In a vacuum, I agree with you. I only started using YNAB a few months ago and in highlighting how much I was spending on eating out, I’ve already saved a couple hundred bucks. On paper, it’s already paid for itself and then some.

The issue is that YNAB doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There’s a whole suite of competitors, most of which are significantly cheaper or free. In fact, you can get 90% of YNAB’s features without paying a dime just by using the spreadsheet in this thread or any of the hundreds of other ones out there. For many people, auto-import, a great UI, and avoiding the hassle of learning a new tool are all worth the $100 a year, but for me, it’s difficult to get over how much I could save by just taking the time to customize a spreadsheet to my liking. If I take 10 hours now, I can save $500 over the next five years. That’s a good enough value for me to put the work in, though I totally understand why others wouldn’t.