A YNAB alternative that reads your receipts: Sorayli vs YNAB

YNAB and Sorayli both help you see where your money goes, but they start from opposite ends. YNAB asks you to decide what every dollar you have is for, before you spend it. Sorayli records what you did spend, down to each line on the receipt, and tells you when a category is close to its monthly limit. Below: what each does, where each wins, and a method that works with either.

Everything we say about YNAB comes from YNAB's own website and help center, read on September 28, 2026, with its prices, bank import, currencies and devices checked again on October 6, 2026. Each fact is listed in the sources at the end with the day we read it. Sorayli is not affiliated with YNAB.

01YNAB alternative at a glance

02Two ways to handle money

YNAB is a zero-based budget. Its own definition: you assign all of your money to categories that cover expenses, debt payments and savings, and you budget only what you have on hand. It calls this giving every dollar a job. Its help center sums the method up as one question to ask when money comes in: what's it for?

In YNAB, money left in a category at the end of the month carries into the next month, and negative amounts do not. Your account registers are meant to mirror your real bank accounts, which you check with its Reconcile feature.

Sorayli is a spending tracker. You scan a receipt, type a purchase in, or import a CSV file, and each purchase lands in a category. A budget in Sorayli is a monthly limit for one category, or for all your spending, with an alert when you reach the percentage you pick. It starts from zero each month, and unspent money does not roll over. Sorayli has no accounts and no account balances: its Total Balance card is your all-time income minus your spending.

03Sorayli vs YNAB, feature by feature

04How your spending gets in

This is the biggest practical difference between the two apps. YNAB can fill itself in. Its Direct Import feature links your accounts through MX or Plaid, and YNAB says it is completely optional. Once linked, most accounts refresh once or twice a day, new transactions typically show up within 24 to 72 hours of clearing your bank, and a posted transaction can take up to three days to appear. YNAB's pricing page says Direct Import supports select US, Canadian, UK and EU banks, and points people elsewhere to file-based import.

Without Direct Import, you type transactions in, schedule regular bills, or drag a CSV, QFX, OFX or QIF file from your bank into the web app. File-based import cannot add categories or splits, so you categorize afterwards.

Sorayli never connects to a bank. Everything in it is something you scanned, typed, imported from a CSV file in Sorayli's layout, or described to the chat assistant with Write mode on. That is more work for card purchases you have no receipt for. In return, there is no bank connection to set up, repair or revoke. Our guide to tracking expenses without linking your bank sets out a weekly routine that closes the gap.

05One receipt, recorded both ways

Here is a small shop that mixes two kinds of spending: food and toiletries. Many supermarket, pharmacy and big-box receipts look like this.

In YNAB with Direct Import, one charge of $33.67 from Corner Market arrives from your bank. If you file all of it under groceries, that category is overstated by $10.48. To keep it right, you split the transaction: $23.19 to groceries and $10.48 to toiletries, adding the lines up from the paper yourself. You can attach a photo of the receipt so you remember what it was.

In Sorayli, you scan the receipt. The review screen lists the seven lines, you check the suggested categories, and it saves seven transactions: five under Food & Dining adding to $23.19, two under Personal Care adding to $10.48. A Food & Dining budget counts the $23.19 and not the $10.48, because a budget counts only its exact category. Food & Dining also holds restaurant meals, so if you want groceries on their own, add a Groceries category yourself; custom categories work on every plan.

YNAB gets the charge without typing and leaves the split to you. Sorayli does the split and needs the receipt. Which saves you time depends on how many of your purchases come with one.

06What each costs

YNAB's pricing page lists two plans, monthly and annual, after a 34-day free trial with no card needed when you sign up directly. It lists no free plan. College students can get a free 365-day trial. Sorayli has a Free plan with 10 receipt scans and 10 spending questions a month, 2 budgets, and as many typed-in purchases as you like. Pro and Family have no monthly scan limit, with fair-use caps of 300 scans a month on Pro and 800 shared across a Family plan. Compare Sorayli's plans.

For a household the math turns around. One YNAB subscription covers a group of up to six people for $109 a year. Sorayli Family covers up to 5 people for $129.99 a year, and each person keeps a separate ledger. If two or more of you want to run money together, YNAB costs less and offers the shared plan that Sorayli does not. More on how Sorayli's plan works on the page for families.

07Which one fits you

08A method that works with either app

You can borrow one idea from each app today, even with a notebook. From YNAB: plan only with money you already have. From Sorayli: a mixed receipt is really several purchases.

1. 1Write down the money you have right now, in your accounts and in cash. Leave out pay you have not received yet.
2. 2Share it out across categories (rent, groceries, transport, toiletries, savings) until nothing is left over.
3. 3Keep every receipt from a shop that sells more than one kind of thing: supermarkets, pharmacies, big-box stores.
4. 4Once a week, split those receipts by category. On the example above, that is $23.19 of groceries and $10.48 of toiletries, not $33.67 of groceries.
5. 5Compare each category's spending with what you gave it. If one ran over, move money from another category rather than hoping next month covers it.

Step 4 is the one people skip, and it is where a grocery budget stops meaning anything. If your income arrives unevenly, step 1 matters even more; our guide to budgeting with irregular income goes further.

09Moving from YNAB to Sorayli

YNAB exports your plan and transactions as CSV or TSV files, from the web app only. Sorayli's CSV import, on the web and in the iPhone and Android apps, finds columns by their headings, such as Date, Title, Amount, Currency and Category. Open YNAB's export in a spreadsheet, rename or rework the columns to match, and import. The iPhone app shows what it will import before it saves anything, and takes up to 1,000 rows at a time. Receipt photos do not travel in a CSV file; YNAB lets you download photos one at a time.

What does not come across is the plan itself. Sorayli has no assigned amounts or carried-over balances, so set up monthly budgets for the categories you watch most instead.