Groupio vs Splitwise: an honest comparison for shared flats
By Gerard Llanas Conesa · Published August 26, 2026
We are writing this from Groupio, so let's start with the obvious: we are not neutral. What we can do is not make anything up. Every figure here comes from Splitwise's own documentation on 26 August 2026 and is linked so you can check it yourself.
We are also going to say where Splitwise is better, because it is better at several things. If you are looking for an article claiming the alternative wins on everything, this is not it.
Which one suits a shared flat?
If there are two or three of you, you spend little and you only need to split money, free Splitwise is fine. If there are four or more of you, with recurring bills and a cleaning rota, the free plan's four-expenses-a-day cap gets in the way and you will also need a separate tool for chores. Groupio has no cap and no paid tier and covers expenses, recurring bills and chores in one place — but it is far younger and has nothing like Splitwise's user base.
The real difference is not features, it is the business model. Splitwise has to make money from Splitwise Pro, so its free plan carries a deliberate limit. Groupio has no paid tier, so it has no such limit — and no revenue funding a large team either. Neither model is genuinely free: you pay for one with features and for the other with product maturity.
Feature by feature
Splitwise caps the free plan at four expenses a day and reserves currency conversion, receipt scanning, itemisation, charts and search for Splitwise Pro. Groupio includes all of that with no paid tier, and additionally handles chores and recurring bills, which Splitwise does not cover. In exchange, Splitwise has transaction import and export, and Groupio does not.
Only figures we could verify on each product's own site or help centre on the date shown appear here. Where a company does not publish something, the cell says so.
| Splitwise (free) | Splitwise Pro | Groupio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expenses per day | 4 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Price | Free | Paid | Free |
| Currency conversion | No | Yes | Yes |
| Receipt scanning | No | Yes | Yes, with your own AI key |
| Line-item splitting | No | Yes | Yes |
| Charts | No | Yes | Yes |
| Expense search | No | Yes | Yes |
| Transaction import | No | Yes (US only) | No |
| Ad-free | No | Yes | Yes on web, no on Android |
| Chore rotation | No | No | Yes |
| Recurring bills | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Group chat | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Data export | Not published | Not published | No |
| User base | Huge | Huge | Small |
Splitwise Help Center, “What is Splitwise Pro?” (checked 26 Aug 2026) · splitwise.com/pro (checked 26 Aug 2026)
Where Splitwise wins
Splitwise wins on three concrete things: people already have it installed, it has transaction import and export, and it has been running for over a decade. For a one-off trip with people you will not see again, everyone already having it is a decisive advantage that no feature list compensates for.
The network effect is real and worth not minimising. Persuading five people to install an app they have never heard of is a cost, and you pay it, because you are the one proposing it. If your flatmates already use Splitwise for other groups, the friction of switching outweighs the annoyance of the daily cap.
Transaction import (US only) has no equivalent in Groupio either, and for people living there that is a large difference.
And there is a trust question: Splitwise has been around for years, has a company behind it and is not going to disappear next month. A small project is a bigger risk, and it is legitimate to weigh that when you are handing over your household's financial history.
Where Groupio wins
Groupio wins when the household is permanent rather than a trip: no expense cap, recurring bills that repeat themselves, chore rotation in the same app, and receipt scanning without a subscription. A flat generates spending every day, and at that point a four-entry daily cap stops being an annoyance and starts breaking the record.
The clear case is a Saturday in a four-person flat: the big supermarket run, the pharmacy, a shared taxi, the gas bottle and drinks for the house. That is five entries. On the free Splitwise plan the fifth waits until tomorrow, and what waits until tomorrow does not get entered. An incomplete record is worse than none, because it produces a month-end total that looks right and is not.
The chores part sounds secondary and is not. Most flat arguments that look like money are about effort. Having the cleaning rota in the same tool as the expenses removes an entire category of dispute. Our approach is in the chore rotation guide.
And receipt scanning runs on your own OpenAI or Cerebras key: you pay the AI cost directly to the provider, with no middleman and no subscription. More fiddly to set up, cheaper to run.
What about Tricount?
Tricount is the obvious third option and it has changed model: its help centre states that Premium has been deprecated and that the main features are available without additional or hidden costs. But some former Premium features were removed rather than freed — CSV and PDF export and Personal mode — and Tricount does not manage chores.
For a trip, Tricount is probably the simplest of the three and it is free. For a permanent household it lands in the same limitation as Splitwise: it splits money and nothing else.
It is owned by bunq, a Dutch bank, which is relevant information when deciding who gets your household's spending history.
| Feature | Status per its help centre |
|---|---|
| CSV and PDF export | Removed |
| Personal mode | Removed |
| Statistics | Planned for a future update |
| Saved custom splits | Planned for a future update |
Tricount Help Center (checked 26 Aug 2026)
How to switch without losing your history
Do not migrate mid-month. Settle to zero in the old app, screenshot the final summary, and start the new one from a zero balance on the 1st. Trying to rebuild six months of history in another tool is work nobody will actually do, and half-done it is worse than not having it.
If the reason for switching is the fixed bills rather than day-to-day spending, start with our guide on managing shared bills: setting those up properly is 80% of the value.
- Pick the date: the first day of a month, never halfway through.
- Settle every outstanding balance in the old tool and have each person confirm they are at zero.
- Save a screenshot or PDF of the final summary, in case anyone disputes it later.
- Set up the recurring bills (rent, internet, electricity) in the new tool first, before anything else.
- For the first month, log in both. It is tedious and it is the only way to find out whether the new one fails you at something before you depend on it.
Frequently asked questions
How many expenses does free Splitwise allow per day?
Four. Its help centre states that free users can add up to four expenses each day and that unlimited expenses is a Splitwise Pro feature. Some comparison sites say three; the official documentation says four.
Is Groupio actually free, or is there a catch?
There is no paid tier and no cap on expenses or members. The web app carries no advertising; the free Android app does show ads, and that is what funds the mobile build. Receipt scanning uses your own AI key, so that cost goes directly to the provider rather than to Groupio.
Can I import my Splitwise data into Groupio?
There is no automatic import. The practical recommendation is not to migrate history at all: settle to zero in Splitwise, save a screenshot of the summary, and start fresh in Groupio on the 1st of the following month.
Which is better for a group trip?
Probably Splitwise or Tricount, especially if people already have them installed. A trip is short, generates few entries a day and has no chores or recurring bills — which is exactly where Groupio adds something. Do not over-buy the tool.
Which is better for a student flat?
A student flat has rent, utilities, a cleaning rota and a lot of small daily spending, which is the profile where a four-expense daily cap bites and where having chores in the same app saves arguments. If someone is on an exchange earning in another currency, note that currency conversion is a paid feature on Splitwise.
What happens to my data in each one?
Neither connects to your bank unless you deliberately link it, and in Groupio's case that feature does not exist. What they hold is the record of who owes whom. In Groupio, receipt scanning uses an AI key of yours, so the receipt image goes to your provider under your credentials rather than to a shared service.
If you already use Splitwise and it works, do not switch for the sake of it. If you have run into the four-expenses-a-day cap, if you miss having the cleaning rota in the same place, or if it bothers you that currency conversion is a paid feature, then there is a concrete reason to try something else. And check the figures in this comparison against the links: that is what they are there for.
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