The notebook · August 5, 2026 · 4 min read
By The Reunion Fund team
Splitwise is very good at the job it does. It is not the job a reunion needs.
Splitwise splits costs after they're spent. If you need to collect money before a deposit is due, that's a different job. Here's the honest comparison.
Splitwise answers one question well: after all this money got spent, who owes whom?
For a shared holiday that is exactly right. Four people pay for different things across a week, and at the end somebody needs the arithmetic done. Splitwise does that arithmetic better than a spreadsheet and better than memory.
A reunion asks a different question, and it asks it earlier: how do we get money in hand before the venue deposit is due?
That is not a splitting problem. It is a collection problem, and the two need different tools.
The timing difference, which is the whole thing
| Splitwise | What a reunion needs | |
|---|---|---|
| When money moves | After it's spent | Before the deposit is due |
| Who fronts the cost | One person, then gets reimbursed | Ideally nobody |
| What it produces | A balance | A fund |
| Who can spend it | Whoever already paid | Whoever the committee agrees |
The consequence is concrete. With Splitwise, someone still has to put $1,400 on a personal card in March and wait to be made whole. Splitwise records that debt accurately and does nothing to prevent it, because preventing it was never its job.
That person is the reason reunions stop happening. The longer version of that argument is here.
Where Splitwise is genuinely better
Worth saying plainly, because a comparison page that finds no merit in the alternative isn't a comparison.
- Ongoing shared expenses. Roommates, a group trip, anything where costs accrue over time from multiple payers. Splitwise is built for exactly this and Reunion Fund is not.
- Simplifying debts across many people. Its settle-up algorithm reduces a tangle of small debts into the fewest transfers. That is genuinely clever and we do not do it.
- No event scaffolding needed. If you don't need a date, a guest list or an RSVP, Splitwise is lighter.
If your situation is "we all paid for various things and need to even up," stop here. Splitwise is the right answer.
Where it stops working for an event
It tracks, it does not collect. Settling up happens somewhere else: a payment app, a bank transfer. So you maintain the ledger in one place and the payment trail in another, and reconcile them yourself.
The free tier has narrowed. Splitwise has added limits to free usage over time, and Premium runs $7.99/month as of August 2026. Check their current terms; this has moved before.
There is no event context. No date, no venue, no guest list, no RSVP, no headcount. Those live in your head or another tool.
There is no approval step. Splitwise records what one person says happened. It cannot require that a second person agree before money moves, because it never holds the money in the first place.
An honest word on price
Reunion Fund Pro is $12/month or $120/year. Splitwise Premium is $7.99/month.
We are more expensive. Anyone telling you otherwise is comparing carelessly.
The case for paying more is that the two tools do different jobs, not that ours is a cheaper version of theirs. If splitting settled expenses is all you need, the cheaper tool is also the correct tool. Our free plan covers two active events with up to 30 guests each and three co-organizers, which is enough to run a real reunion without paying anything.
What Reunion Fund does instead
Not a better splitter. A different shape.
Money is collected up front, not reconciled afterwards. Contributions are charged directly to the organizer's own Stripe account. Reunion Fund is never in the flow of funds and never holds your group's money.
Releasing it takes two committee approvals, and the person who requested the money cannot cast one of them. If the system cannot confirm who the organizer is, the release fails rather than guessing.
The shared fund is off by default. Plenty of events never turn it on, and turning on money should be a decision somebody makes deliberately.
The event exists as an event. Committee, tasks, RSVPs, guest list, documents and chat sit in one place, so the headcount you hand a caterer isn't assembled by hand from a chat thread.
Which one to pick
Use Splitwise if costs are already being spent by several people and you need to even up afterwards.
Use Reunion Fund if money has to come in before a deposit goes out, more than one person is organizing, and you would rather no single person carried the fund in their personal account.
Use both if you're running a reunion and also splitting a hotel room with two friends while you're there. They genuinely don't overlap.
Reunion Fund gives a committee one shared workspace (tasks, RSVPs, budget, documents and chat) with an optional shared fund that pays contributions straight to the organizer through Stripe and takes two committee approvals to release. Free plan: two active events, up to 30 guests each, three co-organizers. Start planning at reunionfund.com.
Competitor details above were checked in August 2026. Pricing and feature sets change, so verify against their site before deciding.