I’m building a personal finance / budgeting app that I originally designed for my own use, but I thought that maybe this could be an opportunity to make some money on the side so I started trying to redesign it for users. It has evolved into something centered around a “daily allowance” system, helping users control how much they can safely spend each day.
The core idea is to reduce impulsive spending and reinforce better financial habits. The main focus of the app is the remaining daily budget, with supporting features like savings goals, spending breakdowns, multiple accounts, and automatic group expense splitting.
The problem I’m thinking through now is the target market.
The app seems most useful for:
- students
- early-career users
- people living on tighter budgets or trying to be more disciplined with spending
However, halfway through developing this app, I realize that this may not be a strong monetization segment, since this group likely has:
- lower willingness to pay for subscriptions
- limited disposable income
- a tendency to prefer free tools
At the same time, they are arguably the users who benefit the most from this kind of product, since the app is designed to directly influence daily spending behavior rather than just track finances.
So I’m stuck between two directions:
- building for users who need the product most but may not pay much
- vs targeting higher-income users who can afford subscriptions but may not actually need this level of behavioral control
Would appreciate any input from people who’ve built SaaS or finance apps. Is this a bad target market from a monetization standpoint, or is there a viable way to structure pricing/value around it?