HippoSplit: Splitting Money With Friends Should Feel Like Texting

Splitting a group expense usually goes one of two ways. Either someone becomes the unofficial treasurer, chasing receipts and typing numbers into a spreadsheet nobody else opens, or the app you use to fix that turns into its own chore — a login screen for every friend, a form for every expense, a settle-up that still ends in mental math.

HippoSplit skips both. You just keep talking to your group the way you already do, and the expenses show up.

What HippoSplit does

HippoSplit is a chat-first expense tracker for trips, roommates, families, couples, and everyday shared spending. Snap a receipt, drop a photo into the chat, or type a quick note — "lunch 24.50 split with Anna and Ben" — and HippoSplit turns it into a clean, organized expense with items, totals, categories, and who owes what.

Splits work equally, by item, by percentage, by shares, or by custom amount. It supports 150+ currencies with live exchange rates, handles recurring expenses like rent and subscriptions, and settles up in the fewest possible payments.

"We built HippoSplit because splitting money with friends should feel like sending a text, not filing an expense report. You snap a receipt or drop it into the chat, and everyone just sees a fair split. No spreadsheets, no chasing." — Kenji, founder

What's broken about the alternative

Existing splitting apps feel like accounting software wearing a friendly coat of paint. Someone has to open the app, find the group, add an expense in a form, categorize it, and confirm the split — a task that competes with just paying for lunch and moving on. Receipts get lost between the moment you pay and the moment someone remembers to log it. On a trip abroad, currencies pile up and nobody's sure what the real total is until everyone's already home.

And most of these tools force every friend through a signup wall before they can even see what they owe — which means half the group never actually joins, and the tracking falls apart the moment one person opts out.

HippoSplit keeps the group in the same conversation they'd be having anyway. A photo of a receipt posted into chat is logged automatically — items, totals, categories, who paid — the same way you'd send that photo to friends regardless. The numbers themselves are computed and verified by HippoSplit's own backend, not left to an AI's best guess, so what shows up is something the group can actually trust and edit if needed.

How it works

Add an expense by chatting — Type a quick note or drop a receipt photo into the group chat, and HippoSplit logs the items, total, category, and split automatically.

Flexible splitting — Equally, by item, by percentage, by shares, or by custom amount, so the split matches how the cost was actually shared.

150+ currencies, live rates — Mixed-currency trips just work, with exchange rates applied automatically, included on the free plan.

No signup required to join — Friends join with a link or QR code, including as guests with no account or app download.

Fewest-payment settle-ups — Balances close in the minimum number of transfers instead of everyone paying everyone back individually.

Private by default — Encryption at rest and in transit, no ads, no tracking, no data sales.

Who this is for

Travelers splitting costs on a trip abroad. Roommates and households managing shared bills. Couples and families tracking everyday spending together. Friend groups tired of the end-of-trip spreadsheet and the awkward "who owes what" conversation. It also works well for tracking personal spending on your own.

HippoSplit is a modern alternative to Splitwise, Tricount, and the group-expense spreadsheet, built to feel like chatting rather than filing a form. It's a web app that works well on mobile (add to your home screen); native iOS and Android apps are on the roadmap.

Pricing: free to start. Premium is $5.99/month or $49.99/year — only the group creator needs Premium for everyone in the group to get unlimited AI scanning.

Try it

Try HippoSplit — or see the HippoSplit listing on ShipBoost for category context.