Honest comparison
Owdyn vs Sorted
Sorted (sorted.org.nz) is Te Ara Ahunga Ora / the Retirement Commission’s free financial-capability site — planners, guides and calculators for New Zealanders.
Facts last checked: 29 July 2026
At a glance
This is not really a rivalry. Sorted is superb, free, impartial education — budgeting worksheets, KiwiSaver guidance, retirement planners. What it is not is a transaction-level money app: nothing connects to your real spending. Many people use both: Sorted to learn and plan, Owdyn to run the week-to-week.
Side by side
| Owdyn | Sorted | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A budgeting app that tracks your real transactions daily | A free financial-education site with planners and calculators |
| Availability | Live now — sign up free today, no waitlist | Live, free, government-backed |
| Your real transactions | Yes — imported from any NZ bank via CSV, categorised automatically | No — you type numbers into planners |
| Safe to Spend | Safe to Spend is the headline number — balance minus upcoming bills, BNPL instalments, budgets and goal contributions | No equivalent — budgets are static snapshots |
| BNPL (Afterpay, Laybuy, Zip) | Afterpay, Laybuy and Zip tracking built in | Educational content only |
| Cost | Free plan always free; paid plans add forecasting and AI | Entirely free |
Where Sorted shines
- Genuinely impartial, high-quality NZ financial education — no product to sell you.
- Excellent KiwiSaver, mortgage and retirement planners.
- The right first stop for the big-picture questions.
Where Owdyn shines
- A budget that updates itself from your real transactions instead of a worksheet you fill in once.
- Safe to Spend tells you today’s answer, not a plan you wrote in January.
- Bills, subscriptions and BNPL are tracked continuously, with reminders and breakdowns.
Pick Sorted if you want free, impartial education and one-off planning tools — honestly, everyone should use Sorted for that.
Pick Owdyn if you want your actual spending tracked and one live number that tells you where you stand between paydays.
Good questions. Clear answers.
Is Sorted a budgeting app?
Sorted offers an excellent free budgeting planner, but it is a worksheet, not an app that tracks transactions. Nothing in Sorted connects to your real spending. Owdyn imports your actual bank transactions and keeps a live Safe-to-Spend number updated daily.
Should I use Owdyn or Sorted?
Both, genuinely. Sorted is the best free place in NZ to learn — KiwiSaver, mortgages, retirement. Owdyn is a daily-driver app for running your actual money. They complement rather than compete.
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No waitlist
Try the difference tonight.
Owdyn is live now — import your first bank statement in minutes and see your real Safe to Spend. Free during beta, no credit card, and your data stays yours.
Free during beta · No credit card · Works with every NZ bank via CSV