The honest story
Effortless is a startup. We're not backed by a VC firm, we haven't raised a Series A, and we don't have 10,000 users yet. What we do have is a product that actually works and a genuine obsession with building it right.
Built out of frustration
Mint shut down. YNAB costs $109 a year and requires you to adopt their entire methodology. Monarch is polished but expensive. Most free alternatives are either abandoned, ad-riddled, or missing basic features.
Effortless started as a side project to solve a simple problem: connect to a bank, see spending by category, set a budget, track it. No philosophy, no subscription required, no bloat.
It grew from there. Transparent merchant and category rules made categorization mostly automatic. Savings goals, subscription detection, and analytics got added because they were useful. The project got serious enough to be worth building properly — so here we are.
We're in early access. Things will break occasionally. Features are still being built. But the core loop works, it's free, and we ship improvements regularly.
What's coming
✓ = shipped · ⚡ = actively building · ○ = planned
We take this seriously
Handling financial data is not something to cut corners on. Here's exactly what security measures are implemented — not marketing claims, actual technical decisions.
HTTPS everywhere with HSTS
All traffic is encrypted in transit. HTTP Strict Transport Security is enforced so your browser always uses a secure connection.
bcrypt password hashing
Passwords are hashed with bcrypt before storage. We cannot see or recover your password — not even us.
Signed JWT authentication
Sessions use signed JSON Web Tokens with expiry. Tokens are validated on every request to the API.
MFA with TOTP
Multi-factor authentication is built in. Set it up with any authenticator app — Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password. Backup codes are generated and downloadable.
Read-only bank access via Plaid
We connect to your bank through Plaid using read-only access. We can see your transactions — we cannot initiate transfers, payments, or access your bank credentials.
Encrypted data at rest
Plaid access tokens are encrypted in the database; financial records are protected by application and database access controls. The database is not publicly exposed.
Security headers on every response
Every HTTP response includes: Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options (DENY), X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, and Permissions-Policy.
No data selling, ever
We don't run ads. We don't sell or share your financial data. It's used solely to show you your own information.