Is Splitwise Still Free in 2026? The Limits, Explained

Splitwise still has a free tier. What changed is what that free tier lets you do. If you've recently tried to add an expense and been told to upgrade first, you've hit the daily limit.

Here's what the free version includes, where it stops, what Pro costs, and which one makes sense for how you actually split.

The Short Answer

Yes, Splitwise is still free. You can create groups, add expenses, track balances, and settle up without paying anything. What the free tier now does is cap how many expenses you can add per day, and show ads throughout the interface.

Splitwise doesn't publish the exact cap, and it appears to have changed over time. It's commonly reported as 3 expenses per day. Once you reach it, you can't add another expense until the next day unless you upgrade to Splitwise Pro.

Whether that matters depends on how often you split. For a lot of people, it never comes up.

What the Free Tier Includes

The free version is a functional product, not a trial. Here's what it covers:

• Unlimited groups and friends: There's no cap on how many groups you create or how many people you split with.
• Balances and simplified debts: The app tracks who owes what and reduces the number of payments needed to settle a group.
• All split types: Equal, exact amounts, percentages, and shares.
• Settling up: Record payments and clear balances.
• Sync across devices: iOS, Android, and web.

Splitwise has always been good at keeping a shared ledger accurate over long periods, and that still works without paying. If a running balance is all you need from the app, the free tier covers it.

Where the Free Tier Runs Out

Three restrictions separate free from Pro. Only one of them drives people to switch.

The Daily Expense Limit

A typical day on a group trip might include coffee, lunch, museum tickets, a grocery run, and dinner. That's five shared expenses, and the free tier stops you partway through.

The workarounds are all worse than the app itself. You can wait until the next day and enter everything from memory, which reintroduces the problem the app was meant to solve. You can ask someone else in the group to log the rest on their account, which splits the record across two people. Or you can track the overflow somewhere else and reconcile it later.

What makes the limit frustrating is that it caps the app's primary function. Most free tiers restrict a secondary feature and leave the core intact.

Ads

The free version shows ads throughout the interface, including between expense entries. Splitwise lists an ad-free experience as one of the Pro benefits. Whether this registers as a minor annoyance or a real problem depends mostly on how often you open the app.

Features Behind the Paywall

Receipt scanning, itemization, currency conversion, expense search, transaction import, spending charts, and default split settings all require Pro. None of them are necessary to keep a ledger, which is why the free tier still works. But itemization and currency conversion are the two most people end up wanting, and both are on the paid side.

What Splitwise Pro Adds and What It Costs

According to Splitwise's own Pro page, upgrading unlocks unlimited expenses, transaction import, currency conversion, charts and graphs, receipt scanning, itemization, expense search, default split settings, early access to new features, and an ad-free experience.

Splitwise doesn't list a price on that page. The cost appears at the upgrade prompt, and is commonly reported at around $5 per month or roughly $50 per year (pricing varies by plan and region).

Three of those features do most of the work. Unlimited expenses removes the cap, itemization handles restaurant bills where people ordered different things, and receipt scanning saves manual entry. The rest are useful but rarely the reason anyone upgrades. We covered the full cost breakdown in is Splitwise Pro worth it?

Who the Free Tier Works For

The free version is a reasonable choice if any of these describe you:

• Occasional splitting: A dinner here, a concert ticket there. You'll never see the daily limit.
• Roommates with recurring bills: Rent, electricity, internet, water, and a few grocery runs is a normal month, but it's spread across thirty days. The cap is per day, not per month, so it rarely applies to households.
• Couples tracking shared costs: Same reasoning. The daily volume is low.
• Ledger-only use: If you're not scanning receipts or converting currencies, the paywalled features aren't costing you anything.
• Established group history: Switching apps has a social cost. If the free tier works, staying put is a reasonable call.

The limit affects trips far more than it affects households. If your splitting is steady and low-volume, the free tier is a good fit and there's no reason to change.

Who Should Consider Something Else

• Group travelers: The limit is most restrictive on exactly the days when accurate tracking matters most.
• Anyone splitting bills item by item: Itemization requires Pro, so free users are back to splitting the full bill equally regardless of what each person ordered.
• Multi-currency splitting: Currency conversion also requires Pro.
• High-volume splitters: If you regularly log more than a few expenses in a day, you'll hit the cap constantly.

We build SplitterUp, so weigh this accordingly. SplitterUp has no daily expense limit, includes item-level receipt scanning and multi-currency support, and is free for a limited time with no subscription. If the daily limit is your main issue, that addresses it directly.

It isn't the only option. Tricount and Settle Up also have no daily cap. Our roundup of the best expense splitting apps compares them on features rather than price alone, and the comparison table covers the specifics side by side.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Splitwise still free in 2026?

Yes. Splitwise still has a free tier covering unlimited groups, expense tracking, balances, and settling up. The main change is that free accounts hit a daily cap on how many expenses they can add, and the free version shows ads.

How many expenses can you add per day on free Splitwise?

Splitwise doesn't publish the exact number and it appears to have changed over time. It's commonly reported as 3 expenses per day. Once you reach it, you can't add more until the following day unless you upgrade to Pro.

How much does Splitwise Pro cost?

Splitwise doesn't list a price on its Pro feature page. The cost is shown at the upgrade prompt and is commonly reported at around $5 per month or roughly $50 per year (pricing varies by plan and region).

Does the free version of Splitwise have ads?

Yes, including between expense entries. Splitwise lists an ad-free experience as one of the benefits of upgrading to Pro.

Can you use Splitwise for a group trip without paying?

You can, but the daily cap is most restrictive while you're traveling. A single trip day can involve five or more shared expenses, so free users often end up batching entries the next day, having different people log them, or tracking some expenses outside the app.

Is there a free expense splitting app without a daily limit?

Yes. Several apps have no daily expense cap, including Tricount, Settle Up, and SplitterUp. Our 2026 roundup compares them on features rather than price alone.