MottaSense
Mottainai · 勿体無い

Make sense of recurring costs.

Subscriptions, memberships, auto-renewals — they pile up quietly.

MottaSense brings every recurring charge into one calm view, so you can see what you're paying for, decide what still makes sense, and stop what doesn't. No bank login. No upsells. Just clarity. Drop in a PDF or CSV statement and the app proposes the subscriptions for you to keep, edit, or discard.

Private beta — no spam, one email at launch.

もったいない

Mottainai is a Japanese phrase often translated as “What a waste!”

A deep sense of regret over wasting resources — and a respectful, sustainable attitude toward the things we own, the time we spend, and the money that quietly leaves our accounts each month.

A 700-year-old idea about waste → a quiet tool for your wallet.

See

Every subscription, membership, and recurring charge in one calm list — including the ones you'd forgotten about.

Sense

Spot what's quietly piling up. Understand what each renewal really costs you per year, not just per month.

Keep

Hold onto the recurring costs that still make sense. Pre-renewal alerts so nothing surprises you.

Stop

Cancel what no longer makes sense — with per-merchant playbooks that link straight to the cancel flow.

How it works

Three small steps. No bank login.

Privacy-first by design. Your data stays on your iPhone and syncs through your private iCloud — never our servers.

Step 1
Drop in a statement

Upload a PDF or CSV of any account. MottaSense parses it on-device and proposes recurring charges as subscription candidates — you accept, edit, or discard each one.

Step 2
Get pre-renewal alerts

Three calm reminders per renewal: 7 days, 3 days, and the day-of. Decide before you're charged, not after.

Step 3
Keep what matters

A quiet running total of what you've reclaimed by stopping subscriptions that no longer made sense. No streaks, no badges — just clarity.

Media files

Logos, icons, screenshots, brand assets.

Every visual asset lives here as it gets produced. Design sprint output (Week 0) will populate the pending tiles.

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Reading /Resources folder
Figma design

The design system, live.

Once Week 0 ships, this section embeds the working Figma file (Foundations / Components / Screens / Flows) directly.

Embed pending

The Figma file lands here after Week 0 design sprint. Until then, the design system is documented in §8 and §16 of the blueprint, including the locked aiiro indigo palette, type scale, and the 24-component starter list.

When ready, paste:
<iframe src="https://www.figma.com/embed?embed_host=mottasense&url=YOUR_FIGMA_FILE_URL"></iframe>

Build blueprint

Ten weeks to the App Store.

Tick off as you ship. Progress persists in your browser via localStorage — no account, no server. Reset anytime.

Overall progress 0 / 0 complete
Tracking persists locally. Clearing browser data resets progress.
Week 0 — Design sprint 5 days · brand, logo, icon, tokens, hero screens, components
0 / 5 ▾
Phase 1 (Week 1) — Foundations Xcode project, SwiftData, CloudKit, Supabase catalog seed
0 / 5 ▾
Phase 2 (Week 2) — Alerts + Widgets Pre-renewal alerts, Home + Lock Screen widgets, first TestFlight internal
0 / 4 ▾
Phase 3 (Week 3) — Snap-to-add VisionKit OCR + heuristic parser + review sheet
0 / 4 ▾
Phase 3.5 (Week 4) — Bank-statement import PDF / CSV / OFX / QIF · the headline differentiator
0 / 7 ▾
Phase 4 (Week 5) — Cancellation + Reclaimed Per-merchant playbooks, Reclaimed ledger, share card
0 / 3 ▾
Phase 5 (Week 6) — Household + Bobby-counter polish CKShare + 7 §6.10 features that close every documented Bobby gap
0 / 7 ▾
Phase 6 (Week 7) — Multi-currency + Pro AI + StoreKit FX, Foundation Models extraction, paywall
0 / 4 ▾
Phase 7 (Week 8) — Onboarding, Settings, Polish Empty/error/offline states, accessibility, localization scaffolding
0 / 5 ▾
Phase 8 (Week 9) — QA + App Store launch External beta, App Store submission
0 / 5 ▾
Parallel — Owner tasks (non-engineering) LLC, Apple Developer enrollment, domain, legal templates
0 / 6 ▾
Research

Why this app, why now.

