Lunch Money alternative for multi-currency budgets

The short version

Lunch Money is a web-first budgeting app with 160+ currencies, daily exchange rates and bank sync through Plaid in the US, Canada and parts of Europe. A transfer between currencies is entered as two separate transactions, and there is no free plan. Balans.finance records such a transfer as one with both amounts, reads receipts with AI, and has a free plan and an official MCP server.

Feature by feature

What Lunch Money offers was read off its own pages on 2026-11-07 and 2026-11-09.
Feature	Balans.finance	Lunch Money
Accounts in different currencies	Yes. One account can hold several currencies, each with its own balance.	Yes, 160+ currencies.
Totals in one base currency	Yes, automatic. Each transaction is converted at the exchange rate of its own day.	Yes, automatic, at the rate of each transaction's date.
Transfers between currencies	Yes. A transfer records both the amount sent and the amount received.	Entered as two separate transactions, one in each currency.
Statement import	Excel (XLSX), CSV and PDF files from any bank; a layout it has not seen before is mapped by AI. No bank connection.	CSV and PDF files. Bank sync through Plaid in the US, Canada and parts of Europe.
Georgian banks	Yes. Bank of Georgia and TBC Bank statements, with Georgian or English column titles.	Not mentioned on its website.
Receipt scanning	Yes. AI reads the store, date, items and amounts into categorised expenses.	Not mentioned. Files and photos can be attached to a transaction.
Zero-based budgeting	No. A budget sets a target for each category; income does not have to be assigned in full.	Yes, as an option. With rollovers on, you budget until "Left to Budget" reaches zero.
Forecasting	Yes. Where your total balance is heading, from its recent trend: three months ahead on every plan, and a year ahead on paid plans.	Partly. A period's income and expenses are projected from unpaid recurring items. No balance forecast is mentioned.
Your own AI assistant	Yes. Connect Claude or another MCP client that supports OAuth to its MCP server, once you approve access. No built-in chat.	No official connection. A public API; the MCP servers it lists are community projects.
Platforms	Web. An Android app is coming to Google Play, and an iOS app will follow.	Web, with companion apps for iPhone and Android.
Languages	11: English, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish and Georgian.	English in the iPhone app; the web app's languages are not stated.
Free plan	Yes, with no time limit: 3 receipt scans a month and 1 statement import a month.	No. A 30-day free trial.
Price	Starter: €3.99 a month or €39.00 a year	US$10 a month or US$100 a year.

Choose Lunch Money if…

You want bank sync through Plaid in the US, Canada or parts of Europe.
You want zero-based budgeting as an option: with rollovers on, you budget until "Left to Budget" reaches zero.
You want companion apps for iPhone and Android alongside the web app.

Choose Balans.finance if…

You move money between currencies and want one transfer with both amounts, not two separate transactions.
You want a free plan with no time limit rather than a 30-day trial.
You want receipts read by AI into categorised expenses, and Excel statements imported as well as CSV and PDF.
You want to connect Claude or another MCP client to an official MCP server rather than a community one.

What you give up by switching from Lunch Money

Bank sync: Balans.finance imports statement files instead.
Zero-based budgeting: a Balans.finance budget sets a target per category, and income does not have to be assigned in full.
Phone apps: Balans.finance runs on the web until its Android app ships.

Where these facts come from

Every fact about Lunch Money on this page comes from its own pages - its website, help centre, developer documentation or app-store listing - read on 2026-11-07 and 2026-11-09. Where its pages do not mention something, the table says so rather than guessing. If something here is out of date, write to us and we will correct it.

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