Many apps have tried to solve the age-old problem of how to split the bills with friends. Whether you’re living with roommates, eating out regularly, or sharing your phone plan, people are always looking for the best new way of splitting the resulting bill. 2021 has seen the release of new mobile apps trying to take these problems head-on.
Frankly, existing solutions that involve tracking how much you are owed (e.g with Splitwise, Billr) then requesting money from Venmo or Cash App are OUTDATED! Everyone at some point experiences why this process doesn’t work when they are about to send out their 10th reminder asking to be paid back.
Luckily, some new bill splitting apps released in 2021 are trying to replace this old process with something more efficient and streamline. Requiring less work on your side and less awkward conversions about money.
Why should I use a bill splitting app?
If everyone carries enough cash all the time, there would be no use for bill splitting apps. At dinner, for example, everyone would simply be able to put their share of the meal down. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case, most people don’t carry enough cash and if you split recurring expenses with roommates or have a phone plan, asking to be paid back every month isn’t pleasant. Here are some of the common reasons people need apps to help them split expenses:
- The waiter won’t split the restaurant bill at a group dinner
- Fronting the bill for your roommates
- Sharing a Phone Family Plan
- Splitting the cost of streaming accounts like Netflix or Hulu
- Going on a group trip
- Splitting grocery bills with your significant other
- Team expenses
- Hosting a party with your friends
These splitting situations can be summarised into one time purchases (e.g dinner bill) and recurring purchases (e.g roommate bills). Here are the best apps to split these two categories.
The Best App For Splitting One Time Purchases; Dinner Bills, Group Trips
Braid is by far the best solution that exists today for splitting one-time purchases e.g dinner bill, pizza night, a road trip with friends, Airbnb & many more.
Instead of one person paying the bill and having everyone pay you back. You can create a group on Braid and invite everyone you want to share the bill with. Everyone can then load the Braid group with their share of the meal then the owner of the group can pay with their Braid card. It’s essentially like a quick to set-up disposable joint account. You can load money into your braid account with your debit card, credit card, or bank account. The only caveat is that everyone should set up their Braid group in advance to save them from having to remember their bank account details when out.
Braid is a free app and is available on the App Store & Google Play. It works with every US financial institution, so whoever you bank with, you’ll be able to load money into your group Braid account.
Going out for dinner soon? Get started with Braid
The Best App For Splitting Recurring Purchases; Housemate, Phone Bills & Recurring Subscriptions
We’ve been developing YSplit for the last 2 years to be the very best app for splitting recurring group bills such as house bills with roommates, family phone plans (e.g T-Mobile) & recurring subscriptions (e.g Netflix, Spotify).
It works very simply:
- Link your recurring bill e.g Power, Internet, or Phone Bill
- Invite the people you share it with
- Every month YSplit will pay for the bill then automatically bill everyone their portion
Instead of placing your group bill responsibility one person, YSplit will automatically pay the bill when it’s due and charge everyone their share. So no more constantly nagging your friends, roommates & family to pay you back.
YSplit is a free app and is available on the App Store & Google Play. You can connect your bank account, credit card, or debit card to YSplit.
Sharing house bills or phone bills? Get started with YSplit
