Tiller vs YNAB: Which Budget App to Pay For After Quicken

Tiller costs $99 a year and feeds your bank transactions into a Google Sheets or Excel file you build yourself. YNAB costs $109 a year or $14.99 a month and is an app built around one method, zero based budgeting, with phone apps and a 34 day trial that needs no card. Buy YNAB if you want a system that tells you what you can spend. Buy Tiller if you want raw data in a spreadsheet you control. For Quicken switchers the key difference is that YNAB imports a QIF file and Tiller does not.

Both products attract the same person: someone who is serious enough about money to pay for a budgeting tool, and often someone walking away from Quicken after the latest renewal notice. What they are buying is different. YNAB sells a method with software attached. Tiller sells a daily feed and leaves the method to you. That split explains almost every row below.

Prices and terms come from ynab.com/pricing and tiller.com, and the import details from YNAB's help center article on file-based import and Tiller's own Tiller vs YNAB pages. Tiller's comparison, dated May 4, 2026, quotes YNAB at $109 a year or $14.99 a month, the same numbers YNAB shows today.

How much does Tiller cost compared with YNAB?

Tiller costs $99 a year, and YNAB costs $109 a year or $14.99 a month, so Tiller is $10 a year cheaper against YNAB's annual plan and $80.88 cheaper against paying YNAB monthly. Both add tax where it applies. Neither has a permanent free plan for ordinary users, although YNAB gives college students a free 365 day trial.

The trials differ in a way that matters more than ten dollars. YNAB's 34 days need no credit card when you sign up directly, so nothing renews if you walk away. Tiller's 30 days charge the card at the end unless you cancel, although Tiller also says it will give a full refund "anytime" if the service is not helping you. Either way, one month is about the shortest honest test for a budgeting tool, because you need a full pay cycle and a full credit card cycle before you know whether the habit sticks.

Is Tiller better than YNAB?

Tiller is better if you already budget in a spreadsheet and want automatic transactions without giving up your own formulas and layout. YNAB is better if overspending is the problem you are paying to fix, because its give every dollar a job method changes behavior in a way a spreadsheet only does if you design it to. Most people know which of those describes them within a minute.

A useful way to decide is to picture week three. With YNAB, week three means opening the app when a paycheck lands and assigning it to categories before it gets spent. With Tiller, week three means opening a sheet, checking the new rows AutoCat categorized, and looking at whatever dashboard you built. If you would enjoy tuning that dashboard, Tiller. If you would rather someone else designed the routine, YNAB.

Can YNAB import Quicken QIF files?

Yes. YNAB's help center lists CSV as its preferred format and also accepts QFX, OFX and QIF files, which you drag and drop into YNAB on a computer, or into the web app on an iPad using Split View. You choose the account the file goes into, and YNAB offers to include or exclude transactions dated before that account's start date.

There are limits worth knowing before you rely on it for years of Quicken history. YNAB says file-based import cannot add categories or split transactions, so every imported row lands uncategorized. Export one account per QIF from Quicken Classic for Windows so each file maps to one YNAB account, and expect to spend time categorizing or to import only the history you will actually budget against. Our YNAB vs Quicken comparison covers what else changes when you leave Quicken for YNAB.

Can Tiller import Quicken data?

Not directly. Tiller says it does not have a direct Quicken import, and its CSV Importer is the way to bring in history, which means a Quicken QIF export has to become a CSV first. The converter at the top of this page does that: it reads the QIF and returns Date, Description and Amount, one row per transaction, ready to append to Tiller's Transactions sheet.

CSV and Excel output is part of our paid plans, and you can test three files of up to 100 transactions with a free account to see the parsed rows before paying. Categories are not a separate column in our CSV and split lines arrive summed, so the result is the same as YNAB's import on that point: history comes over, categorization starts fresh. Tiller also pulls up to 90 days of history on its own when you connect a bank, so the file only needs to cover the years before that.

Does Tiller have a mobile app like YNAB?

No. Tiller has no dedicated smartphone app and relies on the Google Sheets or Excel app on your phone. YNAB has phone apps and a web app, and its whole method assumes you touch the budget when money moves, often from a phone. If you budget at a desk once a week, Tiller's lack of an app costs little. If you check before every purchase, it is a real gap.

Is YNAB or Tiller better for couples?

YNAB is simpler for most couples, because a subscriber can share YNAB with up to five more people at no extra cost and each person gets their own login and phone app. Tiller shares the way a spreadsheet does, through Google or Microsoft permissions. That works well when both partners are comfortable in a sheet and badly when one of them is not.

Couples paying down debt together often pick YNAB for the shared discipline alone. If a credit score is part of that goal, it helps to see what is holding your credit score down before you decide which balances each budget category should attack first, since the order you pay things off changes how fast the score recovers.

Which is better for a side business, Tiller or YNAB?

Neither is bookkeeping software, and neither produces the financial statements a CPA or lender asks for. Tiller can hold a Schedule C style sheet you design, and YNAB can hold business categories, but both are built for household cash. A Quicken Home & Business user moving to either tool should split the file: household accounts to Tiller or YNAB, business accounts to QuickBooks.

That split is a short job with a QIF export. Export each business account from Quicken for Windows as QIF, convert it to QBO, the Web Connect format QuickBooks imports, with the converter above, and load it through Banking in QuickBooks Online or Desktop. The Quicken to QuickBooks Online guide walks through the business half step by step.

Should a Quicken user choose Tiller or YNAB?

Choose YNAB if you want the easiest path for your Quicken history, since it reads your QIF exports directly, and if you want a method that keeps spending in check. Choose Tiller if you want every transaction in a spreadsheet you own, and convert your QIF to CSV once before you start. Both are about $100 a year, so pick the working style and let the price go.

Before cancelling Quicken, export QIF for every account while the program still runs. Quicken's Data Access Guarantee lets Deluxe and higher members keep viewing and exporting their data after the subscription lapses, but it is easier to do it once, on your own schedule. If you are still weighing a full app against a spreadsheet, our Tiller vs Monarch comparison covers the other popular choice, Tiller vs Quicken covers staying put, and Monarch vs YNAB covers the two apps side by side.

Related reading: Tiller vs Monarch Money, Tiller vs Quicken, YNAB vs Quicken, Monarch vs YNAB, QIF to CSV converter, and Quicken alternatives.