Budget by paycheck — without buying a spreadsheet.
The free interactive version of the budget-by-paycheck templates people pay for on Etsy. Enter your take-home per check and your monthly bills; it maps every bill to the paycheck that covers it — using your real 2026 paydays, 3-check months included — and shows what's left over from each check.
Monthly bills
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
Enter a recent payday above and we'll map every bill to the paycheck that covers it.
Why budget per paycheck instead of per month?
Because your bills are monthly but your income isn't. On biweekly pay, a monthly budget can balance perfectly on paper while a specific check still can't cover the rent that's due two days after it lands. Budgeting per paycheck answers the only question that prevents overdrafts: which check pays which bill?
Two ways to do it:
- Bill mapping (what this tool shows): each bill is paid from the last check that arrives before its due date. No buffer needed — you just follow the map.
- Half-payment method: set aside half of every monthly bill from each check, so no single check takes the whole rent hit. Smoother, but you need roughly half a month of bills banked before starting.
Either way, the plan breaks in 3-paycheck months — in the best possible direction: one whole check with no bills mapped to it.
The bill list you just typed? Skycopia builds it from your bank.
The tedious part of every budget-by-paycheck system is keeping the bill list honest — the subscriptions you forgot don't make it onto the spreadsheet, but they still leave your account. Skycopia reads your bank history, detects every recurring charge automatically, and flags the ones worth cancelling.
The founder's own audit flagged $19,207/yr across 62 recurring charges — real numbers, July 2026.
Find my real bills freeFAQ
What is budgeting by paycheck?
Instead of one monthly budget, you make a mini-budget for each paycheck: this check covers rent and the car payment, the next covers utilities and groceries. It works because biweekly income doesn't line up with monthly bills — a monthly budget hides which specific check the rent has to come out of, which is exactly how overdrafts happen.
How does the calculator assign bills to paychecks?
Each bill goes to the last paycheck that arrives before its due date, computed from your real biweekly schedule — including months where you get three checks. Bills due before your first check of the month get flagged separately: that money has to be set aside from the previous month's final check.
What is the half-payment method?
An alternative to bill-to-check assignment: from every paycheck you set aside half of each monthly bill, so no single check absorbs the whole rent. It smooths cash flow but requires a buffer to start (you need half of everything banked before it clicks in). The mapping method this tool shows requires no buffer — it just tells you which check pays what.
Why use this instead of a budget-by-paycheck spreadsheet?
The spreadsheets sold on Etsy make you type in your paydays, your bills, and your due dates — then redo it when a 3-paycheck month arrives. This tool computes your actual 2026 paydays from one date, handles 3-check months automatically, and is free. And if you connect your bank to Skycopia, even the bill list fills itself in from your real recurring charges.
Is this free? Where does my data go?
Free, and nowhere: the calculator runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent or saved. A free Skycopia account is only needed if you want your real bills detected automatically from your bank history.
More free paycheck & subscription tools
Bills-to-paycheck mapper
The deep dive on the bill-vs-payday misalignment.
📅3 paycheck months in 2026
Enter your payday, see your exact 3-check months.
🗓️How many paychecks in 2026?
26 or 27 biweekly, 52 or 53 weekly — check your count.
🧮Subscription calculator
Total every recurring charge eating your checks.
🔍Find my subscriptions
The full playbook for surfacing every recurring charge.
🌿Mint alternative
A free replacement for Mint's budgeting, now that it's shut down.
Stop maintaining the spreadsheet. Start with the real numbers.
Skycopia already knows your recurring bills from your bank data — connect once and your budget-by-paycheck list stays accurate by itself.
Run your free audit →