Is Frollo free to use?

Yes. Frollo is completely free. No premium tier, no in-app purchases, no ads. It connects to Australian banks through the Consumer Data Right (Open Banking) and covers spending tracking, budgets, goals, net worth, bills, and super tracking at no cost.

Is PocketSmith free in Australia?

PocketSmith has a free tier with 2 accounts, 12 budgets, 2 dashboards, and a 6-month cashflow projection. The paid tiers unlock more bank connections, longer projection horizons (up to 60 years on Fortune), and priority support. Paid tiers in AUD: Foundation AUD $14.95/mo, Flourish $24.95/mo, Fortune $39.95/mo.

Does Frollo have cashflow forecasting like PocketSmith?

Not in the same way. Frollo tracks your current financial position, budgets, bills, and goals with smart alerts and a PDF snapshot. PocketSmith's defining feature is long-range cashflow forecasting, projecting your balances and net worth up to 60 years forward on the top tier. If forecasting is the reason you're comparing the two, PocketSmith has the deeper tool.

What's the difference between Open Banking and regular bank feeds?

Open Banking (Consumer Data Right, or CDR) is the Australian government-backed framework where you authorise a licensed provider to access specific data from your bank for a specific time period. You don't share bank passwords and you control what data is shared. Traditional bank feeds use aggregators like Yodlee or Plaid, which often require screen-scraping or credential sharing. Frollo uses CDR. PocketSmith uses aggregation partners (not CDR-based).

Which Australian budgeting app doesn't use bank linking at all?

YourDigits. It's built for Australians who don't want to connect their bank accounts to any third-party aggregator, whether that's Open Banking or traditional feeds. It uses voice-first transaction entry instead, runs on-device speech recognition so audio never leaves your phone, and includes a native super-tracking leak in its priority system (the Leak Ladder). It's a different approach to the problem Frollo and PocketSmith both solve with bank data.

PocketSmith vs Frollo: which is better for me?

Depends on what you need. Frollo is better if you want free, Open-Banking-based tracking with strong privacy controls and solid AU-native features (including super) with zero cost. PocketSmith is better if you want long-range cashflow forecasting, cross-platform support (including macOS/Windows/Linux desktop apps), and a more sophisticated budgeting feature set, and you're willing to pay for the paid tier that unlocks the forecast horizon that matters to you.

PocketSmith vs Frollo: Which Australian Budgeting App Should You Pick?

If you're choosing between PocketSmith and Frollo, you're probably Australian, probably serious about managing your money, and probably looking at one of the two as the "local" alternative to the US-first apps that dominate the category. Both apps are legitimate picks. They're built for different people and different problems.

This page is a fair comparison. Neither of these is my product. I'm an Australian accountant who runs a separate app that takes a third approach (more on that at the bottom), but for this comparison I'm going to treat Frollo and PocketSmith as the two real options and help you figure out which fits.

Side A: Frollo

Frollo is Australian-built, free, and Open-Banking-native.

"Free" in Frollo's case means actually free. No premium tier, no in-app purchases, no ads. The business model isn't subscription revenue. Frollo is owned by NextGen, a financial data company, and the consumer app is part of a broader Open Banking ecosystem play. What that means for you as a user is that the full feature set is available without payment.

The core feature is Open Banking connections. Frollo uses the Consumer Data Right (CDR), which is the Australian government-backed framework for sharing bank data. You authorise Frollo to access specific data from specific accounts for a specific time period. You don't share your bank password. You can revoke access at any time. This is materially more privacy-preserving than the screen-scraping or credential-sharing that traditional bank feed aggregators use.

Once your accounts are connected, Frollo handles:

Automatic transaction categorisation
Budget tracking and goal setting
Net worth tracking (bank accounts, investments, assets, liabilities)
Bill tracking with due date reminders
Smart alerts (unusual spending, upcoming bills)
Super tracking (which is rare)
A PDF financial snapshot (useful for brokers or lenders)

The AU-specific design shows up in small places. Super is treated as a real account type, not an afterthought. AUD is the default. Fortnightly pay is assumed, not a workaround.

Where Frollo is honest about its limits: It's a tracker and budgeter, not a forecaster. It tells you where you are and where you've been. It doesn't project multi-year cashflow scenarios. It also doesn't have adaptive targets, priority-ordered tasks, or a named budgeting philosophy. The interaction model is "log in, see what's happening, adjust if needed."

Side B: PocketSmith

PocketSmith is the opposite end of the spectrum in almost every way.

It's paid (with a limited free tier), it's cross-platform across web and desktop, and its defining feature is cashflow forecasting. Where Frollo shows you today, PocketSmith shows you the next six months, ten years, thirty years, or sixty years depending on your plan. The projection engine is the thing everything else is built around.

PocketSmith was founded in New Zealand in 2008 and has a strong AU/NZ user base. The paid tiers in AUD:

Free tier: 2 accounts, 12 budgets, 2 dashboards, 6-month projection
Foundation: AUD $14.95/mo or $9.99/mo annual. 6 connected banks (1 country), 10-year projection.
Flourish (most popular): AUD $24.95/mo or $16.66/mo annual. 18 connected banks (all countries), 30-year projection.
Fortune: AUD $39.95/mo or $26.66/mo annual. Unlimited banks (all countries), 60-year projection, priority support.

