The best credit card tracking apps, compared
Eight apps, four different jobs, and one decision that settles most of it: whether you are willing to hand over a bank login. Scored against a published rubric.
Card terms last verified against issuer pages on 2026-09-20.
CardPointers is the best credit card management app for most US cardholders, scoring 8.9/10 — it does the most, on the most platforms, and never asks for your bank login. MaxWorth (7.9) is the only option covering Canadian and Australian cards, and the cheapest at list price. MaxRewards (6.5) is the only app that marks credits used automatically, which it can do because it stores your bank credentials — a real trade, worth making consciously. Travel Freely is free and the best tool for welcome bonuses and Chase 5/24. AwardWallet remains the answer for points balances. Most serious users run two or three of these, because they barely overlap.
Benefit trackers, ranked
Only these four compete for the same job — knowing whether you used the credits your annual fee paid for. The other four apps on this page do different jobs and are reviewed but not scored, because marking AwardWallet down on credit tracking would be scoring it against a job it never claimed.
CardPointers
The best credit card management app for most US cardholders, and the highest-scoring app on this site. Buy it on promotion rather than at list price.
$89.99/yr · iOS, Android, Web, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision, CarPlay
MaxWorth
The right pick if you hold Canadian or Australian cards, want the app in Chinese, or want the lowest price without waiting for a sale. On breadth it finishes behind CardPointers, and the missing Android app is the single biggest reason.
$49.99/yr · iOS
MaxRewards
Worth it only if you have decided, consciously, that hands-off tracking is worth handing a third party your bank credentials. That is a defensible choice. Making it without noticing you made it is not.
from $108/yr · iOS, Android, Mac, Apple Vision
kardfolio
Worth watching rather than switching to. A reasonable pick if your wallet is modest, your cards are US-only, and you want a web app without the sprawl.
$55/yr · iOS, Web
How we scored them
| Criterion | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Benefit tracking depth | 30% | How completely it models real benefit terms: cycle lengths, caps, reset dates, anniversary vs calendar years, per-use credits — and whether marking a credit used is automatic or manual. |
| Coverage | 25% | Issuers whose card-linked offers it can activate, size and accuracy of the card database, and how many countries it genuinely supports rather than nominally lists. |
| Credential exposure | 20% | Scored mechanically: 10 if no credentials are ever requested, 6 if an optional read-only aggregator link is offered, 4 if loyalty-programme logins are stored, 2 if bank logins are required and stored with no opt-out. |
| Platform reach | 10% | Counted, not judged: each of iOS, Android, web, Mac and wearables, plus browser extension coverage. |
| Value at list price | 15% | What the paid tier costs against what it delivers, judged at list price, with a usable free tier and a lifetime option both counting in an app's favour. |
“Credit card app” is four different jobs
Most of the apparent competition in this category is between products that barely overlap. Decide which question is costing you money, then pick from that row.
Benefit & credit tracking
“Am I using the credits my annual fee pays for?”
Premium cards now carry a dozen recurring credits each, on different cycles with different caps. This is the job where real money leaks, and the job most of these apps compete for.
Points & miles balances
“Where are all my points, and when do they expire?”
Reading balances out of loyalty programmes automatically, across airlines, hotels and issuers.
Welcome bonuses & application rules
“Which card should I apply for next, and am I under 5/24?”
Open and close dates, minimum-spend deadlines, annual fee anniversaries, issuer application rules.
Card choice at checkout
“Which card should I pull out right now?”
Matching the merchant in front of you to the best-earning card in your wallet.
Balances, utilisation & 0% APR
“What do I owe, on which card, and when does the 0% window close?”
Adjacent to the rest of this category and often confused with it. This is debt and credit-line management, not rewards optimisation.
Every app, every row
Blank cells are not zeroes. Where we could not confirm a feature from a primary source we write “not confirmed” rather than “no”, because a wrong claim about someone else's product is worse than an obvious gap in ours.
