Migration guide
Switching from Actual Budget to Budgey
About 20 minutes, most of it automated. Here's the exact path from Actual Budget to a working Budgey budget.
Part 1 — Get your data out of Actual Budget
- 1
Open Actual on desktop or your hosted web app.
- 2
Open each account register, use the account menu, and export transactions as CSV. Repeat for every account you want to bring over.
- 3
Note your category names and envelope amounts — these become Budgey categories with per-period amounts. Keep Actual’s full budget-file export as your own backup; Budgey imports the CSVs.
Part 2 — Set up Budgey
- 4
Create your free Budgey account
Sign up at budgeyapp.com or in the iOS/Android app. Onboarding takes about two minutes — BaoBot suggests a starter set of categories, and you can rename them to match the ones you had before.
- 5
Set your pay period
Tell Budgey how you get paid — weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Your budget periods will follow your actual paychecks, which is probably an upgrade over the calendar months your old app forced.
- 6
Upload your export to BaoBot
Open BaoBot and upload your CSV, Excel, or PDF file (file uploads are part of Budgey Unlimited). It reads each transaction's description, amount, and date, matches categories by name, and imports the lot — and any import can be undone with one message.
- 7
Connect your banks (optional, recommended)
With Budgey Unlimited, connect as many banks or cards as you use via Plaid. From then on, new transactions land in your Review Inbox with AI-suggested categories — you approve each one, and your budget stays current without typing.
Switching from Actual Budget: your questions
Is Actual Budget or Budgey the better cheap YNAB alternative?+
Actual is the closer YNAB clone: envelopes, cash on hand, a file you own. Budgey is cheaper in time, not in method — hosted on iOS, Android, and web, budgets by paycheck, free to start, Unlimited at $10/month or $100/year. If the method is the product, Actual (or YNAB). If the leftover number this payday is the product, Budgey.
Is Actual Budget actually free?+
The app is free and open source. Syncing across devices means you host it (or pay a host like PikaPods, often around $1–2/month). US/Canada bank sync is SimpleFIN at $1.50/month or $15/year. Many people still spend under $40 a year all-in. Budgey’s free plan needs no server; bank sync is part of Unlimited.
Does Budgey work offline and keep data on my computer like Actual?+
No. Budgey is a cloud app with a phone and web client. Actual is local-first with optional end-to-end encryption. If “the file never leaves my machine” is a hard requirement, Actual is the fit.
Can I import Actual Budget data into Budgey?+
Yes. Export each account as CSV from Actual, then upload the files to BaoBot in Budgey. See budgeyapp.com/switch/from-actual-budget. Actual’s native budget-file backup is for Actual, not for Budgey.
Bring your budget home
Start free and import when you're ready — BaoBot does the heavy lifting.
No credit card required · Free plan forever · One budget on every device