11 May 2025
iOS

an mobile app that enable to use camera to capture bill or recipe ...

...after buying things and log. It helps user to manage the expense.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.


Your are here

Your idea for a mobile app that uses a camera to capture bills and recipes for expense management places you in a crowded market. Our analysis shows 29 similar products already exist, indicating significant competition. This puts you firmly in the 'Swamp' category, meaning many have tried to solve this problem with mediocre results. User engagement with these existing apps is generally low, with an average of only 3 comments per product. While we don't have specific use or buy signals for these similar products, the sheer number of competitors suggests it's difficult to stand out. To succeed, you'll need a radically different approach or a highly underserved niche. Given the current landscape, proceeding with caution is strongly advised.

Recommendations

  1. Given the crowded market, start with thorough research. Understand why existing expense tracking apps haven't achieved widespread adoption or user love. Analyze user reviews and identify pain points that current solutions fail to address. Leverage the criticisms from similar products such as feature requests for credit card and MF tracking implementation, or manual entry being tedious.
  2. If you decide to move forward, identify a very specific niche or user group with unique needs. Instead of targeting a broad audience, focus on a smaller segment like freelancers, small business owners, or people with specific dietary requirements (for the recipe aspect). For example, building features tailored to freelancers, such as tracking expenses by client, could be a viable niche.
  3. Instead of directly competing with established expense tracking apps, consider building tools or integrations that enhance their functionality. For example, you could create a plugin that adds AI-powered categorization to existing apps, allowing users to automatically categorize their expenses without manually entering them. This can also be integrations with accounting software.
  4. Explore adjacent problems within the personal finance space that might be less saturated and more promising. Perhaps focus on tools that help users negotiate bills, find better deals, or automate savings. Kwilio Bills suggestion of AI-driven predictive analytics to enhance the product's capabilities can be an interesting approach to explore.
  5. Before investing significant time and resources, validate your core assumptions with potential users. Conduct user interviews, create prototypes, and gather feedback to ensure your solution resonates with your target audience. Don't be afraid to pivot or abandon the idea if the data suggests it's not viable.
  6. Consider a phased approach to development. Start with a minimal viable product (MVP) that focuses on the core functionality and then gradually add features based on user feedback. User's complaint about manual entry suggests focusing on automation.
  7. Monetization strategy should be carefully considered. Given the abundance of free expense tracking apps, you'll need to offer significant value to justify a paid subscription. Explore freemium models or focus on features that appeal to a specific niche willing to pay for premium functionality.

Questions

  1. What unique features or value proposition will differentiate your app from the many existing expense tracking solutions, and how will you validate that this difference resonates with users?
  2. Considering the low engagement seen in similar products, how will you design your app to encourage consistent use and build a loyal user base?
  3. How will you balance the desire for automation (e.g., automatic bill capture and categorization) with user concerns about data privacy and security?

Your are here

Your idea for a mobile app that uses a camera to capture bills and recipes for expense management places you in a crowded market. Our analysis shows 29 similar products already exist, indicating significant competition. This puts you firmly in the 'Swamp' category, meaning many have tried to solve this problem with mediocre results. User engagement with these existing apps is generally low, with an average of only 3 comments per product. While we don't have specific use or buy signals for these similar products, the sheer number of competitors suggests it's difficult to stand out. To succeed, you'll need a radically different approach or a highly underserved niche. Given the current landscape, proceeding with caution is strongly advised.

Recommendations

  1. Given the crowded market, start with thorough research. Understand why existing expense tracking apps haven't achieved widespread adoption or user love. Analyze user reviews and identify pain points that current solutions fail to address. Leverage the criticisms from similar products such as feature requests for credit card and MF tracking implementation, or manual entry being tedious.
  2. If you decide to move forward, identify a very specific niche or user group with unique needs. Instead of targeting a broad audience, focus on a smaller segment like freelancers, small business owners, or people with specific dietary requirements (for the recipe aspect). For example, building features tailored to freelancers, such as tracking expenses by client, could be a viable niche.
  3. Instead of directly competing with established expense tracking apps, consider building tools or integrations that enhance their functionality. For example, you could create a plugin that adds AI-powered categorization to existing apps, allowing users to automatically categorize their expenses without manually entering them. This can also be integrations with accounting software.
  4. Explore adjacent problems within the personal finance space that might be less saturated and more promising. Perhaps focus on tools that help users negotiate bills, find better deals, or automate savings. Kwilio Bills suggestion of AI-driven predictive analytics to enhance the product's capabilities can be an interesting approach to explore.
  5. Before investing significant time and resources, validate your core assumptions with potential users. Conduct user interviews, create prototypes, and gather feedback to ensure your solution resonates with your target audience. Don't be afraid to pivot or abandon the idea if the data suggests it's not viable.
  6. Consider a phased approach to development. Start with a minimal viable product (MVP) that focuses on the core functionality and then gradually add features based on user feedback. User's complaint about manual entry suggests focusing on automation.
  7. Monetization strategy should be carefully considered. Given the abundance of free expense tracking apps, you'll need to offer significant value to justify a paid subscription. Explore freemium models or focus on features that appeal to a specific niche willing to pay for premium functionality.

