Personal Finance Management App Development Cost & Features

Thanks to those who developed personal finance management apps, I can at least manage my expenses well. We all know finance management is one thing that no matter how hard you try, you fail at. It is a constant struggle. 

“When you know the impact of little expenses, you will realize that there is nothing little in this world.”

In the times when we all want to spend to make sure our life runs better, a personal finance manager is crucial. We try to be sticklers for budget, but the truth is we aren’t, and we end up spending more than we are supposed to. Most of us turn to technology in this case. Personal finance management app development is an amazing idea to offer solutions to users who are struggling to manage their expenses for a comfortable life.     

What Is a Personal Finance App?

Let’s start with the basics. A personal finance tracking app is software that lets users track, record, manage, and check their personal expenses to meet their monthly budget plans. These applications are quite popular among the millennials and Genz, who struggle with traditional tracking of their expenses. Personal money management software allows users to set monthly budgets and cut their extra expenses. With changing times, personal finance management apps are gaining popularity. Personal finance management apps use advanced app development technologies to deliver products that meet user needs best. Fintech companies across the globe are investing in personal finance app development to ensure a big share of the growing users.

At Octal, our fintech software development team uses the latest market trends and technologies to develop personal finance apps. They give users insight into their spending patterns and cut on extra expenses. 

A personal finance management app is a smart way to manage your finances in a fast-paced life.

Why It is a Good Idea for Personal Finance Management App Development?

If you aren’t sure what makes personal finance app development a hit, then here’s a simple number,

During the forecast period of 2019-2026, the global finance apps market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13% and reach a value of USD 10.7 billion by 2026.

Personal finance software market in 2019 was valued at 0.94 billion USD and is projected to reach 1.69 billion USD by 2030.

• In fact, in the year 2015, the money management apps market in the USA was estimated to be worth $24.5 million, while the number of users in this app category was 12,816,140. So, this trend has been around for quite some time, and now it is pacing up among users in all parts of the world.
• As per the study by Attest, the majority of the population under 30 in the UK uses some personal finance management app to help them with their finances. Most users explore these apps either in 10 days or at least once a week each month.

These numbers are quite convincing of how things function.

Related Post: What future holds for Mobile Money & Agent Banking?

Hence, it is clear that it is the right time to jump into this market and cash on its prominence. For financial planning for app development, businesses are advised to contact good mobile app development firms, as all goes into the making of such a huge app, and you will surely require various third-party integrations and technologies to make a brilliant and sophisticated money tracker mobile app.

What Are the Types of Personal Finance Apps?

The personal finance management app on one’s phone is an easy way to track their money closely. Some of the most common roles to include when you create a personal finance app are: 

Budgeting and Expense Tracking

First thing first, if you have ever used a personal finance app, you know it asks you to set a personal budget. Once you decide on the upper limit, the app gives you an average that you can spend daily. 

When you partner with a personal finance management app development company, affirm they let users segregate their expenses into various categories. 

Financial Goal Setting

One of the most significant roles a personal finance manager app plays is helping set and define financial goals. Just set up the limits of expenses and reminders, and your user can have someone who would take care of their expenses easily. 

Income and Expense Management

Another critical role that your personal finance tracking app plays is income and expense management. Let users register their mobile numbers with the app, and it would fetch the income and expense details automatically. 

This makes it easier for the user to manage personal finances within the limits of their expenses. 

Build Portfolio and Track Investment

When you create personal finance manager app, you can include different investment options under the same roof. For example, let your app have all the features a stock trading app development company or insurance claim app development team includes too.   

Recommended Read: Stock Trading App Development

Debt Management

Another important thing that a personal finance management app development company needs to take care of is debt management. A lot of users switch to loan lending and advance payday applications to ensure they make their ends meet towards the end of the month. 

Debt management is another significant part of your personal finance manager app. 

Savings and Retirement Plan

When you hire a dedicated development team to develop a personal finance app, they must integrate savings and retirement plan management features, too. Your app needs to be the one-stop solution for all your users’ financial management.

eBill Payment Reminders

Isn’t your app expected to take care of all the financial needs of your users? To enter the market with the best personal finance app you have to make sure your users need not use any other application for bills payments and other details. 

eWallet app development companies integrate bill reminders with their solutions to make money management easier. A similar feature in your personal money management software can make it one of the best fintech apps in the market.

Recommended Read: Blockchain Application Development Company

Financial Education and Insights

The finance management app will help users make informed decisions and understand their spending patterns. It allows them to plan their future expenses and present spending to ensure they don’t go broke by the end of the month. 

Understanding your spending patterns is the first step towards financial independence. This would help users avoid using loan lending applications and get into the vicious cycle of taking credits and clearing debts. 

Tax Planning and Filing Assistance

One major task for any person with a stable income is tax filing and planning. Personal money management software can help users check on the latest schemes and developments in tax laws and make sure they are not missing out on any deductions.

