Zenarios lets you make a financial plan without a bank connection or user account. You enter balances, income and spending; calculations run on your device, and the plan stays there. Local storage gives you control and makes keeping a recoverable backup your responsibility.
What you enter manually
Start with balances, recurring income and expenses, loans and the milestones you want to test. Typical living-cost and housing estimates help fill gaps, but the app does not fetch your transactions or reconcile accounts against a bank feed.
This works well when the question is forward-looking: can we buy a home, work less or retire at a different age? If you need automatic transaction categorization or a bank-connected spending ledger, that is a different workflow. The financial planning guide explains how a forecast uses the inputs.
Where a browser plan lives
The full web app stores plans in that browser’s local storage. A plan in one browser does not automatically appear in another browser, on another computer or in the iPhone app. There is no account holding a server copy.
Clearing website data, using a temporary private browsing session or losing a device can remove the only local copy. Browser storage can also be removed by the browser. Export a backup after setting up the plan and after important changes.
Ask calculates supported answers locally
Ask accepts plain-language questions such as when you could stop working or whether a planned purchase fits. It matches your wording to around 50 supported question types, then calculates an answer from your plan on the device.
Ask does not use an LLM. It does not send your question or financial plan to an AI provider, and it is not an open-ended financial adviser. If a question does not match a supported calculation, rephrase it or use the relevant decision tool. The feature reference describes this boundary explicitly.
Local financial data and usage statistics are separate
Zenarios’ financial plans, names, balances and typed questions are not sent to its server. The app can send anonymous usage statistics, such as which screens are used; you can turn those off in Settings → Privacy. Crash reports are off unless enabled. Read the privacy policy for the full scope, including website hosting.
Local storage is not a reason to assume every privacy or security feature. It does not by itself promise encryption at rest or protection from someone who can use your unlocked device. Review device access and where you keep exported files.
Choose the right export
A JSON export backs up plans and settings and can be restored. Use it to move the plan to another device. A CSV contains the year-by-year forecast for inspection in a spreadsheet. A PDF presents a plan, decision, comparison or stress test for reading or discussion, with an option to hide names.
CSV and PDF reports do not replace a restorable JSON backup. Hiding names in a PDF also does not remove its financial figures. Share reports and backups deliberately, using a destination you trust.
The convenience tradeoff
There is no automatic cross-device sync, bank refresh or account-based recovery. In return, starting a plan does not require handing over bank access or creating an online financial profile. The web app is free for now; check the App Store for the current local iPhone price.
Choose according to the workflow you need. The ProjectionLab comparison and Boldin comparison explain how other planning approaches differ, including capabilities Zenarios does not provide.
Common questions
Does Zenarios send my financial plan to an LLM?
No. Zenarios' Ask feature matches supported questions to calculations performed on your device. It does not use a language model, and your financial plan and typed questions are not sent to an AI provider.
How do I move my Zenarios plan to another device?
Export a JSON backup of plans and settings and restore it on the other device. There is no automatic cross-device sync or account-based recovery. CSV is a yearly forecast table and PDF is a report; neither replaces the JSON backup.
Explore Zenarios
See the Zenarios financial planning features, explore life scenarios and financial decisions, or read about how Zenarios calculates your forecast and how your financial data stays private.
Try Zenarios in your browserWritten by the maker of Zenarios, a software engineer. These guides explain planning concepts and the product; they are not a personalized financial recommendation. Illustrative calculations are not results from your plan.