Summary:
Know Your Dosh is an alternative to Emma for families who want budgeting and net worth tracking in one free app. Emma is a genuinely good UK Open Banking app for one person watching their own spending, subscriptions, and bills, but budgeting requires the £4.99/month Plus plan, net worth tracking requires £9.99/month Pro, and genuine family access requires £14.99/month Ultimate plus £5.99/month per member. Know Your Dosh includes all three, budgeting, net worth, and permission-based family access, on its free Starter tier, before introducing their own subscription plans for higher limits.
- Emma’s free tier can’t budget. Basic (£0) has no budgeting at all, that only starts on the £4.99/month Plus plan. Know Your Dosh’s free Starter tier includes full household budgeting from day one (2 budgets free)
- Net worth and family access cost extra, twice. Net worth tracking is locked to Emma’s £9.99/month Pro tier. Genuine multi-person access needs the £14.99/month Ultimate tier, plus £5.99/month per additional family member. Know Your Dosh includes both at every tier, including free
- Even on the top tier, it’s flat access, not family permissions. Emma’s invited members get “full access to all features, just like you,” there’s no way to give a teenager a limited view. Know Your Dosh builds age-appropriate, permission-based access in from the start
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Know Your Dosh | Emma |
|---|---|---|
| Core job | Household net worth, budgeting & family collaboration | Personal spending, bills & subscription tracking |
| Free tier budgeting | Full household budgeting included (2 budgets free) | Not available, budgeting starts at £4.99/month |
| Net worth tracking | Included at every tier | Paywalled to £9.99/month Pro tier and above |
| Family sharing | Permission-based access at every tier, including free | Only on £14.99/month Ultimate, plus £5.99/month per member, full access each |
| Household privacy | Mine / Theirs / Ours privacy split | Flat access, no role-based permissions |
| Budgeting method | Flexible, Rollover, or Zero-Based (your choice) | Category, rollover, and pay-cycle budgets; no zero-based option |
| Price | Free Starter, then from £4.99/month | Free (limited), £4.99 to £14.99/month for full features |
What Emma gets right
Bank aggregation and everyday spending awareness are well built. Users consistently praise how easily Emma connects across accounts, one reviewer with ADHD specifically credited it with finally giving them a clear, daily view of where money was going.
Subscription and bill tracking is a standout feature. Emma watches for subscription price increases and flags recurring payments automatically, exactly the kind of quiet, everyday utility that makes a spending app worth keeping open.
It’s honest about being FCA-regulated for account information and payment services, which matters for a UK audience trusting it with live bank connections.
Emma vs Know Your Dosh for family net worth and budgeting: where the gaps are
The free tier isn’t really a budgeting app. Emma’s own Basic plan is capped at two bank logins and £500 a month in transfers, with no budgeting functionality at all. One Trustpilot reviewer put it plainly: “There is a free plan. HOWEVER! You can’t use the budgeting unless you pay for a plan.” A household wanting to actually budget has to commit to a subscription before finding out if the app fits how they manage money.
Net worth is a premium add-on, not a starting point. Emma does offer net worth tracking, automated for banks, credit, and some investments, manual entry for property and other illiquid assets, but it only unlocks on the £9.99/month Pro tier. Pension and investment-provider coverage is also thin: only PensionBee and Nutmeg are supported externally, so most pensions and investment platforms would need manual entry regardless of which tier you’re on.
Family sharing is the most expensive tier, and it’s still not built for a household. Genuine multi-person access only exists on Ultimate, at £14.99 a month plus £5.99 per additional person invited. And when someone is invited, they get “full access to all features, just like you,” Emma’s own words. There’s no way to give a teenager visibility into their own savings goal without also giving them the household’s full financial picture. “Spaces” lets you separate personal and joint budgets, and “Groups” splits shared bills between people, but neither is a permission-based, role-based family system, they’re organisational folders, not access controls.
Cancelling isn’t as easy as signing up. This is the single most recurring complaint across reviews: multiple users describe being charged after attempting to cancel, a retention flow that offers discounts during the cancellation process rather than processing it, and a strict 14-day refund window that’s caught more than one user off guard over a month after payment. A UK Financial Ombudsman ruling on this exact pattern found in Emma’s favour on the specific case facts, but the ruling itself confirms this is a recurring, formal dispute pattern worth going in aware of.