Also, with timely updates, the software will help users file their tax returns on time without much hassle. 
These are some of the common types of finance management applications in the market. Depending on the kind of app you want and the services you offer the personal finance app development cost may vary.

Key Features to Consider While Personal Finance App Development?

When you reach to a personal finance app development team for your product, there would be a few features that you would like to include in your money management app. The most prominent features are:

Build Money Management Categories

As it comes to expense management, nothing can be more helpful than this. Users can manage their finances easily when their expenses are categorized. For the same, the money management app developers can offer built-in categories, which can be renamed or classified by the users as per their requirements. Apart from that, the businesses, via their expense tracker mobile applications, can also allow the user the capability to find expenses by merchant name or the suppliers. This helps to gain a better understanding of where exactly does their expense go.

Suggest Investment Distribution Plan

When users are enabled to bind their accounts, then with the help of personal expense manager software, they can track where to invest their money best and where their expenses go. This allows the users to manage their assets more actively, and thus, they can also set cumulative goals, such as saving money for a car purchase or a bank loan repayment. There can be the following types:

• Credit card payment;
• Bills Payment;
• Mutual Funds;
• IRA investment;
• Real estate investments, etc.

When information is bound in one account, then the app should be able to prepare a review, maybe in the shape of a table or diagram, displaying the user’s asset distribution. Undoubtedly, a personal expense management app can keep track of the investment and is sure to be loved by any individual (after all, each one of us would like control over our future finances.)

Data Protection

Any Finance app developer would agree that security is their main concern. However, owing to technology’s progression, today, several reliable and secure data protection methods match the same security level as a financial organization.

Read More: E-Wallet App Development – Cost & Key Features

For instance, a prominent personal finance manager app, Mint, claims to store users’ information & data in a separate database, and it uses multi-level protection, the same security standards as a bank would have, along with 128-bit SSL encryption.

It is vital on the part of a personal finance manager app owner to get the security level verified constantly. At the same time, they also have a method ready to recover the user’s account, lest their device gets stolen or lost. Like, Mint enables its users to visit the Mint website and then de-activate access to a particular device. Several other Fintech apps also follow this route.

Aggregate Data of All Accounts

We all use a few separate accounts, and it is usually common in the case of business people. These accounts may vary from investment accounts, credit & business accounts, consumer & investment accounts, banking accounts, and credit/debit cards integrated into one account. Now, as an expense tracker app developer, you are required to create the finance tracker app in a way that keeps all the users accounts in one place. Users are certainly going to love your app owing to its user-friendliness and ability to manage their finances effortlessly. For this purpose, the Data Aggregation feature comes useful for the implementation of the accounts & records binding together. As a mobile app developer, you can do this, by:

• Integrating your solution
• Integrating ready-made technology from a trusted source to provide high data-security

Meanwhile, some prominent expense tracking apps are using services like Yodlee and Intuit to perform data aggregation of their user’s accounts. These technologies do a wonderful job of collecting accounts, such as investment data, banking data, loans, credit card data, etc., in one place via accounts aggregation.

Send Alerts

To avoid instances when a user might forget to make some payments and will certainly face some fines, the personal finance management app can save their day by sending alerts in case of:

• To remind about future bill payments
• Change of cost standard
• Low-balance alert
• Doubtful transactions, etc.
• Expense Tracking Features
• The recurring expense and income
• Track Multiple bank accounts
• Click a picture of the receipt
• Track you taxation
• You can track mileage
• Track debts
• Credit/Debit Card and bank SMS message parsing
• Write, Print, and Email Checks
• Expense tracker mobile app development

Recommended Read: NFT Marketplace Development

Budget and Bill Organizing Options

Organizing bills by week, month and year, as well as by categories, is another advantage of an android app developer for finance management. Here’s how such apps can help.

• Schedule the payments and recurring payments.
• Payment alerts
• Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly budget with the progress bar
• Calendar view for expense and income

Other than these advantages, there are a few more plus points of finance app development that make it quite popular among users.

• Search by category, payment method, status, description, tag, etc.
• Import Reports in HTML, CSV, Excel, and PDF
• Charts by category, payment method, status, description, tag, date, etc.
• Email report for print

Provide Backup and Synchronization

• Automatic backup on Dropbox, Google Drive, and SD Card
• Automatic sync between devices via Dropbox

Connect to PC via Network

• View all accounts on one page on the bigger screen
• Do your regular work such as add expense/income, edit Settings, view charts, etc.
• Add multiple expenses or income records
• Backup data and restore data on PC

Must-Have Additional Tools

• Currency converter
• In-App Calculator
• Regular calculator
• Tip calculator
• Loan Calculator
• Credit card payoff calculator
• Interest calculator
• Create Note
• Create a Shopping list

The feature list shared here by our fintech app development company is well-researched and thought after. Our solutions are well worked on and can help your users be engaged in their work dedicatedly.