There's a 33% discount for annual billing and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

The feature set is mature:

Bank feeds in 49 countries
Calendar-based budgeting (daily, weekly, monthly, or flexible periods)
Rollover budgeting (unspent money carries forward)
"Safe balance" feature that tells you what you can spend today without breaking future plans
Net worth tracking over time
Bill scheduling
Multi-currency native
Xero integration (useful if you have small business crossover)
Advisor access (for users sharing data with a financial adviser)
Web, macOS, Windows, Linux desktop apps, iOS, Android

Where PocketSmith is honest about its limits: It's a forecasting and budgeting tool, not a diagnostic one. It doesn't tell you which leaks in your finances to fix first. It doesn't have adaptive targets or priority-ordered tasks. The bank feeds aren't Open Banking (CDR) based, they use aggregation partners, which is a slightly less privacy-preserving approach than Frollo's. And the paid tiers are meaningfully more expensive than Frollo's total cost (which is zero).

The Gap: What the Two Apps Are Actually For

	Frollo	PocketSmith
Cost	Free (no premium tier)	Free tier + AUD $14.95-$39.95/mo
Origin	Australian	New Zealand
Bank connection	Open Banking (CDR)	Aggregation partners (not CDR)
Defining feature	Free Open-Banking-based tracking	Long-range cashflow forecasting
Projection horizon	None (tracks current state)	6 months (free) to 60 years (Fortune)
Super tracking	Yes	No
Multi-currency	AUD-focused	Yes (49 countries)
Cross-platform	iOS, Android	Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android
Xero integration	No	Yes
Advisor access	No	Yes
Target user	AU consumers who want free, privacy-preserving bank-linked tracking	Serious planners who want long-range cashflow forecasting and sophisticated budgeting

The clearest way to think about the gap is this: if you asked "what will my finances look like in 20 years at current trajectory," PocketSmith answers that question better than almost any other consumer app. If you asked "am I spending more than I thought on groceries this month," Frollo answers that, free, with Open Banking.

The apps aren't really competing. They're solving different parts of the Australian personal finance problem for different kinds of users.

Who Should Pick Frollo

Frollo is the right choice if you:

Want a free, full-featured budgeting and tracking app with no paywall
Care about Open Banking (CDR) privacy and prefer it over traditional aggregators
Want super tracking built in (it's rare and Frollo does it well)
Need bill due date reminders and unusual spending alerts
Want a PDF financial snapshot you can hand to a broker or lender
Are AU-only and don't need international bank coverage
Don't need cashflow forecasting or long-range projection

Frollo is also a strong choice for people who want to dip a toe into Open Banking without committing to a paid product first. If the CDR framework is new to you, Frollo is a low-risk way to see what it feels like.

Who Should Pick PocketSmith

PocketSmith is the right choice if you:

Want to see your finances projected months, years, or decades into the future
Think in long-range trajectories and cashflow scenarios, not just this month
Have stable enough income that a multi-year forecast has meaning
Need cross-platform support across desktop operating systems
Want calendar-based budgeting with rollover logic and flexible periods
Have small business or advisor integration needs (Xero, advisor access)
Are willing to pay for the longer projection horizons on Flourish or Fortune
Want a mature feature set from a platform that's been iterating since 2008

PocketSmith's forecasting is what you're paying for. Everything else the app does is competent, but the forecasting is the reason to choose it over free alternatives.

The Honest Trade-Offs

What Frollo does that PocketSmith doesn't:

Completely free, permanently
Open Banking (CDR) based connections with stronger privacy guarantees
Native super tracking
Smart alerts for unusual spending and upcoming bills
PDF financial snapshot for brokers/lenders
Australian-owned

What PocketSmith does that Frollo doesn't:

Long-range cashflow forecasting (6 months to 60 years)
Cross-platform support including macOS, Windows, Linux desktop apps
Calendar-based budgeting with rollover and flexible periods
Xero integration for small business crossover
Advisor access
Multi-currency covering 49 countries
Safe balance feature (how much you can spend today without breaking future plans)
More mature feature set from nearly two decades of development

The Third Option: No Bank Linking At All

Neither Frollo nor PocketSmith will fit you if you don't want to connect your bank accounts to any third party, full stop. Open Banking is more privacy-preserving than traditional aggregators, but it's still data sharing with a non-bank entity. Some people aren't comfortable with that, and the alternative isn't "use a spreadsheet forever."

YourDigits (my app, I'm disclosing that) takes a different approach: voice-first transaction entry with no bank connection of any kind. You log transactions by speaking them ("spent twelve fifty at Subway for lunch"), on-device speech recognition parses the amount, merchant, and category, and the app tracks your progress against a priority-ordered system called the Leak Ladder. No bank login, no aggregator, nothing leaves your phone.

It's built in Australia, handles AUD natively, aligns to fortnightly pay, and has a super-tracking leak built into the priority system. Pricing is AUD $5.99/mo or $39.99/yr with a free tier. iOS only right now.

The reason I'm bringing it up is that the Frollo-vs-PocketSmith choice usually assumes bank linking is the input method. If you're here because you want a privacy-first alternative and neither Open Banking nor aggregation partners feel right, YourDigits might be the third path. If that's not your concern, Frollo and PocketSmith are both good picks on their own terms.

How to Decide

The simplest test: do you want forecasting or not?

If you want to see your financial trajectory 5 or 10 or 30 years forward, PocketSmith is the answer and the paid tier is worth it for the longer horizons.

If you don't need forecasting and you just want free, privacy-preserving tracking of your current finances, Frollo is the answer and it's hard to beat free.

If you don't want bank linking at all, neither of these is your app, and you should look at a voice-first or manual-entry option instead.

For the broader AU landscape (including YNAB, YourDigits, and the reasons most US apps don't fit Australian needs), I put the full shortlist together at Best Budgeting App in Australia.