AI bill splitting apps in 2027: what the AI does

What do bill splitting apps mean by AI?

Two different features get called AI in bill splitting apps. The first is receipt scanning: you photograph a receipt and the app reads the store, the items, the tax and the total, so you do not type them. The second is an assistant: you ask a question in plain words or describe an expense, and the app answers or drafts it.

Most of what makes a bill splitter work is not AI. Dividing a total, netting balances and deciding who pays whom is arithmetic. In EvenOut, even the category suggested while you type an expense (Food, Groceries, Fuel and so on) is guessed on the phone from the description, with no AI.

Which apps scan receipts, and what does scanning cost?

As of October 2026, scanning is paid in EvenOut and Splitwise, free in Spliit, and free up to a point in Splitty and Splitkaro, and Tab is listed as free. EvenOut Pro adds an assistant to scanning, and Splitwise’s Pro pages list none.

App	What scanning does	Price
EvenOut	Pro: reads store, date, currency, items, subtotal, tax, tip and total; tax and tip follow each person’s items	$9.99 a month or $79.99 a year (US), which also covers the assistant; splitting by item by hand is free
Splitwise	Pro: scan and itemize; everyone in the group sees the result	Pro plan; Splitwise says the price varies by country and date; no assistant on its Pro pages
Spliit	AI receipt scan (Beta)	Free; donations pay for hosting and scanning
Splitty	Scan a receipt, assign items per person, send payment requests	3 free scans, then $9.99 a year or $24.99 lifetime; typing a bill by hand is always free
Splitkaro	Receipt OCR	3 free scans a month; Premium is $4 a month or $15 a year (US page), or ₹149 a month or ₹450 a year (India page)
Tab	Snap the receipt, tap your items to claim them, tax and tip calculated	Listed as free, with no in-app purchase listed

EvenOut Pro paid yearly is $79.99, about $6.67 a month, against $119.88 for twelve months at $9.99, a difference of $39.89. Charts, search and recurring expenses are free without Pro, and so is splitting by item by hand.

How does EvenOut’s receipt scan work?

You photograph the receipt, tell EvenOut who had what, and it splits tax and tip to match. Scanning is a Pro feature, so on a free account it shows a Pro tag and leads to the Pro page. With Pro, the steps are:

1. Open “Scan receipt” (from “Quick add”, the “Scan” button on “Add expense”, or Account) and choose “Take photo” or “Choose from library”.
2. EvenOut reads the store, date, currency, line items, subtotal, tax, tip, total and a suggested category.
3. Every item starts split equally. Tap an item to split it “Equally”, “Exact”, “Percent” or “Shares” among the people who had it.
4. Tax and tip are split in proportion to each person’s items.
5. Review Items, Tax, Tip and Total, then tap “Save itemized expense”.

Scanned items cannot be edited, EvenOut does not keep the receipt image, and scanning needs a connection.

Here is what step 4 does with numbers. Say Ana, Ben and Cy eat out. Ana has the $18.00 pasta, Ben the $26.50 salmon and Cy the $15.50 burger, and all three share a $12.00 starter. The subtotal is $72.00, the tax is $5.76 and the tip is $14.40, so the total is $92.16. Tax and tip come to $20.16, which is 28% of the subtotal, so each person pays their items plus 28%.

Person	Items	Tax and tip (28%)	Total
Ana	$22.00 ($18.00 + $4.00 starter share)	$6.16	$28.16
Ben	$30.50 ($26.50 + $4.00)	$8.54	$39.04
Cy	$19.50 ($15.50 + $4.00)	$5.46	$24.96
All three	$72.00	$20.16	$92.16

Splitting tax and tip by items rather than evenly matters when orders differ in price. An even split of $92.16 is $30.72 each, which is $8.32 too little for Ben and $5.76 too much for Cy. How to split a bill with tax and tip walks through the same steps by hand.

What does an assistant do that scanning does not?

Scanning turns one receipt photo into items, while an assistant answers questions about your balances and drafts entries from plain words. EvenOut’s assistant, “Ask EvenOut”, is a Pro feature. It answers questions about your groups, friends, expenses and balances, such as who owes whom, and it drafts expenses, payments, groups, members and friends. You can type, dictate by voice or attach a receipt.

Say you ask it to add a $64 grocery expense paid by you and split with Sam and Lee. It replies with a draft card that reads “I drafted this expense for you to review”, with an “Add expense” button and an “Edit draft” option. Nothing is saved until you tap the button. Every change needs your confirmation, and the assistant cannot edit or delete anything.

Scanning and the assistant draw on one shared usage budget, so both have limits.

Where does your receipt photo go?

A scan sends a picture of a receipt to a server, and the apps differ on what they say happens next.

• EvenOut. The photo goes to EvenOut’s server, which sends it to Google’s Gemini to be read, after stripping its location metadata.
• Splitwise. Its privacy statement, updated May 26th, 2026, says a receipt-scanning vendor may improve its OCR by training an algorithm on receipts you provide.
• Spliit. On the website, a scanned receipt picture goes to OpenAI, and so do typed titles used for category suggestions. If you self-host, the AI features need an OpenAI-compatible provider.
• Splitty. Its FAQ says it does not store receipts, while its Terms say images are uploaded to its servers and stored.

Entering the items by hand involves no scanning at all.

Do you need AI to split a bill?

No. Splitting by item is arithmetic. For the bill above, multiply each person’s items by 0.28 (the $5.76 tax plus $14.40 tip, divided by the $72.00 subtotal) and add the result to their items.

EvenOut’s free “By item” split covers this by hand. Add each line with chips for who had it, then add one more line per person for their share of tax and tip. The lines must add up to the expense total, and the picker shows “$X left to assign” until they do. It does not show per-person totals while you build it, so work out the tax and tip shares first. Splitty also says typing a bill in by hand is always free.

Scanning saves the most typing on long receipts with many people, while a short bill is quick to enter by hand.

How do you choose?

Choose by how often you split and what you want the app to do.

• Shared costs that run for weeks, with the occasional receipt. EvenOut puts scanning on top of a running balance, and its free plan has no daily expense limit and no ads. Splitwise’s free plan allows 4 expenses a day. The Splitwise Pro alternatives compare what each plan includes.
• You want to ask about balances in plain words. EvenOut Pro has an assistant, and Splitwise’s Pro pages list none.
• You would rather no photo left your phone. Type the items by hand, which is free in EvenOut and in Splitty.
• One restaurant bill, with friends who will not install anything. Splitty needs no account, friends do not need the app, and its first 3 scans are free. It is built for one-time splits, not recurring expenses.
• You want free scanning and accept a Beta feature. Spliit scans for free. It has no accounts, so as its privacy policy says, anyone who has a group’s link can read the group and change it.

EvenOut’s scanner and assistant are its only two paid parts, so everything else works without paying. For a wider list of scanners, see receipt splitter apps compared.