How Daily Spend works
Built around one idea: passive awareness changes behavior more than dashboards do.
1. You connect a bank
On first launch, Daily Spend opens a secure connection flow. You log in with your normal bank credentials directly to your bank. We never see or store your password.
Connections use direct bank APIs — not screen scraping — which means lower latency and fewer dropped connections than older finance apps.
2. You choose which accounts count
We discover your accounts. You toggle each one on or off. Most people include their daily-driver checking and credit cards, and exclude business or savings accounts.
3. We total today's spending
New transactions stream in throughout the day. We sum debits and credit-card purchases for today (in your local timezone), exclude obvious transfers and duplicates, and cache the total on your device for the widget to read.
4. The widget updates on your lock screen
You add the widget once via iOS lock-screen customization. From then on, iOS refreshes the number every 15–30 minutes in the background. You never open the app — you just glance.
What we deliberately don't do
- No budgets, allowances, or pacing math.
- No spending categories or AI labels.
- No notifications or streaks.
- No historical analytics.
If you want a dashboard with charts, categories, and weekly reports, plenty of apps do that well. Daily Spend is the opposite of those products on purpose.