You’re looking for a budgeting app. YNAB keeps coming up. And you want to know if it’s actually the right choice – or whether there’s something better.

This post gives you the honest answer.

Bottom line: Vermillion is the better budgeting app if you want your savings rate as your primary metric, pay less, and actually build the habit of saving – not just tracking spending. YNAB is a reasonable option for people who need a large community and are willing to commit to a strict methodology.

At a glance

	✓ Vermillion	YNAB
Primary metric	Savings rate	Budget balance
Budgeting method	Zero-based	Zero-based
Transaction tracking	Manual-first	Auto-import default
Off-budget savings (401k, HSA)	Yes	No
Monthly price	$6/mo	$15/mo
Annual price	$60/yr	$109/yr
Variable income	Supported	Supported
Learning curve	Gentle	Steep
Community size	Growing	Very large

What is Vermillion?

Vermillion is a web-based budgeting app built around one core idea:

Your savings rate is the most important number in your financial life.

Not your account balance. Not your budget surplus.

Your savings rate – the percentage of your income you’re actually keeping.

Most budgeting apps track whether you stayed under budget. Vermillion tracks whether you’re actually getting ahead.

Your savings rate is the number that determines when, or whether, you’ll ever have financial breathing room. It’s more important than your income, your debt payoff timeline, or how well you did on groceries last month.

Most budgeting apps are really spending trackers.

Think about the last time you opened a budgeting app. What did you do?

You probably logged a purchase. Categorized a transaction. Checked whether you were under budget on dining.

Every interaction rewarded you for tracking your spending. The app gave you a green number. You felt good. You came back.

That’s not an accident – it’s how these apps are designed. When the only behavior an app tracks is spending, spending is the only behavior it can reward.

Vermillion is built around a different feedback loop entirely.

The number that goes up when you do well isn’t “under budget on groceries.” It’s your savings rate – the gap between money coming in and money going out.

The only number that actually tells you whether you’re getting ahead.

Where Vermillion wins

Savings rate as the primary metric.

No other major budgeting app leads with this.

Knowing you came in $13 under on restaurants doesn’t tell you whether you’re building wealth. Knowing you saved 18% of your income this month does.

Other apps give you a green light for spending less. Vermillion gives you a green light for saving more. Those sound similar. They are not the same thing.

Off-budget savings count too.

This is something no other budgeting app does.

Vermillion lets you track savings that never touch your budget – 401k contributions and employer matches, HSA contributions, automatic paycheck deposits to a savings account.

This matters for two reasons.

First, it means your savings rate reflects your real savings picture, not just what you manually moved around in the app. If your employer is matching 4% of your salary into a 401k, that’s part of your savings rate – and most apps completely ignore it.

Second, it actively encourages you to use tax-advantaged accounts. Every dollar you put into a 401k or HSA improves your savings rate in Vermillion. That’s a feedback loop that nudges you toward smarter financial decisions, not just tidier spending categories.

Manual tracking as a feature, not a bug.

Both Vermillion and YNAB support manual transaction entry – but Vermillion is built around it.

The act of manually logging a purchase is part of the point. It keeps you present with your spending in a way that automatic importing doesn’t.

YNAB offers auto-import and it’s popular. But even YNAB’s own team has written about why they prefer manual entry:

“If you’re new to budgeting, have big financial aspirations, or you’re trying to make significant changes to your money habits, I can’t more highly recommend entering transactions yourself… if you simply link your bank accounts and let an app automatically record and reconcile your transactions, you’re missing out on a big piece of the budgeting experience.”
– YNAB blog

Auto-import is convenient. It’s also a great way to stop paying attention to your money.

The price.

Vermillion is $6/month (or $60/year).

YNAB is $15/month (or $109/year).

If you’re on a tight budget – which, same – paying less for your budgeting app is not ironic. It’s just math.

Lower learning curve.

Both apps use zero-based budgeting, but YNAB’s method is a full philosophy with rules, terminology, and a significant onboarding commitment.

Vermillion is designed to make sense in an afternoon.

What is YNAB?

YNAB (You Need A Budget) is a zero-based budgeting app that’s been around since 2004.

The premise: every dollar you earn gets “assigned” to a category before you spend it. You’re always budgeting with money you already have, not money you expect to have.

It costs $109/year (about $15 a month if you pay monthly), has a steep learning curve, and is built around a very specific methodology that requires real commitment to see results.

It has a large community – a subreddit, podcasts, and a lot of YouTube content – which some people find valuable for staying accountable. Others may find it a bit overwhelming.

YNAB works well for people whose primary problem is overspending. If your problem is under-saving, it’s the wrong tool.

The core difference: what do you want your app to reward you for?

YNAB will tell you whether you stayed within your categories.

If you budgeted $300 for groceries and spent $287, YNAB gives you a green number. You stayed under budget on groceries. Great.

But staying under budget on groceries is a spending behavior. An app that only rewards spending behaviors is training you to be a more attentive spender – not a better saver.

Vermillion’s feedback loop is different. The metric that lights up when you’re doing well is your savings rate – the space you’re building between what comes in and what goes out.

That’s the behavior worth reinforcing. And it’s the one no other app is built around.

What budgeting app shows savings rate?

Vermillion is the only budgeting app that shows savings rate as the primary dashboard metric.

YNAB doesn’t surface it by default. Most apps treat savings as an afterthought – something that shows up in a small report, if at all.

If you’re budgeting, it’s because you want to save more. So let’s make saving the main event.

Is YNAB worth the price?

For a narrow use case, maybe.

If you’re committed to learning the full YNAB methodology, engage with the community, and your primary challenge is controlling overspending – YNAB can be effective.

But here’s the honest question to ask yourself: after months of budgeting, are you actually saving more – or are you just getting better at tracking where the money went?

If you’ve been budgeting for a while and feel like you’re “doing it right” but not actually getting ahead, that’s usually a savings rate problem, not a category problem.

YNAB is built to make you a more attentive spender. Vermillion is built to make you a better saver. Those are different goals, and they deserve different tools.

Choose Vermillion if:

• You want your savings rate front and center, not buried in reports
• You want off-budget savings (401k, HSA, auto-transfers) to count toward your savings rate
• You believe active, manual tracking makes you a more intentional spender
• You want a simpler, lower-cost option

Choose YNAB if:

• You want a large community and lots of third-party educational content
• Overspending (not under-saving) is your primary financial problem

Try Vermillion free for 30 days – no credit card required.