Multi-currency handling has a documented history of problems. Emma can connect some non-GBP accounts (Revolut, Wise, crypto), but its own community forum has had open bug reports about multi-currency transactions breaking spend summaries, and a recent Reddit review specifically noted Emma “didn’t import the non-GBP denominations properly from Revolut and Wise.” For a household with assets in more than one currency, this is a real, documented gap, not a hypothetical one.
How this plays out for an actual family
Scenario: wanting to try budgeting before paying for it. A family wants to test whether household budgeting actually works for them before committing to a subscription. Emma’s free tier can’t budget at all, that decision has to be made blind, on a paid plan. Know Your Dosh’s free Starter tier includes full budgeting from the first sign-up.
Scenario: seeing net worth and a budget in the same place. A couple wants to check their combined net worth and their monthly budget without juggling tiers. In Emma, that’s two separate paywalls, Plus for budgeting, Pro for net worth. In Know Your Dosh, both are there from the start.
Scenario: a teenager with their own savings goal. A parent wants their teenager to track a savings goal without seeing the whole household’s finances. Even on Emma’s top tier, an invited member gets full access to everything, there’s no partial view. Know Your Dosh’s permission model is built for exactly this.
The decision that actually matters
Emma is built and priced around one person’s spending habits, with net worth, family sharing, and full budgeting all sitting behind successively higher paywalls. Know Your Dosh starts from the household, not the individual, with budgeting, net worth tracking, and permission-based family access included from the free tier up. If you’re managing money as a family rather than tracking your own spending, that’s the gap worth weighing.
Choose Emma if: you’re managing your own money solo and want a slick, well-reviewed app for spending awareness, subscription tracking, and bills, and you’re comfortable paying £4.99 to £14.99 a month for the features you need.
Choose Know Your Dosh if: you’re a household that wants budgeting, net worth tracking, and permission-based family access without paying for three separate tiers, starting free.
Know Your Dosh can keep your family’s full financial picture, net worth and budget, in one place, permission-based the right way from the start, at no cost to begin. Sign up for free to get started, or download our free app, with paid plans that scale with your financial complexity. Built for families managing money together, not just individuals managing spend.
FCA-registered and trusted by families in over 100 countries tracking over £200 million in assets.
FAQ
Does Emma have a free budgeting tier?
No. Budgeting only becomes available on Emma’s £4.99/month Plus plan and above; the free Basic tier has no budgeting functionality at all. Know Your Dosh includes full household budgeting on its free Starter tier.
Can I budget for free with Emma?
No. Emma’s free Basic plan has no budgeting functionality at all, budgeting only becomes available on the £4.99/month Plus plan and above. Know Your Dosh includes full household budgeting on its free Starter tier.
Does Emma track net worth?
Yes, but only on its £9.99/month Pro tier and above, with manual entry required for property and most pensions or investments beyond PensionBee and Nutmeg. Know Your Dosh includes net worth tracking at every tier, including free.
Can my family share an Emma account with different access levels?
Not with role-based permissions. Genuine multi-person access requires Emma’s £14.99/month Ultimate plan plus £5.99/month per additional member, and each invited person gets full access to everything, there’s no way to give a teenager or partner a limited view. Know Your Dosh provides permission-based, age-appropriate family access at every tier, including free.
Does Emma handle multiple currencies?
Support is inconsistent. Emma can connect some non-GBP accounts such as Revolut and Wise, but has a documented history of multi-currency transactions being reported incorrectly in spend summaries. Know Your Dosh is built with multi-currency support and automatic international bank sync from the ground up.
What is a good alternative to Emma for families?
Know Your Dosh is built specifically for households rather than individuals: budgeting, net worth tracking, and permission-based family access are all included from the free Starter tier, where Emma paywalls each of these separately across its Plus, Pro, and Ultimate tiers.
This comparison reflects publicly available information from Emma’s official site, help centre, and independent reviews (Trustpilot, Reddit, and a published Financial Ombudsman ruling) as of 28 July 2026. Pricing and features change; check emma-app.com directly before deciding. Know Your Dosh is not affiliated with Emma. Emma is a trademark of its respective owner, referenced here for the purpose of fair comparison. Spotted something inaccurate? Email [email protected].
