Everyone starts. Almost nobody stays.

Most people who try to track their expenses don't stick with it. Around 50% attempt tracking regularly, but 85% of those lose consistency over time. The reasons aren't surprising: tracking feels boring, time-consuming, and stressful, especially in apps that rely on manual entry and spreadsheet-style layouts. When motivation fades, users don't gradually reduce their tracking — they abandon it altogether, only becoming aware of their spending habits once the damage is already done.

The root cause isn't laziness. It's that no existing tool makes tracking feel worth doing. There's no feedback loop, no sense of progress, and no reward for showing up consistently. Without those, habit formation is nearly impossible.

The real barrier wasn't the numbers — it was the routine

To understand why consistency was failing, we surveyed 10 young adults between the ages of 18 and 37, asking not what features they wanted but why their current methods weren't working. Four findings shaped the direction of the product.

These four findings became the four pillars the product was built around: reduce friction, support consistency, reward the behavior, and present data at the right level of detail.

Tools built for accountants, not for 20-year-olds

The apps our users knew fell into two camps — tools for splitting bills, and tools for serious budgeters. Neither was built for some just starting out.

None of these apps were built around the one thing that actually changes behavior. Cred proved that rewards drive consistent financial engagement — Montro applies that same logic to tracking, budgeting, and habit formation for someone who's just finding their footing.

Tracking that feels rewarding

Jana needed one place that tracked her money, helped her budget it, and gave her a reason to come back tomorrow. That became the product brief. Montro is built around four interconnected sections — each one solving a distinct part of the problem the research surfaced. Instead of simply recording expenses, Montro actively supports better financial behavior over time.

Montro's structure maps directly to the habit loop — a behavioural framework that explains why habits form and why they break. The dashboard acts as the trigger, pulling Jana back into the app daily. Tracking and budgeting are the routine — the core behaviour being built. And the rewards section closes the loop, giving her something tangible in return for showing up.

What we built,and what we learned

The strongest validation signal came from the presentation, where Montro ranked 2nd in the mobile application category among our peers. More telling than the ranking was the split reaction to the rewards feature — some participants flagged associations with gambling, while others said it was exactly the kind of incentive that would keep them consistent. That tension is the most useful thing we learned. It tells us the mechanic has pull, but the framing needs work before it reaches a wider audience.