Subgrove vs Tilla: The Honest Comparison for 2026
App Comparisons · The Subgrove Team · · 4 min read
If you're comparing Subgrove vs Tilla, you've already filtered out the noisy half of this market: both are manual subscription trackers that never ask for your bank login, never read your transactions, and never run your money through an aggregator. So this isn't a privacy debate — both apps pass. It's a question about shape: one device or every device, one person or a household, one currency or several.
Let's be fair up front, because it matters: Tilla is a genuinely good Android app, and if its shape fits your life, it's the cheaper answer. Here's the honest breakdown of where each one wins.
Subgrove vs Tilla at a glance
| Tilla | Subgrove | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Android only (6.0+) | iPhone, Android, desktop (PWA) |
| Bank linking | No | No |
| Free tier | 5 subscriptions | 5 subscriptions |
| Paid price | $4.99 one-time (Premium unlock) | $1.99/mo, $10/yr, or $15 lifetime |
| Renewal reminders | Yes, customizable | Yes, push with per-subscription timing |
| Family / shared view | No | Yes |
| Sync across devices | Premium, via Google Drive/Dropbox | Built in — sign in anywhere |
| Backups on free tier | No | Your data lives in your account |
| Calendar view | No | Yes |
| Dark mode | Premium | Included |
Details as of this writing and subject to change. Tilla's listing showed an update as recent as June 2026.
Where Tilla wins
Let's not bury it. Tilla is cheaper: $4.99, once. The Premium unlock is a genuine one-time purchase tied to your Google account, and the developer, Pavlo Rekun, has publicly committed to staying ads-free on a pay-once model. If you want to spend five dollars and never think about it again, that's about as clean as pricing gets — our $15 lifetime costs three times as much.
It's also proper native Android craft — a simple, polished UI with a strong rating built up over years, and it's actively maintained, with the developer still shipping updates and replying to reviews in 2026. None of the "abandoned indie app" worry applies here.
If you're Android-only, tracking just for yourself, in one currency, on one device — Tilla might simply be the right answer, and you can stop reading here. We'd rather say that than manufacture reasons to switch.
Where Subgrove wins
The moment your situation outgrows "one Android phone, one person," Tilla's shape starts to pinch — and no price fixes shape:
- It only exists on Android. No iPhone app, no web version, no desktop. Subgrove is a PWA, so one list installs on iPhone and Android and your laptop. In a mixed-device household, an Android-only app structurally can't be the shared source of truth.
- No family or shared view. Streaming plans, cloud storage, the shared VPN — most households split something. Tilla has no multi-user features at all; Subgrove's family sharing puts everyone's renewals in one place. Here's how we think about split subscriptions.
- One honest total across currencies. Subgrove folds every currency you pay in into a single normalized monthly figure. Tilla lets you record subscriptions and change your default currency, but a converted, single-total view isn't something it advertises.
- Your list isn't trapped on the device. On Tilla's free tier there's no backup at all, and even Premium sync routes through your own Google Drive or Dropbox. Subgrove's data lives in your account — a lost phone means signing in, not starting over.
- Reminders that don't depend on your phone brand. Tilla's own FAQ acknowledges that battery "optimizations" on some devices (OPPO, Xiaomi, OnePlus and others) can interfere with how it works — a known Android tax on local reminder apps. Subgrove's push reminders are sent from our side, and making sure they fire is our job.
- A calendar view to see the month's renewals laid out, not just a list.
Both apps give you five subscriptions free, so trying the workflow costs nothing either way.
The honest trade-off
The plain version: Tilla is the better deal for a single-person, single-device, single-currency Android life — cheaper, native, pay-once. Subgrove is the better fit the moment a second device, a second person, or a second currency enters the picture, because those aren't features an Android-only, single-user app can add at any price — they're a different shape of product.
What neither of us will ever do is ask for your bank credentials. Whichever you pick, you've avoided the bank-linking trade-off the automated apps push — the same reasoning behind our privacy-first approach.
So which should you choose?
- Choose Tilla if you're Android-only, tracking solo, and want the cheapest polished pay-once tracker on the platform.
- Choose Subgrove if your subscriptions span an iPhone and an Android, a partner or family, or more than one currency — or you just want the list to survive your phone.
Still deciding? Add everything up first with the free subscription cost calculator — two minutes, no signup — or start your free five and see if the shape fits. And if you're weighing Tilla against the wider field, our Tilla alternatives guide covers it.