Forbidden Finance · Comparison
Forbidden Finance vs Lunch Money
Lunch Money is an indie, bootstrapped, web-first personal-finance app with companion iOS and Android apps, known for strong multi-currency support (160+ currencies), a public developer API, and pay-what-you-want annual pricing with a lifetime price lock.
Lunch Money is best for: Multi-currency power users and developers who want a scriptable finance app today.
Facts about Lunch Money were checked against their published pages in August 2026; every cell links its source. Spot something out of date? Tell us at support@403fin.io and we'll fix it.
At a glance
| Dimension | Forbidden Finance | Lunch Money |
|---|---|---|
| The basics | ||
| Price | Free tier forever; paid plans $4.99–$14.99/mo. No free trial — 30-day money-back guarantee on web purchases. | $10/mo, or pay-what-you-want annual from $60/yr; 30-day free trial, no card. Existing subscribers keep their rate forever ("price-lock guarantee").↗ |
| Business model | Subscriptions only. No ads, no data sales, no cross-sells. | Indie, bootstrapped, profitable subscription — solo-founded by Jen Yip, now a small team; pricing decisions made publicly on the company blog.↗ |
| Security & privacy | ||
| Data selling & ads | We never sell user data, share it with advertisers, or build behavioral profiles for third parties. | States it does not sell user information; subscription-funded, no advertising model.↗ |
| Bank credentials & tokens | Bank credentials never touch our servers (entered with regulated aggregators); sensitive tokens encrypted with AES-256-GCM before storage. | States banking credentials are never stored (read-only Plaid connections) and data is AES-256 encrypted.↗ |
| Encryption inside the database | Sensitive financial fields are sealed under encryption keys unique to each account before they reach the database; keys live in a separate key service. Amounts are aggregated in memory after decryption, so financial values never need to sit readable in the database. | AES-256 encryption claimed; per-user keys not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗ |
| Database-level isolation | PostgreSQL row-level security enforces per-account isolation inside the database engine itself. | Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗ |
| Deletion & export | Self-serve: 30-day recovery window, then permanent deletion and destruction of the account’s encryption keys. Full data export on every tier. | Self-serve: "Cancel subscription & delete entire account" on the Billing page; CSV export + full developer API access to your data.↗ |
| Sign-in security | Passkeys, authenticator-app (TOTP) MFA, biometric unlock, session management. | Two-factor authentication available (SMS-based per the privacy policy). Passkeys: not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗ |
| Security testing & audits | Built by a founder with a professional penetration-testing background; an independent, human-led penetration test is scheduled ahead of full launch. Not yet SOC 2 certified — we say so plainly. | Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08) — no certification, audit, penetration test, or bug-bounty program found.↗ |
| Features | ||
| Bank sync | US & Canada via regulated aggregators (daily + updates when your bank reports changes); UK/EU via bring-your-own open-banking connections; CSV & JSON import. | Plaid across 19 countries (US, CA + 17 European); event-driven updates when the bank notifies Plaid; CSV import elsewhere.↗ |
| Receipt capture | Photograph a receipt or forward it by email (Starter and up). The merchant, total, currency and line items are read for you, checked against the receipt’s own arithmetic, and confirmed by you before anything is saved. 75 / 200 / 400 receipts per renewal month by tier. | Files including images and PDFs attach to transactions for safekeeping; no extraction documented.↗ |
| Budget methods | All 8 methods: 50/30/20, Pay Yourself First, Zero-Based, Envelope, Kakeibo, FIRE, Values-Based, Custom. | Flexible monthly category budgeting — not strict envelope/zero-based.↗ |
| Investment tracking | Brokerage connections with holdings, activity & cost basis (Pro+); per-lot detail and tax-lot CSV export (Premium). | Balance-level syncing for investment accounts; crypto via wallet linking or 300+ manual currencies. No holdings/cost-basis detail documented.↗ |
| Multi-currency | Your home currency is always included, plus 1 more on Free, 3 on Starter, 10 on Pro and unlimited on Premium, with exchange-rate conversion. Spending abroad is never capped: any plan can record a transaction in any supported currency. | 160+ currencies with daily historical exchange rates and a primary-currency rollup — the strongest multi-currency here.↗ |
| Partner / household | 1 partner (Pro) or up to 5 users (Premium). You choose exactly which accounts to share; partners work in a shared budget while each also keeps a private budget; connection slots can be lent. | Unlimited collaborators with their own logins; only the admin needs a subscription (priced per budget, not per person).↗ |
| Platforms | Web (installable PWA), iOS, Android. Android direct download available today; app-store listings Coming Soon. | Web-first + official free iOS and Android companion apps.↗ |
| Open source / self-host | Proprietary, not self-hostable. The exit stays open: full data export on every tier. | Closed source, no self-host; public v2 developer API with official TypeScript SDK and mock server.↗ |
Security, side by side
We compare only what Lunch Money publicly documents. "Not publicly documented" means exactly that — it is not an accusation, and plenty of solid engineering never makes it to a marketing page. Here's what each side is willing to put in writing.
