Kiwi Money
Reads your bank’s SMS alerts and logs each transaction on its own.
$0.99/week · $14.99/year · $49.99 lifetime
- automatic SMS capture
- 11+ local banks
- AI categories
- iOS & Android
Updated September 2026
Best expense tracker apps in Sri Lanka (2026)
Most people in Sri Lanka do not have a spending problem so much as a timing problem. The salary lands near the end of the month, the rent goes out on the 1st, the lease instalment on the 5th, school fees at the start of term, and card alerts arrive by SMS all the way through. The balance in your banking app is true and almost useless: it tells you what is there right now, not what is still to leave.
Disclosure: Broke or Not is our app, and it is one of the four compared here. We have tried to be accurate rather than flattering — each app below gets a “watch out for” section, ours included, and the recommendations at the end send you elsewhere whenever that is the honest answer.
The shortlist
Four apps worth your time
Two are built for Sri Lanka, one is a global standard that handles rupees without complaint, and one — ours — answers a different question from the other three. Scroll on for the full breakdown of each.
Money Master Sri Lanka
The widest free feature set here, and the only one that runs fully offline.
Free
- free
- offline
- loans & lending
- Sinhala
- iOS & Android
Money Manager (Realbyte)
The long-established manual tracker, with proper account structure and a PC companion.
Free with ads · sync $19.99/year
- multi-currency
- Windows companion
- CSV export
- iOS & Android
Broke or Not (ours)
Projects your balance onto every future day, so you can check a date before you commit to it.
Free
- free
- future balances
- works in a browser
- Excel & PDF export
- iOS & Android
The short version
- Never want to type a transaction again? Kiwi Money is the only one here that captures card spending on its own, and the only one you pay for.
- Want everything for nothing, and privately? Money Master runs offline with no account, and handles loans and money you have lent out.
- Enjoy keeping proper books? Money Manager is the mature, structured, multi-currency option, and the only one you can edit on a computer alongside your phone.
- Worried about the 20th of the month rather than last month? That is a different job, and it is the one Broke or Not does.
Feature comparison
How they stack up
| Compare features | Kiwi Money | Money Master | Money Manager | Broke or Not |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic expense capture Logs transactions from bank SMS alerts | ✓ | ✓ drafts you approve | ✗ | ✗ |
| No bank login required Never asks for online banking credentials | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Projects future balances Shows what you will have on a date ahead | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Recurring entries Rent, salary and instalments added once | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Works offline Full use with no connection | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Use it on a computer Not phone-only | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ paid Windows app | ✓ any browser |
| Free to use Beyond a trial period | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ with ads | ✓ |
| Export your data CSV, Excel or PDF out | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ Excel and PDF, a month at a time |
| Multi-currency Beyond rupees | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sinhala interface App language, not just currency | — | ✓ | — | ✗ |
A dash means the app does not publish an answer either way — not that the answer is no. Everything else was taken from that app’s own listing, website or help centre on 6 September 2026. Apps in this category ship quickly, so check the store listing before taking a price at face value.
Before you choose
Trackers and planners answer different questions
There is a split running down the middle of this list, and it decides which app suits you more than any single feature does.
Three of the four are trackers. They capture what you spent, categorise it, and show you where the money went. That is genuinely useful — you cannot fix a Rs. 40,000 monthly leak you have never seen. Kiwi Money, Money Master and Money Manager are all, at heart, very good rear-view mirrors.
The fourth is a planner. It starts from what you have today, adds everything you already know is coming — the salary on the 25th, the rent on the 1st, the lease every month, the insurance every year — and works forward, so every future day on a calendar carries the balance you are projected to have on it. That answers a different question: not “where did it go?” but “if I book this trip in December, what happens to the 5th of January?”
Neither replaces the other. Plenty of people are best served running a tracker for the record and a planner for the decisions.
App-by-app breakdown
A closer look at each
Kiwi Money
Automatic expense tracking built around Sri Lankan bank SMS alerts.
