That number comes from Incogni's 2026 research on financial app data practices. It's not a fringe finding — it's a systematic review of privacy policies and data transmission for the apps most people are actually using.
So: which apps are in that 60%? Which aren't? And what exactly is being shared?
Those are harder questions to answer than they should be. Privacy policies are written to be compliant, not comprehensible. Terms like "we may share with partners for marketing and business purposes" can mean many different things, and companies have every incentive to keep the specifics vague.
This is an attempt to cut through that. We looked at what researchers have found, what privacy policies actually say when you read them carefully, and what the business models of these apps tell you about their relationship with your data.
What you'll learn
- Why free budget apps have a structural incentive to monetize your data
- Which specific apps have raised concerns in research and privacy reviews
- Which apps have demonstrated better privacy practices — and why
- How to audit any budget app's privacy policy yourself in under five minutes
- What you can do right now to reduce your financial data exposure
The Business Model Problem
Before naming specific apps, it's worth understanding the structural issue.
Most popular budgeting apps are free. "Free" in the software business usually means one of a few things: the company is funded by venture capital and hasn't figured out monetization yet, the company makes money from subscriptions to a premium tier, or the company makes money from you — through advertising, affiliate commissions, or data.
The third category is the problem. Here's how it works in practice:
An app collects your transaction data, income information, spending categories, and financial goals. They "anonymize" or "aggregate" this data (sometimes genuinely, sometimes nominally) and sell insights to lenders, advertisers, credit bureaus, and financial product companies. A lender wants to know: which users are carrying high credit card balances? A credit card company wants to know: which users spend heavily on dining out? Your budget app knows both.
In some cases, the data connection is even more direct: apps earn affiliate commissions by recommending financial products — credit cards, loans, insurance — to users whose spending profiles make them likely to convert. The "personalized recommendations" in your budget app aren't there to help you. They're there because someone paid for access to users who match your profile.
This isn't illegal. In most cases, it's disclosed somewhere in the privacy policy. But the disclosure is buried, the language is vague, and "by using this app you agree to our terms" isn't meaningful informed consent.
Apps That Have Raised Concerns
The following apps have been flagged in published research and privacy reviews. The characterizations come from named sources — these companies' practices may change, so read their current policies directly before making decisions.
NerdWallet
Research published by SavingAdvice.com identified NerdWallet as one of the more aggressive data collectors in the personal finance app space. According to the analysis, NerdWallet's privacy policy explicitly allows sharing user information with third-party partners — a designation broad enough to include advertisers, data brokers, and financial product providers.
This makes sense given NerdWallet's business model: they make money primarily through affiliate commissions on financial products. Your transaction data helps them figure out which products to push to which users. The recommendations aren't neutral.
Rocket Money
Rocket Money's privacy policy, as analyzed by multiple privacy researchers, explicitly states that it collects and may share information with third parties for "marketing purposes." The categories of data this covers include transaction data, bill payment history, and interactions with partner services — the core of your financial behavior.
Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) was acquired by Rocket Companies in 2022. The app's primary business is subscription cancellation and bill negotiation — which means it has a specific commercial interest in knowing exactly what you're paying for and what financial products you might be persuaded to switch to.
Mobills
Research cited by SavingAdvice.com identified Mobills as collecting personal information beyond what basic budgeting functionality requires, and monetizing user data through targeted advertising and partnerships with financial service providers.
The Mint Precedent
Mint shut down in March 2024, but its practices are worth understanding because they established the template other free budgeting apps followed.
Intuit, which owned Mint, used information from the app to inform marketing strategies, product development, and data practices across its product suite. Many Mint users didn't realize their budgeting behavior was, in part, helping Intuit identify users to target with financial product offers. The app was free. The data was the exchange.
When Mint shut down, Intuit tried to migrate users to Credit Karma — another Intuit product with its own data collection model. The migration wasn't clean, and some users lost access to years of transaction history. It illustrated two things: financial data is valuable enough to migrate, and you don't always control what happens to it.
Apps With Better Privacy Records
These apps have demonstrated stronger privacy practices — either through business model design, explicit policy commitments, or technical architecture. None of this is a permanent guarantee, but it's a meaningfully different baseline.
YNAB
YNAB is frequently cited as the exception in personal finance privacy discussions. Several characteristics explain why.
The business model is subscriptions. At $109/year as of 2026, YNAB has no structural need to monetize user data — they make money directly from users, not from selling access to users' financial profiles. Their privacy policy explicitly states they do not sell personal information. The community of YNAB users has scrutinized this claim repeatedly, and it's held up.
YNAB does use bank sync through Plaid, which means your transaction data passes through a third party. That's a privacy consideration worth understanding. But the app itself isn't the data monetization mechanism. The detailed comparison of YNAB alternatives — including options that skip bank sync entirely — is covered in our guide to YNAB alternatives for 2026.
Monarch Money
Monarch Money operates on a subscription model ($99.99/year as of 2026) and has positioned itself explicitly as a privacy-respecting alternative to ad-supported apps. Their privacy policy is more restrictive than average, and they've been transparent about their data handling in ways that ad-supported apps typically aren't.
Monarch does use cloud storage and bank sync — so your data does leave your device and pass through aggregators. But "no data selling" is a meaningful commitment from a company that doesn't need to sell data to survive financially.
Actual Budget
Actual Budget is open source and local-first. Your data stays on your device by default — there's no server receiving your transactions unless you specifically set up optional sync (which uses end-to-end encryption). For users who want zero-based budgeting methodology with full data control, Actual Budget is the most technically rigorous option available.
