The budgeting app for working through life's big decisions.

How much rent can you afford? Should you buy a new or used car? Are you on track for retirement? Workbench tracks your spending like any budgeting app, then uses it to answer the big questions.

Workbench Budgeting
Try it out with a demo profile
Your budget and your big decisions in one place

Because every financial decision is connected

  1. Your rent payment shapes whether you can afford a new car.
  2. And buying a new car shapes how much rent you can afford.
  3. Together, those two decisions set your path to retirement.
  4. And your path to retirement shapes your car and rent payment.
  5. All three decide whether you can go out to dinner this Thursday.
  6. And dinner on Thursday moves the other three too, in a small way.
Rent payment Buy a new car Retire on time Dinner on Thursday

Workbench is one model that connects all of these decisions, big and small, so you can make them together.

How it works

Guided setup

A series of questions that will pre-populate your forecasts

  • Completely private. The answers never leave your machine.
  • Takes about 10 minutes to complete.

Clean up what really happened

Transactions have a lot of noise. Removing that noise makes it easier to understand your situation.

All Accounts, Transactions, and Balances in One Place

  • Balances are checked against your statements, so nothing goes missing.

Categorize Transactions

Split transactions

  • You and three friends go out to dinner for $150. You pay and they each Venmo you $50.
  • Split the charge — $100 for the group share, $50 for yours.
  • Mark the $100 share and two Venmo payments as transfers — only the true expense is left: your $50 portion.

Spread out big purchases and income spikes over time

  • Spread out a bonus to all 12 months
  • Spread out a home renovation over several years

Project it forward

Because knowing where you're going will inform you what you should budget today.

Fine-tuned Forecasting

  • Forecast a raise, a child, a home purchase, etc.
  • Forecast as high-level or fine-tuned as you like

Test the tradeoffs

Side by side comparison of different scenarios because life can go in many different directions.

Scenario Planning

  • Compare buying a house vs. renting one.
  • Compare how a car purchase effects when you'll be able to retire.

Set a working number

Not a rule you're locked into — a starting point

Your monthly budget $0

Track, then adjust

When life shifts, feed it back into the forecast.

Budget vs. Actual Insights

  • Compare those plans versus your actual spending.

And all of it runs locally. We never sell your data, or train AI models on it.

Outcomes

Know you're on track, not just under budget.

Your forecast shows where today's spending leads, so "on track" means something.

Spend without the guilt.

See which splurges matter and which don't. When the dinner out fits the plan, enjoy it.

Reduce the effort it takes to be disciplined.

No more second guessing monthly expenses and creating custom spreadsheets.

How it compares
Workbench YNAB Monarch Copilot ProjectionLab
Tracking what happened
Tracks your real transactions
Checks your balances against your statements
Splits shared bills and Venmo paybacks
Spreads big purchases across months
Budget vs. actual
Subscription tracking
Planning what's next
Sets your budget from your long-term plan
Forecasts out to retirement
Compares scenarios side by side
Tax modeling
Practical
Your data stays private to you *
Mobile app

* Through ProjectionLab's private Docker container.

Based on each product's public website and documentation as of September 2026. Features change often. YNAB, Monarch, Copilot, and ProjectionLab are trademarks of their respective owners.

Pricing

One subscription for the whole app. Bank syncing included.

Advisor-grade tools for a fraction of the cost.

Sample profile

free

Take the whole app for a spin with a realistic example household: forecasts, scenarios, budget vs. actual. No account or card needed.

$8.99 / month

first week free

The whole app with your own numbers, automatic bank account syncing included.

Cancel any time. If you stop, your data stays on your computer and opens again when you resubscribe.

Get started

Find out what your budget should be

Explore a demo profile free, no account needed. When you're ready for your own numbers, start your free week.

macOS (Apple Silicon) Windows
Other downloads macOS (Intel)
One person. Ten years.

Workbench started as a spreadsheet built on a Mint export, because nothing else did what I needed. Ten years and a few hundred iterations later, it's an app. I'm building the next chapter in public at @GardenStudio__.

Follow the build in public →