Why SpendWe has no bank connection
Many budget apps start by asking you to link your bank. SpendWe deliberately does not. It never asks for your bank login, and it never connects to your bank accounts. Your spending comes in three ways you control: you add an expense yourself in a couple of taps, you scan a receipt, or you import a statement file you downloaded from your bank.
The trade-off is honest: you do a little of the entering yourself. In return, no third party holds access to your accounts, there is no connection to break or renew, and nothing about your bank is shared because SpendWe never has it. Adding an expense is quick on purpose: type an amount and tap a category, or type a sentence such as "24.80 coffee with Sam".
The same thinking applies elsewhere. On Android, SpendWe does not read your notifications to log card payments, because that would be too invasive. On iPhone, Apple Pay purchases can be logged only through a Shortcuts automation you set up yourself.
What stays on your phone
Used on its own, SpendWe keeps your financial entries on your device. It works fully offline, without an account. Your entries are stored on SpendWe's servers only when you turn on automatic backup or share a household with someone. If you switch on Use AI, which is off until you choose it, what each AI request needs passes through SpendWe's server, which keeps none of its content.
The app may still fetch a small configuration update and send crash reports. Crash reports carry no advertising identifier, and SpendWe does not intentionally include your expenses, amounts or merchants in them. On iPhone and iPad, your entries are also part of your own iCloud or computer backup if you use one; that backup belongs to you. The details are in the Privacy Policy.
No ads, no ad trackers, data never sold
SpendWe shows no ads and contains no ad trackers or advertising identifiers. There are no usage analytics in the app: it does not track what you tap, which screens you open or how often you use it. Your financial data is never used for advertising, and it is never sold or rented.
Privacy controls in the app
Settings → Privacy gathers the controls that protect what is on your screen. All of them are optional.
- Turn on the app lock. SpendWe can ask for Face ID, Touch ID, your fingerprint or the device passcode when it opens. It is off by default. Widgets and notifications stay visible while the app is locked.
- Hide amounts with the eye. Tap the eye on Home, or use Hide amounts in Settings, and every figure on screen reads "••••". It is a setting of that device only.
- Hide amounts in the app switcher. The preview of SpendWe among your open apps no longer shows your figures. This is a separate choice from the app lock.
- Block screenshots (Android). Block screenshots and screen recording makes the system refuse captures of the app. It is off by default, because people may want to screenshot their own data.
- Hide while recording (iPhone). Hide SpendWe while recording or mirroring covers the app while the screen is recorded or mirrored. iOS cannot block a screenshot, and the setting says so.
The web app has neither capture setting, but it has the eye.
Private expenses in a shared household
In a household, you can mark an expense Private to me. Nobody else in the household can see it, and it never counts in the shared balance. This is enforced by access rules on SpendWe's server, not only hidden by the app, so another member's phone cannot read the row. Only the person who created an expense can make it private.
Security, and your way out
All traffic uses HTTPS. Your session tokens are kept in the iPhone Keychain or Android's encrypted preferences, never in plain files, and the apps ship without embedded secret keys. Every account's cloud data is separated by per-user access rules on the server.
You can always leave. A complete JSON backup or a CSV spreadsheet is one tap away in Settings → Data, on every plan, and export and import are never locked. Everything on this page is free.
For a step-by-step guide, read How to budget without connecting your bank.