7 Grocery Budgeting Apps That Are Actually Helpful

Being conscious of your grocery spending is more important than ever these days. While inflation is coming down and not as bad as it used to be, households still need to live within their means. A big part of sticking to your grocery budget (and having one in the first place) is already within your hands — literally. Grocery budgeting apps give you control over your purchases, so you always know how much you’re spending on items.

No more grocery list mistakes that might be costing you big money or surprise budget overruns at the end of the week or month. No more scrambling to leave behind a few items at the checkout line because you’ve gone over your limit. No more additional trips to the grocery store because you didn’t get everything you really needed the first time around.

While using apps that make creating your grocery lists easy is important, that’s just a piece of the puzzle. The other half is knowing that you’re always on top of your spending. Let’s take a closer look at these apps that are game changers for your grocery budgeting.

There are grocery budgeting apps, and then there’s Shop Calc, the feature-heavy solution that empowers you to have a bird’s-eye view of what you need at the grocery store without spending an arm and a leg. What makes Shop Calc so valuable is that it lets you generate shopping in advance of your store trip, complete with individualized costs for your specific grocery items along with any applicable discounts and taxes, which you can apply item-by-item. The result is a powerful tool in your hand that you can take with you to the grocery store as you go through the aisles and shop for only what you need and have budgeted for.

Need a loaf of bread or two? Maybe a carton of milk or more? Enter each as a line item into Shop Calc, select your quantity, add applicable taxes or discounts, and the app tabulates your total, so you know exactly what you have to pay without any surprises. The best part is it stores an inventory of what you’ve already bought in the past, saving you time along with money and keeping you organized on all your shopping trips. Shop Calc is only available on Google Play for Android.

KitchenPal is your friend in the kitchen just as much as your ally when it comes to budgeting for your weekly and monthly groceries. If you’re more mindful of the average American grocery budget in 2025, KitchenPal is worth exploring. This innovative app works by empowering you to manage your pantry in the first place. It will alert you of exactly when your items expire, so you waste less and don’t have to spend extra to replace food items. A big part of successful budgeting is using up everything you purchased to begin with, before it goes bad; KitchenPal has you covered in this regard.

Another winning feature is its pantry inventory tracker. KitchenPal will notify you when the staples you buy are running low in your kitchen, what you’ve recently finished, and what you buy frequently. With this level of organization, not only will you never miss a beat when it comes to compiling your shopping lists, but you’ll also have a hard time going over budget at the grocery store. With KitchenPal in your hand as you steer your shopping cart through various aisles, you’ll be reminded in real-time of only what you need — thereby helping you from giving into the temptation to buy more than that. KitchenPal is available on Google Play for Android and on the App Store for iOS.

With an alliterative moniker like Grocery Gadget, this user-friendly grocery budgeting app is more than just a catchy name. It’s the solution for anyone from a single person to a family of four to a flat full of roommates who just want to keep grocery costs down while streamlining their shopping experience. The basis for effective budgeting starts with keeping a well-organized shopping list, which Grocery Gadget makes easy. While you’ll likely forget an old-fashioned pen-and-paper list on your way to the store, your phone is always with you.

Prepare your shopping list in-app and set up your to-buy items row by row, complete with specific item quantities and matching, accurate pricing. You can also save items you regularly buy to your database, so adding them to your lists automatically totals your overall spending for each grocery trip and ensures you have control over dollars and cents. As you’re in the aisles shopping, Grocery Gadget’s handy checkoff feature lets you tick off the items you’ve already bought, so you not only save time, but you also see that you’re not going over budget. Synchronize Grocery Gadget lists with your spouse, family members, or friends to maximize efficiency during grocery runs. It is only available on the App Store for iOS. Get it for your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

If there’s one descriptor that best sums up AnyList, perhaps it’s the word “comprehensive.” Its recipe and shopping-list features empower you to be as meticulous as you want with the necessary ingredients and food items you’ll need for the rest of the week, month, or just for a special occasion. The more accurately you can hone in on these crucial factors, the more control you’ll have over your grocery budgeting.

For each grocery item on your list, you can easily add quantities, package sizes, capacity, and prices, creating a more efficient grocery list. This lets you precisely track not just your overall total cost per grocery run but, just as importantly, the exact breakdown of what each item quantity on your list will cost. This lets you have greater flexibility in deciding whether or not a product is really vital for your current grocery trip or if you can save it for your next shopping trip.

AnyList’s depth is something to behold. While the app is initially free, you’ll unlock additional features when you subscribe to its AnyList Complete plan, which is $9.99 for individuals per year and $14.99 for a whole household per year. It’s important to note that you’ll have to get the AnyList Complete plan to add prices to your list items to automatically tabulate your running grocery costs. AnyList is available on the App Store for iOS and on Google Play for Android.

Join Bring!’s 20-million user base to also experience the grocery-budgeting wins that many people have already been enjoying since 2013. This action-oriented grocery-budgeting app helps you in a number of ways, starting with how you put together your recipes. Do you like lasagna? Are there some meals your kids just keep asking for? Do you make the same dishes for your family on a regular basis? Bring! streamlines your recipe planning by letting you scale your portion sizes with its built-in quantity calculator. When you have control over your portion sizes, you have a better handle on your grocery budgeting.

Then, there are Bring! shopping lists. Create as many lists as you want, based on the different stores you shop at and categorized according to the real-life store aisles (milk and cheese, fruits and vegetables, bread and pastries, etc.) you visit in person. You can even add pictures to match the items on your list, so the visual clarity jumps out at you when you’re scouring for the right product in the store. Get even more granular by incorporating quantities and descriptions of each food item, and enter prices right into each description. This sheer level of organization means you have an accurate price list before you head into the grocery store. Bring! is available on the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android.

Listonic is another comprehensive grocery budgeting app that comes with deep features for planning your grocery list, saving more of your money, and staying on track instead of getting derailed with emotion-based spending. Listonic allows you to input prices for grocery items right to your shopping list, so you don’t have to wait until you check out to understand what your costs will be. Price tracking like this means you can budget days and weeks in advance when you have a reliable idea of what you’ll pay each time you go to the grocery store. This doesn’t just help your grocery budgeting; it helps your entire household’s budgeting.

Listonic makes this process simple. Edit your list, turn on the “Show Prices” tab, and enter the value of the item. For further granularity, you can add prices per unit, making it easy for you to see the total price for products you’re purchasing multiple of. For example, if you buy five cans of tomato paste at $0.99 a can, you’ll get a running total of $4.95 for your entire tomato can list item. Don’t forget to also activate the app’s “Automatically add last prices” option in the settings. This ensures the prices you affix to your product items show up each time you add the item in a list. Listonic is available on both the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android devices.

If you’re looking for a fair bit of control over your grocery budgeting, including how to determine how often to buy groceries, then give Out of Milk a look. This appropriately named app does more than let you put together a shopping list; it ensures you manage all the details of your list that are vital to controlling costs and staying within your grocery budget. You’ll have control over the product name and its category, the quantity, the unit price, any applicable sales taxes, the option to toggle on and off any coupon value, and, finally, any notes you want to add to the product item.

Another crucial aspect of controlling your grocery costs is coordinating efficiently with the people you live with. Out of Milk lets you share your lists with multiple people, so everyone is on the same page when it comes to understanding what you need to shop for in the week, how much you’ve already purchased, and any last-minute additions that need to be picked up. With this level of coordination, it’s next to impossible to run into situations where your household is making double purchases, going over budget with emotional buying, or even failing to pick up everything you need. And the beauty of Out of Milk is that it’s completely free. It’s available on the App Store for iOS and Google Play on Android.