Fortune City - A Finance App reviews
What users love and hate · 500 reviews analyzed · ★ 4
An expense tracker disguised as a city-builder: every logged transaction becomes a building, and that gamification is what does the real job — it gets people who find budgeting boring to open the app daily; the cost is that the very mechanic rewards spending, not saving.
What users love
Gamification turns dull data-entry into a daily habit
The core mechanism: each expense builds a building in your city, and the urge to grow the city overrides the tedium of logging. People track not out of discipline but because it's fun — the app cracks the exact problem that 'serious' budgeting apps fail at.
My biggest challenge with using expense tracking apps in the past was that I always found it a chore to keep track of every expense. This app solves this problem through gamification.
The game gameified budget gets me to open the app every day!
Takes away the boring part of recording income/expenses and instead tranforms it into very lovable city building game
A perfect fit for ADHD users — external dopamine keeps the discipline going
A distinct segment the app wins on purpose: ADHD users (some recommended it by their therapists) describe how the gamification delivers the very reward they need to not abandon budgeting. The 'log an expense → dopamine hit' loop solves their core problem — failing to follow through on routine.
It's perfect for my ADHD because it keeps me engaged and gives me a serotonin boost every time I record an expense.
I have ADHD and my therapist recommended this app.
I have adhd so its hard to want to do budgetting cause it grts boring quick. But this make it simple and fun.
The 'cute' aesthetic isn't cosmetic — it's the retention hook itself
The charming graphics, music, and characters aren't decoration — they're the core reason people return. Users say it outright: sometimes you just need cute music and animations to bother with finances at all. The emotional tone does what features can't — it builds a warm attachment to a chore.
Sometimes you just need cute music and animations to give a darn
I can't believe that every day I think, "I'm so excited to record my expenses!"
Cute and functions well, had fun tracking expenses with friends
Self-tracking without a bank builds the awareness auto-trackers can't
Logging each expense by hand isn't a bug, it's the awareness mechanism: the act of recording forces users to notice where money goes. People describe seeing their spending patterns for the first time and becoming more mindful — the app changes behavior precisely because it doesn't auto-track for you.
It actually helps with seeing what I spend a lot on and need to cut down
having to enter my spendings every day will help me be more mindful of it
good app that makes me more conscious of my spending habits
What users hate
Rewarding spending undermines the whole point — saving
The city grows only when you log an expense, so the mechanic literally incentivizes spending for the sake of game progress. Users spot the paradox themselves: an app meant to teach saving turns purchases into a dopamine source and punishes 'no-spend' days with zero progress.
incentivizes unnecessary spending to develop your City rather than saving
you only get buildings to upgrade your city when you input expenses so if you don't spend anything during a day you don't make progress
It makes me want to spend so I have expenses to record.
Budgeting sits behind the paywall — yet it's the app's whole point
The most basic financial function — set a monthly budget and watch the balance — is locked behind premium. Users read it as a broken promise: an expense tracker that won't let you do the core tracking job for free loses trust before it ever proves its value.
they should include the budget option (where you can set your monthly budget) in the free plan too as it is the whole purpose of the app
The money you get is one of the most important things for tracking your spending, it shouldn't be a premium feature.
It won't even let me edit the budget unless I pay for premium?
No account transfers — moving money counts as spending and skews the data
The missing 'transfer between accounts' feature is the most repeated structural gripe from loyal users. Without it, moving money has to be logged as an expense plus an income, which inflates both spending and budget and breaks the core value — an accurate financial picture. It's the one thing keeping fans from giving five stars.
there is no way to transfer money between accounts, the best way to do it is making two transactions
it's hard to track transfers between my accounts, because it counts against my budget even though I haven't spent any money and only moved it
there isn't a simple "transfer" option
Manual entry with no bank link — both the feature and the ceiling
Fully manual entry delights some users as mindful and private, but many hit its limits: no bank auto-categorization, a daily building cap lower than their real number of transactions, and slow progress for anyone who spends infrequently. The 'mindfulness' strength becomes friction for power users.
I can't build more than like four houses a day. I spend more than four expenses a day.
5 building per day is too less
Can I connect my bank so that it automatically can tell what I spent money one?
Categories can't be customized — a rigid catalog loses users who need their own buckets
The category set is hardcoded and uneditable: no 'education', no way to split or rename buckets, odd buildings (a robot lab but no school). Some users abandon the app right at onboarding, unable to model their real spending structure — the product loses them before first value.
this app doesn't allow you to customised the default categories. And due to this, I did not explore further.
I am unable to add or categorised the expenses under different head.
Contains limited expense category range, have to add custom options such as education, etc. in the respective categories.
The growing city eventually becomes a burden — no zoom-out, no bulk actions
The very mechanic that hooks people becomes a problem for long-timers: the city sprawls, becomes unmanageable, with no full zoom-out and no way to bulk-sell or delete buildings. The reward for loyalty is growing friction; 5+ year veterans describe their city as a 'mess' that's painful to reorganize.
selling buildings one by one is tedious, especially for long time users who want to reorganiz
when can we zoom out? the city is becoming hard to manage
I wish I could zoom out more though!
Monthly-only tracking — breaks for users who think in years or weeks
The tracking cycle is hardwired to the month: no carry-over of balance, no annual savings summary, no bi-weekly cycle to match paychecks. Users whose finances run on a different rhythm can't model their real money flow — and it caps the value they get.
But it is a monthly thing. I hope it can be a yearly tracking app.
I would like there to be a 4 weekly or two weekly option in the regular Income/Payments section though.
There is no bi-weekly setting though.
Covers only spending — no savings, investments, debt, or opening balance
The app models only the expense flow, not the rest of financial life: you can't set an account's opening balance, set money aside as 'savings', or track investments or debt. For users who want a full picture of their net worth, it turns a powerful tracker into a partial tool.
I wish I could keep track of more than just spending money -- such as money set aside for savings.
No beginning balance when creating your accounts.
I hope that they can include a system to keep a track for investments.
Multi-currency is broken — dollar-pivot conversion drives off international users
For a global audience the currency mechanic is a failure point: entries still default to dollars, switching currency reverts the amount to USD, Indian users can't see rupees. Some have to convert by hand with a calculator — friction so high that people leave for competitors.
you would first have to convert your expenses to dollars with a calculator and record that number in the app so it can convert it back to euros
it appears in USD even though I obviously selected it as another currency
I want my expense show me in ind rupee not foreigner capital.
The city grows but buildings yield nothing, and the game loop runs out of steam
The game engine is under-tuned: buildings are supposed to generate income but don't, diamonds are painfully slow to earn, and progress stalls once levels max out. The very players gamification hooked lose motivation — the reward loop the whole habit rests on eventually breaks.
Buildings are supposed to provide income but they don't seem to provide anything which makes it way too slow.
after few years, it become boring, as building level maxed up.
Developers, PLEASE ADD Finance levels to Great Capital City Hall building (currently maxed at LV300)
Gamification can pull focus away from finance toward the game
The flip side of the main hook: for some users the game layer outweighs the finance one — the app 'takes away from the core focus', floods them with notifications, and demands time fiddling with the city. For those who want fast, plain logging, the gamification gets in the way: they just want to record an expense, not play.
it does tend to take away from the fore focus of budget setting and saving goals though
I just want to record not play game before recording
too focused on the gamify aspect, but lacking in the finance department