8 ms·

Show HN: Trackm, a personal finance web app

21 points by iccananea 6mo ago

I built this as a personal finance app that allows me to see how my recurring incomes and expenses will affect my network over the years. So trackm can show up to 4 years in the future and track when your accounts will go negative given you expenses and incomes. I've been dogfooding it for the past 10 days, fixing issues I find from my day-to-day use and now it's at a point where I'm comfortable sharing it with others. The app is free for 30 days, after which it goes into read-only mode. Paying the one-time license fee unlocks it forever.

deweller 6mo ago
I use YNAB. I thought about building my own now that AI coding make this feasible. But the moat that I can't cross is the integration with my bank accounts. Plaid and the like are too expensive and don't cater to one-off users like me. Has anyone been able to find a personal financial data provider that has a reasonable price?
- benmanns 6mo ago
  I thought Plaid have (had?) a developer account that could connect something like 100 accounts that was free.
- qntmfred 6mo ago
  https://teller.io/ https://teller.io/ has been on my radar to play with
- thenews 6mo ago
  actual budget something similar from what i can see via SimpleFIN Bridge (https://actualbudget.org/docs/advanced/bank-sync/#supported-providers https://actualbudget.org/docs/advanced/bank-sync/#supported-...)
  - pcchristie 6mo ago
    Actual Budget is incredible. Happy (now free since it's gone FOSS, formerly paying) customer since migrating from YNAB4 ~ 3/4/5 (?) years ago.
- phoenixy1 6mo ago
  Plaid has a pay-as-you-go option that's only about $2/month for this use case. (I believe the current rack rate PAYG pricing is 30 cents per month per connected bank login).
- iccananea 6mo ago
  I am researching providers to be able to add account sync to trackm.net I haven't done it at first because (1) they all have monthly / yearly costs and I wanted a flat fee; (2) I can't update the account without the user having logged in because of how the encryption works.
- kkfx 6mo ago
  GoCardless might be an option, at least for OpenBank (UE/SEPA), no idea for the USA though...
  - wesdie 6mo ago
    I think GoCardless stopped accepting new accounts recently, which makes it a bit harder to rely on now. Feels like the options for EU/SEPA are still pretty limited. I’ve been looking into alternatives as well, curious if you’ve found anything that works well also?
    - kkfx 6mo ago
      So far GoCardless works for me, maybe they still kept old accounts. I've heard of https://enablebanking.com https://enablebanking.com but never tried them. I know also: - https://www.saltedge.com https://www.saltedge.com - https://www.fabrick.com https://www.fabrick.com - https://www.bridgeapi.io https://www.bridgeapi.io but they do not offer a free tier AFAIK Otherwise, with the scraping approach Woob https://woob.tech/ https://woob.tech/ (FLOSS) works well enough on some banks... It's damn absurd that banks and even supermarkets do not offer authenticated feeds for data export but that's is unfortunately... Me personally I think banks do their best to push people toward cryptos only because of their crappy services... Even the worst CEx offer better data access the banks...
      - wesdie 6mo ago
        Yeah GoCardless still works, just not for new accounts sadly. Feels like the options are still pretty limited unless you go paid/enterprise. Woob is interesting, but scraping always feels like a ticking time bomb. Thank you for the suggestions!
- mpbart 6mo ago
  As a few others have said Plaid is actually rather cheap if you only have a handful of accounts. I created my own personal finance tracker when Intuit Mint shut down and Plaid costs me $1.80 per month for all my linked accounts which feels very reasonable to me
- amrawad 6mo ago
  Check out Lunch Flow, that's the exact reason I built this :) we Aggregate multiple providers behind a simple api for global coverage, and with a pricing friendly to individuals not businesses.
moelf 6mo ago
any comparison with https://actualbudget.org/ https://actualbudget.org/ ?
- iccananea 6mo ago
  Hadn't heard of it before, though looks similar in intent. My inspiration for trackm was actually moneywell.app which i bought a license for in 2009. The "look X years" into the future feature was pulled from it. I no longer have a mac or ios device, so built trackm to fill the void.
furyofantares 6mo ago
> I've been dogfooding it for the past 10 days Must be ready to go then
cadamsdotcom 6mo ago
I’m really sorry but anyone can vibe a personal finance app in 2026. Monetizing this is going to be challenging.
- bsticks 6mo ago
  I've wrestled with this idea. Do you think the general population will all be vibe coding finance apps? I have to think that most will still just pay the big players. (I say this as someone who vibe coded a finance app, and it works!)...now I'm not sure what to do with it, it works for me - do I open it to the world or just keep making it great for me.
mzelling 6mo ago
The privacy angle is interesting. I'm curious how people view the pricing strategy of taking a one-time payment for lifetime access. My first thought was that it encourages the developer to focus more on recruiting new users rather than keeping existing ones happy - makes me wonder what will become of the product if new user growth stalls.
- iccananea 6mo ago
  That's actually a fair point, regarding the implications of a one time fee. Personally, I don't like subscription-based apps so didn't want to create yet another one. And I built this around my personal needs so I plan to support it indefinitely. Regarding long term improvements, there is a number of paying users that once I achieve, any new users are basically profit. The service was built to be cheap to run and maintain so I could charge a one time fee.
KnowFun 6mo ago
[flagged]
CrewHaus 6mo ago
[flagged]
- iccananea 6mo ago
  Yeah, the 4-year forward projection was what got me hooked on moneywell in 2009, when I bought a "forever" license for them. I have since wanted a budgeting app that would have that feature too, so I built trackm. Regarding the one-time fee and subscription, 100% agree. I delayed adding account sync because of the monthly / yearly costs. And also, because with the model of recuring rules looking into the future, I tend to use the app on a daily basis to correct things (payment is scheduled on 16th but is cleared on 17th so I need to update it). When I add bank account sync, I'll have to think how to charge it. I still don't want to have a subscription for it, so need to think about it. Finally, I don't do client-side encryption. There is encryption in transit (https / tls) and at rest. I can't open any database without the user's password, so even if someone were able to exfiltrate the user databases, they still would need to know the encryption key used to read the data.
jontycollins 6mo ago
Really strong effort. A lot of useful features that I'm looking for in budgeting apps. You've obviously gone for a privacy feature as its selling point but how is the encryption different to anything else? Surely every finance app has a strong encryption?

