Splitwise vs Tricount 2026: Free Limits, Features & Verdict

Splitwise vs Tricount at a glance

Both apps solve the same problem: one person pays, others owe, and you need a running tally of who owes whom. Neither is a bank account or a payment service in itself; you settle up with whatever you already use and record the payment. The differences are in pricing and extras.

For a broader field, including Settle Up and others, see our roundup of Splitwise alternatives and the comparison of the best bill splitting apps.

Splitwise: what you get free and with Pro

Splitwise is built around ongoing balances: friends, couples and roommates who share costs for months or years. You add an expense, choose who was involved and how to divide it (equally, by exact amounts, by percentages or by shares), and the app keeps a net balance for everyone. Its “simplify debts” option reduces the number of payments a group needs to make.

According to the Splitwise Pro page, the paid tier includes:

• Unlimited expenses each day, without the free plan’s cap.
• Receipt scanning and itemization, so you can assign individual items on a receipt to people.
• Currency conversion at current exchange rates.
• Charts and graphs of spending by category and over time.
• Expense search and default split settings for a group (for example 55/45).
• Card transaction import, currently US only.
• No ads.

The Pro page doesn’t publish the exact daily cap for free users, and third-party reports of the number vary, so treat any specific figure you see online with caution. The practical effect is clear, though: on a busy trip day with many small purchases, free users can hit the limit. The Pro price is shown in the app and differs by country and platform. We compare Splitwise with another long-standing rival in Splitwise vs Settle Up.

Tricount: free, no ads, fewer extras

Tricount started in Brussels and is popular across Europe. The Dutch digital bank bunq agreed to acquire it in 2022, as TechCrunch reported. Each “tricount” is a shared expense list, typically one per trip, flat or event, and you invite people by sharing it.

The big change came with Tricount’s new app. Its help article “What happened with tricount Premium?” explains that Premium was discontinued and describes the app as free, with no ads and no limits. The trade-off: some former Premium features were removed, including CSV and PDF exports and personal mode, while statistics and saved custom splits are listed as planned for a future update.

In practice that makes Tricount a strong, no-cost ledger: add expenses, split them equally or unequally among participants, and see who should pay whom at the end. If you need exports for accounting, or detailed spending charts, it currently does less than Splitwise Pro. We review it in more depth in our Tricount app review.

Worked example: a four-person weekend trip

Illustrative numbers. Four friends spend a weekend at a lake campsite. Three of them pay for different things:

Total spending is $316. Each person’s share: the three shared items come to $276, or $69 each; Ana and Dev also owe $20 each for the canoe. So Ana’s share is $89, Ben’s $69, Chloe’s $69 and Dev’s $89. Ana paid $160, Ben $96, Chloe $60 and Dev $0.

Both apps produce the same result: Dev pays Ana $71 and Ben $18, and Chloe pays Ben $9. Three transfers settle everything. To check numbers like these by hand, our bill splitting calculator has the formulas. In this small example, the free tiers of both apps are enough; the difference shows up on long trips with dozens of receipts or several currencies. For rules on rooms, couples and late joiners, see our guide to splitting costs on a group trip.

Which app fits which group

Common mistakes when splitting in an app

Whichever app you choose, the same few slip-ups cause most of the arguments at the end of a trip or a month of shared bills.

• Adding people to expenses they skipped. If two friends went to a concert and two stayed home, the tickets belong only to the two who went. Untick the others before saving.
• Logging the pre-tip amount. Enter what actually left the payer’s account, including tax and tip, or the payer quietly absorbs the difference.
• Two people logging the same receipt. Agree that whoever paid is the one who adds it.
• Forgetting to record the settle-up payment. If Dev sends Ana money by bank transfer but nobody marks it as paid, the app will keep showing the old debt and someone will be asked twice.
• Mixing a couple’s costs with the group’s. Many groups treat a couple as one unit for rooms but as two people for food; decide that up front rather than mid-trip.
• Leaving it to the last day. A balance check each evening keeps surprises small and lets anyone who is far behind settle part of it early.

None of these needs a paid feature, which is why the free versions of both apps cover most casual groups well.

Tips that work in either app

• Agree on the app before the trip. Everyone joins the same group on day one.
• Log expenses the same day. Memory fades fast after a long weekend.
• Use unequal splits for real differences, like non-drinkers or someone who skipped an activity.
• Settle within a week. Small debts left for months turn into awkward ones.
• Send requests kindly. A friendly message with the amount works better than a silent payment request; our take on whether it’s rude to Venmo request a friend has wording.

Apps track the money, but the smoothest groups decide who pays before anyone spends. Want to turn this into an actual plan? MeetNow is a free app for meeting people in person: a host posts a plan at a public place, says who pays (host pays, split, pay your own or free) and picks who joins. It is live on the web and works in your browser, starting in Malta: open MeetNow and see the plans posted in Malta.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Is Tricount really free?

Yes. Tricount’s help center describes the app as free, with no ads and no limits. Its former Premium subscription was discontinued with the new app, and some Premium-only features such as CSV and PDF exports were removed.

Does Splitwise have a daily limit on the free plan?

Yes. The free version caps how many expenses you can add per day and shows ads. Splitwise does not publish the exact number on its Pro page; Splitwise Pro removes the cap and the ads.

Which is better for a group trip, Splitwise or Tricount?

For a one-off trip with lots of small expenses, Tricount’s free, no-limit model is usually easier. If you want receipt scanning, automatic currency conversion or charts, Splitwise Pro offers those features.

Can Splitwise or Tricount send money between friends?

Both apps are mainly ledgers: they track who paid what and who owes whom. You usually settle up with your normal payment app or a bank transfer and then record the payment in the app.

Who owns Tricount?

Tricount, originally a Brussels start-up, was acquired by the Dutch digital bank bunq in a deal announced in 2022.

Featured photo: tent and tarp at the Deep Lake tenting campsite, Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, by Norm Andreiw, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.