Why it is here
Kiwi Money’s pitch is that you never type a transaction. Every time you pay by card your bank sends an SMS; Kiwi reads that alert and logs the amount, the merchant and a category on its own, sorting it with AI categorisation that it says improves over time. It never asks for your online banking login — it works from alerts your bank already sends you, which is a meaningfully smaller ask. It is the only app here that removes the habit entirely, and the only one you pay for.
Best for
Card-heavy spenders who have tried manual tracking and stopped within a fortnight, and who bank with one of the eleven-plus supported banks.
Watch out for
Cash spending still has to be entered by hand, and there is no free tier once the 14-day trial ends. The fee is priced in dollars, which is worth noting if you are budgeting in rupees.
Standout features
- Automatic capture from bank SMS
- AI merchant categorisation
- Commercial, Sampath, HNB, BOC, Seylan and more
- No bank login required
- Budgets that update as you spend
- All account balances in one view
Pricing $0.99/week · $14.99/year · $49.99 lifetime · 14-day free trial
Money Master Sri Lanka
Free, offline and locally built by Inoxza Solutions. Also listed as Budget Master.
Why it is here
Money Master is the widest feature set here for no money at all, and two of its features match how money actually moves in Sri Lanka in a way the others do not. It handles loans properly — full amortisation schedules, EMI calculation and overdue alerts — and it has a lending tracker for money you have lent to family and friends, so you know who owes you what. Anyone juggling a vehicle lease and an informal loan to a cousin will appreciate both.
Best for
Anyone who wants one thorough, private, free record of their money — especially with loans or lending to keep track of — and who would rather nothing left the phone at all.
Watch out for
Running fully offline cuts both ways: there is nothing to open on a laptop and nothing to restore automatically if the phone is lost, beyond the Google Drive backup you remember to take. Its SMS capture creates drafts you approve rather than logging on its own.
Standout features
- Free, with no subscription
- Works 100% offline, no account
- Loans with amortisation and EMI
- Lending tracker for money owed to you
- Savings goals with visible progress
- Export to PDF, Excel and CSV
- Sinhala interface and dark mode
- Biometric lock and Drive backup
Pricing Free
Money Manager by Realbyte
The long-established global manual tracker. Not built for Sri Lanka, and does not need to be.
Why it is here
Money Manager is one of the longest-running personal finance apps on both stores, and it does the classic job very well: accounts, main and sub-categories, weekly, monthly and annual statistics, budgets on the same three cycles, a calendar view of what you recorded, and multi-currency support that handles LKR without complaint. The structure is closer to double-entry bookkeeping than most of its rivals, which is exactly why the people who like it stay for years.
Best for
Disciplined manual trackers who want mature software, proper account structure, a desktop workflow, and who may also spend in other currencies.
Watch out for
Nothing is captured for you: no SMS parsing, no bank connection, every transaction typed. The free tier carries ads, cloud sync is a separate subscription, and the PC companion is a separate purchase again.
Standout features
- Accounts with main and sub-categories
- Weekly, monthly and annual budgets
- Multi-currency support
- Windows companion for desktop editing
- CSV and Excel import and export
- Recurring transaction templates
Pricing Free with ads · cloud sync $2.49/month or $19.99/year · PC companion sold separately
Broke or Not — our app
A calendar-based planner. The odd one out here, on purpose.
Why it is here
You tell Broke or Not your current balance, then add the money moving in and out — one-off items and recurring ones, weekly, monthly or yearly. It projects a running balance onto every day of the calendar, months or years ahead: green where income lands, red where you would go under. Tap any day to see exactly which entries produced that number. It runs in a browser as well as on iOS and Android, so you can plan on a laptop and check on a phone, and amounts are stored against an ISO 4217 currency code rather than assuming rupees.
Best for
Anyone paid on a schedule with fixed commitments between paydays, who needs to know before committing whether a purchase still leaves the 1st covered.
Watch out for
It does not read your bank SMS or connect to your bank, so entries are added by hand. It needs an account and a connection — there is no offline mode — and there is no loan amortisation and no lending tracker. Export covers the month you are viewing rather than your whole history, and there is no CSV. If you want a complete automatic ledger of past spending, one of the three above is the better tool.
