Is there a free Tiller alternative?

People searching for a "free Tiller alternative" almost always want one specific thing: their transactions, in a spreadsheet they own, updating on their own, without paying a yearly subscription for the privilege. Tiller is excellent at the first part but charges for all of it. So the real question is: which pieces of Tiller do you need, and which can you get for free?

Why people look for a free alternative to Tiller

Tiller is a well-built, mature product. But two things send people looking:

• It's subscription-only. There's a free trial, but no permanent free tier, once the trial ends you pay yearly to keep the sync running.
• Most people use a fraction of it. Tiller's biggest strength is its catalog of spreadsheet budgeting templates. If you don't live inside those templates, and a lot of people just want the raw transactions to analyze themselves, you're paying for capability you don't touch.

If you're a heavy spreadsheet budgeter who loves the templates, Tiller is worth its price and this post won't talk you out of it. If you mostly want clean, current data in a Sheet you control, keep reading, that part can be free.

What a Tiller alternative actually has to do

Strip Tiller down and the core is three things:

• Connect to your bank securely and pull transactions, without you handing over your banking password to the app.
• Write them into a Google Sheet you own, in your own Drive, so the data is yours and not locked in someone's app.
• Keep it updated automatically, so you're not re-importing CSVs every week.

Anything on top of that, budgeting templates, category rollups, savings trackers, is Tiller's premium layer. You can replace the core for free and, if you want, add templates yourself.

The closest free option: Bank Statement Genie

Bank Statement Genie was built around exactly that core. You sign in with Google, connect your bank once, and a Google Sheet in your own Drive fills in with your transactions and stays current, no CSV downloads, no PDF wrangling, no scripts. On top of the Sheet you get a private web dashboard (month-to-date and year-to-date spend, category breakdowns, top merchants, recurring subscriptions, a 12-month trend) and optional twice-weekly recap emails.

The part that matters for this search: there's a free plan that syncs once a month, with no credit card. The paid plan adds near-real-time sync (via webhooks), the full analytics dashboard, and an on-demand Sync Now button, but the free tier already gives you the own-your-data spreadsheet that Tiller charges for.

Free vs Tiller, side by side

Competitor details reflect public information at the time of writing, check Tiller's site for current pricing.

What you give up by going free (and how to get it back)

Honesty first: the thing you lose without Tiller is its templates, the polished Foundation sheets, category rollups, and savings trackers that people pay Tiller for. If those are the reason you wanted Tiller, none of the free options fully replace them.

But if you like the idea of templates and just don't want to pay for the sync, there's a middle path: use a free sync tool to keep the raw transactions flowing into your Sheet, then drop a community-made Google Sheets budgeting template on top, or build your own tabs. You keep your money for free and still get structure.

So, is there a free Tiller alternative?

For the core job, transactions into a Sheet you own, updating automatically, yes, and Bank Statement Genie's free plan is the closest match. For Tiller's template library specifically, no free tool fully replaces it, though you can add templates yourself. Pick based on which half of Tiller you were really paying for.

Related: Bank Statement Genie vs Tiller · Import bank transactions into Google Sheets · The best Mint alternatives in 2026