About Vault
Vault is a free budgeting app — a private, manual budget tracker with no bank logins, no ads, and no data resale. This page is about who builds it and why it exists.
The story
Vault is built and maintained by one person: an independent developer, working on it solo. There is no company behind the site, no investors, and no marketing team. The app, the guide, and the blog are one developer's work, built in the margins of a full schedule.
The project started the way a lot of software does: with a personal frustration. The budgeting apps that looked promising all wanted the same thing up front — a bank login. It felt too high a price, and the ad-supported alternatives were free in name only. So in 2026 Vault launched with the opposite design: you type your spending in yourself, and the app never touches a bank.
Why it stays free
Every feature is free — no trial, no card, no upgrade path waiting later. That isn't a marketing trick; it's a consequence of the design. An app with no bank connections and no data to sell has no revenue engine to build toward, so it doesn't pretend to. Running Vault costs little: one server, one domain, one developer's time. Free is the honest price for software like this.
Being independent also keeps the incentives clean. There are no investors to grow into and no affiliate links in the blog; the only goal is an app people keep using and tell one friend about.
What privacy means here
Privacy at Vault is a design decision, not a settings toggle. Vault never connects to a bank, so there are no bank credentials, account numbers, or aggregator feeds anywhere in the system — there is nothing to leak and nothing to sell. What's stored is only what you type: your transactions, budgets, bills, and goals, tied to a single email address.
And you stay in control of that data. You can export everything as CSV files from Settings at any time, and you can delete your account — and every row in it — permanently, without waiting on anyone. The privacy policy documents all of it in plain language, including exactly which third parties touch data and which don't.
What exists today
Vault is a full budgeting tool, not a demo. Today it covers expense and income tracking, monthly budgets per category, recurring and lump-sum bills, savings goals, and reports that show where the month actually went. It supports multiple currencies, so it works if your money doesn't live in one currency. It's a progressive web app too — installable to your home screen on Android and iOS — and it syncs across devices.
Alongside the app there's a written library: the two-minute setup guide walks you from sign-up to your first budget, and the blog carries 72 practical guides on budgeting methods, saving, debt, and privacy-first money habits — all written in-house, none of them sponsored.
Using Vault supports it
If a paid tier ever exists someday, the core tracker stays free for good. If Vault works for you, the best support is simple: keep using it, and tell one person who wants a budget app without handing over a bank password. Word of mouth is what keeps an independent project alive.
Contact
Questions, feedback, or press: contact@vaultbudgets.com. Vault is also on Facebook. For how your data is handled, read the privacy policy; to see every feature, read the guide.