Your money, finally clear. Private budgeting with European bank sync — self-hosted or in the Cloud.
I'm Mark. I build Balance in the evenings, once my actual job is done. It's a slow way to build software — but it also means nobody's rushing me into decisions I'd regret later.
This isn't a shop. You're not pre-ordering anything; you're helping me finish something that already works. Self-hosting is free, and it stays free. Balance Cloud is for everyone who'd rather not wrestle a server into shape at nine in the evening.
The app is real: it runs in beta, the code is public, and there's a live demo. Go poke at it first. If it's not for you, that's genuinely fine. And if it is — this is the moment where backing it actually makes a difference.
Here's the honest version, and it has two halves. Self-hosted, the server is YOURS: the app, the database and the key all sit on a machine you own, and nobody else — us included — can reach any of it. That is the version we would pick, and it is free. Balance Cloud is the other half: we host it, so technically we can reach your data. We would rather write that down than let a word like sealed do the work. What protects it there: your secrets and your backup download are encrypted at rest, the bank connection is read-only and can never move money, and nothing is sold, mined or shared with anyone.
Automatic bank sync across 2,700+ banks in 30 European countries runs through Enable Banking, with a key you register yourself — free, and the same key whether you self-host or use Balance Cloud. A free key runs in restricted mode: you link your own accounts to it in Enable Banking’s control panel, and the sync covers those accounts.
This is sponsorship of open-source work, not a pre-order — you're not buying Balance Cloud here, you're helping us get it built.
These perks are thank-you gestures, not deliverables. No delivery date and no guarantees — you're not ordering a product.
If Balance Cloud launches, founders keep a lasting founder rate as a thank-you — a gesture, not a contract. For context, Balance Cloud will be €7,99/month or €69/year when it's ready (that €69 is per year; the Supporter tier is a single one-time contribution). If it never launches, you've still backed live open-source software — Balance is AGPL-3.0 and free to self-host, and it stays that way.
The tiers are a floor, not a ceiling — there's a field here on the page to give more if you'd like. It won't buy you extra perks; it just helps more.
What would you have guessed a private budgeting app with automatic European bank sync should cost per year? It's a benchmark, nothing more — the Cloud price is already fixed, and your answer changes nothing about the contribution you just made. Skip it if you'd rather.
Founding checkout opens at launch, when the open-source release goes public.
Payment runs through Mollie (iDEAL and SEPA).No. You're sponsoring open-source software that already exists and runs. You're not reserving a product or locking in a price, and we owe you no delivery. The perks are thank-you gestures.
Then you've still funded live open-source software — Balance is AGPL-3.0 and free to self-host, and that doesn't change. We'll be straight about the bar we set ourselves: if fewer than 10 people back this in 8 weeks, we read that as a no and stop, rather than drag it out.
Depends which one you run, and the difference is real. Self-hosted: the server is yours, so the answer is simply yes — nobody else can reach it. Balance Cloud: we host it, so we can technically reach your data, and we would rather name that than bury it. Your secrets and your backup download are encrypted at rest, the bank connection is read-only, and nothing is ever sold, mined or shared.