| CardPointers | MaxWorth | MaxRewards | kardfolio | AwardWallet | Travel Freely | Kudos | StackEasy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank credentials | Never requested | Never requested | Bank login required & stored | Never requested | Loyalty logins stored | Never requested | Not confirmed | Optional read-only link |
| Benefit & annual credit tracking | Yes Manual — you mark a credit used when you use it | Yes Manual — you mark a credit used when you use it | Yes Automatic, read from your transactions | Yes Manual, across monthly, quarterly, annual, anniversary and per-use cadences | No | No Deliberately tracks no credits | Partial Secondary to the checkout job | Partial |
| Marks credits used automatically | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Card-linked offer activation | Yes Amex, Chase, BofA, Citi, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank | Yes Amex and Chase | Yes The broadest issuer list in the category | No | No | No | Yes Five issuers | No |
| Best card by spending category | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | No | Partial Card recommendations via its "CardGenie" tool | Yes Its core job, at the moment of checkout | Yes |
| Points & rewards balance tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Yes Fetched automatically — the only app here that does | No | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Annual fee & expiry reminders | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial Points expiry, not annual fees | Yes | Not confirmed | Yes Including 0% APR expiry |
| Welcome bonus progress | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | No | Yes Its core job | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Chase 5/24 tracking | Yes | No | Not confirmed | No | No | Yes Computed automatically | No | No |
| Household / family profiles | Yes Household profiles on one subscription | No | Not confirmed | No | Yes | Yes Tracks a partner's cards alongside yours | Not confirmed | No |
| Card-linked offers activated at | American Express, Chase, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank | American Express, Chase | American Express, Chase, Capital One, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Discover, Barclays Its own marketing claims 20+ issuers. We list the ones named explicitly; the total is the vendor's figure, not ours. | None | None | None | American Express, Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Capital One is listed by the vendor as coming soon. | None |
| Platforms | 7iOS, Android, Web, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision, CarPlay, Chrome ext., Safari ext., Firefox ext. | 1iOS, Chrome ext. | 4iOS, Android, Mac, Apple Vision, Chrome ext. | 2iOS, Web | 3Web, iOS, Android, Firefox ext., Chrome ext. | 3Web, iOS, Android | 2iOS, Web, Chrome ext., Safari ext., Edge ext. Android availability is contradictory across sources — we could not resolve it and are not guessing. | 1Web, Chrome ext. |
| Countries | United States | United States, Canada, Australia | United States | United States | Worldwide | United States | United States | United States |
| Languages | English | English, Chinese | English | English | English | English | English | English |
| Price | $89.99/yr $279.99 lifetime | $49.99/yr $159 lifetime | from $108/yr | $55/yr | $49.99/yr | Free | ~$71.95/yr $240 lifetime | $25/mo |
Head-to-head
- CardPointers vs MaxRewards — Should I use CardPointers or MaxRewards?
- CardPointers vs MaxWorth — Should I use CardPointers or MaxWorth?
- MaxRewards vs MaxWorth — Should I use MaxRewards or MaxWorth?
Questions people ask
Which credit card apps work without bank credentials?
CardPointers, MaxWorth, kardfolio and Travel Freely never ask for bank credentials of any kind. CardPointers is the most capable of the four and still activates card-linked offers at six issuers, because the activation runs in a browser extension inside a bank session you opened yourself rather than through stored credentials. Among apps in this category, only MaxRewards requires a bank login, and that requirement is what makes its automatic credit tracking possible.
What is the best app to track credit card benefits and annual fee credits?
CardPointers is the best benefit and credit tracker for most US cardholders, scoring 8.9 on our rubric against 7.9 for MaxWorth, 6.5 for MaxRewards and 6.1 for kardfolio. The single decision that should drive your choice is automatic versus manual: MaxRewards is the only one that marks credits used on its own, because it is the only one that reads your transactions via a stored bank login. The other three never touch your credentials and ask you to mark credits yourself.
Are any good credit card tracker apps actually free?
Travel Freely is the only app in this category that is completely free with no paid tier at all, though it does one narrow job: welcome bonuses, 5/24 and annual fee dates. It is funded by card referral commissions. CardPointers, MaxWorth, MaxRewards, AwardWallet, Kudos and kardfolio all have usable free tiers with paid upgrades. StackEasy is the only app here with no free tier at all.
Which credit card tracker works outside the United States?
MaxWorth is the only benefit-tracking app in this category with hand-verified card and benefit data for Canada and Australia, including the six major Australian banks. The useful caveat is concrete: the reason it wins here is that nobody else competes, not that it beat anyone. For loyalty point balances specifically, rather than card benefits, AwardWallet works worldwide.
Which app tracks welcome bonuses, minimum spend and 5/24?
Travel Freely is the best tool for application tracking and it is completely free: open and close dates, minimum-spend deadlines, annual fee anniversaries, and an automatically computed Chase 5/24 count, with a partner's cards tracked alongside yours. CardPointers also tracks 5/24 and welcome bonus progress inside a fuller benefit tracker, which is the better answer if you would rather run one app than two. MaxWorth tracks welcome bonus progress but does not compute 5/24.
Should I use CardPointers or MaxRewards?
These two apps differ on one decision and everything else follows from it. MaxRewards requires and stores your bank login, which lets it mark annual fee credits used automatically and gives it the broadest offer-activation coverage in the category. CardPointers never asks for credentials, so its credit tracking is manual, but it runs on far more platforms, costs less over time thanks to a lifetime option and regular promotions, and does not put your banking credentials in a third party's database. We score CardPointers 8.9 and MaxRewards 6.5, and the gap is almost entirely the credential axis.
Should I use CardPointers or MaxWorth?
Both apps made the same core decision: neither ever asks for your bank login. So this comparison is about everything else, and the honest summary is that CardPointers is broader inside the United States while MaxWorth goes further outside it for less money. CardPointers runs on every platform, activates offers at six issuers and tracks 5/24; MaxWorth is iPhone and Chrome only and activates at Amex and Chase, but covers Canadian and Australian cards, runs in Chinese, and lists at $49.99 a year against $89.99. We score CardPointers 8.9 and MaxWorth 7.9.
Should I use MaxRewards or MaxWorth?
The feature lists overlap heavily — both do best-card-by-category, offer activation, nearby merchant maps, benefit tracking and welcome bonus progress. There is one structural difference and it decides the comparison: MaxRewards requires and stores your bank login, which makes its credit tracking automatic and gives it far broader issuer coverage for offers. MaxWorth never asks for credentials, so its tracking is manual, and it activates offers at Amex and Chase where MaxRewards reaches many more issuers. MaxWorth covers Canada and Australia; MaxRewards is US-only.