ClearCash adapts to any stage of life — single, moving in together, raising kids, or caring for aging parents — because you control visibility and net worth responsibility for each account. That means fully combined finances, fully separate, or anything in between. Lunch Money is a lightweight, developer-friendly budgeting app built around one shared budget that any collaborator you invite gets full access to. This page focuses on the case many couples and roommates land in: some accounts shared, some personal, and everyone needing an accurate picture.
The goal is not to claim one product is universally better. The comparison helps you recognize which workflow matches your life.
This feature matrix answers the practical questions first: accounts, privacy, sharing, dependents, net worth, developer tools, and pricing.
ClearCashAutomatic bank connections through Plaid.
Automatic account syncing for supported institutions.
Manual accounts and transaction entry are supported.
Manual accounts and transactions are supported.
CSV transaction imports are supported for manual workflows.
CSV importing is available for transaction history.
Share every account, none of them, or only specific ones — the same account-level control works whether your finances are fully combined, fully separate, or anything in between.
Lunch Money lets you invite unlimited collaborators onto a budget account, but sharing is organized around one combined budget rather than turning on visibility for specific individual accounts.
Belong to multiple independent groups at once — a partner, a child or aging parent you help manage money for, even a small business — with no overlap between them, all inside one account and one net worth view.
You can create unlimited budget accounts — one with a partner, one for a business, one just for yourself — but each is a fully separate workspace you switch between, not a single view that blends personal and shared accounts into one net worth.
Each person has their own ClearCash login. Personal financial accounts stay private unless shared.
Each collaborator gets their own secure login, but once added to a budget account they get full edit access to every account and category in it — there isn't a view-only or partial-visibility option.
Assign each group member a percentage for shared spending, such as 50/50 or income-ratio splits.
Lunch Money shows who linked which account and who added which transaction, but it does not assign an ongoing percentage-based responsibility split the way ClearCash does.
Add a child's or aging parent's account to its own group, separate from your household group, and set your responsibility for that group independently — monitor the balance without it counting toward your own net worth.
Lunch Money has no account-level responsibility percentage. You could create a separate budget account for a dependent, but it would be its own fully separate workspace with its own net worth report, not one that folds into yours at a chosen percentage.
Designed to calculate an individual's net worth across personal accounts and their share of shared accounts.
Net worth is calculated within whichever budget account you're viewing, not blended across separate personal, shared, and business budget accounts into one figure.
ClearCash does not do budgeting today.
Custom budget periods, recurring-expense tracking, and rules-based budgeting.
Categories, tags, and transaction organization.
Custom rules can auto-categorize and tag transactions as they come in.
Historical ECB exchange rates back to 2016, with each account kept in its own native currency.
Daily FX rates with historical conversion tracking.
ClearCash does not track crypto holdings today.
Crypto portfolio tracking alongside cash accounts.
ClearCash does not offer a general-purpose developer API today.
A public REST API for custom workflows and scripts.
Bring your own AI assistant, with the context it already has about your life, to your financial discussion.
Lunch Money does not offer a built-in or connectable AI assistant.
ClearCash tracks finances; it does not move money or settle debts.
Lunch Money is also a budgeting and tracking app, not a payment app.
Or $80.00/year ($6.67/mo).14-day free trial.*
Or a suggested $100.00/year on a pay-what-you-want annual plan. 30-day free trial, no card required.*
*Pricing shown as of July 23, 2026 and subject to change. Check each product's pricing page for current rates before deciding.
Most personal finance apps make you pick a model: one shared budget, or entirely separate apps. ClearCash works differently: every account carries its own visibility and net worth responsibility, so the same app can model people who share everything, people who share nothing, or people that share some.
Responsibility is set per group, not per account. The household group has its own agreed split; a dependent group like Alex's mom sets Alex's share to 0%, since none of it should count toward his own net worth.
Bankrate's 2026 couples finances survey found that 62% of couples in committed relationships keep at least some financial accounts in their own name. That is the gap ClearCash is built for.
A couple shares the household card, rent account, or mortgage while personal checking, savings, and discretionary spending stay private.
They can create a shared budget account together, or run separate personal and shared budget accounts side by side. The tradeoff is that any collaborator invited to a budget account gets full access to everything in it.
If they want a flexible, developer-friendly workspace with broad currency and API support, Lunch Money may be the fit. If they want selective sharing first, ClearCash is the sharper fit.
These articles explain the money setup behind this comparison: shared bills, personal accounts, and contribution ratios.
Most budgeting apps assume you've either fully merged finances or kept them completely separate. If you've done neither, which most modern couples haven't, here's why the tools keep failing you.
From one shared account to fully separate finances, there's no single right answer for how couples manage shared expenses. Here's an honest breakdown of every approach.
Splitting bills equally sounds fair. But if one of you earns significantly more, it isn't. Here's how income ratio splitting works, the actual math, and how to set it up without it becoming a difficult conversation.
Looking at more than one app? These one-to-one comparisons focus on different money-management workflows.
For couples weighing one shared household workspace against account-level sharing and privacy.
Read the comparison →For readers comparing zero-based budgeting with shared-account visibility and privacy.
Read the comparison →For users weighing automated tracking against collaborative privacy and AI-assistant access.
Read the comparison →Yes, for people who want shared-account visibility and privacy more than a developer API. Lunch Money is stronger for multi-currency support, crypto tracking, and building your own integrations; ClearCash is more focused on privacy-first sharing and individual net worth.
It depends. If everyone is comfortable with full access to one shared budget, Lunch Money may fit. If you need specific shared accounts while keeping personal accounts private, ClearCash is built for that.
Not a general-purpose one today. ClearCash offers MCP access so you can connect your own AI assistant to your data, but it does not have a public REST API the way Lunch Money does.
No. ClearCash is for tracking, visibility, and responsibility. It is not a reimbursement app or bill-payment service.