Related: Best Fintech App Development Ideas for Your Business

How to Monetize a Personal Finance App?

After you create a personal finance app, you can monetize in different ways. Connect with our dedicated mobile app developers to build a solution that can generate more revenue from your app. 

The most common monetization models are: 

One-time Purchase

Let users subscribe to your app to avail of its services. With a one-time payment, let users enjoy all the basic and advanced features of your application without any ad display. This is a great way to generate revenue and engage users with your application.

Freemium Model

Develop personal finance app with basic and advanced features and let users enjoy the basic features for free. As they enjoy using the app, it would build your credibility and they would be willing to pay for more advanced features and services. 

As they upgrade their accounts, you earn profits.

Subscription Model

The most common way to earn money from your personal finance app is by letting users pay to use the app on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. With the subscription model, you can eliminate ads and let users enjoy the app uninterrupted. 

Advertising and Ad-free Upgrade

Partner with brands that are targeting similar users to yours and showcase their ads on your app. This would give them visibility and help you earn revenue. 

Also, charge your users for an ad-free upgrade, in this case, either way, you are in a win-win situation.

In-App Purchases

Let users have access to additional features, interesting tools, and more resources within the app. You can offer them a template to manage their budget or record their expenditure, etc. Allow them to avail educational content like courses, and e-books on finance management to encourage them to use your app more.

You can choose to include any of these or a combination of these monetization models for your application. The choice of your monetization model and its implementation would highly impact the personal finance app development costs. This would also decide the time taken to develop your app and the development method used. Our experts use, agile app development to build a robust app that will serve your requirements.

Recommended Read: Why Agile Methodology for Mobile App Development?

How to Build a Personal Finance App?

When you connect with our personal finance management app development team, they listen to your business idea in detail and understand your requirements. Depending on your business objective and your expectations of the app, they start their research and development process. The common steps involved in the development process are as follows:

Conduct In-depth Research

To build a personal finance app, our experts first understand the type of app you want and your monetization model. Further, they study the market for similar apps and check the pitfalls of these apps. 

We make sure to cover these pitfalls in your app to give you a competitive edge. 

Define Your Audience

Before starting to work on your personal money management software, our experts study your audience and their needs. This helps us build a better solution that caters to the end users’ needs. 

List Out the Requirements

To make sure we build the best personal finance app, we include features and functionality that are crucial. We affirm the solution is feature-rich and helps end user with all their financial needs. 

UI/UX Design

We create a personal finance app, that offers users an engaging experience. The solutions that are deployed to you visually represent and reflect most of the information making it easier for the users to explore the app.

Develop MVP

Once we know the look and feel, the next step is to develop personal finance app that reflects your vision and app idea. The app is developed using the latest technologies and tools.

Iterate to Your Satisfaction

We follow an agile mobile app development methodology to build personal finance management apps. Thus, you are part of the development process at all points, and if you want to modify any feature or element, only our experts can implement it.  

Test Your App

To ensure your personal finance tracking app is built exactly how you want it, the testing team verifies all the features and functionality of the app. In case of any bugs or errors, they connect with the development team and fix it before deploying the app. 

Deploy Final Product

We deploy the personal finance manager app once we are assured the app aligns with your business objectives and vision. 

Launch and Update

Launch a beta version of the app on the app store and invite a few users to use and review the app. If there are any recommendations you want to implement, our dedicated mobile app development team will make the changes and update the app.

Post Deployment Support

After the launch of the final app, our experts are available to update your app and make modifications as per your requirements. If you are looking for a personal finance app development company that provides the best-in-class services, our team can help. 

We help you enter the market with the best personal finance app that reflects your business values, goals, and brand. Our team understands the importance of having a custom app and helps you with a solution tailored for your business.

What are the benefits of a Personal Finance Mobile App?

Keeping exact records of personal spending is highly important for several reasons. It is very crucial to keep careful records for at least a month, and if you can do it for three months, then it will be all the more helpful. So, here, let’s know about the benefits of installing any track your expense app:

Know Where the Money is Going with a Personal Finance App

There are all kinds of advice from people about how good it is an idea to spend on things most needed or valued first. However, often, it becomes a difficult thing to do, especially when not keeping track of the actual figures. When not keeping track, money that is supposed to go into a savings account often gets vaguely spent on shopping (and you can do nothing but let that dream vacation of stay a dream.) It’s pretty easy to start living beyond one’s means when you install a personal finance management app.

Set & Meet Goals Easily With Personal Tracker App

When someone has an idea where all their money is going and have control over their finances, then they can begin to set financial goals like, to put aside a specific sum of money each week/month or to have a certain sum of money saved by the end of a year. Suppose someone wants to buy a house in five years, then he would need 30,000 dollars, and for this, the person will need to save at least 500 dollars each month.

