Opportunities › Personal budgeting and wealth-building software › Proposed app
Hearthbook
Private household budget and net worth tracker. Your data stays yours.
- Score
- 39
- confidence 55
- Evidence
- 7
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 2
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Mobile app
- PWA: installs on iPhone and Android
- Market since
- 2006
- Mature market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Mobile app: Household members log transactions on the go and check budget status during daily spending; they review trends periodically but the app's main use is capturing spending in real time. Sample screens on a phone, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
October budget
$1,284
- Groceries$212 left
- RentPaid
- Transport$64 left
- Savings$400 set
- Fun$38 over
About this appAI proposal
Hearthbook is a budgeting and wealth-tracking app for people and households who want to see where their money goes without handing a company a copy of their financial life. Your transactions are encrypted on your device before anything is stored or synced.
Set monthly budgets, import bank files, split costs with a partner, and watch net worth grow over time. Everything can be exported in open formats at any moment, so you can leave, audit or keep a copy.
It is different from closed budgeting tools because privacy is how it is built, not a promise in a policy. The app can be installed as a PWA, works offline, and the sync server only ever holds data it cannot read.
- Tagline
- Budget in private. Build wealth on your terms.
- Voice
- CalmPlainTrustworthy
- Why this name
- A hearth is the private centre of a home, and a book is a ledger. Together they say a household's money, kept close and readable.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Encrypted on your device
Data is encrypted with a key only you hold before it syncs. The server stores sealed data it cannot read.
No member yet
Envelope budgets
Give each month's income a job: rent, food, savings. See what is left in each envelope at a glance.
No member yet
Net worth over time
Track accounts, savings, investments and debts by hand or import, and see the trend by month.
No member yet
Import from files
Bring in CSV, OFX and QIF files from your bank. Rules sort repeat payees into categories for you.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#2F5D50Pine · primary#F6F1E7Parchment · surface#1F2A24Ink · text#C96F1FEmber · accent#3A7CA5Lake · data
Typography
Aa
Hearthbook
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Budget in private. Build wealth on your terms.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices. These tiers are a starting point to test, based on the inferred model of a free basic tier and paid premium features.
Free
Free
- One person, manual entry and file import
- Envelope budgets
- Full export
Household
$6 a month
- Encrypted sync across devices
- Up to 4 household members
- Net worth and trend reports
- Import rules and recurring items
Household yearly
$60 a year
- Everything in Household
- Two months free
Would you pay Household yearly · $60 a year?
Your answer tells PWAS which prices people accept. It changes no score.
No answers yet.
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- Users invite others. A user invites a partner or family member into a shared household budget. The invitee sees the app in daily use and sets up their own private accounts alongside the joint ones.
- Do they become customers?
- Invitees are household members who already share costs, so they could join the same paid plan, not a separate one. Test how many invited partners stay active and whether they bring other households.
- First customers
- Privacy-minded couples in one country, aged 28 to 45, who now use a spreadsheet or a closed budgeting app and share household costs.
- Where to reach them
- Privacy and self-hosting forums: Share a free, open data format and a write-up of how encryption works, then ask for audits and feedback.
- Personal finance communities: Post import guides for leaving closed budgeting tools, with a free migration checker.
- GitHub: Publish the encryption and export code for review to earn trust from technical early users.
- First milestone
- Twenty households use it for two full months and ten of them pay for Household.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedGitHub repository gained 2935 stars in 2037 days
- Public claimExisting budgeting and wealth-building products (Mint, YNAB) serve a market, but users seek privacy-respecting alternatives.
- Public claimPrivacy is a key differentiation gap in the personal finance software market.
- Public claimUsers want to understand where their money goes over longer periods like a year, not just month-to-month tracking.
- Public claim
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Client encryptionWeb Crypto API with a vetted crypto libraryEncrypts data on the device so the server stores only sealed data.
- This app · Local storageIndexedDB with an offline-first sync layerKeeps the app fast and usable offline, and syncs encrypted changes.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalEncrypted sync with shared household budgets is hard: key sharing, conflict merging and device recovery must work, and a lost key means lost data.
- CommercialWithout automatic bank connections, many users may find file import too much work. The material does not show whether privacy-minded users accept that.
- CommercialFree open-source alternatives may satisfy users who would otherwise pay. Willingness to pay is not shown in the material.
- RegulatoryHolding financial data, even encrypted, may bring privacy and consumer-finance rules that differ by country. Legal review is needed before launch.
- DataBank file formats vary and break often, so import rules and parsers will need steady upkeep.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.