What Forbidden Finance puts in writing
- Data selling & ads: We never sell user data, share it with advertisers, or build behavioral profiles for third parties.
- Bank credentials & tokens: Bank credentials never touch our servers (entered with regulated aggregators); sensitive tokens encrypted with AES-256-GCM before storage.
- Encryption inside the database: Sensitive financial fields are sealed under encryption keys unique to each account before they reach the database; keys live in a separate key service. Amounts are aggregated in memory after decryption, so financial values never need to sit readable in the database.
- Database-level isolation: PostgreSQL row-level security enforces per-account isolation inside the database engine itself.
- Deletion & export: Self-serve: 30-day recovery window, then permanent deletion and destruction of the account’s encryption keys. Full data export on every tier.
- Sign-in security: Passkeys, authenticator-app (TOTP) MFA, biometric unlock, session management.
- Security testing & audits: Built by a founder with a professional penetration-testing background; an independent, human-led penetration test is scheduled ahead of full launch. Not yet SOC 2 certified — we say so plainly.
The full story, including what we're NOT certified for, is on the Security & Privacy page.
What Lunch Money documents
- Data selling & ads: lunchmoney.app blocks automated fetches, so the exact policy wording is search-corroborated — re-verify in a browser before quoting.↗
- Bank credentials & tokens: States banking credentials are never stored (read-only Plaid connections) and data is AES-256 encrypted.↗
- Encryption inside the database: AES-256 encryption claimed; per-user keys not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗
- Database-level isolation: Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗
- Deletion & export: A specific post-deletion retention window is not publicly documented.↗
- Sign-in security: Two-factor authentication available (SMS-based per the privacy policy). Passkeys: not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗
- Security testing & audits: Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08) — no certification, audit, penetration test, or bug-bounty program found.↗
Where Lunch Money is a better fit
An honest comparison cuts both ways. If these match what you need,Lunch Money is a fine choice — we'd rather you pick the right tool than churn out of the wrong one.
- You want a developer API with tooling around it: Lunch Money ships a v2 API, a TypeScript SDK, and a mock server, on every paid plan. Ours is live on Premium and adds an MCP connector for AI assistants, but there is no SDK or mock server yet.
- You want unlimited multi-currency at any price: 160+ currencies with daily historical rates at every price level, where we meter currencies by tier.
- You share with many people: unlimited collaborators with their own logins, and only the admin pays.
- Your banks are in Western Europe or the Nordics: direct Plaid sync covers 17 European countries, versus our bring-your-own-connection rail for the EU/UK.
- You want to name your own price: pay-what-you-want annual plans from $60/yr with a lifetime price lock.
Trade-offs to know about Lunch Money
- No free tier
- Investments and loans are balance-only; no transaction import for them
- Security documentation is thin: SMS 2FA; testing/audits not publicly documented
- Web-first — the mobile apps are companions, not the full product
Why pick Forbidden Finance over Lunch Money
Shipped today
- A free-forever tier — Lunch Money starts the meter after its trial.
- Investments with holdings, activity, and cost basis, versus balance-only syncing.
- Documented security depth: per-account database encryption, RLS, passkeys and TOTP — Lunch Money documents SMS 2FA.
- Mobile apps that are the full product, not companions to a desktop web app.
- Eight budget methods versus one flexible category model.
- 30-day money-back guarantee on web purchases instead of a trial that auto-converts.
On the way
- Flexible budget periods — pick your own start date and frequency, or alternate phases: run a 6-month budget, or three high-income months followed by three lean ones, the way contractor income actually works Coming Soon
- AI-powered insights (privacy-gated, on open models) Coming Soon
- Dedicated FIRE planning tools Coming Soon
- Debt payoff tools Coming Soon
Unshipped features stay labeled until they're real — that's the same honesty rule the rest of this page runs on.
Switching from Lunch Money?
Export your data from Lunch Money, then bring it in with Forbidden Finance's CSV & JSON import — available on every tier, including Free, so you can test-drive with your real data before paying anything. The help docs walk through imports step by step.
Common questions
Lunch Money is $10/month or pay-what-you-want annually from $60/year, with every feature at every price and a lifetime price lock — but no free tier (30-day trial instead). Forbidden Finance has a free-forever tier and tiered plans from $4.99, where higher tiers add connections, currencies, investments, and users.
Lunch Money supports 160+ currencies with daily historical exchange rates at every price level — the strongest multi-currency in the category. Forbidden Finance supports multi-currency with conversion too, but meters it by tier (1/3/10/unlimited). If unlimited currencies on a budget is your top requirement, Lunch Money is the better fit.
At the balance level: investment accounts sync balances, and crypto can be linked or tracked manually, but its docs state automatic transaction import for investment accounts is not supported and no holdings/cost-basis detail is documented. Forbidden Finance pulls holdings, activity, and cost basis from brokerages on Pro and above.
Its track record is a point in its favor: bootstrapped, profitable, solo-founded by Jen Yip in ~2019, with pricing changes announced openly and existing subscribers grandfathered every time. It states it never sells user information and offers SMS two-factor authentication; per-user database encryption and passkeys are not publicly documented.
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