21 points by iccananea 6mo ago

deweller 6mo ago

I use YNAB. I thought about building my own now that AI coding make this feasible. But the moat that I can't cross is the integration with my bank accounts. Plaid and the like are too expensive and don't cater to one-off users like me. Has anyone been able to find a personal financial data provider that has a reasonable price?

benmanns 6mo ago
I thought Plaid have (had?) a developer account that could connect something like 100 accounts that was free.
qntmfred 6mo ago
https://teller.io/ https://teller.io/ has been on my radar to play with
thenews 6mo ago
actual budget something similar from what i can see via SimpleFIN Bridge (https://actualbudget.org/docs/advanced/bank-sync/#supported-providers https://actualbudget.org/docs/advanced/bank-sync/#supported-...)
- pcchristie 6mo ago
  Actual Budget is incredible. Happy (now free since it's gone FOSS, formerly paying) customer since migrating from YNAB4 ~ 3/4/5 (?) years ago.
phoenixy1 6mo ago
Plaid has a pay-as-you-go option that's only about $2/month for this use case. (I believe the current rack rate PAYG pricing is 30 cents per month per connected bank login).
iccananea 6mo ago
I am researching providers to be able to add account sync to trackm.net I haven't done it at first because (1) they all have monthly / yearly costs and I wanted a flat fee; (2) I can't update the account without the user having logged in because of how the encryption works.
kkfx 6mo ago
GoCardless might be an option, at least for OpenBank (UE/SEPA), no idea for the USA though...
- wesdie 6mo ago
  I think GoCardless stopped accepting new accounts recently, which makes it a bit harder to rely on now. Feels like the options for EU/SEPA are still pretty limited. I’ve been looking into alternatives as well, curious if you’ve found anything that works well also?
  - kkfx 6mo ago
    So far GoCardless works for me, maybe they still kept old accounts. I've heard of https://enablebanking.com https://enablebanking.com but never tried them. I know also: - https://www.saltedge.com https://www.saltedge.com - https://www.fabrick.com https://www.fabrick.com - https://www.bridgeapi.io https://www.bridgeapi.io but they do not offer a free tier AFAIK Otherwise, with the scraping approach Woob https://woob.tech/ https://woob.tech/ (FLOSS) works well enough on some banks... It's damn absurd that banks and even supermarkets do not offer authenticated feeds for data export but that's is unfortunately... Me personally I think banks do their best to push people toward cryptos only because of their crappy services... Even the worst CEx offer better data access the banks...
    - wesdie 6mo ago
      Yeah GoCardless still works, just not for new accounts sadly. Feels like the options are still pretty limited unless you go paid/enterprise. Woob is interesting, but scraping always feels like a ticking time bomb. Thank you for the suggestions!
mpbart 6mo ago
As a few others have said Plaid is actually rather cheap if you only have a handful of accounts. I created my own personal finance tracker when Intuit Mint shut down and Plaid costs me $1.80 per month for all my linked accounts which feels very reasonable to me
amrawad 6mo ago
Check out Lunch Flow, that's the exact reason I built this :) we Aggregate multiple providers behind a simple api for global coverage, and with a pricing friendly to individuals not businesses.

