CommBank vs ANZ Plus vs NAB vs Westpac: budgeting features compared (2026)

Every big four bank app now sorts your spending into categories, and most will let you set a budget against them. For one person whose money all lives at one bank, that is often enough. You may not need another app at all.

The trouble starts with two people. Bank apps are built around one customer at one bank, and most Australian couples are not arranged that way. One of you is with CommBank, the other kept the ANZ account from uni, the mortgage is with whoever had the best rate that year, and the bills come out of a joint account that only one of the two apps can see.

So this post does two things. First, what each of the big four apps actually offers for day-to-day budgeting in 2026. Then, what changes when it is a household rather than a person.

We build Funance, which is not a bank and does not appear in the comparison below. Features were checked against each bank's own pages in September 2026. Bank apps change often and features can depend on your account type, so check yours.

The short answer

• Widest set of budgeting tools: Westpac
• Best at seeing bills coming: CommBank, because of Bill Sense
• Best for a couple saving together at one bank: ANZ Plus, with shared goals on joint accounts
• Simple categories and budgets, nothing fancy: NAB
• Best for a couple who will both move banks: none of the big four. That is Up, with 2Up
• A couple who bank in different places: no bank app can do this. More on that below

What each bank app actually does

CommBank

CommBank has folded its money tools into Insights, which replaced the older Money Plan and Cash Flow View. It pulls spending, saving, bills and investing into one screen.

Inside it, Spend Tracker categorises every debit and credit card transaction, and you can set category budgets against it. The standout is Bill Sense, which predicts your regular bills up to twelve months ahead and lays them out on a timeline. If the thing that catches you out is a quarterly or annual bill you forgot about, this is the most useful single feature on this list.

Goal Tracker handles savings goals and breaks them into weekly targets.

Good for: people whose budget problem is lumpy bills, not everyday spending.

ANZ Plus

Worth saying up front: ANZ Plus is a separate app and a separate set of accounts from the older ANZ App. If you still bank on the original ANZ App, what follows may not apply to you.

ANZ Plus breaks spending into categories, lets you add your own tags to group transactions, and predicts upcoming expenses. Savings live in the Growth Saver account, which can hold multiple goals at once, each with a target.

Where it gets interesting is joint accounts. A joint Growth Saver lets two people set a shared goal with a target amount and date, and shows how much you both need to put in each week. It is the closest any big four bank gets to a genuinely shared budget.

Good for: couples who are happy to run their shared money through ANZ Plus.

NAB

NAB's Spending and Budgets tools do the core job. Transactions are categorised automatically and you can set budgets by category. It is less elaborate than Westpac or CommBank, which is not necessarily a bad thing. If you want to see where the money went and get a nudge when a category runs over, it does that.

Good for: people who want the basics and nothing else to learn.

Westpac

Westpac has the largest toolkit of the four. Spend categories, a Budget Planner that tracks income against expenses weekly, fortnightly or monthly, a Bills Calendar, a Cashflow view, Savings Finder, a Subscription Manager and a Tax Organiser. If you judge on feature count alone, Westpac wins.

Good for: people who want everything in one place and do not mind looking for it.

How they compare

Feature	CommBank	ANZ Plus	NAB	Westpac
Spending categories	Yes	Yes, plus your own tags	Yes	Yes
Category budgets	Yes	Categories and tags	Yes	Yes
Upcoming bills	Bill Sense, 12 months	Expense predictions	Check the app	Bills Calendar
Savings goals	Goal Tracker	Multiple, in Growth Saver	Check the app	Savings Finder
Shared goals for couples	Joint accounts	Yes, joint Growth Saver	Joint accounts	Joint accounts
Sees other banks	No	No	No	No
Cost	Free	Free	Free	Free

The "Sees other banks" row is the one that matters. None of them sees an account at another bank. That is not a missing feature anyone is going to add; it is what a bank app is. We go into that limit, and where a bank app is genuinely all you need, in CommBank vs ANZ Plus for budgeting.

Where bank apps stop working: couples

A bank app is designed for one customer. A joint account stretches it to two, but only for the money that goes through the joint account. Here is how that plays out in the three setups most couples actually use.

1. Everything joint, one bank

Both salaries land in joint accounts at the same bank, everything comes out of them. This is the one case where a bank app works for a couple. Both of you see the same transactions, the same categories, the same goals. If this is you, use your bank's app and skip the rest of this post.

2. Yours, mine and ours

This is the most common arrangement we see. Each person keeps their own account and pays a share into a joint account for rent or the mortgage, bills and groceries.

Each of you can see your own account and the joint one, but not each other's. So the joint account looks healthy while one of you is quietly running a credit card balance elsewhere. Neither app can show you the household.

3. Different banks entirely

You are with CommBank, your partner is with NAB, the mortgage is at a third lender. Now neither app sees more than a slice. There is no bank app answer to this. You either each connect your accounts to something that reads across banks, or you keep the household picture somewhere else.

What a couple actually needs from a budget

Spending categories are the least of it. The things that cause arguments are these:

• An agreed split. If one of you earns $120,000 and the other $70,000, a 50/50 split on the rent is a choice, not a default. Plenty of couples split in proportion to income instead. No bank app knows what ratio you have agreed.
• Two tax positions, not one. Australian tax is assessed individually. Two people on $95,000 each pay noticeably less tax in total than one person on $190,000. HECS repayments, the Medicare levy and super contributions are all per person too. A household that plans as one blended income gets the numbers wrong.
• Shared goals with separate contributions. ANZ Plus does this well for money inside the joint account. It gets harder when the house deposit is being built from two accounts at two banks.
• Seeing debts as a household. Whose credit card should be paid first, whether it is worth one of you paying down HECS early, whether the offset is the better home for the next spare thousand. These are household decisions made with individual accounts.

The honest options for couples

If you will both move banks: Up with 2Up is the most thought-through shared setup any Australian bank has built. Shared Savers, shared spending, both of you seeing the same thing. The catch is that you both have to bank with Up.

If you want automatic tracking across banks: an Open Banking app like Frollo reads accounts at more than 100 banks and lenders for free. Open Banking consent is given per person, so each of you connects your own accounts. We cover it and the alternatives in our comparison of Australian finance apps.

If the question is what to do, not what you spent: this is the bit Funance was built for. It was built by a household, for how couples actually run money. Each partner's income and tax are worked out separately with the 2026-27 brackets, HECS and Medicare levy. Shared expenses split at whatever ratio you have actually agreed, not 50/50 by default. Goals can be shared. And it answers the planning questions a bank app never will, like whether the spare money goes to super, the offset or the credit card.

The trade-off is real: Funance has no bank feeds. You enter your numbers. If automatic transaction tracking is what you want, pair it with your bank app or Frollo, or pick one of those instead.

The short version

If you are one person with one bank, your bank's app is probably enough, and of the four Westpac has the most tools while CommBank's Bill Sense is the single most useful feature. If you are a couple with everything joint at one bank, ANZ Plus has the best shared goals of the big four. If you are a couple spread across banks, which is most couples, no bank app will ever show you the whole household. That is when it is worth adding something else.

Bank app features checked September 2026 against each bank's published information. Features vary by account type and change often. Funance provides general information and planning tools only. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs, and it is not financial product advice.