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Show HN: Pulse Local, a Mac budgeting app whose AI models run on your machine

“Local” usually means your data.

Your ledger sits on your disk. Then you ask something, and the question plus the rows that answer it go to a hosted model.

Ask about your money.

Find out where your money went, compare months, or check what is left in your budget. Supported spending answers are calculated from your transactions and read twice before a figure is shown.

Check the month and category. Labels above spending answers show what Pulse included. Select one to change it.

Keep the conversation going. Ask “by merchant” for a breakdown, or name another month to compare.

Your decisions stay yours. Pulse explains your figures and everyday budgeting terms. What to do about them is up to you.

Know the limits. Pulse can misunderstand a question. When its two readings disagree it says it is not sure instead of guessing, and AI answers are labelled.

See what you can ask.

These are real replies from the app, run on sample transactions. The follow-up questions show how to break an amount down or compare it with another month.

AskSeptember 2026

Pick a question on the right. The replies are real: each one came out of the app, answered against a sample ledger.

0 asked0 double-checked0 written by the model0 B sent

A complete budgeting app.

Plans and targets, rules, rollover, splits, cash flow, forecast. It covers the ground the most used budgeting apps cover, and does all of it on your machine.

Pulse Local, the Spending screen

Spending. One figure for the month, and every category against its plan. Sample data.

The money maths was checked against six months of a real ledger, month by month, and matched to the cent.

Local mode is global.

Pick your country once and the ledger is kept in your currency, any of the world’s. Every figure is written the way you write it, 1.234,56 € in Berlin and ¥1,311 in Tokyo, and a bank file from anywhere imports: day-first dates, decimal commas, a header in your own language picked by hand. Nothing is converted, ever. The app answers in English.

Same app. Any price.

We are a small team of ML practitioners and product people. Once Pulse Local is on your machine it costs us nothing to run, so you can help us keep doing this, or use it for free. Every feature, either way.

Use it free

$0

Every feature, no account, no nagging.

Help us build

$20

A thank-you that pays for the next release.

Keep it going

$40

For the people who want this to exist for years.

Your call

Any

Type the number yourself. One dollar counts.

Every button ends at the same download; the paid ones come straight back here with it ready. One payment, not a subscription, and nothing in the app checks which one you chose. Bank sync is the one thing with a running cost on our side, so it is the one thing with a price of its own: the Sync Pass, $29 a year.

Beta for Mac with Apple Silicon, signed and notarised by Apple, so it opens like any other app and keeps itself up to date. On Windows? Tell us and we will write when it is ready.

Once it is on your machine

What you give up.

No bank connection

Bank sync is a pass

You import a CSV, from any bank in any currency. A live feed means a server holding your credential.

Through Plaid, US banks only for now: three institutions on the yearly Sync Pass and more at $8 each. Transactions pass through our server without being stored; it keeps the connection token and the connection’s status.

One machine. Your ledger exists nowhere else.

Sync brings transactions in. It never copies your ledger out.

Mac first, in English

Mac first, in English

Windows is next. The app answers in English. Older Intel Macs are not supported.

Windows is next. The app answers in English. Older Intel Macs are not supported.

Small models, careful answers

Small models, careful answers

On open questions they are worse than a frontier model, so code does most of the work. With the check on, a money answer takes 12 to 14 seconds, and when its two readings differ Pulse says it is not sure.

On open questions they are worse than a frontier model, so code does most of the work. With the check on, a money answer takes 12 to 14 seconds, and when its two readings differ Pulse says it is not sure.