moelf 6mo ago

any comparison with https://actualbudget.org/ https://actualbudget.org/ ?

iccananea 6mo ago
Hadn't heard of it before, though looks similar in intent. My inspiration for trackm was actually moneywell.app which i bought a license for in 2009. The "look X years" into the future feature was pulled from it. I no longer have a mac or ios device, so built trackm to fill the void.

furyofantares 6mo ago

> I've been dogfooding it for the past 10 days Must be ready to go then

cadamsdotcom 6mo ago

I’m really sorry but anyone can vibe a personal finance app in 2026. Monetizing this is going to be challenging.

bsticks 6mo ago
I've wrestled with this idea. Do you think the general population will all be vibe coding finance apps? I have to think that most will still just pay the big players. (I say this as someone who vibe coded a finance app, and it works!)...now I'm not sure what to do with it, it works for me - do I open it to the world or just keep making it great for me.

mzelling 6mo ago

The privacy angle is interesting. I'm curious how people view the pricing strategy of taking a one-time payment for lifetime access. My first thought was that it encourages the developer to focus more on recruiting new users rather than keeping existing ones happy - makes me wonder what will become of the product if new user growth stalls.

iccananea 6mo ago
That's actually a fair point, regarding the implications of a one time fee. Personally, I don't like subscription-based apps so didn't want to create yet another one. And I built this around my personal needs so I plan to support it indefinitely. Regarding long term improvements, there is a number of paying users that once I achieve, any new users are basically profit. The service was built to be cheap to run and maintain so I could charge a one time fee.

KnowFun 6mo ago

[flagged]

CrewHaus 6mo ago

[flagged]

iccananea 6mo ago
Yeah, the 4-year forward projection was what got me hooked on moneywell in 2009, when I bought a "forever" license for them. I have since wanted a budgeting app that would have that feature too, so I built trackm. Regarding the one-time fee and subscription, 100% agree. I delayed adding account sync because of the monthly / yearly costs. And also, because with the model of recuring rules looking into the future, I tend to use the app on a daily basis to correct things (payment is scheduled on 16th but is cleared on 17th so I need to update it). When I add bank account sync, I'll have to think how to charge it. I still don't want to have a subscription for it, so need to think about it. Finally, I don't do client-side encryption. There is encryption in transit (https / tls) and at rest. I can't open any database without the user's password, so even if someone were able to exfiltrate the user databases, they still would need to know the encryption key used to read the data.

jontycollins 6mo ago

Really strong effort. A lot of useful features that I'm looking for in budgeting apps. You've obviously gone for a privacy feature as its selling point but how is the encryption different to anything else? Surely every finance app has a strong encryption?