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Clarity vs Lunch Money: pricing, features, and fit
Lunch Money is a beloved indie tracker with multi-currency, native crypto, and a public API. Clarity is a multi-asset workspace with lot-level cost basis, Form 8949 exports, and AI grounded in your real transactions.
Lunch Money$10/mo or $100/yr (pay-what-you-want)Clarity Pro$29/mo or $279/yr
30-day money-back guarantee. Read-only — Clarity never moves your money.
Best fit for Clarity
A multi-asset workspace with lot-level crypto cost basis, Form 8949 exports, life-event planning, and AI grounded in your transactions.
Best fit for Lunch Money
Multi-currency households, developers who want a public REST API, and indie-product fans who like opinionated minimal UI with pay-what-you-want pricing.
Score at a glance
Average across 7 criteria — every cell dated and sourced below.
- Clarity4.3
- Lunch Money4.1
Where Clarity goes further
Lot-level cost basis + Form 8949
Lunch Money: Native crypto tracking, but no Form 8949 or lot-level cost-basis workflow.
FIFO/HIFO/LIFO across exchanges and wallets; wash-sale flags; tax-ready exports.
AI grounded in your real transactions
Lunch Money: No AI assistant grounded in your transactions.
Every answer cites the underlying transaction; nothing fabricated.
Life-event planner with mutable budget state
Lunch Money: No life-event planner.
Model a job change, baby, or home purchase — forecast cash flow against real accounts.
Merchant-level analytics
Lunch Money: Category-level reports; user-built rules handle merchant rollups.
Amazon, DoorDash, Spotify normalized and rolled up across years — beyond category averages.
Public REST API for custom automations
Lunch Money: Public REST API included with subscription — power users build custom workflows.
CSV exports today; API roadmap in development.
Multi-currency support
Lunch Money: Best-in-class multi-currency support is a core Lunch Money strength, not a bolt-on.
USD-primary today with growing currency support; manual currency conversions in CSV.
Clarity AI in action
Four questions Clarity can answer with lot-level math
Lunch Money is a beloved indie tracker with multi-currency and native crypto support. Clarity covers the same accounts and adds what Lunch Money doesn't compute: lot-level cost basis, wash-sale flags, and Form 8949 exports.
Cost basis across venues
You: What's my cost basis on AAPL after the Schwab transfer?
$182.40 average (FIFO) across 312 shares.
218 shares from Schwab (transferred basis preserved) + 94 shares purchased at Fidelity. Lot table linked. Wash-sale check clean.
Tax-loss harvesting
You: Anything worth harvesting before Dec 31?
$9,400 in losses · ~$2,250 saved at your bracket.
VXUS −$3,200 LT (replace with IXUS, avoids wash). BND −$2,100 LT (AGG ok). ETH lot from Mar 2024 −$1,400 ST. Crypto exempt from wash-sale today. Lot citations included.
1099-DA reconciliation
You: Does my Coinbase 1099-DA match my actual sales?
11 of 12 lots match. One discrepancy: $1,820.
Coinbase shows ETH lot 7 with $2,340 cost basis. Our records show $2,160 (transfer in from a Kraken wallet, original buy). Flagged for a Form 8949 adjustment.
Cross-asset concentration
You: What's my real tech exposure including target-date funds and crypto?
42.1% — higher than your stock-screen number.
Direct $184k (AAPL, MSFT, NVDA) + lookthrough $94k (VTSAX 28% tech + 401(k) TDF 23% tech) + RSU $62k + $38k ETH+SOL on-chain. Above your 30% concentration target.
