You check your phone 144 times a day. A widget turns every one of those checks into a micro-nudge about your money, with zero extra effort. The trick is picking widgets that inform you, not widgets that decorate the screen. Here are the three that matter and how Plan! covers every surface.

The three widgets that actually help

  • Balance widget. Your total across all accounts in home currency. One number, updated hourly. Shows you if you crossed zero on a bad week before you swipe to Instagram.
  • Top categories widget. The three expense categories closest to their limit, with filling bars. This is the "slow down on dining" widget.
  • Goal progress widget. One or two Savings goals with filling rings. Keeps emergency fund and car fund visible every day; dopamine for free.

Widgets that do not help: a full transaction list (too small to read), a line chart of your last 30 days (too noisy), static text about "your financial health score" (meaningless).

Lock screen widgets changed the game

Since iOS 16, lock-screen widgets are the most-seen surface on your phone. They are glanceable, they work on StandBy mode, and they are the first thing your eyes hit when you pick up your phone at 7 a.m. Plan! ships three lock-screen widgets: inline (one line of text like "Dining: $340/$400"), circular (percent used as a ring), rectangular (one goal with bar and amount). Pick one; put it above the time.

Plan!'s widget lineup

Plan! supports the full iOS widget family: small (2x2), medium (4x2), large (4x4), and Extra Large on iPad. Plus the three lock-screen kinds. Each is configurable: you choose which goal or category it displays, and it updates in under a second after every logged transaction.

  1. Long-press your home screen, tap the plus, search Plan!.
  2. Pick Small for a single goal bar, Medium for three categories side by side, Large for the full dashboard.
  3. Tap "Add Widget", then tap the widget to configure which goals it shows.
  4. For lock screen: long-press the lock screen, tap Customize, choose Plan! inline or circular.
  5. StandBy mode: Plan! ships a nightstand layout that shows your total plus the top 3 categories.
A widget you see 144 times a day does more work than a notification you swipe away once.

Which goal to pin

The golden rule of personal-finance widgets: pin the category you are trying to bend, not the one you are proud of. If dining is eating your budget, pin dining. If you are saving for a wedding, pin the wedding ring. Every time you unlock your phone, the widget either nudges a behaviour or rewards a behaviour. Both work. Decoration does not.

Interactive widgets in iOS 17+

Widgets on iOS 17 and later can trigger actions without opening the app. Plan!'s Medium widget has a "+ Add" button that lets you log a quick expense straight from the home screen. One tap to open, one tap to pick amount, done in under three seconds without leaving your icon grid. No other major budget app matched this in our April 2026 test.

Checklist

  1. Pick one goal you are actively trying to bend.
  2. Add the Plan! Medium widget on page 1 of your home screen.
  3. Add a Plan! lock-screen widget above the clock.
  4. Enable StandBy mode with Plan!'s nightstand layout.
  5. Review after one week; swap widget contents if behaviour hasn't shifted.

The best widget is the one that changes what you do next. Plan! ships every size iOS supports, plus lock-screen, StandBy and interactive add.