Capi vs Mobills in 2026: an honest comparison

By Daniil Kozin · ex-banker · Florianópolis

Mobills is Brazil's best-known budgeting app and it costs less: R$ 99.90 per year on the official site in July 2026, about US$ 20. Capi lives in Telegram, logs expenses by voice, text or receipt photo, handles multiple currencies and has a couples plan. If your money is 100% in reais and you track alone, Mobills wins on price. If you log in three seconds, share a household or cross currencies, Capi wins.

The obvious disclosure first: I build Capi. This comparison carries declared interest, and the way I keep it useful is by naming where Mobills wins, with the price and the feature spelled out. I live in Brazil, my wife and I run our household through the thing I build, and Mobills is the app my Brazilian friends already have installed when they ask me why Capi exists. If you want the whole category ranked before this head-to-head, start with the best money tracker of 2026.

Capi or Mobills: which should you choose in 2026?

Choose Mobills if you want Brazil's most mature finance app: the 10 million users it reports, the country's most polished credit card dashboard, and a subscription of R$ 99.90 per year. Choose Capi if you prefer to log expenses in Telegram by voice or photo, live across more than one currency, split a household with a partner, or want to see how much installment debt waits in November. Both have free plans, no card required.

The deeper difference is a difference of bets. Mobills bets you will open a dedicated app, study charts and manage cards on a dashboard. Capi bets you will open no app at all, so capture has to happen where you already are: inside Telegram, between two messages, with a five-second voice note. They are two answers to the same question: how do you keep logging past month three?

How much does each app cost per year?

Mobills Premium was listed at R$ 99.90 per year on the official pricing page in July 2026, about US$ 20 at R$ 5.12 per dollar, with a higher full price at checkout and frequent coupons. Capi Core costs $69.90 per year, roughly R$ 358, and Capi Together, the couples plan, $99 per year, around R$ 507. On raw price for one person living in Brazil, Mobills is clearly cheaper.

One pricing caveat for each side. For Mobills: the number you see depends on the campaign, the full checkout price is higher than the R$ 99.90 headline, and the PRO plan with an AI assistant on WhatsApp only shows its price at checkout. For Capi: the subscription is in dollars, so the price in reais moves with the exchange rate and international purchases from Brazil carry IOF tax. The full ten-app cost ladder over three years is in what is the cheapest budget app in 2026.

Where does Mobills beat Capi?

In four places that matter: price in reais with zero currency risk, the most complete credit card dashboard in Brazil (limits, faturas and due dates per card), automatic sync with Nubank and Santander, and the polish of a product with years of iteration behind it. If you juggle three Brazilian credit cards and want them all on one visual panel, Mobills is the most mature product in the country for that job.

It is worth being specific, because this is where founder comparisons usually turn into ads. In my test, the Mobills card panel showed open fatura, closed fatura, available limit and due-date reminders per card, at a level of detail Capi does not attempt. The Nubank and Santander sync, even though each transaction asks for a confirmation tap, removes typing for people whose whole life runs through those two banks. And paying in reais by boleto, with no exchange rate surprise, is a real advantage in a year where the dollar has wandered between R$ 5.10 and R$ 5.22.

Where does Capi beat Mobills?

On capture speed, and on three features Mobills does not offer: native multi-currency, a couples plan with per-person attribution, and installment projection to the final payment. In Capi you send a voice note, a receipt photo or a short text in Telegram and the expense is logged in seconds, in any currency, without opening an app. CSV or PDF statements from 11 Brazilian banks import with automatic deduplication.

The core argument is the cheapest-gesture argument. Every expense tracker dies the same death: the person stops logging. Mobills answers with two-bank sync and a beautiful app; Capi answers by removing the app from the path. Saying "pharmacy, fifty-four ninety on credit" into Telegram takes less time than unlocking the phone, finding an icon, waiting for a splash screen and filling a form. For spending that never touches a syncable bank, the street market, parking, the barbecue you split over Pix, that friction gap decides whether the month gets recorded at all. And when your month involves dollars, euros or pesos, Capi logs in the original currency and totals in your main one, the scenario I documented in the 7-currency, 30-day test.

How does each handle credit cards and installments?

