Should I Build It Should I Build It
17 Apr 2025
Personal Finance Money

An app that help people keep track of expenses between them, ideal for ...

...people like roomates who have to pay rent and bills

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Run Away

Multiple attempts have failed with clear negative feedback. Continuing down this path would likely waste your time and resources when better opportunities exist elsewhere.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

You're looking to create an app to track shared expenses, primarily targeting roommates or groups needing to split bills. Based on our analysis, this falls into a crowded space where multiple similar products exist. The high number of similar products (n_matches = 9) suggests significant competition. While some existing solutions have garnered positive feedback, particularly for simplifying group living, others face criticism for manual entry requirements, lack of automation, and unclear value propositions. User engagement is medium (average of 4 comments), and there's no explicit buy or use signals to indicate that the existing solutions are particularly innovative or successful. Given the saturation and user feedback, creating a standout product will be challenging.

Recommendations

  1. Begin by thoroughly analyzing the criticism surrounding existing expense-tracking apps. Focus on identifying pain points that current solutions fail to address effectively. The comments from similar apps highlight issues with manual entry, lack of bank integration, and limited multi-currency support. Understanding these shortcomings will be crucial in differentiating your app.
  2. Conduct user interviews with individuals who actively use expense-tracking apps, particularly those living in shared accommodations. Inquire about their current workflows, frustrations, and unmet needs. This qualitative research will provide valuable insights into the features and functionalities that users genuinely desire.
  3. Given the existing competition, explore potential niche markets or specific use cases within the shared expense tracking domain. For example, you could focus on travel groups, event planning, or even small businesses with shared expenses. Targeting a specific niche allows you to tailor your app's features and marketing efforts for greater impact.
  4. Prioritize automation and seamless integration with financial institutions. Implement features such as automatic transaction imports, bill reminders, and intelligent categorization to minimize manual effort. Consider integrating with Plaid or MX for secure bank connectivity, but be mindful of associated costs and security implications. This can be a huge selling point, as a lot of users criticize the other apps because of lack of automatic input.
  5. Explore innovative features that go beyond basic expense tracking. Consider incorporating features such as budgeting tools, savings goals, or even gamified expense management to enhance user engagement. Also consider incorporating location-aware features. However, be sure to validate these ideas with your target audience to ensure they align with their needs.
  6. Develop a freemium business model that offers basic functionality for free while charging for premium features such as advanced reporting, multi-user support, or personalized financial insights. This will allow you to attract a wide user base while generating revenue from power users.
  7. Focus on creating a user-friendly and intuitive interface that simplifies expense tracking. Pay attention to visual design, information architecture, and overall user experience. Conduct usability testing to identify areas for improvement and ensure that the app is easy to navigate and understand.
  8. Before launching, create a clear and concise marketing message that highlights your app's unique value proposition and differentiators. Emphasize the benefits of your app over existing solutions, such as its automation capabilities, niche focus, or innovative features. Target your marketing efforts towards your specific niche audience.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs within the shared expense tracking domain will your app address, and how will you validate that these needs are significant enough to warrant a new product?
  2. Given the existing competition, what unique features or functionalities will your app offer to differentiate itself and attract users away from established solutions?
  3. How will you balance the desire for automation and seamless bank integration with the need to maintain user privacy and data security, particularly in light of increasing concerns about financial data breaches?

Your are here

You're looking to create an app to track shared expenses, primarily targeting roommates or groups needing to split bills. Based on our analysis, this falls into a crowded space where multiple similar products exist. The high number of similar products (n_matches = 9) suggests significant competition. While some existing solutions have garnered positive feedback, particularly for simplifying group living, others face criticism for manual entry requirements, lack of automation, and unclear value propositions. User engagement is medium (average of 4 comments), and there's no explicit buy or use signals to indicate that the existing solutions are particularly innovative or successful. Given the saturation and user feedback, creating a standout product will be challenging.

Recommendations

  1. Begin by thoroughly analyzing the criticism surrounding existing expense-tracking apps. Focus on identifying pain points that current solutions fail to address effectively. The comments from similar apps highlight issues with manual entry, lack of bank integration, and limited multi-currency support. Understanding these shortcomings will be crucial in differentiating your app.
  2. Conduct user interviews with individuals who actively use expense-tracking apps, particularly those living in shared accommodations. Inquire about their current workflows, frustrations, and unmet needs. This qualitative research will provide valuable insights into the features and functionalities that users genuinely desire.
  3. Given the existing competition, explore potential niche markets or specific use cases within the shared expense tracking domain. For example, you could focus on travel groups, event planning, or even small businesses with shared expenses. Targeting a specific niche allows you to tailor your app's features and marketing efforts for greater impact.
  4. Prioritize automation and seamless integration with financial institutions. Implement features such as automatic transaction imports, bill reminders, and intelligent categorization to minimize manual effort. Consider integrating with Plaid or MX for secure bank connectivity, but be mindful of associated costs and security implications. This can be a huge selling point, as a lot of users criticize the other apps because of lack of automatic input.
  5. Explore innovative features that go beyond basic expense tracking. Consider incorporating features such as budgeting tools, savings goals, or even gamified expense management to enhance user engagement. Also consider incorporating location-aware features. However, be sure to validate these ideas with your target audience to ensure they align with their needs.
  6. Develop a freemium business model that offers basic functionality for free while charging for premium features such as advanced reporting, multi-user support, or personalized financial insights. This will allow you to attract a wide user base while generating revenue from power users.
  7. Focus on creating a user-friendly and intuitive interface that simplifies expense tracking. Pay attention to visual design, information architecture, and overall user experience. Conduct usability testing to identify areas for improvement and ensure that the app is easy to navigate and understand.
  8. Before launching, create a clear and concise marketing message that highlights your app's unique value proposition and differentiators. Emphasize the benefits of your app over existing solutions, such as its automation capabilities, niche focus, or innovative features. Target your marketing efforts towards your specific niche audience.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs within the shared expense tracking domain will your app address, and how will you validate that these needs are significant enough to warrant a new product?
  2. Given the existing competition, what unique features or functionalities will your app offer to differentiate itself and attract users away from established solutions?
  3. How will you balance the desire for automation and seamless bank integration with the need to maintain user privacy and data security, particularly in light of increasing concerns about financial data breaches?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 9
  • Engagement: Medium
    • Average number of comments: 4
  • Net use signal: -1.8%
    • Positive use signal: 7.6%
    • Negative use signal: 9.4%
  • Net buy signal: -3.5%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 3.5%

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.

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