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Tiller Money Alternatives 2026: 5 Options, 4 Free
Tiller Money alternatives: Actual Budget, Firefly III, LibreOffice, GnuCash and 1 more. Prices and licenses checked October 23, 2026.
•3 min read•Personal Finance & Investing
Verdict:Tiller costs $99 a year after a 30-day trial, and its value is the spreadsheet itself: transactions land in Google Sheets where you build any formula you like. Leave Tiller if you do not want to maintain formulas or if you want a dedicated app. Monarch Money costs about the same per year for an app rather than a sheet, so the choice is about how you like to work, not price. Actual Budget is free and MIT-licensed, the strongest budget app on this list if you will host it yourself and pay separately for bank sync. Firefly III is the other self-hosted route, with an AGPL license and no paid tier in its repository, but you run the server and back up the database yourself. LibreOffice and GnuCash cost nothing and keep everything on your machine. LibreOffice suits a spreadsheet person who will paste transactions by hand. GnuCash suits someone who wants double-entry books, though it has no automatic bank feed. The concrete trade-off is this: Tiller saves hours of manual entry at $99 a year, while every free option trades that time for your own setup or your own typing.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual Budget | Free (Open-source app you host yourself; the repository lists no paid tier) | Web (self-hosted) | Envelope budgeting in a dedicated app you host | Docs only |
| Firefly III | Free (Open-source personal finance manager you host yourself; no paid tier in the repository) | Web (self-hosted) | Self-hosters who want full records on their own server | Docs only |
| LibreOffice | Free (download and use at no cost per its site) | Windows, macOS, Linux | Spreadsheet owners who will enter transactions manually | Docs only |
| GnuCash | Free (double-entry accounting program with no price on its site) | Windows, macOS, Linux | Double-entry books on a desktop | Docs only |
| Monarch Money | Paid from $14.99 per month, billed monthly ($99.99 per year billed annually) | Web | Budgeting in an app instead of a sheet | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
See the tools in action
Explore the interface and watch a workflow before choosing.
Good fit if
- You want budget formulas in a spreadsheet you own (LibreOffice is the pick)
- You want a dedicated budget app and will host it yourself (Actual Budget is the pick)
- You want free double-entry books on your desktop (GnuCash is the pick)
- You want a paid app with bank connections instead of a sheet (Monarch Money is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on Tiller Money features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
Tiller Money today: Paid from $99 per year, after a 30-day free trial (Tiller Money pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Why people look for Tiller Money alternatives
Tiller has no free plan. It costs $99 a year after a 30-day free trial, with a further 30-day refund guarantee, and sign-up requires a Microsoft or Google account. Bank connections, the Foundation Template, AutoCat categorization and daily account emails are all part of that single subscription, so a budget that only needs a ledger still pays the full year.
Actual Budget
Compared with Tiller Money: MIT-licensed, self-hosted budgeting app with no paid tier in its repository. Tiller costs $99 a year and keeps your data in Google Sheets; Actual gives you a dedicated budget app, but you host it yourself and pay separately for bank sync.
Price: Free (Open-source app you host yourself; the repository lists no paid tier) (Actual Budget pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web (self-hosted). MIT (open source).
Project activity: 29.8k GitHub stars · latest release v26.10.0 (Oct 2, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Envelope budgeting in a dedicated app you host.
Firefly III
Compared with Tiller Money: AGPL-licensed, self-hosted personal finance manager with no paid tier in its repository. Tiller's $99 yearly fee disappears, but you run the server and back up the database yourself.
Price: Free (Open-source personal finance manager you host yourself; no paid tier in the repository) (Firefly III pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web (self-hosted). AGPL-3.0 (open source).
Project activity: 25k GitHub stars · latest release v6.7.9 (Oct 11, 2026) · last commit Oct 26, 2026
Best for: Self-hosters who want full records on their own server.
Worth knowing: Self-hosted, so you run the server and back up the database yourself. The repository describes it as a personal finances manager.
LibreOffice
Compared with Tiller Money: Free desktop suite whose Calc spreadsheet can hold a budget much like a Tiller sheet, with no subscription. Tiller pulls transactions in automatically; with LibreOffice you paste them in by hand.
Price: Free (download and use at no cost per its site) (LibreOffice pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Windows, macOS, Linux. MPL-2.0 (open source).
Best for: Spreadsheet owners who will enter transactions manually.
Worth knowing: Desktop suite of Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math; it has no built-in cloud storage or email.
GnuCash
Compared with Tiller Money: Free double-entry desktop accounting with no subscription. It is a ledger rather than a budget sheet, so you gain proper accounts and reports but lose Tiller's Google Sheets layout and its automatic transaction feed.
Price: Free (double-entry accounting program with no price on its site) (GnuCash pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Windows, macOS, Linux. GNU GPL (open source).
Best for: Double-entry books on a desktop.
Worth knowing: It is a desktop program, so it has no built-in bank feeds or online invoicing.
Monarch Money
Compared with Tiller Money: Paid app at $14.99 a month billed monthly, or $99.99 a year billed annually, with a first-week trial and no free plan. Its yearly price is close to Tiller's $99, but it is a dedicated app with bank connections, not a spreadsheet.
Price: Paid from $14.99 per month, billed monthly ($99.99 per year billed annually) (Monarch Money pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary.
Best for: Budgeting in an app instead of a sheet.
Which one to pick
- You want budget formulas in a spreadsheet you own: LibreOffice
- You want a dedicated budget app and will host it yourself: Actual Budget
- You want free double-entry books on your desktop: GnuCash
- You want a paid app with bank connections instead of a sheet: Monarch Money
Limits of this review
Docs-only for Actual Budget, Firefly III, LibreOffice, GnuCash, Monarch Money: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from Tiller Money. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
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Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked between 2026-10-22 and 2026-10-23: Tiller Money, Actual Budget, Firefly III, LibreOffice, GnuCash, Monarch Money. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.