Plain text and local-first

Beancount.io

A hosted Beancount service where each ledger is a git repository, with a commercial MCP server that runs BQL queries, previews edits as dry runs and lands every write as a git commit.

Scope: Hosts plain-text Beancount ledgers with Fava, git access over SSH, Plaid bank sync, AI import of statements and receipts, managed prices, budgets, mobile apps and an AI assistant; also ships bea, an open-source local CLI that works without an account. It is a ledger for personal, household, freelance and small-business books, not a layer that reads other accounting systems. The hosted service is closed and cloud-only; the format and tools around it are open.
Backing: Operated by Stargately, Inc.; AI requests routed through bex.co / BlockEden. No funding rounds found [unverified].
Serves: consumer, freelancer, smb, accountants, developers
Covers: ledger, bank, documents, personal, reporting, crypto
To ownpurse: Neighbour. The nearest neighbour in the agent-native, plain-text space: it gives agents a ledger with git as its audit log, while ownpurse sits beside existing ledgers, keeps a local fact log of what each source said, and enforces approval on writes to a source. It competes for the same developer and personal-finance users who want their books readable by agents.

What it is

Beancount.io is a hosted service for Beancount, Martin Blais’s open-source plain-text double-entry engine. It is run by Stargately, Inc., according to its terms. Each ledger is a set of .beancount files in a private git repository, with hosted Fava, mobile apps, Plaid bank sync, AI import, managed prices and an AI assistant on top. Since June 2026 it has also sold itself as a ledger for AI agents.

How it works

You can clone the ledger over SSH, edit it in any editor and push, or push it to GitHub or your own server. Bank lines from Plaid sync daily into staging and are reviewed before they are committed. The open-source bea CLI (quick start) runs local ledgers with no account, with JSON output and documented exit codes; version 0.2.0 (16 September 2026) bundles the toolchain pinned to Beancount 3.2.3.

Data and access

The MCP server is one command (claude mcp add --transport http beancount https://beancount.io/api-gateway/mcp) followed by an OAuth 2.1 sign-in where you approve one ledger or all of them. Its manifest lists about 31 tools: BQL queries (plain or typed tables), ledger and entry context, file reads, entry-level edits addressed by hash, receipt and file parsing, bank import, pull requests, prices, API keys, collaborators and account deletion. The OpenAPI document also lists GraphQL, scoped API keys with read, write and admin roles, and an llms.txt index. No rate limits are published. Export is the repository itself.

Pricing on 10 October 2026: Free (1 ledger, 1,000 entries, 20K AI tokens), Premium USD 14.99 a month, Growth USD 99.99, Organization USD 499.99 with SSO and multi-entity, and Enterprise by quote. API keys need a paid plan.

Agents

This is the most complete agent interface in the plain-text segment. editLedgerFiles validates and returns a unified diff with bean-check’s verdict when dry_run is true, and a separate call commits. Every write lands as a git commit (‘AI edit: …’) you can revert with ordinary git. The gate is the client’s, though: the MCP page says ‘approval settings depend on your client’, and managePullRequests lets the same credential create a proposal and approve it by merging. The in-app assistant, by contrast, ‘commits nothing without explicit user approval’ (changelog, 30 June 2026). The security page lists Anthropic, OpenAI and a bex.co proxy as the AI data path.

Customers

No user numbers are published. The iOS app has 3.5 stars from 8 ratings (US store, 10 October 2026) and the open-source mobile repository has 296 stars. Review sites and Reddit could not be checked this pass.

History

The service dates from 2019; mobile apps followed in August 2020 and were open-sourced that October. A free plan returned in May 2023. Version 3.0 added git integration (November 2025). 2026 brought Open Ledger (public-company books in Beancount), Smart Import, Plaid sync, budgets, the MCP and bea.

For ownpurse

Beancount.io proves that ‘every edit is a commit’ is a credible audit story for agents, and its agent ergonomics (dry runs with validator output, ledger-scoped OAuth, typed errors with hints, Markdown docs) are a bar ownpurse should meet. The differences matter. Beancount.io is the ledger: you move your books in. ownpurse leaves your books in Xero or QuickBooks and keeps a local, hash-chained record of what each source said. Beancount.io’s history records edits to normalized text, not the raw source. Its approval is optional and client-side; ownpurse’s sealed package is the only path a write can take.

Data and access

Public API: Yes. GraphQL (/graphql), remote MCP over streamable HTTP (/api-gateway/mcp), REST JSON for queries, git over SSH, and docs as Markdown
Auth: OAuth 2.1 with PKCE (scopes read, write, admin; one ledger or all), scoped X-API-Key keys, static MCP tokens, SSH keys for git
Limits: No published rate limits; error responses include a retryAfter field.
What access costs: No per-call metering found. Free plan: 1 ledger, 1,000 entries; minting API keys requires a paid plan.
Export: The whole ledger as plain-text files in a git repository with its history; clone over SSH or push to another git host.
Notes: The MCP manifest at /.well-known/mcp.json lists tools for BQL, ledger files, entry-level edits, receipts, bank import, pull requests, API keys, collaborators, ledgers and account deletion.

