What's Included with Thrive
The upgrade prompts are spread across the app, which makes it hard to see the whole picture from any one of them. This page collects every place Thrive changes what you can do.
In the Budget Builder
How much you can enter. The Builder has limits on Free:
- ›Income sources — 1 on Free, up to 5 on Thrive
- ›Housing bills — rent or mortgage plus 5 on Free, unlimited on Thrive
- ›Expenses — 2 on Free, unlimited on Thrive
- ›Debts — 2 on Free, unlimited on Thrive
- ›How often bills repeat — Monthly only on Free; on Thrive, weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or one time
Adding a row past the limit shows a message telling you what the limit is, with an upgrade option. The limits apply in the Guided Walkthrough too.
In your budget results
Locked plans. The Builder generates a set of plans at different intensities — typically five, from Minimum Effort to Maximum Effort. Free unlocks Minimum Effort. The rest show their name and headline numbers behind a lock, so you can see a faster path exists without opening it. Tapping a locked plan, or Unlock all plans, opens the upgrade screen.
If your situation only produces a single plan — The Only Way or The Plan — that one is unlocked, so you're seeing everything.
The recommendation reasoning. The results screen shows which plan fits your situation. The explanation behind it shows Upgrade to see why on Free.
See Understanding Your Results.
On the home screen
Other paychecks. Free shows your upcoming paycheck in full. Earlier and later paychecks are blurred with Full planning requires Thrive.
The paycheck summary. Free shows what comes in; Thrive also shows what goes out.
Coming Up. Free looks one paycheck ahead. Thrive looks three ahead.
Editing amounts. Tapping a bill or debt payment to correct its amount says Editing bills requires the Thrive plan. Editing the paycheck amount is gated the same way.
Adding an expense to a paycheck. Also a Thrive feature.
Ticking bills off is free.
See Completing Bills.
On the dashboard
Charts. Free gets Net Worth by month. Thrive adds the other six charts — Cash Flow, Spending Split, Savings Rate, Income vs Spending, By Category, and Spending Change — and the Paycheck and Year views. Locked charts show Upgrade Your Plan, and Free sees one upgrade card at the top of the dashboard.
Summary tiles. Free shows income and fixed bills for the month. Thrive adds what you spent, what you saved, and how much debt you paid.
Breakdowns. The detailed breakdown sections are blurred with Upgrade Your Plan on Free.
See Dashboard Overview.
Canvas
Canvas itself is locked on Free. Opening it shows Canvas requires a subscription plan over the canvas area.
Sharing is gated separately. Sharing a canvas requires a subscription too. Because Canvas as a whole requires Thrive, you'll typically only run into this if a subscription has lapsed.
See What is Canvas? and Sharing & Exporting.
Budgets and the Archive
Older budgets. Free keeps your three newest budgets in reach. Older ones stay saved, and a lock tells you how many there are.
Switching plans. Opening a past budget and switching it to a different plan says Upgrade to switch plans on Free.
Pinning. Pinning favorite budgets is part of Thrive.
See The Archive.
Calculators
Every calculator is free to use. Exporting a PDF payment schedule from the Debt Payoff and Amortization calculators is part of Thrive.
What Free keeps
Worth stating plainly, because the list above reads heavier than the experience:
- ›Building budgets, with every generated plan's headline numbers visible
- ›Tracking your upcoming paycheck and ticking bills off
- ›Every calculator, apart from PDF export in Debt Payoff and Amortization
- ›Your three newest budgets in the Archive
- ›Core dashboard metrics and the Net Worth chart
- ›Accountability features
- ›Budgeting guides and resources in the Library
You can run a complete budget cycle on Free indefinitely. There's no trial clock.
Deciding
The clearest way to think about it: Free tells you a plan and helps you follow it. Thrive shows you all the plans, lets you adjust as you go, and gives you the deeper analysis.
If you're new to budgeting, start Free and run a full pay cycle first. The value of seeing four more aggressive plans is much easier to judge once you know whether the routine sticks.
Upgrading
Tap Upgrade at the top of Settings, or open Settings → Subscription. See Managing Your Subscription for plans, discount codes, restoring a purchase, and canceling.