Mobills has the better card dashboard: fatura per card, limit, due date, and this month's installments all visible. Capi has the better answer to the question that actually hurts: "how much installment debt do I still owe, and until when?". It sums everything you bought in installments and projects the commitment month by month to the last payment, so you can see November already starts R$ 840 committed before you spend anything new.

Installment buying is the most Brazilian money problem there is, and both apps take it seriously in different ways. In Mobills, each parcela lands inside the right card's fatura in the right month, and the panel answers "what is coming on August's bill?". What I did not find when I tested it was the forward sum: how much of my future is already committed in October, November, December. That projection is exactly what Capi builds, and the full reasoning lives in the Portuguese post on installment projection through December. It is also the feature I compare against US apps in Capi vs Monarch.

Which one works better for couples?

Capi, because couples are an actual plan there: Together costs $99 per year for two people, every expense is born tagged with who spent it, and the #mine flag keeps private purchases out of the shared view. Mobills has no couples plan; the usual workarounds are sharing one login, which merges you into one person, or paying for two separate subscriptions (R$ 199.80/year) that never talk to each other.

Here is the honest price math again: two Mobills subscriptions still cost less than one Capi Together at today's exchange rate. What they cannot produce is the shared picture: who spent what, what each person put in this month, household costs separated from personal ones. Mobills PRO lets you add a second WhatsApp number to the same account, which solves two-handed logging, but everything falls into one undifferentiated pot. If the recurring argument in your house is "where did this month go", per-person attribution is the feature that changes the conversation, and the wider couples comparison against Monarch and Honeydue is in the $99 couples budget app.

Is paying in dollars worth it if you live in Brazil?

Only if a feature no Brazilian app offers solves a problem you actually have. A dollar subscription carries IOF tax and exchange rate drift: Capi Core's $69.90 is about R$ 358 today and could be R$ 380 at renewal. If your life is entirely in reais and Mobills covers you, paying in dollars is hard to justify. Multi-currency, couples mode and voice capture are the three reasons that justify it.

That test, a feature that solves a real problem against a feature that decorates a screen, cuts both ways. I have watched people pay for a national app's Premium for reports they never opened, and I have watched people pay Capi in dollars while living in one currency with a cat. Both free plans exist for exactly this: two weeks of honest logging in each costs nothing and settles the question better than my opinion can. And if you want to close the triangle with Capi's nearest Telegram rival, that one is in Capi vs Moneko.

Frequently asked questions about Capi vs Mobills

Is Mobills available in English?

Mobills is built for Brazil: the product, support and content are in Portuguese, prices are in reais, and the credit card tools assume Brazilian banks and billing cycles. There is no full English version of the experience. Capi works in seven languages including English and Portuguese, which is one reason expats in Brazil and Brazilians abroad end up comparing the two.

Does Mobills sync with banks automatically?

Partially. The automatic sync Mobills advertises covers Nubank and Santander, and each synced transaction still asks for a confirmation tap inside the app. Other banks are manual entry or import. Capi does not do automatic bank sync at all: it bets on voice, text and photo capture in Telegram, plus CSV and PDF statement uploads with automatic deduplication for 11 Brazilian banks.

How much does Mobills cost?

The official pricing page listed Mobills Premium at R$ 99.90 per year in July 2026, about US$ 20 at an exchange rate of R$ 5.12 per dollar. The full checkout price is higher and discount coupons are frequent, so the number you see can vary. There is also a more limited free plan with manual entry, and a PRO plan with an AI assistant on WhatsApp priced at checkout.

How much does Capi cost?

Capi is free for up to 30 transactions per month in any currency. Capi Core costs $9.90 per month or $69.90 per year and removes the limit while adding statement uploads and insights. Capi Together, the couples plan, costs $99 per year for the whole household. Every plan handles multiple currencies natively, converted into the main currency you choose.

Can I use Capi and Mobills together?

Yes, and one split makes sense: Mobills as the credit card dashboard for a life in reais, Capi as the pocket logger in Telegram and the shared view for a couple. In practice most people get tired of feeding two apps and keep whichever one costs less effort per transaction. Both have free plans, so two weeks of real logging in each will answer the question better than any comparison post.