Why I Built Squara

It started with a pizza.

Four friends, one bill, and the familiar ritual of everyone staring at their phones trying to figure out who owes what. We were using a popular app at the time - you probably know which one. The ad played before I could even tap "Settle Up." Then came the 10-second timer I couldn't skip. Then the nudge to upgrade to remove the ads.

For a financial app. One that holds data about every meal, every trip, every shared subscription in my friend group.

I closed the app and opened a notes file instead.

The itch I couldn't stop scratching

I'm a solo developer. I build mobile apps because I genuinely love the craft - the problem-solving, the polish, the moment when something clicks for a user. I'd built tools before. But this one felt personal.

I wanted an expense-splitting app that:

• Never showed ads. Your finances are not an ad targeting surface.
• Never had timers. Settle up when you're ready. Life is not a countdown clock.
• Had a free tier that actually covered daily use. Not three expenses a day, not thirty days of history then a hard wall - a real free experience.
• Could be trusted. Not just technically, but structurally.

So I built it. Over evenings and weekends, across six months of iteration. And I called it Squara.

What Squara is

Squara is a freemium expense-splitting app for iOS and Android. You create a group - a trip, a household, a dinner crew - add expenses, and Squara figures out who owes what. It supports equal splits, exact amounts, and percentage splits. Settlements are tracked automatically.

But the part I spent the most time on is trust. In most expense apps, any group member can edit any expense - including ones they weren't part of. Nobody gets notified when someone changes what they're owed. Debts get marked settled by one person with no confirmation from the other.

Squara is different. Only the person who paid - or the group owner - can modify or delete an expense. Every edit is logged with a timestamp and the before/after values, visible in a per-group audit trail. When you mark a debt as settled, the other person is notified and must confirm before it counts. Squara doesn't process payments - it tracks who owes what and keeps an honest record.

How I keep the free tier free

Squara is freemium. The free tier is genuinely useful: one group you own, unlimited membership in others, 30 days of expense history, and no ads on any tier - ever. A premium plan funds ongoing development and unlocks more: multiple owned groups, recurring expenses, extended history with detailed breakdowns, and CSV/PDF export.

I'm not backed by investors and I'm not selling your data. The premium plan is how I keep the free tier free.

What's next

iOS and Android are both in the works. If you want to be first in line when Squara launches, join the waitlist on the download page. I'll reach out personally when it's ready.

And if you have feedback - bugs, feature requests, or just want to say hi - I genuinely want to hear it. Indie developers live on honest feedback.

Thanks for reading.

• Artyom