Most budget apps track what you spent.
Spendly asks if it should've been
Replacing traditional budget tracking with an honest spending query — built and shipped independently to a growing base of active users.
I used to track my expenses in Excel. I'd label each one — Necessary, Good to Have, Unnecessary. It was tedious. Open laptop, enter, calculate, go back and analyse. But that one habit — that one question — was the most honest thing I ever asked myself about money. I just needed a better tool for it.
— that tool became Spendly.
The story behind Spendly
Everyone tracks. Nobody reflects
The Habit
People around me — my mother, cousins, family — were writing every expense in notebooks. The discipline was real. The tool was limited.
My Own System
I used Excel. Labelled every spend. Worked — but only if I remembered to open the laptop, enter the data, and do the math. I often didn't.
The Real Question
Every app I explored while designing this told you how much you spent. None asked whether you should have.
Moneyview tracks it. Walnut syncs it. Nobody judges it
| Moneyview | Walnut (Axio) | Spendly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tracking | Auto-SMS | Auto-SMS | Manual, intentional |
| Categories | System-set | System-set | User-labelled |
| Core question | Where did it go? | Where did it go? | Was this worth it? |
| Insight layer | Spend totals | Spend totals | Wise vs unwise split |
| Target user | Everyone | Urban digital natives | Mindful spenders, homemakers, salaried |
Auto-sync is convenient. But convenience removes the one moment of reflection that changes behaviour — the moment you consciously record a spend.
One label. Three words. That's the whole product
Things that keep life running. Rent, bills, medicines, groceries. Record without guilt.
Things that add comfort but aren't essential. Worth tracking — these are where habits form.
Things you didn't need. The app doesn't judge you. But the data will — over time.
[ Screen placeholder — Record Expense · Spendly UI (purple/indigo on dark) ]
One question at entry point — was this worth spending on?
I'm a designer. I don't write code. That was never going to stop me
End-to-end UX — flows, the labelling system, all screens, interactions. Every decision was mine.
AI-assisted tools to write and ship real code. A working PWA. Live on the web.
No app store. No marketing. Shared manually to real people. 25 users. 12–16 active.
Three screens. One flow
Spendly — Live Demo
I didn't target a market. I found one
Homemakers managing household budgets. Working women balancing personal and household finances. Salaried middle-class users for whom every rupee has a purpose.
Not power users. Mindful ones. People who want to spend better — not just track faster. That's exactly who Spendly was built for.
Being a founder taught me what being a designer never could
Ownership sharpens every decision
As a designer I could recommend anything. As a founder every call had a consequence I had to live with. That changed how I think.
Constraints are a design tool
Not knowing code didn't stop the product. It forced me to find tools that could execute my thinking. Vision drove the build.
Real validation is behavioural
Nobody told me it was good. They just kept using it. That silence was the best feedback I got.
Small and intentional beats large and passive
12 active users using it exactly as intended is more meaningful than 10,000 passive downloads. I built for depth. That was the choice.
Any company that hires me gets a designer who has felt the weight of shipping something real — who has made product decisions, not just design decisions. I know what it means to own something end to end.