Pulled from the App Research archive. Confidence score, sourced market signals, and the wedge against Bobby + Rocket Money.

MottaSense (formerly LibraVault / Shed)

Confidence · 8.4

Privacy-first subscription tracker with AI receipt capture, multi-window pre-renewal alerts, PDF/CSV bank-statement import, and a calm "reclaimed" ledger. The closest legal substitute for Plaid auto-detection without giving up bank credentials.

Problem

Average US household spends ~$273/mo on subscriptions but estimates ~$111 — a $1,944/yr blind spot. 42% have forgotten at least one active subscription; 54.9% knowingly hold an unused one. Existing tools force a brutal trade: hand bank credentials to Rocket Money, or use Bobby (manual-only, no import, no household). Apple's native Subscriptions only sees App Store charges.

Wedge

A privacy-first iOS tracker that imports in 5 seconds without bank linking. Drop a PDF/CSV statement → on-device classifier surfaces recurring charges → user accepts/edits/discards. Multi-window pre-renewal alerts (T-7/T-3/T-0) replace post-charge regret. Per-merchant cancellation playbooks deep-link straight into the cancel flow. Household sharing free (Bobby gates or skips it).

Target user

Privacy-conscious iOS users (25–45) who refuse to give bank credentials to Plaid. Couples and families coordinating shared subscriptions. "Subscription audit" intent users searching after a credit-card statement shock. Indie hackers and freelancers tracking 15+ SaaS tools across personal and business cards.

Monetization

Free: 8 subs, manual entry, basic alerts, 1 household member, heuristic statement scan. Pro: $3.99/mo or $24.99/yr — unlimited, AI extraction (supported devices), multi-window alerts, multi-currency, unlimited household, Reclaimed ledger, Wallet passes, PDF/CSV/OFX/QIF import. Lifetime: $59.99 one-time — "the subscription tracker you don't have to subscribe to."

Launch angle

ASO on "subscription tracker", "Bobby alternative", "Rocket Money without bank". TikTok/Reels: calm "audit my subscriptions" format. r/personalfinance + r/iOSProgramming AMAs about the on-device LLM stack. Product Hunt positioning: "the subscription tracker that doesn't want your bank login."

Risks

Bobby owns the minimalist niche (4.7★, ~8k reviews, lifetime SKU). Rocket Money outspends on paid acquisition. Apple could ship inbox-receipt detection in iOS 19. Low between-renewal engagement is the genre's retention killer — Reclaimed ledger + Spaces + household activity are the durable counters; gamification is anti-brand and explicitly excluded.

Evidence notes — 9 sources
  • Spend gap: ~$273/mo actual vs. ~$111 perceived — multiple 2026 subscription-spending studies
  • 42% of consumers have forgotten at least one active subscription; 54.9% hold an unused one each month
  • 41% report subscription fatigue; average household streaming subs dropped from 4.1 (2024) to 2.8 (2025) — cancellation is now frequent, not rare
  • Bobby (4.7★, ~8k iOS reviews) explicitly markets "no CSV, no AI extraction, no Gmail sync, no cancel guides" — every one is a documented gap; data-loss reports of "app wouldn't open → reinstall → everything gone" appear in App Store reviews
  • Rocket Money complaints (2026 reviews and roundups): aggressive upsells, Plaid bank-link friction; "Rocket Money alternative" is its own search term
  • ReSubs positions on privacy + AI extraction but is web-first; no dominant native iOS competitor combines AI capture + household + clean monetization
  • SubTracky and similar low-rated entries show recent paywall-deception 1★ reviews — trust is itself an open positioning lane
  • Apple's native Subscriptions only covers App Store auto-renewals; Netflix, Notion, Substack, NYT, ChatGPT Plus, gym memberships are invisible to it
  • r/personalfinance "audit my subscriptions" threads are a recurring high-engagement format — strong organic content fit
View in App Research archive →