I tried every expense tracker out there. Mint, YNAB, PocketGuard, Spendee, Monefy—you name it. None of them worked for me.
Not because they were bad apps. They were too much app.
The Problem with Existing Apps
Every finance app I tried had the same issues:
They wanted my bank login. I work in tech. I know how data breaches happen. Giving my bank credentials to a third party felt wrong. And for what? So I could see the same transactions I can see in my banking app?
They were complicated. YNAB requires you to take courses. Courses! For an expense tracker! I wanted to track a coffee purchase, not get a PhD in personal finance.
They showed me ads. Mint's free, but you pay with your attention and data. Credit card offers, loan pitches, investment upsells. It felt like the app worked for advertisers, not for me.
They sold my data. Even when apps claim to "anonymize" data, your spending habits are being packaged and sold. That didn't sit right with me.
What I Actually Needed
I didn't need a financial advisor in my pocket. I needed a simple way to:
- Record when money came in
- Record when money went out
- See where my money was going
That's it. No bank connections. No ads. No complexity.
I looked for an app that did just this. I couldn't find one that was both simple AND private. So I built one.
The Principles Behind Pocket Clear
1. Privacy by Default
Your financial data stays on your device. Period. We don't have access to it. We can't sell it. We can't be hacked for it.
If you want cloud backup (Pro), we encrypt your data on your device before it ever leaves. We store encrypted blobs. We can't read them.
2. No Ads, Ever
When the product is free and has ads, you're the product. Pocket Clear's free tier has no ads. Pro is $0.99/month. That's how we make money—by providing value, not by selling your attention.
3. Simplicity is a Feature
Most apps compete on features. We compete on simplicity. Every feature we don't add is a feature you don't have to learn.
Track money in. Track money out. See reports. That's the core, and it should only take 30 seconds a day.
4. Works Offline
No WiFi? No problem. Pocket Clear works completely offline. You're at a coffee shop or traveling abroad—you can still track expenses instantly.
What Pocket Clear Isn't
I want to be honest about what we're not:
- We're not a financial advisor. We don't give investment advice or tell you what to do with your money.
- We don't connect to banks. If you want automatic import, try PocketGuard or Copilot.
- We're not YNAB. We don't have zero-based budgeting philosophy or courses.
We're a simple, private expense tracker. For people who just want to see where their money goes.
The Future
We're keeping Pocket Clear simple, but we have plans:
- Recurring transaction tracking
- CSV export
- Family sharing
- Widgets
- Goals
Every feature will go through the same filter: Does this make tracking simpler? Does it respect privacy? If not, we won't add it.
Thank You
If you've read this far, thanks. Building an indie app is hard. Competing against well-funded companies is harder.
But I believe there's a market for simple, private software. Software that respects users instead of exploiting them.
If that resonates with you, give Pocket Clear a try. It's free, and I'd love to hear what you think.
— Aravind
Try Pocket Clear
Simple expense tracking. Your data stays yours.