The short version
PocketGuard is lower effort and better for people who will not maintain a budget; YNAB delivers more if you actually do the work. Both are spending-only tools with no retirement or investment modelling.
Why people compare them
PocketGuard's 'in my pocket' number is the usual simpler counterproposal to YNAB's stricter method.
Price and fit, side by side
| Feature | YNAB | PocketGuard |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | YNAB$109 per year | PocketGuard$6.25 per month |
| Free tier | YNABNo | PocketGuardNo |
| Billed in pounds | YNABNo | PocketGuardNo |
| Best for | YNABPeople who want to change their spending habits and will do the weekly work | PocketGuardUS and Canadian users who want one number telling them what is safe to spend today |
Where YNAB wins
- The zero-based method genuinely changes behaviour for people who stick with it
- Excellent teaching material and an unusually loyal community
- One subscription covers up to six people
Where PocketGuard wins
- The single spendable number is a genuinely good idea, and easier to act on than a grid of categories
- Strong subscription tracking, with tools to find and help cancel recurring charges
- Unlimited category budgets with rollover, plus debt payoff planning, on one flat plan
Where both fall short
- Neither models UK pensions or answers the retirement question directly.
- Neither handles ISA allowances or the tax wrapper decisions around them.
- Neither applies UK tax rules to what it shows you.
- Both are built US-first, so UK users pay in dollars and work around US assumptions.
- Neither projects far enough forward to answer a long-term question.
If neither is quite right
If what you actually want is the retirement answer rather than a better dashboard, that is the gap Delphina was built for: UK pensions, ISAs and tax, projected to the age you want to stop. It does not do the job YNAB does for people who want to change their spending habits and will do the weekly work, so if that is the real problem, YNAB is still the better buy. Free plan is £0, no card.
YNAB vs PocketGuard: common questions
YNAB is $109 per year and PocketGuard is $6.25 per month. Compare the billing period before the number: an annual price and a monthly price are not the same thing.
You can, and some people do, because they solve different halves of the problem. It does mean paying for both, so add the two annual figures together before deciding.
Judge it on billing currency, Open Banking coverage and whether ISAs and pensions are handled. Check each one against those three points, because a tool that scores well elsewhere can still be a poor fit in the UK.
YNAB suits people who want to change their spending habits and will do the weekly work. PocketGuard suits us and canadian users who want one number telling them what is safe to spend today. The one that matches how you already think about money will take less setting up.
YNAB scores 4.6/5 on Trustpilot from 3,054 reviews. PocketGuard scores 3.5/5 on Apple App Store (UK) from 15 ratings. Weigh the volume as well as the score.
Delphina covers the gap both leave, which is UK pensions, ISAs and tax projected forward to retirement. The trade-off is that it does not do the job YNAB does for people who want to change their spending habits and will do the weekly work, so if that is the real need, pick one of these two.