It is a completely fair question, and we would think less of you for not asking it. We spend whole articles urging you to hunt down forgotten subscriptions and cancel the ones that do not earn their place. So it would be strange of us to then ask you to add ours to the pile without a very good reason.

So here is the honest answer, with nothing hidden. This is exactly the kind of decision we hope you will make about every recurring cost, including this one.

First, an app is not free to run

Software feels weightless, but a real, reliable service is not. Behind a budgeting app that is available every time you reach for your phone there are running costs that never stop: servers and databases that have to stay online, secure backups so your data is never lost, security updates, email delivery, and the ongoing work of fixing bugs and building the features you ask for. None of that is a one-time expense. It arrives every single month, the same way your own bills do.

Any app that is genuinely useful and genuinely maintained has to cover those costs somehow. There are really only two ways: the people using it pay a little, or someone else pays and gets something in return. That second path is where "free" gets expensive.

Put the price next to your everyday spending

The best way to judge any subscription is the one we recommend in our other articles: compare it to the everyday spending it sits beside. A paid plan here costs roughly what you would pay for a beer or two at a bar, or a couple of takeaway coffees, over an entire month.

Now weigh that against what a budgeting habit is meant to do. If tracking your spending helps you catch one forgotten subscription, avoid one impulse purchase, or notice one money leak, it has very likely paid for itself several times over. A tool whose whole job is to save you money should be judged by whether it does - and if it does not save you far more than it costs, you absolutely should cancel it. We mean that.

Why "free with ads" quietly costs you more

The obvious alternative is the ad-supported free app. On the surface it costs nothing. In practice you pay in three currencies that are easy to overlook:

Privacy. You can often disable personalised ads through your cookie or consent settings, and you should. But even non-targeted ads still fund a business whose incentive runs the opposite way to yours: an ad-supported finance app benefits from more of your attention and, wherever your consent allows, more of your data. The less you pay directly, the more it makes sense for the app to earn from advertisers rather than from serving you.
Time and attention. Every banner and interruption is a small tax on the very focus a budgeting habit is trying to build. An app meant to make you more mindful of your money should not be pulling your attention toward the next thing to buy.
Worse decisions. An app paid for by advertisers is nudged, however subtly, to serve advertisers. A tool you pay for directly has only one job: to serve you. That alignment is worth more than the monthly price.

Seen clearly, "free" is not the cheaper option. It is the option where the cost is hidden and paid in things harder to get back than money.

Why the free plan does not include everything

We do offer a free plan, and we want you to use it. But it cannot include every feature, and now you know why: every active account still costs us something to run, and we refuse to make up the difference by selling your data or filling the app with ads. A generous free plan lets you build the habit and prove the app works for you. A paid plan is how the people who get real value keep the service alive - ad-free, private, and focused entirely on them.

That is the trade we think is honest: you pay a small, visible price, and in return there is no hidden one.

What your subscription actually buys

A subscription is only worth it if it keeps delivering. So here is one concrete thing your plan is paying for. We have built a periodic review that you may receive at the end of each period, which contains not only a summary of your income, your expenses and your savings - but also clearly shows how much you pay for our services.

We want that review to hold us to the same standard we ask you to hold everything else to. If the app is saving you money, the numbers will show it, plainly, right next to what it costs. And if it ever stops earning its place, you will be the first to see it, and you should cancel without a second thought. A tool confident that it is worth the price is happy to put that price on the scale for you.

The bottom line

Do not pay for My-Money.Report out of loyalty or guilt. Pay for it only if it saves you more than it costs, keeps your data private, and respects your attention - and hold it to that every single period. That is not just our pitch. It is the exact habit this whole app is trying to teach.