PacePRIVATE FINANCE, AT YOUR PACE
Pace is a free, private personal finance app that combines envelope-based budgeting with your real balance, upcoming expenses, and next income — then turns it all into one calm number: what you can safely spend today.
Free to download and use on macOS + Windows.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE BIG NUMBER
That balance does not know rent is due next week, a €300 repair is coming, groceries still need buying, or payday is 14 days away.
Pace turns the raw number into something you can use today.
HOW PACE WORKS
Pace models what is still ahead of you, not just what has already happened.
Reconciled today
Rent, utilities, subscriptions
Laptop repair on 18 Aug
Flexible spending until payday
Next €2,800 income on 27 Aug
€596.40 of spendable runway
A conceptual example using one fictional month. Pace's actual forecast also follows dates, paid and received states, reconciliations, and month boundaries.
THE MONTHLY PLAN
The plan describes your reality. Your daily Pace tells you what that reality means right now.
Use an envelope-based approach for the categories that suit you — groceries, dining out, travel, saving goals, or anything else — without forcing every month into the same shape.
Set the normal rhythm for salary or a retainer, then add refunds, gifts, bonuses, or sales only to the month where they happen.
Keep rent and utilities predictable. Give a repair, trip, ticket, or exceptional purchase its own due date and amount — in this month only.
BUILT AROUND REAL LIFE
Salary repeats. Rent repeats. But life doesn't. Keep the predictable things predictable, add the exception once, and let Pace recalculate around what actually happened.
Add a €300 one-time repair. It affects August, not September.
Add it once and move the date if it arrives later than expected.
Adjust this occurrence. Your normal monthly rhythm stays intact.
A CALMER WAY TO LOOK AHEAD
See what you can safely spend before the next income, after Pace accounts for what is still ahead.
Underspend or overspend and the difference follows you into the next month — positive or negative.
Set the usual income rhythm once, then adjust an individual payment when the date or amount changes.
Make room for a repair, trip, ticket, or exceptional purchase without pretending it repeats every month.
Reconcile against your real bank balance and forecast forward without counting earlier activity twice.
Follow envelope projections, upcoming cash flow, and projected closing cash before the month gets there.
PRIVATE BY ARCHITECTURE
Pace has no account, bank credentials, cloud finance database, advertising, or analytics inside the desktop app. Your plan lives in a local SQLite database and works offline.
The anonymous check goes to GitHub Releases. No financial data is included.
THE PRACTICAL MIDDLE GROUND
Connected finance apps vary widely. This compares common approaches, not every product.
| Approach | Pace | Spreadsheet | Typical connected app |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account required | No | No | Often |
| Bank connection | Never | No | Usually |
| Finance data stored locally | Yes | Yes | Varies |
| Safe-to-spend pace | Built in | Manual formula | Varies |
| Recurring income and bills | Built in | Manual setup | Usually |
| One-time monthly planning | Built in | Manual setup | Varies |
| Rollover envelopes | Positive + negative | Manual formula | Varies |
| Subscription | No | No | Often |
WHY PACE EXISTS
I originally started Pace because I wanted to explore Go and build something I'd actually use. I didn't want another financial account, another subscription, or another company sitting between me and my own numbers.
Eventually I noticed I was opening Pace every week. At that point, it felt worth sharing.
WHAT'S NEW IN PACE
This release makes Pace easier to personalize and clearer when distributing the money available for the month.
Read the release notesQUESTIONS, ANSWERED
The short version: your plan stays yours, even if you stop using Pace.
Yes. Pace is free to download and use on macOS and Windows. There is no subscription or paid account.
No. You enter and reconcile your real balance yourself, so Pace never needs your bank credentials or automatic transaction access.
In a local SQLite database on your computer. Pace has no cloud finance database and works offline.
Pace is independently distributed and the installers are not yet platform code-signed. macOS or Windows may therefore ask you to confirm the first launch. The macOS download page explains the safe installation steps.
Pace anonymously checks the public GitHub Releases repository when it opens. If you choose to update, it downloads the installer and verifies its published SHA-256 checksum before opening it.
Yes. You can export a complete, versioned JSON backup of every month and restore it later. Restores are validated before replacing current data.
Your financial data already lives on your device, and Pace supports complete portable backups. Your budget does not depend on Pace operating a cloud service.