If you are looking for a Tricount alternative, the question worth asking first is what your group has to do before anybody can record a single expense. With FlashFish Expense Tracker the answer is nothing. You send one link, it opens in a browser, and whoever has it can start adding what they spent. There is no app to install, no account to create and no email address to hand over.
Tricount is a mobile app. Everybody who wants to take part downloads it and joins the group first. That difference sounds small when you are one person deciding, and it is the whole story when you are six people on a trip.
The install is the part that costs you
The cost of an app is never the download. It is the four people who say yes and do it later, the one whose phone is full, and the message you send to the group chat on day three asking whether everyone is on it yet.
Meanwhile the trip is happening. Somebody paid for the taxi, somebody else got the shopping, and neither is recorded because two of you have not joined yet. Those entries are the ones that go missing, and the small ones are exactly what nobody remembers a week later when you sit down to settle.
A web page removes that entire stage. You paste the link into the group chat and the group is already using it. The tool starts working from the first taxi rather than from Wednesday.
Side by side
| FlashFish Expense Tracker | Tricount | |
|---|---|---|
| How you use it | A web page, any browser | Mobile app, iOS and Android |
| Install required | No | Yes, for each person |
| Account required | No | Yes |
| How people join | You send one link | Each person installs and joins |
| Works on a laptop | Yes, the same link | Built for phones |
| Cost | Free, with no paid tier | Free |
| Adverts in the tool | None | Promotes banking products |
| Who runs it | An independent finance site | bunq, a bank, since 2022 |
| Best for | A trip or event, and any group that will not all install an app | A group already set up in the app |
Who is behind the tool, and why it matters
Tricount was acquired by bunq, a European bank, in 2022. The app is connected to bunq's services and markets banking products alongside the expense splitting, including a credit card.
That explains how a free app pays for itself. Some of the people splitting a restaurant bill become banking customers, which is what the free tier is buying.
The Expense Tracker is built on the opposite arrangement, because it takes less from you. There is no account, so there is no profile. Nothing about who you are is collected, because there is nowhere to collect it into. Nobody is offered a card at the end of a holiday. The tool sits on a site that makes its money from articles and calculators, which means you are the reader rather than the product.
Where a link wins outright
Groups where not everybody will install an app. Extended family, colleagues, a stag do with a friend of a friend in it. The person who never installs is the person whose expenses never get entered, and their absence quietly makes the whole sheet wrong.
Anything short. One dinner, one weekend, one taxi split four ways. The setup has to cost less than the amount being argued over, and a link costs nothing at all.
Desktop entry. Typing two weeks of receipts is far faster on a keyboard. The same link opens on a laptop for whoever is doing the admin and on a phone for everybody else.
People who will not sign up for anything. There is a large and growing group who simply will not create another account for a one-off, and they are not being awkward. They have been asked for an email address by too many things that did not need one. A link asks them for nothing.
Handing the numbers to somebody outside the group. A link can be forwarded to the person who paid for the house or the parent settling up afterwards. They see the figures without joining anything.
Nothing to clean up afterwards
An app outlives the reason you installed it. It sits on the home screen after the trip, sends notifications about a group that finished in August, and holds a profile you have to go and delete if you want it gone.
A sheet does not do any of that. When the trip is over, the link is just a page you stop opening. There is no account to close, no data to request and nothing left running. If you want it later, the same link still works, and the tool can email it to you when you create the sheet so you always have a copy.
What using it actually looks like
No install means the first step is the same as the last step: opening a link.
Create the sheet. Give it a name and type in first names for everybody in the group. Nobody needs to be present, reachable or signed up for this to work.
Share the link once. Into the group chat, or by email straight from the tool so you have your own copy. Everyone who opens it sees the live sheet, not a copy or a screenshot.
Everyone adds what they spent. Amount, who paid, and a tick against the people it covers. The person who paid for the cabin enters the cabin. There is no bottleneck through whoever set it up, and no expense waiting on somebody to finish downloading something.
Settle at the end. The sheet reduces the tangle of who owes whom to the smallest set of payments, shows what each person paid against their share, and records each transfer as it happens.
On a phone in a bar or on a laptop with two weeks of receipts, it is the same page and the same link.
How the settling up works
The arithmetic is the part most people get wrong by hand, and it is where a tool earns its place.
Each expense credits whoever paid it in full and debits everyone it covers their share. Across every expense that leaves each person with a single net figure, and those figures always sum to zero. Turning them into payments is the part worth automating: four people owing four others is up to twelve transfers, and the same balances usually resolve into two or three.
The Expense Tracker works out that shorter list and records each payment as it happens, so a group settling in stages always sees what is genuinely left rather than starting the sums again. Somebody added halfway through a trip shares only in what was entered after they joined, which is the behaviour people expect and rarely get.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Tricount alternative that does not need an app?
Yes. The FlashFish Expense Tracker runs in a browser on any device. You send one link, and anybody who opens it can add expenses immediately. Nobody installs anything or creates an account.
Is it free?
Yes, with no paid tier, no upgrade prompt and no advertising inside the tool. There is nothing to buy because there is nothing held back.
Who owns Tricount?
bunq, a European bank, which acquired it in 2022. The app is connected to bunq's services and promotes banking products alongside the expense splitting. It explains what a free app is funded by.
How do I split a bill where one person's share is different?
Tick only the people a given expense applies to, and it is divided between them. Where one person's portion genuinely differs, enter that portion as its own expense applying only to them. The balances come out exactly right, and it takes a few seconds.
Can everybody in the group add expenses?
Yes. Anybody with the link can add and edit expenses, which is what removes the signup step. Recording settlement payments can be restricted to whoever created the sheet through a separate admin link, so the person organising it stays in control of what counts as paid.
What happens if somebody joins the trip late?
Add them when they arrive. They share only in expenses entered from that point on, and nothing already agreed is recalculated behind anybody's back.
Can I use it on a laptop?
Yes, and it is one of the better reasons to. Entering a fortnight of receipts is much faster with a keyboard, and the same link opens on a phone for everybody else in the group.
Is my data private?
There are no accounts, so there is no profile of you to build and nothing to sell. Individual sheets are excluded from search engines and from the sitemap, and the link is long and random rather than guessable.