What’s the best split app for managing expenses and sharing bills?

Bill splitting apps ensure you don’t have to worry about splitting bills or accruing debts while with family or friends. Whether on vacation or in shared living sit­u­a­tions, you enter the incurred costs into the split app, and it can dis­trib­ute them in­di­vid­u­al­ly among different parties to help you keep track of finances.

Settle up via app

Anyone who regularly dines out with friends, lives in a shared household, travels together, or fre­quent­ly organizes group ac­tiv­i­ties knows the problem that at some point, the bill needs to be settled. That’s precisely why bill splitting apps exist. These apps (also known as “split expenses apps” or “expense manager apps”) help capture shared expenses clearly, dis­trib­ute them correctly, and easily track out­stand­ing amounts. This saves you from tedious cal­cu­la­tions, dis­cus­sions about fairness, and passing around notes or cal­cu­la­tors.

Split apps are used, for example, in:

• In the restau­rant, when not everyone pays the same
• On vacation, when different people cover things/tickets/restau­rants
• In shared house­holds, to dis­trib­ute household costs and purchases trans­par­ent­ly
• In groups of friends who fre­quent­ly go out together and want to avoid “whose turn was it last time?”

Depending on the split app, there are ad­di­tion­al features like currency con­vert­ers, data export, sta­tis­tics, cat­e­gories, automatic debt set­tle­ment, or direct payment functions. We provide an overview of available bill splitting apps, how they work, and the strengths and weak­ness­es of each solution.

Splitwise

Splitwise is an all-rounder for group expense man­age­ment. The free app (Android and iOS) and web ap­pli­ca­tion stands out with easy operation and a wealth of features. With Splitwise, you can share expenses, label them in­di­vid­u­al­ly, and save them. You can also offset debts, send per­son­al­ized reminders for repayment to your friends, and get regular no­ti­fi­ca­tions about any out­stand­ing balances. Payments can be made directly via a bank con­nec­tion. However, the app currently lacks in­te­gra­tion with services like PayPal.

Splitwise combines expenses in groups. You can add more members by providing their phone number or email address, allowing them direct access. The network will only function in the long term if each person can manage their own expenses and trans­ac­tions.

In the free version, you’re limited to adding only four expenses per day. For a busy vacation, this may not be enough. To remove this re­stric­tion, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium version.

Ad­di­tion­al features unlocked by the sub­scrip­tion include:

• complete ad-free ex­pe­ri­ence
• a currency converter
• a receipt scanner
• the ability to insert images and PDFs
• the creation of preset splits (e.g., 50/25/25)
• the gen­er­a­tion of tables and charts
• a search function for expenses

Tricount

Tricount (Android and iOS) can be used both in the app and in the browser, and friends can easily be added via SMS or email through an in­vi­ta­tion link. With Tricount, users can enter unlimited expenses without ads, as the app doesn’t offer a premium version. No reg­is­tra­tion is required; simply down­load­ing the app is all that’s needed.

The app generally dis­tin­guish­es between expenses and balances within groups. While the expenses page lists all costs and set­tle­ments along with the payer, the balance overview provides precise details on debts. The “Who owes whom how much?” section is par­tic­u­lar­ly intuitive, listing all necessary payment trans­ac­tions to settle debts. You can easily work through this list by paying directly via PayPal or simply marking the debts as paid. Tricount saves backups of your trans­ac­tions and balances online.

Since there is no premium version, features such as:

• a currency converter
• an in­te­grat­ed cal­cu­la­tor
• photo uploads
• an offline mode
• monthly insights
• and an import feature for Splitwise included.

Settle Up

Compared to its com­peti­tors, Settle Up (Android and iOS) stands out with a bubble design that combines each group member with an in­di­vid­ual “balance.” Below is the timeline for each set­tle­ment along with the steps required to clear debts. The app also allows you to split and allocate costs, and even complete payment processes with a friend. If you’re using the app solo, there’s no need to invite others to Settle Up, but you do have the option to share your group via a link.

The paid sub­scrip­tion offers several quality-of-life en­hance­ments:

• Complete ad-free ex­pe­ri­ence
• Setting up recurring and future payments
• Sending payment reminders
• Export to Excel
• Gen­er­at­ing graphs
• Cost cat­e­gories

Splid

Splid (Android and iOS) is a rel­a­tive­ly small tool compared to its com­peti­tors. Expenses, costs, and debts are processed quickly and clearly here.

If you want to manage more than one group, a payment is required. Splid offers this feature through a one-time payment rather than a sub­scrip­tion. This not only allows you to create multiple groups but also provides the option to export data to Excel.

What sets Splid apart:

• Quick creation of smaller set­tle­ments
• Usable offline
• Clear pre­sen­ta­tion of expenses
• Export of print-ready overviews
• Joint man­age­ment of groups online or offline

PayPal

PayPal (Android and iOS) also now offers its own feature to split shared bills. In the PayPal app, you can track expenses and directly split them among multiple people – either by creating a group bill or splitting a single invoice.

Features in the PayPal app:

• Creation of shared bills
• Automatic cal­cu­la­tion of shares
• Sending payment requests
• Direct set­tle­ment within the app
• Overview of out­stand­ing and settled amounts

With these features, PayPal sim­pli­fies both tracking and settling out­stand­ing amounts in one system – elim­i­nat­ing the need for any ad­di­tion­al apps or external cal­cu­la­tions. This makes PayPal’s in­te­grat­ed bill-splitting service a con­ve­nient al­ter­na­tive, es­pe­cial­ly for small groups of friends or quick, ad-hoc sit­u­a­tions.

Revolut

Revolut (Android and iOS) combines banking, payments, and bill splitting in one app. With the in­te­grat­ed Split Bill feature, shared expenses can be quickly divided, displayed, and settled without ad­di­tion­al software. Revolut au­to­mat­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lates who owes whom how much and trans­par­ent­ly displays out­stand­ing amounts.

Features for splitting costs in Revolut:

• Bill splitting im­me­di­ate­ly after each payment
• Automatic cal­cu­la­tion of shares
• Overview of all group expenses
• Instant repayment to friends via Revolut
• Push no­ti­fi­ca­tions for out­stand­ing amounts

Revolut is par­tic­u­lar­ly useful for groups that already use the app for paying, saving, or traveling. It allows travel expenses, shared apartment costs, or restau­rant visits to be settled directly—in real time and without an external app.

Overview of the best bill splitting apps