6 Ways to Get YNAB for Free

Polished up like a freshly reconciled account 🧼 Updated November 2025

Ever been at a halftime show when the guy with the free t-shirt cannon comes out? Get hyped—you’re going to love this blog post. 

Did you know there are a bunch of ways you may get YNAB for free? It’s true. There are people using YNAB for free all over the world, and I’m not just talking about the free trial. 

Let’s go over six ways to get YNAB for free, and maybe one or more of them will apply to you!

Give 3 Months of YNAB, Get 3 Months for Free

The gift that gives back.

When you give three months of YNAB for $35, you get three months of free time added to your own account when they redeem. That gives them time to build habits that stick and see what it feels like for money stress to fade away. For you, it means free time added to your subscription and the utter joy and delight of giving a life changing gift.

Give the gift of YNAB.

Get your employer to pay for it!

Be the hero of your workplace.

‍Maybe your coworkers are tired of hearing about you yapping about how much YNAB has changed your life in the break room. What if you and all your coworkers could get YNAB for free? 

You would be the YNAB hero of your office. Everyone would be signing up and you’d get to talk about it all day! I myself have received YNAB from my employer for free. And I can tell you having a shared language around money with the people you spend a third of your day with makes a huge difference. Plus, people who are no longer stressed about money make up a happier and more productive workforce. Wouldn’t it be great if all your coworkers were YNABers!?

Well too bad such a thing isn’t possib—oh wait! It totally is with our Financial Wellness by YNAB program. Wellness is designed to bring YNAB to employees as a workplace benefit. It will be in the same list as insurance and retirement plans, but it’s about whole-person health and happiness. It’s the mental health benefit your coworkers didn’t know they needed! 

Here’s how it works:

1. Visit our Bring YNAB to Work page.
2. Choose from our ready-to-use benefit request email or instant message templates.
3. Send the request to your HR team—feel free to add a personal note about how YNAB has positively impacted your life!

Once you’ve shared Financial Wellness by YNAB with your employer, we’ll handle the rest from there. Our sales team will chat with your workplace to determine if our benefit program is the right fit! Before you know it, YNAB could pop into your next all-hands meeting throwing subscriptions and swag around like Oprah!

College program

Stop money stress before it starts.

‍College students love free stuff. I remember when I was in college, if someone said “free pizza,” I was there. That’s how I accidentally signed up for a cult. Just kidding.

If you happen to be a student in college, you get YNAB free for a year! We know college is one of the most expensive, but also one of the least income-y times of your life (yes, I went to college, but I still make up words). And many college students are living at least partially on student loans, so it’s more important than ever that you plan your spending carefully. That’s why we help out college students by offering an entire year for free. 

Fun fact: way back in 2004, Jesse Mecham founded YNAB as a self-proclaimed broke college student. Maybe that’s why he’s so eager to help out folks in that stage of life. Back then, it was just a little old downloadable excel spreadsheet. Now, it’s multiple award-winning apps backed by a full-fledged money method. 

All you have to do is sign up for YNAB at this special college page. If you’ve already signed up for YNAB, use the same link and select the option to add a free year to your subscription. If you’re in the US, we’ll have a process to get your free year added automatically. If you’re outside the US, sign up and then contact support (help@ynab.com) with proof you’re a student (think: student ID, registration, class schedule) and we’ll get you set up. 

Oh, and a college student is a college student. It doesn’t matter if you’re in grad school or you go to college in Timbuktu or you’re 85 years old and going to college for the first time. If you go to college, you’re in. 

Referral program ‍

Get rewarded for sharing the YNAB love.

‍So maybe you’re not in college, but I’ll bet you have friends… right? No? Um… well, I’ll bet you have people on the subway that have to listen to you talk because there are no other seats available. See, we all have people in our lives that we can tell about YNAB! And why not get a little bit of free YNAB for you and your friend (or commute acquaintances) while you’re at it?

That’s what the YNAB referral program is all about. All you have to do is share your referral link and watch the free time roll in. 

Here’s how YNAB referrals work:

1. Shout YNAB from the rooftops to anyone who will listen and share your special referral link with them.  You can find your referral link hanging out in the lower-left corner of the web app (with some exceptions).
2. When your friend signs up for YNAB through your link, they’ll get a 34-day trial just like everyone else. 
3. If they end up subscribing to YNAB after their trial, both you and your friend will get a free month added on to your YNAB subscription. 

There are some more details to share depending on your specific situation, so check out the FAQ section at the bottom of the YNAB Referral Program page for all the details! 

YNAB Together

Add loved ones to your subscription.

While a YNAB subscription isn’t free, you can share your subscription with those you love for no extra charge! That means you can provide YNAB for free for your elderly parents, your partner, your teenagers, your roommate, or any other close-knit group. 

You can invite up to five loved ones to your subscription, and each member will receive:

• their own secure login and YNAB account
• the ability to create and edit as many money plans as their li’l heart desires
• the ability to share those plans with other group members
• access to our award-winning customer support team

If you’d like to learn more about the YNAB Together feature, we’ve got all the details. Invite your partner, teenage children, or any other people in your financial circle and start using YNAB… together!

YNAB for Good

YNAB shares free subscriptions through non-profits.

We love to share YNAB subscriptions for free by partnering with non-profit organizations doing what the world needs more of: good. For individuals in underrepresented or marginalized communities, the struggle with money is all too real. We want to help deepen your impact! 

We’ve joined forces with non-profit organizations in the US and Canada that are already working to equip underrepresented or marginalized communities with financial literacy. 

If you could benefit from this program, reach out to such an organization in your community. If you run or know of an organization that YNAB could partner with, you can get all the information and send an application. 

So there you have it. Six ways to get YNAB for free. Do with this information what you will, but remember, the point is to love the way you spend your money, even if (or especially!) if that’s on a YNAB subscription.

Bonus Freebie

Once you have your free YNAB subscription, go download your free YNAB Starter Template to make getting started even easier!

‍If you haven’t tried YNAB yet, there’s another way to get it for free! You can sign up for a free 34-day trial! Give it a whirl. I promise you won’t regret it.