Track Your Spending Without Plaid or Bank Credentials

Why PDF-based tracking is more private, more secure, and works with any bank worldwide, including ones Plaid doesn't support.

6 min read·February 2026

What Is Plaid and Why Should You Care?

Plaid is a financial data aggregator that powers the "connect your bank" feature in most budget apps. When you link your account through Plaid, you're giving a third-party company ongoing access to your bank data: your balances, transactions, and sometimes even your identity information.

In 2024, Plaid settled a $58 million class-action lawsuit for collecting more financial data than users expected. The settlement highlighted a fundamental tension: convenience vs. privacy. Users wanted to track spending, not hand over their financial lives.

The Problems with Bank API Connections

Security risk. You share your bank username and password with a third party. If that third party is breached, your bank account is exposed.
Ongoing access. Once connected, Plaid continuously pulls your data in the background. You can't control when or what is accessed.
Connection failures. Bank API connections break constantly. Banks change their systems, block aggregators, or require re-authentication every few weeks.
Limited coverage. Plaid primarily supports US and Canadian banks. If you bank in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else, you're often out of luck.
Data collection. Aggregators may collect and retain more data than necessary, including spending patterns that can be sold or used for profiling.

The PDF Alternative

Every bank in the world provides PDF statements. They're a universal format that contains all the transaction data you need for budget tracking. Using PDFs instead of API connections solves every problem listed above:

Zero credentials shared. You download the PDF from your bank yourself. No third party touches your login.
One-time access. You upload a specific statement. There's no ongoing background connection to your bank.
Never breaks. PDFs don't depend on API uptime, bank compatibility lists, or authentication protocols.
Works everywhere. Any bank, any country. If it generates a PDF statement, it works.
You control the data. Upload only what you want to analyze. Delete it when you're done.

"But Isn't PDF Upload Less Convenient?"

This is the common objection, and it was valid five years ago. Today, not so much. Modern AI can parse a PDF statement in under 30 seconds, extracting every transaction with high accuracy. The total process:

Download your monthly PDF from your bank (you probably get email alerts for it already).
Drag and drop it into the app.
Review the AI's categorization. Correct 2-5 uncertain items.
Done. View your dashboard.

Total time: about 2 minutes per month. That's a small price for keeping your bank credentials to yourself.

Get Started Without Plaid

Spend & Invest is built from the ground up for PDF-based spending analysis. No Plaid, no bank login, no API connections. Upload your statement and get AI-powered categorization, spending dashboards, month-over-month trends, and natural language queries.

Interested in how it works under the hood? Read about AI bank statement analysis. Looking for Mint replacements? See the best Mint alternatives in 2026.