Tiller alternative
A Tiller alternative for spreadsheet people who are tired of spreadsheets.
Tiller pipes your bank transactions into Google Sheets or Excel, and the rest is up to you. Ahead started life as a budget spreadsheet too, and grew into an app: same rows, same math, bank included. Here’s how they compare.
Free for 14 days, no card needed. Connect your bank, or type it in yourself.
The short version
- Price: Ahead is $36 a year, or $4 a month. Tiller is $99 a year, yearly only.
- The big difference: Tiller is a feed plus a starter template; forecasting is do-it-yourself, with community templates Tiller doesn’t support. Ahead’s whole job is the forecast.
- On your phone: Tiller has a phone-friendly web console, but the spreadsheet isn’t built for a phone. Ahead works the same on any screen.
- Pick Tiller to own and build your own sheet. Pick Ahead to have it already built.
Why people look for a Tiller alternative
Tiller is beloved by people who like building things in spreadsheets. The usual reasons people drift away:
- The building never ends. The template is a start; everything else, you make.
- No real phone app. It’s the top complaint by a mile.
- Excel is second-class. Google Sheets gets features Excel doesn’t, like the automatic fills and AI suggestions.
- $99 a year, yearly only. It’s not the cheap option it once was.
Ahead and Tiller, side by side
| Ahead | Tiller | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ||
| Price | $36 a year, or $4 a month. With AI: $72 a year, or $7 a month. | $99 a year. No monthly plan, no free version. |
| Trying it | ||
| Trying it | 14 days free, AI included. No card needed. | 30 days free. Card required. |
| How it budgets | ||
| How it budgets | Bills and paychecks by month, like a spreadsheet. No category limits. | Your own spreadsheet: a starter template with category budgets, and whatever you build. |
| The months ahead | ||
| The months ahead | Where checking lands at the end of every month, this year and next, plus as many years as you add. | Not built in. Community-made forecast templates exist; Tiller doesn’t support them. |
| Your bank | ||
| Your bank | Plaid, read-only. Or type it all in. | Yodlee or Plaid, feeding Google Sheets or Excel. CSV import too. |
| Where it runs | ||
| Where it runs | Web, on any computer or phone. Nothing to install. | Google Sheets, Excel (Microsoft 365), and a web console. No phone app. |
| Investments and net worth | ||
| Investments and net worth | No. The plan is checking and savings. | Yes, in the template: balances and net worth. |
A feed vs. a finished plan
Tiller’s core is a data feed: your transactions and balances, landing in a sheet every day. Its Foundation Template adds category budgets, balances, and net worth. Want to see months ahead? That’s a community template, or your own formulas.
Ahead is the finished version of one particular sheet: bills and paychecks down the side, months across the top, and where checking lands at the bottom. It fills itself in from your bank, sorts each bill under the card it rides on, counts three-paycheck months, and carries balances across years.
Control
Tiller wins this one outright. It’s your spreadsheet: any formula, any pivot table, any chart, and the data is yours forever. Ahead lets you rename things, type over any month, and write rules, but you can’t add your own formulas.
The spreadsheet you can still have
If you want Ahead’s math in a sheet you control, the free budget spreadsheet has the same rows and formulas. No bank feed, but no subscription either.
Who should pick which
Pick Tiller if
- You love building in spreadsheets and want the raw data.
- You want every transaction in a file you own forever.
- You track personal and business money in one place.
- You and your partner already share spreadsheets.
Pick Ahead if
- You want the forecast without building it.
- You check money on your phone.
- You want to pay $36 a year, or go month to month.
- You want bills sorted by the card they ride on, automatically.
Switching from Tiller
- 1
Start the free trial
14 days of everything, AI included, and no card. Keep your old app running while you decide.
- 2
Connect your bank
Ahead reads the last year of transactions (read-only, through Plaid) and finds your bills and paychecks in about a minute. There’s nothing to export or import.
- 3
Keep your sheet if you love it
Nothing about Ahead stops you from keeping your spreadsheet. Plenty of spreadsheet people keep one for the fun stuff.
Questions people ask
Can I export my data from Ahead to a spreadsheet?
Not today. If living in a spreadsheet is the point, Tiller is built for exactly that.
Is there a spreadsheet version of Ahead?
Yes: the free budget spreadsheet. Same rows and math, for Excel, Google Sheets, and Numbers. You do the typing.
Is Ahead cheaper than Tiller?
Yes. Ahead is $36 a year or $4 a month. Tiller is $99 a year, with no monthly option.
See where your money lands.
Try all of Ahead free for 14 days. No card, and it takes about a minute to set up.
Try it free