Settle Up

Overview

Settle Up is a group expense tracker for people who need to keep shared spending fair without turning every bill into an equal split. It suits trips, shared households and other groups with changing contributors or uneven shares. Its strongest case is flexible accounting paired with settlement guidance; its main trade-off is that several useful conveniences sit behind Premium.

Key features

Settle Up handles weighted shares, bills paid by multiple people, incomes and itemized expenses. That flexibility matters for groups where one person covers several items or participants owe different amounts. It also shows who should pay next and reduces the number of transactions needed to settle balances, making it more useful than a simple record of who spent what.

Groups can be shared by link or QR code, and the app supports all currencies with real-time exchange rates. Offline access is a practical advantage while traveling: expenses can still be managed and synchronized once the connection returns. Users can also pay a debt directly to a group member's Lightning address; Settle Up charges no fee for this beyond network fees.

The free tier includes transaction filters and statistics, CSV export by email, read-only access, backup and synchronization, widgets and shortcuts. Premium adds ad-free use, receipt photos, categories, recurring transactions, Excel export and group colour choices. The API documentation says mobile app capabilities are accessible through the API and identifies Firebase Realtime Database as the backend.

Pricing

Free costs nothing and includes core expense tracking, CSV export and group sharing, with ads. It is a sensible starting point for groups that can do without receipt photos, recurring expenses and Excel export.

Monthly Premium costs $3.99 a month; Yearly Premium costs $19.99 a year. Both remove ads and add receipt photos, recurring and future expenses, custom categories, Excel export and statistics. The annual plan is the lower-cost option for someone expecting to use Premium over a full year; monthly billing suits a shorter commitment.

Group Premium extends Premium features to everyone in one group. Options are $5.99, paid once for 1 week, $9.99, paid once for 2 weeks, $14.99 a month for 1 month, $29.99, paid once for 2 months, and $39.99 a year for 1 year. These group terms suit a trip or shared project where members need the paid features together. Premium, Group Premium and Lifetime Group Premium are also offered at custom pricing.

Platforms

Settle Up is available on Android, iOS, web and Windows. Separate feedback contacts are provided for each platform. Its privacy policy says data are stored in Google Cloud Platform services Firebase and Google App Engine in the United States, transmitted only over HTTPS, and handled in compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR. Group members can see a user's name, email, profile pictures and entered transaction and other group data. Android supports CSV export for individual groups; users can contact the company for more extensive exports.

Who it's for

Choose Settle Up when a group needs to track shared expenses across unequal contributions, manage multiple currencies or continue working offline. Its free tier covers core tracking, while Premium is more compelling for frequent users who want receipt records, recurring expenses or Excel export. It is less suited to someone seeking a standalone personal budget tool rather than a shared ledger.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Weighted shares, multiple payers and itemized bills cover more complicated group expenses than a basic equal split.
• Pro: Offline use, real-time exchange rates and link or QR sharing support groups on the move.
• Pro: Direct Lightning-address settlement avoids a Settle Up fee, though network fees still apply.
• Con: The free plan includes ads and lacks Premium conveniences such as receipt photos, recurring expenses and Excel export.
• Con: Sharing group records means members can see personal profile details and entered group data.

Alternatives

Choose Splitwise instead if its Pro features or Trip Pass structure better fits the group; it also spans Android, iOS, web and API. For transfers and an account rather than group expense tracking, Wise offers a free personal account and pay-for-what-you-use transfers across Android, iOS and web. For a free Android or iOS payment app, consider PhonePe, BHIM, Lydia or MobilePay. Remitly is an alternative for remittance, while Vipps is another payments app.

Browse Peer-to-Peer Payment Apps for more payment options, or Personal Finance Software for broader money-management tools.

Verdict

Settle Up is a strong choice for groups that need flexible expense splits, offline access and a clear path to settling balances. Its free tier is enough for basic shared tracking; choose Premium for records and recurring costs, or look elsewhere if the group's priority is personal finance management rather than shared expenses.