Questions

  1. What unique features or value proposition will differentiate your app from the many existing expense tracking solutions, and how will you validate that this difference resonates with users?
  2. Considering the low engagement seen in similar products, how will you design your app to encourage consistent use and build a loyal user base?
  3. How will you balance the desire for automation (e.g., automatic bill capture and categorization) with user concerns about data privacy and security?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 29
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 3
  • Net use signal: 5.4%
    • Positive use signal: 13.5%
    • Negative use signal: 8.1%
  • Net buy signal: -3.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 3.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

ExpenSee - A expense tracking app

09 Jul 2023 Personal Finance

ExpenSee simplifies expense tracking and financial management with natural language input, voice recognition, photo capture, Siri integration, extensive app integrations, and robust security.


Avatar
78
78
Relevance

Surplus: auto-track expenses - One-stop shop for smart and effortless expense management

Understand your money moves better with Surplus. Our intuitive app seamlessly connects to your bank accounts, automatically tracking your incomes, expenses and recurring payments. Say goodbye to tedious manual entry—Surplus does it all for you.

Surplus is a platform for tracking and optimizing expenses with bill reminders. Users congratulate the team on the launch and express excitement about the product's potential for managing payments, tracking spending and subscriptions, and improving financial literacy. There's interest in credit-based insights and hopes for credit card/MF tracking features. Commenters wish Raj and the team success.

The primary criticism is a feature request for credit card and mutual fund (MF) tracking implementation. This suggests users desire more comprehensive financial tracking capabilities within the product.


Avatar
31
10
20.0%
10
31
20.0%
Relevance

I made a super simple iOS app to track expenses

16 Feb 2023 Personal Finance

My Expenses is a very simple app to track expenses for one-time budgets.Let's say you're going on vacations in Italy and you want to allocate $1.500 to this trip. You create a budget "Italy" in 30 seconds and you're ready to go. Each time you make an expense in Italy, you add it to the app in a few seconds and you instantly know you're remaining budget.I'm bored of super complex apps. Yes, they do a lot of things, but it often takes a while to get used to the app and understand all its features.That's why I created this app. I want people to be able to track their expenses in seconds, as quickly and simply as possible.It's available on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Users discuss the challenges of manual expense tracking and the importance of features like auto-imports, bank integration, and auto-categorization. Many use or have built their own solutions, including Django apps, GnuCash, Tasker, and custom spreadsheets. Some recommend existing apps like YNAB, Lunch Money, and Splid for their automation and multi-currency support, though YNAB's lack of native multi-currency support is noted. Questions about manual entry in YNAB are answered with mentions of Plaid and MX integrations. Users also suggest improvements like voice and location-aware features, parsing bank notifications, and data export options. Design and UI are praised in some apps, and there's interest in multi-platform support and subscription costs. Concerns about app size are raised but countered by the observation that iOS apps generally have large file sizes.

Users criticize the product for requiring manual entry, which is seen as tedious and exhausting, with a lack of automatic input and bank connections exacerbating the issue. The app's purpose is unclear, and the interface is considered cluttered. There's dissatisfaction with the handling of transactions, lack of multi-currency support, and poor integration with other apps. The recent price increase and subscription model have also been met with disapproval. Some users find the app lacks originality and is too similar to existing apps, while others struggle with the complexity and size of the app.


Avatar
55
46
-6.5%
-6.5%
46
55
10.9%
Relevance

Expense tracker and money manager (budget,etc.)

Hey guys,I just recently finished my Android app and in general it's about money management which includes, expense tracking, budget manager, accounts, etc. For now, it only includes expense tracking and monthly statistic with more to come soon!The reasons why I made this app knowing that there's a lot of similar app out there are that I love building new product and I would love to build an expense tracker and money manager that's more rich in features and offline-first (data saved locally in the device).If you're using Android please check it out and let me know what you think about it! Any feedback or advice are welcomed. Thank you!

Android money management app with expense tracking and statistics.

Limited features currently available.


