# Contamos vs Splitwise: a shared ledger instead of a list of IOUs

Splitwise is where most groups start. Someone pays for dinner, adds the expense, and the app says who owes whom. For a trip or a one-off night out that is exactly right. The trouble starts when the group is not a one-off: a couple, flatmates, siblings paying for their parents, a side project with a shared card. Then the question stops being "who owes whom" and becomes "what do we have, where is it, and what are we spending it on". That is the question Contamos answers.

## The short version

| | Splitwise | Contamos |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it tracks | Debts between people | Accounts the group holds, and the money moving through them |
| The core question | Who owes whom? | What do we have, and what did it go on? |
| Settling up | Built in: pay back and the balance clears | Not needed: shared money sits in shared accounts |
| Currencies | One per expense, converted for the balance | Balances per currency, never blended into one number |
| Free plan limit | A daily cap on new expenses, with ads | No daily cap; 3 accounts, 2 members and 6 months of history |
| Budgets | No | Yes, per category or tag, per month (Pro) |
| Recurring transactions | Yes, with Pro | Yes, with Pro |
| Bank statement import | Card linking in the US only (Pro) | Hand a CSV statement to your AI assistant; it runs a dry run first |
| AI assistant access | No | Claude or ChatGPT can read and write the ledger (every plan) |
| Pro price | About US$5 a month, or US$40 to US$50 a year, depending on country | US$4.99 a month, or US$29.99 a year |

Prices are the public ones at the time of writing. Splitwise varies its pricing by country and by when you signed up, so check what it shows you.

## The real difference: debts or a ledger

Splitwise models a group as a set of debts. Every expense is split, and the app keeps a running total of who owes whom until someone pays it back. There are no accounts, no balances and no history of what the group actually spent, only the net result between people.

Contamos models a group as a ledger. The group has accounts: a shared card, a cash kitty, a savings account in dollars, a crypto wallet. Money comes in and goes out of those accounts as transactions, each one tagged with what it was for. At any moment you can see how much is in each account, in each currency, and how the month went. Nobody owes anybody, because the money was shared before it was spent.

That is why the two are not really competing for the same groups:

- **A night out, a stag weekend, a split restaurant bill.** Everyone paid from their own pocket and wants to square up. Use Splitwise.
- **A couple, flatmates, a family, a side project, a shared trip fund.** The money is shared on an ongoing basis and you want to know where it stands. Use Contamos.

Plenty of people need both, and that is fine. What does not work is forcing a shared pot into a debt tracker: you end up with one person "owed" thousands by everyone else, a balance that means nothing, and no idea what the group actually spent on groceries this month.

## Where Splitwise is still the better choice

Be honest with yourself before switching:

- **You split one-off expenses with people you do not share money with.** Splitwise's whole model is built for this. Contamos does not calculate who owes whom.
- **You want receipt scanning.** Splitwise Pro scans receipts; Contamos does not.
- **You are in the US and want your card linked.** Splitwise Pro can import card transactions automatically there. Contamos imports statements you upload.

## Where Contamos wins

- **No daily cap.** Splitwise's free plan limits how many expenses you can add per day, and shows ads. Contamos has no cap on transactions, transfers, tags or currencies on the free plan. The free limits are 3 active accounts, 2 members and 6 months of visible history, and reaching one never stops you from recording money.
- **Currencies that stay separate.** If your group holds pesos and dollars, or euros and crypto, Splitwise converts everything into one balance at today's rate, and that balance changes every day. Contamos keeps a balance per currency and stores the exchange rate of the day on each transaction, so last month's numbers stay last month's numbers. Read [shared money in two currencies](https://contamos.xyz/en/blog/shared-money-in-two-currencies) for why that matters.
- **Budgets and reports.** A monthly budget per category or tag, a dashboard and a monthly report. Splitwise's charts (Pro) show spending trends but there is nothing to measure them against.
- **Roles and an activity log (Pro).** Owner, admin and member roles, so the person who keeps the books is not the only one who can see them and not everyone can delete things, and a log of every change inside the team.
- **Your AI assistant can use it.** Contamos exposes the ledger to Claude and ChatGPT through MCP, on every plan. "How much did we spend on groceries in September?", "Record 1,250 pesos of electricity from the shared card", "Import this statement, but show me the duplicates first." See [AI assistants](https://contamos.xyz/en/docs/ai-assistants).
- **Cheaper yearly.** Contamos Pro is US$29.99 a year, against US$40 to US$50 for Splitwise Pro.

## Moving from Splitwise

There is no migration tool, and you would not want one: a Splitwise history is a list of debts, not a ledger. The way to move is to start clean:

1. Settle up in Splitwise so nobody owes anybody.
2. In Contamos, create an account for each place the shared money lives, with its real starting balance.
3. From then on, record what goes in and out of those accounts. If someone pays a shared cost from their own pocket, record it as a contribution into the shared account and the expense out of it, or just reimburse them from the shared account.

The [quickstart](https://contamos.xyz/en/docs/quickstart) walks through the first ten minutes.

## Who Contamos is for

Contamos is a shared ledger for everyone you share money with: couples, flatmates, families, siblings sharing a parent's costs, side projects, a group trip fund. It is free to start, needs no card, and works in every currency the money actually lives in. If the money you share is ongoing rather than a bill to split, [start free](https://contamos.xyz/login).