Your money management app can help users keep track of their expenses and help them save some great amount.

Forced to Prioritize Spending

When working on personal finance management app development, there are a few things that are to be focused on. Putting down all the expenses forces the person to prioritize and spend money on the most needed things or activities. It gets a lot easier to set & meet goals when someone prioritizes where to allocate their limited sum of money best.

Ditch Bad Spending Habits

As one keeps track of where & when their money is being spent with the finance management app, it gets easier to analyze their bad spending habits, if any, and accordingly, they can work on them. The understanding itself would be enough to work on a bad spending habit as it will make the person consider their future purchases and see whether it’s needed.

Stay Aware Of Fraud

When someone is not keeping track of their expenses, credit card statements, or bank accounts, they might be getting fraudulent charges and have no clue about it. Like, they may be overlooking auto-pay charges, double charges, or not being charged as usual. So, by keeping track of expenses & financial information, a person can stay aware of where their money is and what’s happening with it. Thus, if any unexpected activity occurs, it can be dealt with immediately, and the money management app will notify of the changes in a go.

Take Control

Keeping track of finances is no big deal with an expense-tracking mobile app, as it is sailing, and the person doesn’t have to be a genius to make it work for you. All that you need is to spend a little time with it, and it will be all sorted.

These are a few reasons that reflect the growth of money management mobile apps in the arena. If you are looking for something that can help you grow better, make sure you are on the right path.

Top Personal Finance Management Apps to Inspire You to Build One

When talking about apps meant for expense management for developers, there are a lot of people who have worked on it. Some of the most popular personal finance mobile apps that can be worked on are:

Mint – Best Personal Finance Management App

The Personal Finance Manager app Mint comes integrated with a lot of brilliant features. Users can see everything in one place, manage their money & bills, and even pay their bills. It provides their credit score, reminds them of forthcoming payments, multi-factor authentication (for high security), and also offers a web app.

Money Lover – Top Personal Finance Manager App

This is a free app that offers a clean & colorful interface with myriad useful features. MoneyLover enables users to get granular with their expenses, and it automatically categorizes spending on movies, games, food, and anything else you buy with cute images.

This app also tracks your spending & income in the past, present & future months, and displays everything in an easy-to-read format. However, there is certainly a downside with this app as its free version includes annoying ads that often clutter the interface.

Related Post: Bill Reminder App Development – Cost and Key Features

Monefy – Popular Personal Expenses Tracker App

This one is a lot like Mint, though there is one big difference: there is no automation here. So, it won’t simply hook up your accounts and let the app take care of everything, as here, you’d be required to enter your expenses manually. Though there would be bill reminders or pay within the app features, you surely will have more control and will be more involved in the process, and that can help in curbing spending.

Personal Capital Finance

With the help of this multi-platform financial portal, users can manage their stocks, investments, bank accounts, and retirement savings and even budget their spending all in one place. It is also available online as well as on wearables. Does this app actively compare its users’ stocks? Performance to the markets in real-time. At the same time, it provides easy access to a team of finance professionals who can offer users more personalized advice on how to grow further.

These few expense management apps can help you manage your expenses and save for a brighter future. If you are unsure how to proceed with your working app, you only need to hire the right dedicated developers for better results.

Personal Finance Management App Development Cost

Personal finance app development cost depends on various factors. After all, the system is integrated with myriad features and many integrations. Here are the factors that mainly affect the cost of Personal finance management mobile apps:

• Basic Features
• Additional Features
• Size of the development team
• Development Partner Location
• Third-Party Integrations (Third-party Resources, like Database, API, Authorisation)
• Maintenance & Support
• Certifications & Compliances

When talking about personal finance management mobile app development costs, there are a lot of things that come into the picture. App platform, features, aesthetics, operations, etc. play a major role in deciding how much your app may cost.

The personal finance management app development cost is as mentioned:

• To develop an iOS  app: $20k-$25k
• To develop an Android app: $15k-$20k
• To develop Windows app: $18k

Other than that, the region plays an important role in deciding how much your app may cost.

• Hire a developer from the US: $120-$150 per hour.
• Hire a developer from South Asia: $25-$75 per hour.

For a personal finance app development with basic features, the time taken would be around 1500 to 1800 hours. On average, the cost would be around $25k to $40k. 

For a complex app, the time taken can be 2000 hours to 2500 hours. The cost of development can be around $40k to $90k. 

Hiring an app development company from south-east Asia to create a personal finance app is much more cost-effective.

Conclusion

Hence, it is clear that managing your finances with personal finance mobile apps can do multiple good things for a person. It can stop impulse purchases, help them from going into necessary debt, remove needless purchases, force them to focus on what their money is worth. It can make money management easier and allow the users to be in absolute control of their finances.

Frequently Asked Questions