Avatar
1
1
1
1
Relevance

Moneydew – A Simple Expense Tracker for Budget Management (Android App)

Hi HN,I’m excited to share Moneydew, an expense tracker app I’ve built solo. As an avid budgeter, I wanted to create a tool that helps people manage their finances more effectively. Moneydew is designed to be intuitive, with a focus on simplicity and ease of use.Key Features:Quick Expense Tracking: Log expenses in seconds with a user-friendly interface. Custom Categories: Organize your spending by creating custom categories. Budget Management: Set monthly budgets and track your progress. Privacy First: No sign-ups or data sharing—your data stays on your device.I’ve built this app to meet my own needs, but I’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions for improvement. I’m eager to see how it can help others manage their finances better!I'm also contemplating an iOS version if there's enough interest, so please let me know if you'd be interested in that.


Avatar
2
2
Relevance

Money Tracker - Simple & intuitive expense app

08 Nov 2024 Fintech Productivity Money

Money Tracker is an ultra-lightweight expense management app that simplifies budget tracking and spending analysis. It offers secure, offline data storage (iCloud only), an intuitive Apple-standard design, and powerful insights through charts and reports.


Avatar
6
6
Relevance

Surplus – a minimal, easy-to-use and customizable expense tracker app

05 Feb 2023 Personal Finance

I had trouble finding an expense tracker app that resonated with my spending habits. Apps I tried either enforced specific budgeting methods or were too complicated to customize. So I set out to build Surplus, a simple expense tracker app that can be tailored to your unique spending habits.The app is available on the AppStore for iOS, iPad and M1/M2 macs: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1578612881Why you will enjoy using Surplus: - It is super customizable. Enjoy eating out? Prefer to prioritize savings? No matter what your lifestyle - preferences are, Surplus makes it easy to organize your expenses into buckets themed around your spending habits. - It supports recurring transactions such as monthly subscriptions and installments. The dashboard calculates all current and upcoming spend, giving you a complete picture of your monthly expenditure. - Surplus supports both manual and automatic workflows. Quickly add and categorize transactions manually or automatically sync transactions from your US & CA bank accounts. - View weekly and monthly reports to help visualize and compare your spend over time. Keep tabs on your spend using insightful home and lock screen widgets. - Supports all currencies and display formats. - There are no user accounts. The app uses iCloud to privately store and sync your transactions across devicesSurplus is free to use with pro features that can be activated via in-app purchases. Surplus Pro can be purchased as a one time payment or as a subscription.I hope you give Surplus a try and enjoy using the app. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedbackAppStore link: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1578612881

AppStore link provided.


Avatar
2
1
1
2
Relevance

Expense Now – Money Organizer - Track, Budget, Save and Take Control of Your Finances

Expense Now is a user-friendly budgeting app that helps you track your income and expenses effortlessly. With its intuitive interface and powerful features, Expense Now empowers you to take control of your finances and make informed financial decisions.

Expense Now app is being lauded for simplifying expense tracking and budgeting. Users appreciate features like receipt photo uploads and expense categorization. Several users inquired about the app's differentiation, user experience (UX), and the availability of a freemium model. There's also interest in manual expense input. Overall, the app is considered handy and helpful, showing promise after its launch.

The primary criticism raised is the extent of manual input required to effectively use the product. Users are questioning the level of automation and the amount of hands-on effort needed, implying a potential concern about the product's efficiency or ease of use.


Avatar
7
7
42.9%
7
7
42.9%
Relevance

Kwilio Bills - Finances simplified

Introducing Kwilio Bills App, a smart and intuitive tool designed to help you manage your bills with ease. With this app, you can track your expenses, set reminders for due dates, and even categorize your bills for better financial management.

The launch of Kwilio Bills received congratulations. Users noted the potential for AI to compete with existing services like Mint and Plaid by effectively structuring bank data. Furthermore, there's interest in incorporating AI-driven predictive analytics features to enhance the product's capabilities.

The primary criticism revolves around the potential lack of user engagement in actively tracking their data. A suggestion was made to incorporate AI-driven predictive analytics to provide personalized financial planning, potentially alleviating the need for manual data input and increasing user value.


Avatar
63
3
3
63
Relevance

Budgety - Budgeting, expense tracking, money manager

Budgety is a budgeting, expense tracking and money management app. Track your income, expenses, savings and progress towards your financial goals. Analyze your spending patterns, goals, identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions

Users appreciate the shared budget feature for financial tracking and the fast onboarding process. The personalized transaction notes are useful for expense tracking, and the app provides valuable spending insights to identify potential areas for cutbacks.


Avatar
7
4
75.0%
4
7
75.0%
Relevance

Rocky App - Budget & expense tracker

21 Feb 2023 Productivity Tech

Rocky App – income & expense tracker app is the perfect tool to help you manage your finances and stay on top of your expenses. Manage daily expenses, plan a personal budget, create categories & groups, and spend wisely.


Avatar
70
70
Top