Standout features
- Projected balance on every future day
- One-off and recurring entries
- Tap a day to see what produced the number
- Monthly summary by category
- Drill into a category, see every entry
- Export a month to Excel or PDF
- Browser, iOS and Android
- LKR by default, full currency picker
- Delete your account and data in Settings
Pricing Free · no ads · no card at signup
The verdict
Which app fits you?
-
Kiwi Money
You have quit three trackers already
The only tracker you will still be using in six months is one that does not need you. Worth the fee if it survives past February.
-
Money Master
You want everything, free and private
Offline, no account, nothing leaves the phone — and loans and lending are handled properly.
-
Money Manager
You enjoy keeping proper books
Mature, structured and multi-currency, with a desktop companion when the phone is not enough.
-
Broke or Not
Your problem is the 20th, not last month
A projected balance on every future date, so you can check whether a purchase still leaves the 1st covered. What it is.
-
Run a free pair
You are not sure
Money Master or Kiwi to record what leaves, Broke or Not to see what is left. Neither knows about the other, but between them you get the mirror and the windscreen.
Buyer’s guide
What to look for in Sri Lanka
Rupees as a first-class currency
Any serious app will let you set LKR, but check how amounts are stored and displayed. An app that treats rupees as a formatting option and does its sums in floating-point can drift over a year of entries.
Money that leaves on a date
Rent, lease instalments, insurance and school fees are the entries that decide whether a month works. An app that makes recurring entries easy to set once is worth more than one with prettier charts.
What the SMS permission buys
Automatic capture is the biggest reduction in effort available — and it only covers what your bank texts you about. If most of your week is cash, the permission buys less than it looks like it does.
Getting your data out again
Export and account deletion are unglamorous and matter enormously the day you switch. Money Master exports to CSV, Excel and PDF, and Money Manager to CSV and Excel; Broke or Not exports the month you are viewing to Excel or PDF, and deletes your account and data from Settings.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free expense tracker app in Sri Lanka?
Money Master Sri Lanka and Broke or Not are both free with no subscription. Money Master is the better free choice if you want a detailed offline record of what you have already spent, including loans and money you have lent out. Broke or Not is the better free choice if you want to know what your balance will be on a future date.
Which expense tracker apps read Sri Lankan bank SMS automatically?
Kiwi Money parses the SMS alerts your bank sends and logs each transaction on its own, and states support for 11 or more Sri Lankan banks. Money Master Sri Lanka offers SMS automation through Shortcuts that turns bank messages into draft transactions you approve before they are saved, and names HNB, BOC and Sampath. Money Manager by Realbyte and Broke or Not do not read SMS; entries are added by hand.
Do these apps work in Sri Lankan rupees?
Yes. All four handle LKR. Money Master Sri Lanka and Kiwi Money are built for the Sri Lankan market specifically. Money Manager by Realbyte supports multiple currencies. Broke or Not stores an ISO 4217 currency code against every amount and defaults new accounts to LKR, with other currencies selectable in settings.
Is it safe to let an app read my bank SMS?
SMS parsing does not involve your online banking login, which is the important distinction: an app reading an alert cannot move money. The trade-off is that granting SMS access is broad on Android, so it matters whether the app states that parsing happens on your device and whether it can be revoked. Both Kiwi Money and Money Master publish on-device privacy claims. Read the app’s own privacy policy before granting the permission, and remember that an app that never asks for SMS access, such as Broke or Not or Money Manager, cannot read anything.
What is the difference between an expense tracker and a budget planner?
A tracker records what already happened and reports on it, so it answers where your money went last month. A planner works forward from your current balance and your known income and commitments, so it answers whether you can afford something on a date that has not arrived yet. The two are complementary, and a number of people run one of each.
Which of these apps work offline?
Money Master Sri Lanka states that it works fully offline with no account and no data leaving the device. Money Manager by Realbyte keeps data on the device and charges for optional cloud sync. Kiwi Money and Broke or Not are account-based and expect a connection.
Can you actually afford it?
That is the question Broke or Not was built to answer. Free, in your browser or on your phone.
Open Broke or Not