The trade-off is setup complexity: Actual Budget requires some comfort with self-hosted software. But for the right user — someone who wants YNAB-style methodology with maximum data control — it's hard to beat.
BudgetVault
We built BudgetVault around one constraint: your data should never reach a server. Period.
Everything is stored locally in your browser using IndexedDB — your transactions, categories, budgets, goals, all of it. Nothing is transmitted anywhere after the initial page load. There's no account to create (no email, no password, no profile), so there's nothing to breach or sell. The app doesn't have analytics tracking your usage, because we don't want that data either.
The trade-off is deliberate: single device, no automatic bank sync, no cross-device access. These aren't bugs — they're the cost of the privacy guarantee. If the most important thing to you is that your financial data belongs only to you, that trade-off is worth it. For a full comparison of privacy-first options, see our guide to privacy-first finance app alternatives.
How to Audit Any Budget App's Privacy Policy Yourself
You don't have to take anyone's word for it. A five-minute privacy policy review tells you most of what you need to know.
Open the app's privacy policy. Every app is legally required to have one. It's usually linked in the footer of their website.
Search for "sell." Look for a sentence starting with "we do not sell" or "we will not sell." If you find it, read what comes after — "we do not sell your personal information, but we may share it with partners for marketing purposes" is not the same as not selling.
Search for "third party." How many times does it appear? What are the categories of third parties mentioned? Look for phrases like "advertising partners," "marketing partners," "data analytics providers," "financial service providers." Each of those is a potential data destination.
Search for "marketing." If your data is being used for "marketing purposes" by the app or by third parties, that's the mechanism by which your spending patterns become advertising inventory.
Check the revenue model. If the app is free and doesn't have a paid tier, ask: how does this company make money? If the answer isn't obvious, your data is likely part of the answer.
Look for the data deletion policy. Can you request deletion of your data? If an app makes it easy to export and delete your data, that's a signal they're not treating your data as a permanent asset.
What Actually Protects Your Financial Data
There's a spectrum of protection, from weakest to strongest:
Ad-supported free apps with vague policies. Your data is effectively a product. The app's incentives and your interests are in direct conflict.
Ad-supported free apps with explicit "no sell" policies. Better, but policies can change and "no sell" doesn't mean "no share."
Subscription apps with "no sell" policies. Better still. The business model doesn't require data monetization, which means the commitment is actually aligned with their interests.
Subscription apps with encrypted cloud storage. Your data is on their servers, but encrypted in ways that limit even the company's access.
Local-first apps with no server transmission. The strongest position. Your data never reaches a server in the first place, so there's nothing to sell, breach, or subject to policy changes.
The right choice depends on what you need. If you need multi-device access and are comfortable with subscription costs, Monarch or YNAB are reasonable choices. If you're willing to accept single-device use in exchange for maximum privacy, local-first apps eliminate the exposure entirely.
What to Do Right Now
Look up your current app's privacy policy. Use the audit steps above. Five minutes. You might find it's better than you expected — or you might find clauses that change your calculus.
Understand what data you've already shared. Most apps let you request a copy of your data. You may not be able to get it deleted, but knowing what's out there is step one.
Consider what you actually need. Multi-device sync? Bank aggregation? Or just: a reliable way to track spending and stay within a budget? The features you don't use are features that aren't worth a privacy trade-off.
Try a no-account option. If you haven't tried local-first budgeting, it's worth thirty minutes to see if it works for you. No commitment, no account, nothing to cancel. Just open a browser. See our full guide to expense tracking app privacy for deeper context on how these trade-offs play out in practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do budget apps actually sell your data?
Research from Incogni in 2026 found that 60% of the 20 most popular budgeting apps share at least some data with third parties. "Sharing" and "selling" are legally distinct — companies often share data with partners for marketing purposes without calling it a sale. The practical effect on your privacy is similar either way.
Which budgeting app has the best privacy?
For maximum privacy, local-first apps like BudgetVault (free) and Actual Budget (free, self-hosted) never transmit your data to any server. For privacy with cloud sync, YNAB and Monarch Money use subscription models and have strong "no data selling" policies. The right answer depends on whether you need multi-device access.
How do I know if a budget app is selling my data?
Read the privacy policy and search for "sell," "third party," and "marketing." If the app is free with no paid tier, ask how the company makes money. A genuine "we do not sell your personal information" statement — with no carve-outs for "sharing with partners" — is a meaningful commitment.
Is YNAB safe from a data privacy standpoint?
YNAB has consistently stated that they do not sell user data, and their subscription business model aligns with that commitment. They do use Plaid for bank sync, which means transaction data passes through a third-party aggregator — a consideration worth understanding. Among bank-sync apps, YNAB has a stronger privacy track record than most. Our YNAB alternatives comparison covers this in more depth.
What happened to Mint user data after it shut down?
When Mint shut down in March 2024, Intuit attempted to migrate users to Credit Karma. The migration wasn't seamless for all users. Years of transaction history, budgets, and financial data that users had stored with Mint effectively transferred to a different company's product. It's the clearest recent example of why cloud-stored financial data may not always belong to you in practice.
What's the difference between "sharing" and "selling" data?
Legally, a lot. Practically, less. "We don't sell your data" can coexist with "we share your data with third-party marketing partners for business purposes" — and that sharing may produce the same result for advertisers as buying data outright. When evaluating an app, look at both claims: the "no sell" statement and the "sharing" disclosure.
BudgetVault is a personal budgeting tool, not a financial advisor. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as professional financial advice.