Price

Model: Freemium subscription by ledgers, collaborators, entries and AI tokens
Entry: Free: 1 ledger, 1 collaborator, 1,000 entries, 20K AI tokens
Top: Organization USD 499.99/month (USD 399.99 billed annually): 100 ledgers, 50 collaborators, 10M AI tokens, SSO, multi-entity; Enterprise by quote
Notes: Premium USD 14.99/month (USD 8.33 billed annually); Growth USD 99.99/month (USD 79.99 annually). Prices as shown on 10 October 2026, in USD.

Agents

MCP: official
AI features: Ask AI assistant that drafts and writes entries and reads receipts and statement screenshots (June 2026); AI categorisation of bank lines; Smart Import of files; 'bea ask' with SKILL.md conventions.
Agent writes: Yes: editLedgerFiles (atomic commit), addLedgerEntries, appendLedgerText, editEntrySource, manageBankImport submit, and managePullRequests; each write is a git commit.
Approval: Optional and client-side. dry_run returns a diff and bean-check verdict; committing is a separate call, and the MCP page says 'approval settings depend on your client'. managePullRequests can create and approve (merge) a proposal, and the same credential can approve its own. The in-app Ask AI commits nothing without the user's explicit approval.
Notes: Writes are reversible through git, but the gate is not enforced by the server for MCP clients. An OAuth credential can call deleteAccount.

Integration and customers

Connects to: Plaid bank sync (Plaid cites over 12,000 institutions), CSV, OFX and QIF converters, receipts and PDFs through AI parsing, managed price feeds, any git host, MCP clients (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Zed).
Notes: No connectors to Xero, QuickBooks or other ledgers; the docs offer a QuickBooks migration guide instead.
Scale: No customer or user counts published.
Ratings: App Store (US): 3.5 from 8 ratings for 'Beancount: Plain Text Ledger' by Stargately, Inc., 10 October 2026. GitHub: bex-co/beancount-io 296 stars. No G2, Capterra or Trustpilot listing found (search budget exhausted).
What customers say: Not established this pass: Reddit and review sites could not be searched. The vendor pitches itself on not locking you in ('cancel anytime — your plain-text ledger keeps working').

Timeline

2019
Beancount.io service begins (site copyright from 2019)
2020-08-19
Beancount mobile apps for iOS and Android launched
2020-10-08
Mobile app open-sourced
2023-05-01
Free plan reintroduced for new customers
2025-11-26
Beancount.io v3.0 with git integration
2026-01-28
Open Ledger: public-company ledgers published as Beancount
2026-02-15
Plaid bank sync
2026-06-30
Beancount MCP launched; Ask AI can write entries with approval
2026-09-16
bea 0.2.0 local CLI with the full Beancount toolchain pinned to 3.2.3

Borrow and avoid

Borrow: Agent-first docs (llms.txt, Markdown docs, an MCP manifest with error codes and hints). Dry-run previews with a validator verdict before every write. Ledger-scoped OAuth that sets the blast radius. A JSON CLI with stable exit codes that works without an account. Git commits labelled 'AI edit' so agent changes are reviewable.
Avoid: An approval step that lives in the client and can be skipped, or approved by the same agent that proposed it. A hosted repository as the working copy, with the owner's local copy only as fresh as their last fetch. Granting an agent account-level powers such as deleting the account.

Sources

Not confirmed against a primary source

Stargately, Inc.'s location and any funding.
Whether the hosted git server allows force-pushes or other history rewrites.
Rate limits for GraphQL, REST and MCP.
User or customer counts.
Customer sentiment on Reddit, G2, Capterra or Trustpilot (search budget exhausted).
Plaid's 'over 12,000 institutions' figure is quoted from Beancount.io, not checked with Plaid.
The exact MCP tool count (about 31 in the manifest on 10 October 2026).

On the spectrum

0 to 4. The grey tick is ownpurse.

Custody: 3
Where it runs: 2
History: 3
Openness: 3
Breadth: 2
Autonomy: 2
Agent-ready: 4
Easy to connect: 4
Market: 1

See it on the map

Also in plain text and local-first

ownpurse is not affiliated with Beancount.io or any company named here. Names are their owners' trademarks. Figures come from the company's own pages and the press, as linked, as of 2026-10-10; scores are our reading of them against the definitions in the landscape. This is not legal or financial advice.