01 · Side by side
FIYR vs Origin at a glance
| Feature | FIYR | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $8/month, or $76.80/year ($6.40/month). One plan with every feature. | $12.99/month, or $99/year (about $8/month). No free tier. CFP sessions are $119 each and a tax-pro review is $189. |
| Free trial | 30 days with every feature. No charge until the trial ends. | 7 days, included with either plan. |
| Platforms | Web app for desktop and mobile browsers. | iPhone, iPad, Android, a Mac app and web — the widest device coverage here. |
| Budgeting style | Monthly category budgets, with reusable budget templates. | Build a personalized budget in the app, alongside tracking and an AI assistant. |
| Bank sync | Plaid. Manual accounts and transactions too. | Links your accounts to see every transaction in one place. |
| Net worth | Yes: linked accounts plus manual assets (home, vehicles, crypto) and debts. | Yes, tracked across your linked accounts. |
| FIRE / retirement projection | Yes, on every plan: your FIRE date with Monte Carlo odds, side-by-side scenarios, taxes by account type and life events, from your real spending and balances. | Scenario planning and forecasting are referenced, through a linked Forecasting tool. No dedicated FIRE-date projection is named on its site. |
| Investments | Investment account balances through Plaid. No per-holding performance view. | Track your portfolio and monitor performance in one place. |
| Shared / household | One login per account. Transactions can be tagged as yours, your partner’s or shared. | Has marketed couples and family features before; current household sharing is not detailed on its site. |
| Import & export | CSV export of transactions. CSV import with column and category mapping. Imports a full ProjectionLab plan as a scenario. | CSV import and export are not documented on its site. |
02 · Why switch
Why people look for a Origin alternative
Origin is a capable all-in-one app, and the reasons people look for an alternative are usually about focus and depth rather than breadth:
You want the FIRE date to be the point
Origin bundles budgeting, investing, tax filing and an AI advisor; a financial independence date is one job among many. FIYR is built around that date and shows how your spending and savings move it, with Monte Carlo odds and side-by-side scenarios from your linked accounts.
You want deep, account-level tax and scenario modeling
Origin offers tax filing and some forecasting. FIYR centers on projection depth: taxes modeled by account type, life events, and scenarios you can compare side by side, all fed by your real balances.
Price
Origin is $99 a year or $12.99 a month, and its CFP sessions are $119 each. FIYR is $76.80 a year or $8 a month, with the FIRE projection, budgets, net worth and bank sync all on the one plan.
03 · The honest part
When Origin is the better choice
Origin is a genuinely broad product, and for some people it is the better choice. Pick Origin if:
- You want a human advisor you can book. Origin’s standout is on-demand sessions with a certified financial planner, booked in the app at $119 each. FIYR has no human-advisor layer; it is software you run yourself.
- You want tax filing and estate basics in one app. Origin bundles tax filing, a basic estate-planning will for members and an AI assistant alongside budgeting and investing. FIYR focuses on tracking, budgets, net worth and your FIRE date.
- You want the widest device coverage. Origin runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, a Mac app and the web. FIYR runs in the browser on desktop and phones.
- You track investments closely. Origin tracks your portfolio and monitors performance. FIYR tracks investment account balances and uses them in your net worth and FIRE date, without a per-holding performance view.
04 · Moving over
How to switch from Origin to FIYR
Origin does not document a CSV export on its site, so check the app before counting on moving history. Either way, linking your accounts to FIYR brings recent transactions over on their own.
- Export your data from Origin. Origin does not document a CSV export on its site, so open the app and look for an export or data-download option first. If you can get your transactions as a CSV file, that is the one FIYR imports.
- Start a FIYR trial and link your accounts. Accounts connect through Plaid. FIYR asks for up to two years of transaction history; how much arrives depends on your bank.
- Import only the older history. In Transactions, open the ⋯ menu and choose Import CSV. Map the date, name, amount and category columns, then match each old category to a FIYR one. Trim the file to dates before your linked history starts, or the overlap will show up twice. Amounts must be plain numbers, and FIYR treats positive amounts as spending and negative amounts as money coming in, so flip the sign on a column that uses the opposite convention.
- Set up categories and rules. Rules recategorize new transactions automatically, so the cleanup you do once keeps paying off.
- Add what Plaid can’t see. Enter your home, vehicles, crypto and any loans as manual assets and liabilities so your net worth is complete. Then open the FIRE view to see the date your real numbers point to.
Origin categories will not map one to one onto FIYR’s, so expect a few minutes of category mapping. If you cannot export from Origin, you can still start fresh: your linked accounts bring up to two years of history on their own.
05 · Keep reading