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The people holding the spade
About PennyMole
PennyMole is an independent English-language money zine that tests budgeting and expense apps under ordinary conditions. Three named editors use every scored app daily for at least four weeks, inspect its costs and privacy language, then argue from one published scorecard. No company can buy a ranking.
Why we dig
Budget apps ask for a strange combination of trust and patience. They may see your salary, supermarket trips, debt payments and account balances, yet their marketing often skips past connection failures, premium gates and the daily work required to maintain a useful budget. PennyMole exists to investigate that gap.
We are not a financial-advice firm and we do not tell readers what to invest in. We are an editorial publication about software: whether it connects, explains, predicts, nags, charges fairly and earns a place on your phone. Our writing uses UK pricing where an app is primarily British and US pricing for US-focused services. Currency and regional availability are always stated because a brilliant app in the wrong country is simply unavailable.
The crew
Mara Voss
Reviews editor. A freelance production editor with variable monthly invoices. Mara tests connection reliability, category repair and whether a forecast survives an irregular payday.
Eli Mercer
Costs editor. A former customer-support analyst who reads plan grids, renewal language, export rules and deletion instructions before calling an app “free.”
Nadia Cole
Fact editor. A community accountant who rechecks product claims, replicates calculations and challenges scores that are not supported by the test log.
Our 28-day minimum
One editor owns each test, but another repeats setup on a second device and Nadia checks the factual record. We connect at least two current accounts, one card and—where supported—one savings, investment or pension account. A synthetic test account is used if connecting a particular product would expose another person’s information. The primary tester then opens the app daily for at least 28 days.
The log records initial setup time, missing or duplicated transactions, reconnection requests, category corrections, budget edits, notifications, exports and support contacts. We test over at least one payday and one set of recurring bills. For savings apps, transfers are kept small but real. For subscription tools, we purchase the plan required to test the feature and cancel it ourselves.
| Category | Weight | What earns points |
|---|---|---|
| Daily usefulness | 25% | Clear next action, fast review, low maintenance |
| Connections & accuracy | 25% | Stable sync, correct balances, repair tools |
| Budgeting & insight | 20% | Flexible categories, forecasts, honest context |
| Value | 15% | Transparent price and a worthwhile free or paid plan |
| Privacy & control | 10% | Plain permissions, export and deletion routes |
| Support & access | 5% | Useful help, accessibility and device coverage |
A 4.5 score is not “90 percent perfect.” It means the app performed very strongly in our weighted test for a defined audience. We round only after all category weights are applied. If a connection outage affects testing, we note it rather than quietly extending the test until the app looks better.
Editorial integrity, without tunnels
We accept no sponsored placements, paid rankings, guest posts from app companies or pre-publication approval. An app may provide factual clarification, but it cannot edit our verdict. We currently earn no affiliate commission. If that changes, affected links and our methodology will be labelled before publication; commercial arrangements will never change a score.
Reviewers disclose financial interests and cannot cover a company in which they hold individual shares or have worked during the previous two years. Broad index funds do not disqualify a reviewer. Test subscriptions are paid by PennyMole or the editor and never reimbursed by the app.
Corrections and retests
Software moves. We check high-impact price and plan claims at publication, date every page, and schedule leading reviews for a shorter recheck after major releases. Minor corrections are fixed promptly. A change that could alter a buying decision is noted in the article and may trigger a full four-week retest. Scores do not float upward because a press release promises a feature we have not used.
Start with our 2026 app ranking, read the winning Moneyhub review, or inspect the trade-offs in Moneyhub versus Plum. Questions about information this site itself collects are answered in our privacy page.