Questions and answers

What the method is, what it costs, and what happens to your data.

What is zero-based budgeting?

Zero-based budgeting means giving every dollar of your expected income a job before the month begins, until the amount left to assign reaches zero. It is not a spending limit imposed on you — it is a plan you write, where saving, debt payments and personal spending are jobs like any other. Citadel Money keeps the running total of planned, spent and remaining on every screen so you always know where the plan stands.

Is Citadel Money free?

Yes. The Free tier runs a complete zero-based budget for as long as you want, with no card required: unlimited groups and items, manual and split transactions, funds that carry across months, copying last month in one step, the Couple Accord, Phase 1 of the Citadel Map, Money Date scheduling, and a full export of your data at any time.

What does Citadel Command cost, and what does it add?

Citadel Command is $7.95 a month, or $79.95 a year. It adds the work a computer should do for you: bank connections with automatic transaction import, categorisation rules and a review inbox, reports and CSV import and export, partner sharing, Money Date briefs written from your own numbers, the quarterly Command Briefing, Phases 2 to 7 of the Citadel Map including Rolling Thunder debt payoff, paycheck planning, safe-to-spend, goals and projected net worth.

Can two people share one budget?

Yes, with Citadel Command: a household has one shared plan, and both partners see the same numbers. The Couple Accord — money stories, ranked values and a full financial disclosure — is on the Free tier, because the conversation should not be behind a paywall. Partner sharing itself is part of Citadel Command.

Does Citadel Money connect to my bank?

Bank connections are part of Citadel Command and run through a financial data aggregation provider. You authenticate directly with your bank through the provider, so your banking credentials never reach Citadel Money, and the access tokens we hold are encrypted with a dedicated key. On the Free tier you enter transactions yourself.

Can I use Citadel Money on my own?

Yes. Everything in the budget works for one person, and the parts built for two — the Couple Accord and partner sharing — are simply unused. The method does not change.

Do you sell my financial data?

No, on either tier, ever. You can export your data in full at any time in a documented format, and ask for deletion, which comes with a 30-day recovery window in case it was a mistake.

What makes Citadel Money different from other budgeting apps?

Two things sit around the budget. The Couple Accord comes first and treats a joint budget as a relationship problem before a maths problem: each partner records their money story and ranks their values privately, then the app shows where you agree and differ. The Citadel Map then answers what a given month is for, with seven phases whose gates are measured from your own numbers rather than self-reported, so nothing is silently marked complete.

What happens if I stop paying for Citadel Command?

Your household falls back to the Free tier. Nothing with history is destroyed: your budgets, transactions and accounts remain, the paid features stop, and your data is still exportable in full.