BudgetPulse is a completely free service which allows you to quickly and easily set up a household budget within minutes. You enter your account and budget information by hand so there's no exposure of your bank information. Since BudgetPulse doesn't sync with your accounts, it is a low value target for identity thieves. BudgetPulse is a free online budgeting and financial goal-setting tool, aiming to help customers take control of their finances with their simple program functionality. Some highlights of BudgetPulse include:

Free
Private manually entered transactions
Custom budget categories
Worldwide currencies
Online fundraising
Savings goals

BudgetPulse also lets you to create your own custom budget categories and track as much or as little of your expenses as you choose. You can keep track of money from any account anywhere in the world, regardless of currency. You can set savings goals, which are updatable. BudgetPulse helps you make progress toward these goals by providing colorful charts to help you visualize your efforts. The most intriguing tool BudgetPulse offers is also its most unique: online fundraising. If you've ever had the problem of raising money from a diverse group of people, you'll love this tool. You can use BudgetPulse to set up a central place to collect donations via either PayPal or Amazon Payments. This feature is great for teams, clubs, events, group gift-giving, or anything you'd like to crowdfund. The online fundraising feature allows you to set fundraising goals and let contributors see the progress toward those goals. You need a PayPal or Amazon Payments account to set up a fundraising goal. Another alternative is simply setting up the fundraising account as a "pledge" account which keeps track of what people promised to pay you. This method allows you collect the pledged money from donors outside of the BudgetPulse service.

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The Bad

Manually add accounts and transactions
Limited features
No investment or wealth management

Some of BudgetPulse's good features can also be considered some of its limitations. Having to manually add accounts and transactions (either by hand or by uploading files) can be tedious and prone to error. Since it doesn't sync with your bank, you'll have to update transactions manually every time you wish to check your budget. Since all data entry in BudgetPulse is manual, there is no alert functionality. Concerns of BudgetPulse include:

No automation
No alerts
No pre-set budget categories
Lack of investing and wealth management tools
No mobile apps
Simple, dated design
No guided tutorials

No pre-set budget categories exist in BudgetPulse which could be intimidating for people new to the concept of budgeting. Although the interface is fairly simple, there aren't any tutorials or tours to get you started using BudgetPlus. The help area is not very robust and offers no way to search for specific topics so you have to sift through their categories of documentation to find what you need. Due to its simplicity, BudgetPlus doesn't offer investment or wealth management. It also doesn't provide cash flow forecasting.The visual appeal of BudgetPulse's site is somewhat limited as it has a dated feel to it. Also, charts are very simplistic and are rendered in Flash, which can be blocked by some browsers.

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The Bottom Line

If you're looking for a free, simple personal finance tool to create a budget without the need for automatic transaction updates, BudgetPlus could meet your needs. Additionally, BudgetPulse is a superb tool for easy online fundraising. While there are good features about BudgetPulse, we believe there are better companies to suit your needs. Those that use BudgetPulse can expect the following from the service:

Free download available
Savings goal tracker
No guided assistance

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3 Reviews

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Ges Brown

I find Budgetpulse really very good as a basic simple way to keep track and log all spending. It absolutely suits me. But, I randomly cannot sign in, being told that my sign in details are not recognized. After a few hours it then suddenly let's me in. It doesn't happen every day, probably once or twice a week. It is very irritating and all my emails to Budgetpulse fall on deaf ears. Googling this problem brings no results either. So there it is. A mystery. I would be giving 5 star recommendation other wise. I expect some glitches with a free offering, and I would gladly pay a fee for this service if it guaranteed that I could log on anytime.

8 years ago Edited September 14, 2021

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V Clifton, NJ

I created my account - and after I signed once, I was unable to sign in again. I "reset" my password 6 times, and even contacted Customer Service. They sent me a link that didn't work either. Then, for more fun - they provide you a customer service email contact which- surprise - doesn't work either. So, this site has been frustrating and not helpful for me.

10 years ago

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j Newark, NJ

I liked the service , spent the time to set up accounts, it was easy to use, i liked the price free. Now the website is down, so all the work down the drain. I guess you get what you pay for.

8 years ago