spending trends and patterns
• Reminders about upcoming and recurring bills

Cost: Free basic plan or paid plans from $19.99 to $69.99 annual or $299.99 lifetime, all with a 15-day free trial

Apps: App Store

MoneyPatrol is good if you:

• Need advanced credit card insights, including tracking APRs and available credit
• Are budget-conscious and want alerts to help you avoid overspending or missed payments
• Value detailed reporting and spending trends

Bottom Line:

MoneyPatrol stands out with card usage, APR, and payment reports so you can manage multiple credit cards. It’s a great tool for proactive financial management with email and text alerts along with tracking for recurring payments and subscriptions to avoid forgotten charges.

4. Copilot

Copilot is a money tracker app that keeps tabs on your spending, budgets, investments, and net worth. View your budget and financial details in your dashboard, or install widgets on your phone’s home screen to instantly see where you stand on budgeting and recent expenses.

You can get daily snapshots to review recent spending and see what bills are coming up. You also see a high-level cash flow overview with monthly summaries of your income and expenses. With smart budgeting, you can roll over unused money from your budget from one month to the next. Budget rebalancing uses machine learning to suggest budget adjustments based on your spending. Recurring expenses are detected and organized into a monthly view. Copilot can catch price changes so you address price hikes sooner and identify subscriptions to pause.

You can get a full view of your accounts, including real-time credit card balances compared to your deposit accounts and investments. With net worth tracking (including real estate), you get a consolidated understanding of where you stand between assets and liabilities.

The credit cards section shares a combined balance for your credit card accounts so you can track your total spending. You can also break it down by account and see current balances, due dates, and credit utilization for every card. There’s a color-coded system to indicate healthy credit utilization. Credit card transactions are automatically integrated into your overall financial picture so you can see how spending affects your net worth.

Best features:

• Credit card spending tracking
• Consolidated view of all credit card balances
• Credit utilization tracking
• Compares assets and debts for a net worth summary

Cost: $13 monthly or $95 annually

Apps: App Store

Copilot is good if you:

• Like quick visual summaries of your credit card spending and budget status
• Want to use phone widgets to keep your budgeting top of mind
• Need to see your complete financial picture, from credit card spending to investments and liabilities

Bottom Line:

Copilot’s widget functionality lets you get instant updates on your spending without opening the app — just glance at your phone’s home screen to see whether your next credit card purchase is within your budget or not.

Final Thoughts

Tracking credit card spending can help you avoid overspending and missing payments. But more importantly, a great financial tracking app can help you stay on top of your credit card spending and determine whether your credit card usage aligns with your financial goals and habits.

YNAB’s zero-based approach is ideal for structured budgeting. If you want a broader view of your financial health, Monarch Money can offer robust financial planning tools. Need advanced insights into credit card usage? Try the MoneyPatrol dashboard that gives you an overall picture of your credit card usage, including credit utilization. If you’d benefit from intuitive design and widgets for quick updates, consider Copilot.