Every answer cites the underlying transactions, lots, or positions. Read-only — Claritynever moves money, never trades, never trains on your data.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Clarity | Lunch Money |
|---|---|---|
| Account Coverage Range of financial accounts and asset types supported. | Leads, score 5 out of 5 Banks · brokerages · 130+ crypto exchanges · 40+ chains · manual assets. May 2026 | Behind, score 4 out of 5 Banks via Plaid + manual entry, native crypto exchange and wallet tracking, multi-currency. Smaller institution count than Plaid + MX dual-aggregator products. May 2026 ↗ |
| Sync Reliability How consistently account data syncs without errors or manual intervention. | Tie, score 4 out of 5 Automatic retry · connection-health monitoring · explicit error states. May 2026 | Tie, score 4 out of 5 Plaid-backed bank sync. Indie team that responds quickly to user-reported issues. May 2026 ↗ |
| Pricing Predictability How transparent and stable the pricing is over time. | Leads, score 5 out of 5 Pro $15/mo · $144/yr · 30-day money-back · no AUM %. May 2026 | Behind, score 4 out of 5 $10/mo or $100/yr default; pay-what-you-want annual range $50–$150. 14-day free trial. API included. May 2026 ↗ |
| Data Freshness How quickly new transactions and price changes appear. | Tie, score 4 out of 5 Multi-sync daily · on-demand refresh · real-time crypto prices. May 2026 | Tie, score 4 out of 5 Daily Plaid refresh + on-demand sync. Real-time crypto pricing. May 2026 ↗ |
| Historical Depth How far back transaction and portfolio history extends. | Behind, score 3 out of 5 ~24 months from Plaid. Daily net-worth snapshots after sign-up. May 2026 | Leads, score 4 out of 5 Unlimited transaction history in the account; CSV import for older history is a documented workflow. May 2026 ↗ |
| Export & Reporting Ability to export data and generate financial reports. | Tie, score 4 out of 5 CSV · net-worth · portfolio performance · Form 8949–ready crypto exports. May 2026 | Tie, score 4 out of 5 CSV export, custom reports, and a developer API for arbitrary exports. No Form 8949 workflow. May 2026 ↗ |
| Privacy & Security Data protection practices, encryption, and privacy controls. | Tie, score 5 out of 5 Read-only · encrypted at rest · no ad model · no ad cookies · deletion ≤30 days. May 2026 | Tie, score 5 out of 5 Indie subscription product, no ads. Strong privacy posture and responsive privacy policy. May 2026 ↗ |
Where Lunch Money genuinely wins
Lunch Money is the most thoughtfully-built indie budget app on the market — multi-currency, native crypto, a real developer API. If budgeting is your main need and you don't file Schedule D, Lunch Money is the right answer.
What we verified
- Public REST API included with subscription
- Lunch Money's developer API is included with every paid subscription — v1 is in open public beta, v2 is trending to GA in 2026. Lunch Money developer site ↗
- Pay-what-you-want annual pricing
- Lunch Money's pricing page lists $10/mo or $100/yr default, with a pay-what-you-want annual range of $50–$150. Lunch Money pricing ↗
- Native crypto tracking, no Form 8949
- Lunch Money tracks crypto across major exchanges and wallets, but does not ship a Form 8949 or lot-level cost-basis tax workflow out of the box. Lunch Money features ↗
Deeper, if you want it
How to get started with Clarity
easy·20 minutes
- 01From Lunch Money: Settings → Export → CSV (per account or full database). Save your category mapping.
- 02Sign up for Clarity and re-add the same Plaid bank connections — ~24 months of transaction history imports automatically.
- 03Add the same crypto exchanges and wallets directly to Clarity — Coinbase API key, MetaMask address, Ledger, etc.
- 04For multi-currency holdings, verify currency assignments on each account — Clarity is USD-primary today; review per-currency totals.
- 05Decide your long-term posture: developers who built tooling on Lunch Money's API may keep both for a while.
Frequently asked questions
Related comparisons
Related calculators
Lunch Money's clarity, plus the tax math.
Banks, brokerages, crypto, and DeFi together. 30-day money-back guarantee — a full refund if Clarity isn't for you.
Sources
Trademarks belong to their owners. Clarity is independent and not affiliated with Lunch Money. Comparison reflects publicly available info as of 2026-05-18; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.