Cino vs Splitwise for splitting bills and sharing expenses?

June 26, 2024

Splitwise vs Cino for splitting bills and sharing expenses?

In today's world, where shared expenses are a common occurrence, finding the right app to manage and track them can be challenging. With numerous finance apps available, it's no wonder that many customers find themselves asking, "How is Cino different from Splitwise?" While Splitwise has gained significant popularity, Cino offers a unique approach to shared expenses, catering to different needs and providing distinct functionalities. In this comprehensive blog post, we'll delve into the differences between Cino and Splitwise, exploring how they serve different functions and simplifying financial coordination for various scenarios.

Understanding the Confusion: The Rise of Finance Apps

As the demand for expense management solutions has grown, so has the number of finance apps available in the market. Customers are often overwhelmed by the plethora of choices, causing confusion and making it challenging to find the app that best fits their needs. Splitwise, being one of the more established and well-known apps, frequently becomes the starting point for customers exploring expense management options. However, it's essential to understand that Splitwise and Cino, while serving similar purposes, approach shared expenses from different angles.

Summary:

  • Cino: Simplifying Shared expenses
  • Splitwise: Expense Management
  • Cino vs. Splitwise: Understanding the Distinctions
  • Which App Should You Choose?

Cino: Simplifying Shared expenses 

Cino emerges as a distinct contender in the realm of shared expense management. This innovative app offers a comprehensive solution that goes beyond traditional expense tracking. Cino's primary focus is on enabling users to pay together while eliminating the need for later reimbursement. 

Users create as many Cino groups as they want and use the app to make payments both online and in stores. Cino allows users to link any debit or credit card to the app, expanding payment options and convenience. Whether it's splitting bills, rent, internet expenses, or even making online purchases, Cino facilitates automatic expense splitting at the time of payment, ensuring hassle-free approach to shared expenses.

While Cino's primary focus is on couples, its versatility extends to a wider audience. The app's functionality caters to roommates, friends, and even larger groups, enabling them to effectively manage shared expenses. This make Cino an ideal solution for various scenarios, such as group trips, co-working spaces, and shared household expenses, where splitting the bills must be easy and quick.

Splitwise: Expense Management 

Splitwise, a well-established app in the realm of shared expense management, offers a robust platform for tracking and dividing expenses among friends or roommates. It focuses on simplifying the process of recording expenses and calculating how much each person owes or is owed within a group. With its intuitive interface, Splitwise allows users to manually enter expenses, categorize them, and conveniently settle the outstanding balances.

The free version of Splitwise provides essential features such as expense breakdown, IOUs, and the ability to send email notifications for bill payments. However, for users seeking additional functionalities, Splitwise offers a Pro version at a monthly fee of €2,99 or annual fee of €29,99. This upgrade enhances the expense management experience with benefits like ad-free usage, receipt scanning, itemization, currency conversion, and early access to new features.

Cino vs. Splitwise: Understanding the Distinctions

While both Cino and Splitwise fall under the umbrella of shared expense management, their unique functionalities set them apart. 

Simultaneous bill-splitting vs recording expenses. 

Cino focuses on simplifying the payment process by enabling simultaneous bill-splitting and payment, eliminating the need for reimbursement. It caters to couples, roommates, and larger groups who seek want to split bills fast and easily. Splitwise primarily serves as an expense tracking and management app, allowing users to record and split expenses after they've been paid. This means there's still a need to reimburse the expenses later.

Payments & Connected cards.

Splitwise vs Cino: payments and connected cards

Cino users have to link a debit or credit card from any EU bank directly to the app. Then, you can create as many Cino groups as they want with their family/friends/partners to split expenses with. In each group, you can set the splitting ratios or amounts for everyone, add and remove members, and leave the group once you're done. The actual payment transaction is done contactless via the app and every group member has access to the same Cino card so it doesn’t matter who pays. On the other hand, Splitwise does not actually carry out any payments or transactions. Users cannot link their cards but do have the option to “settle up” debts via a third app like Paypal or Venmo. 

Keeping track of expenses.

Cino is first-and foremost a app to split expenses seamlessly and all the expenses are tracked within the group with it’s name, total sum, and how much you paid for it. Cino doesn’t however have an itemized list of expenses (yet) and you won’t be able to track what someone ordered. Splitwise is primarily focused on storing expenses and keeping track of who owes who and how much. Only their Pro version has features to scan receipts and itemize expenses so you can go back and see which coffee they liked. 

Ease of use.

Now, adopting a new finance app can come with a learning curve and initial adjustment period. Whether users choose Cino or Splitwise, understanding the app's features and functionalities is key to making the most of its capabilities.

Setting up app for use is different in between these apps. Cino require a longer setup process as you have to connect your bank account (read about it here) While it’s probably the most streamlined flow for adding a payment option, Splitwise simply doesn’t have that which makes it’s setup easier. 

One of the common hurdles encountered by Splitwise users is the manual entry of transactions and expenses. While Splitwise provides a user-friendly interface for recording expenses, users often find themselves in the time-consuming task of manually inputting the information from their bank statements or credit card transactions into the app. This process can be tedious and prone to errors, especially when dealing with a large number of transactions. In an article by G. O'Leary, the author of the article developed a completely separate app to simplify the process of adding credit card transactions directly to Splitwise.

Therefore, it's important to note that Splitwise was primarily designed for users to input expenses manually. Splitwise focuses on the division of expenses after they have been paid, allowing users to maintain a record of who owes whom and for what. Cino focuses on splitting the expenses at the moment of payment. This completely eliminates the need to keep receipts, manually input these to Cino app, or manually make payments in third-party apps. In fact, you can’t even do any of that.

When do you get your money?

Splitwise vs Cino: when do you get your money?

The main problem with bill-splitting isn’t the how much but the when. Specifically, when you get your money back after you paid for everything. Everyone of us has been in a situation where they were promised to pay back but never received the money. Frustrating and really hurts the trust between friends.

Cino solves this problem by splitting expenses at the moment of payment. In this completely unique way, you never have to pay for someone but instead, everyone pays their share seamlessly. At the same time, Splitwise doesn’t solve the main problem as you still depend on the other parties following through with their payments. Sadly, it's not often the case and you end up paying for someone else.

Which App Should You Choose?

When deciding between Splitwise and Cino, it's important to consider your specific needs and preferences. Both apps offer distinct features that cater to different aspects of expense management and sharing. 

If your primary goal is to manually keep record of expenses, settle debts once a month, or simply track your expenses, Splitwise is a choice. With Splitwise, you can record and manage shared expenses, and keep track of where you money goes. It allows you to create groups, and type in financial statements, and send them to fellow group members. Splitwise provides a platform to manage expenses after they have been paid. 

On the other hand, if you're looking for an app that goes beyond expense tracking and enables you to pay and split bills instantly, Cino is the ideal option. Cino not only allows you to manage shared expenses but also facilitates seamless payments within the app. Whether you're dining out with friends, planning a vacation with a group, or sharing household expenses with roommates, Cino lets you split bills and pay together effortlessly. By linking any card to the app, Cino enables quick and accurate distribution of expenses, eliminating the need for later reimbursements or manual entry of transactions. Its focus on real-time payments makes it a convenient choice for those seeking immediate financial sharing solutions. If this is what you need, be sure to download Cino app and use it for free.

Grow your business.
Today is the day to build the business of your dreams. Share your mission with the world — and blow your customers away.
Start Now
👋  Contact
hello@getcino.com
Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved.