2025 comparison guide
The best expense tracker app in India — honestly ranked
Five apps that track expenses in India: axio (formerly Walnut), MoneyView, ET Money, Jupiter, and Spenrol. They are not all competing for the same job. This guide tells you which one is actually right for your situation.
The honest answer is: there is no single best expense tracker for everyone in India. The right app depends on whether you want automatic or manual tracking, whether credit score is part of your goal, whether you're willing to switch banks, and whether you need post-payment history or pre-payment control.
Most comparison articles rank apps by feature count. That is not how people actually choose. This guide walks through what each app is actually built for — so you can match the product to the problem, not the marketing to the headline.
At a glance
Five apps compared
Scroll right on mobile.
| Feature | axio (Walnut) | MoneyView | ET Money | Jupiter | Spenrol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expense tracking | partial | partial | |||
| SMS access required | |||||
| Pre-payment guardrail | launching | ||||
| Intentionality tagging | |||||
| Spending personality | |||||
| Credit score | |||||
| BNPL / personal loans | |||||
| Investments / SIPs | partial | ||||
| Savings account / bank | |||||
| Works without app install | |||||
| Pricing | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
No signup required
Try Spenrol's free tracker — no signup needed
Works in your browser. No SMS, no install, no card.
Deep dive
What each app is actually for
Best for SMS auto-tracking + credit
axio (formerly Walnut)
Walnut was one of India's earliest and most reliable expense trackers — SMS-based, automatic, and clean. In 2018 it was acquired by Capital Float, and in 2022 the combined entity rebranded as axio. The expense tracker you knew as Walnut now lives inside axio's broader financial platform.
axio today is as much a credit product as it is an expense tracker. It offers BNPL (Pay Later), personal loans, and credit score tracking alongside the SMS-based expense history. If you want a pure expense ledger without lending offers in the flow, that has changed with the rebrand.
Who it's for: people who want automatic SMS-based expense tracking and are open to — or actively looking for — BNPL or personal loan products in the same app.
Best for credit score tracking
MoneyView
MoneyView does what Walnut does — SMS-based auto-tracking — but wraps it inside a credit and lending platform. You get your CIBIL score, loan comparisons, and insurance products alongside your expense history. That's genuinely useful if credit is part of your financial picture.
The tension: MoneyView is designed to upsell credit products. The expense tracker is real and functional, but it's not why MoneyView exists. If you're not in the market for a loan, you'll navigate around a lot of noise.
Who it's for: people who want automatic expense tracking and credit health monitoring in one app, and who are okay with occasional loan offers in the flow.
Best for mutual fund investors
ET Money
ET Money is an investment platform first. It does direct mutual funds with zero commission, SIP management, term insurance comparisons, and ITR filing. That's a strong suite if building wealth is your primary goal. Note: ET Money was acquired by 360 ONE (formerly IIFL Wealth) in June 2024 — it still operates under the ET Money brand with the same features.
The expense tracking is SMS-based and secondary. It works, but it's not the product's priority. You won't find intentionality tagging, spending personality analysis, or any pre-payment mechanism here.
Who it's for: salaried professionals who have their daily spending roughly under control and want to optimize for wealth building — SIPs, tax-saving investments, and insurance in one place.
Best neo-bank with budgeting pots
Jupiter
Jupiter is a Federal Bank savings account with smart features layered on top: pots to set aside money for goals, automatic categorisation of Jupiter card and UPI spending, and rewards. If you want your bank and budget in one place and you're willing to switch, it's the most polished option.
The catch: Jupiter's budgeting only covers money flowing through Jupiter. If your salary goes into HDFC and you pay via PhonePe, Jupiter sees none of it. The product's strength is also its constraint — deep integration requires full commitment.
Who it's for: people who want a modern banking experience with built-in financial discipline, and who are willing to migrate their salary account to make it work end-to-end.
Best for pre-payment guardrails
Spenrol
Spenrol is the only app on this list that asks a question no other tracker does: was that spend intentional? Every transaction gets tagged — planned, impulsive, or emotional — and those tags build your spending personality over time. The personality isn't a gimmick; it's the feedback loop that changes behaviour.
The tracker is browser-based today — no install, no SMS access, 30-second manual entries. The UPI guardrail in development takes this further: a budget check that fires before your UPI payment goes through. Not a notification after. A check before.
Who it's for: people fighting impulse spending who want to understand the why behind their habits, and who eventually want a guardrail that stops the spend before it happens — not a report about it after.
Why Spenrol exists
Why we built Spenrol differently
Every expense tracker we found — Walnut, MoneyView, all of them — solves the same problem: showing you what already happened. You open the app at the end of the month, you see the numbers, you feel vaguely bad about the food delivery total, and you close the app. Nothing changes.
The reason nothing changes is that the feedback arrives too late. By the time you see that ₹4,200 food month, the orders are already eaten. The moment that mattered — the three seconds between wanting Zomato and tapping Pay — had no guardrail in it.
Spenrol starts with a different question: what if the app asked you to reflect at the moment of entry, not the end of month? Every transaction gets an intentionality tag — planned, impulsive, or emotional. That tag, accumulated over weeks, becomes your spending personality. And the UPI guardrail being built right now takes it further: a check that fires before the money moves, not a report about it after.
That is a different product for a different problem. Not better-tracking. Prevention.