Vaulra vs YNAB

Envelope budgeting

Both Vaulra and YNAB are built on the envelope budgeting method. You allocate money to categories and spend from those allocations. Both carry your budget structure forward each month.

Where they differ is in organisation. Vaulra supports envelope groups, named categories like Housing, Food, and Transport, with AI-assisted auto-assignment when you create new envelopes. YNAB has category groups but requires manual setup and assignment.

Shared budgets and privacy

YNAB Together lets up to 6 members share a budget, but the Group Manager sees everything. There are no per-category or per-member visibility controls. Every member with access sees the full budget.

Vaulra offers granular per-member visibility. The budget owner controls what each person can see: full access, read-only, or hidden, per envelope, per person. You can share the grocery budget while keeping personal spending private.

Envelope groups

Vaulra supports named category groups above envelopes, similar to YNAB's category groups. The difference is that Vaulra's AI suggests the best-fit group when you create a new envelope, reducing manual setup. YNAB requires you to create and assign category groups manually.

Credit card expense tracking

Vaulra lets you tag any expense as paid with a credit card using the "Paid with" field. The card's debt balance updates automatically, and the dashboard shows the gap between your card balance and allocated payment amount.

YNAB uses an auto-reserve model for credit card payments that many users find opaque. When you spend from a category using a credit card, YNAB moves money to a credit card payment category automatically. Vaulra makes this explicit: you see exactly what you owe and what you have allocated.

Pricing

Vaulra is free. No subscription, no trial, no credit card required. YNAB is a paid subscription app after its trial period.