Looking for a Splitwise alternative? Here’s the honest list.

Why now

Why so many people are searching this week.

Splitwise is still free on iPhone, Android and the web, and it still does the job it is famous for: groups for trips, housemates and friends, a running balance of who owes who, and a way to settle up and record the payment.

What changed is the free plan’s room to breathe. Splitwise’s own page for its paid plan leads with “unlimited expenses” — add as many as you like each day, with no interruptions — and an ad-free experience. Read the other way round, the free plan limits how many expenses you can add in a day and shows ads. Splitwise doesn’t print the exact number on that page and people report different figures, so check the app for yours.

For a flat that adds two bills a week, that limit never bites. For a weekend in Lisbon where six of you pay for breakfast, the tram, lunch, the wine bar and dinner, it bites before the custard tarts.

A one-minute quiz

First, what are you actually splitting?

• A trip with lots of small expenses → you need a group app with no daily limit, offline use and currencies. Look at Tricount and Settle Up below.
• A household, month after month → a group app with recurring expenses. Splitwise’s free plan may still be enough at a few bills a week.
• One dinner tonight → you probably don’t need an app at all. Use a split-the-bill calculator and the methods in how to split a restaurant bill.
• You want to remember the night, not the debt → that’s a different kind of app. Skip to “What PlateDiary does instead”.

At a glance

The alternatives, in their own words.

Tricount

Tricount: “More moments. Zero math.”

That headline is Tricount’s own, and it describes the app well. You name a trip, a dinner or a household, invite the group, and it shows who owes what so you can pay each other back. Its homepage says you can try it without signing up, that it works offline, and that there are “no ads or daily expense cap” — which is exactly why it comes up in every Splitwise thread right now.

Tricount is linked with bunq, the bank: the site promotes a bunq card you can connect to it. You don’t need the card to split a dinner.

Settle Up

Settle Up: the fewest transfers, even offline.

Settle Up’s App Store listing opens with “Settle group expenses without the stress.” It handles even and weighted splits and several payers, supports every currency with live exchange rates, and says its algorithm works out the fewest possible transfers to clear everyone’s debts. It works without internet and syncs when you’re back, and friends can see the balance in a browser without downloading anything.

Its paid tier, aimed at what it calls power users and frequent travelers, adds receipt photos, recurring expenses, custom categories, Excel export, charts and no ads.

Copy this

For one dinner, a message beats an app.

If it’s a single night out — Sunday hot pot with Wen, Dara, Felix and Noor — work it out on the calculator and paste one tidy message in the group chat. Agree the method before anyone orders, and nobody has to open anything afterwards:

• “Hot pot came to [total] with service. Split five ways that’s [each] each.”
• “Felix and Noor had the beers, so add [drinks share] each and the rest of us pay [food share].”
• “Pay me back whenever. Receipt photo’s in here if anyone wants it.”

What PlateDiary does instead

It remembers the bill. It doesn’t chase it.

We get asked whether PlateDiary can replace Splitwise. It can’t, and it isn’t trying to. PlateDiary is a food memory app: one photo of the table becomes a save for every dish and drink, filed under the place and the night, with the companions you add. What it keeps about money is the memory of it:

• Receipt scan. Point the camera at the receipt and it is read on your phone; the photo is deleted right after. Prices are offered per dish as switches, and they never replace a price you typed.
• The bill. Add “What was the bill?” to any moment, or let it add up the prices on your saves as a table total.
• Who was there. Companions are names on the night. Nothing is sent to them and no contacts are read.
• No conversion. A night in Tokyo stays in yen, and mixed currencies print side by side. It never converts.
• What it never does: work out shares, keep a balance of who owes who, send payment requests or settle anything.

Better together

Split in one app, keep the night in another.

1. Snap the tableWhen the food lands, one photo in PlateDiary. Every dish is cut out on your phone; put it away and eat.
2. Scan the receiptWhen the bill comes, scan it in PlateDiary to keep the prices with the dishes.
3. Split it where you splitAdd the total to Tricount, Settle Up or Splitwise, or work it out on a calculator and send one message.
4. Keep the nightMonths later, the moment still shows what you ordered, who was there and what the table came to.

Fine print

How we checked, and who we are.

We make PlateDiary, so weigh that in. Everything about Splitwise, Tricount and Settle Up on this page comes from their own sites and store listings as they read on 20 October 2026. We left out prices and ratings on purpose, and each app’s own pages win if anything has changed.

Sources

Where the facts come from