Product Study — Splitwise
We’ve all been through that tedious process of splitting the bill, and ensuring everyone’s “debt” gets settled up. Interestingly, this is a recurring use-case through life’s many transitions, for as long as we decide to go Dutch with friends and family. Herein comes Splitwise, an app to simplify the process of splitting expenses with others.
Key Topics
In this product study, we take a dip into
- Splitwise’s various product offerings + evaluate some of them
- User personas and User stories
- Measuring success across user activation, monetization, user retention and happiness
- Feature progress (or lack of)
- Feature wishlist — a potential feature backlog and minor pivots Splitwise could make
The Product
Splitwise was a product that excited me during my student years before I even knew anything about Product Management. For me, it solved a frequent real-world problem — expense sharing, and is one of those self-explanatory apps to new users.
Basic Features:
Splitwise allows you to conveniently log shared expenses with individual users, or with a group. The app then does the math and organizes these shared IOUs on a user-to-user basis.
Multiple currencies are supported in each expense entry that you log, and the history logs in group settings.
Splitwise services are accessible via mobile (iOS and Android) and browser (which also offers a fairness calculator).
Paid Features:
Splitwise Pro further enhances the expense-sharing experience, with features such as:
- Receipt scanning & itemization (records each item in a receipt separately)
A similar, but free feature to this is available on Plates by Splitwise, a separate app to allow itemization over a a max of 10 pax, specific to a dinner context. Though per some app store reviews, some users would rather this feature be on the same app, rather than separate. - Default split setting (for partners or families who maintain a standard ratio to splitting expenses e.g. 60%/40%)
- Currency conversion (net off foreign currencies in groups, based on preferred curency)
- Visuals (categorize spending, identify trends, etc…)
Splitwise Pay (Restricted Feature):
Splitwise Pay allows users to make payments directly in Splitwise. This embedded payment solution is interesting step forward for Splitwise, and takes Splitwise to be more than just a record-keeping service.
However, there are some limitations to this feature.
As yet, Splitwise Pay is only available in the US and requires the receiving party to be a Splitwise Pay user. While an invite is automatically sent to non-users, they have 2 weeks to sign up in order to receive the funds, or else the payment fails.
I have my doubts about Splitwise Pay’s synergy with its core offering (basic + paid features). While both belong to a similar domain within financial services, we live in an era where users are already have multiple payment apps, of which they are sticky to a few key platforms/wallets. Unless users are offered some form of interest for the cash stored in Splitwise Pay, there is little incentive to jump on board Splitwise Pay as an interest-free payment option (yet another wallet).
Fairness Calculator (Browser):
The fairness calculator builds on the expense sharing use case, but in the specific contexts of splitting rent, travel costs, and more.
While this is an interesting extension of expense sharing, I wonder how utilized this feature is. To some extent it feels like either an abandaoned project or an ideation pool, given the simplicity of the UI, and the lack of intuition behind some of the options.
The User
From Splitwise’s features, we may infer a couple of key user personas and user stories for Splitwise’s core offering.
The Group Participant
- As travel buddies, I want to be able to log expenses over the span of the trip, so that the net settlement is done at the end of the trip only
- As foodies, I want to be able to log expenses over the span of our food escapades, so that the net settlement is done at the end of the year only
The Go-Dutch Couple
- As a couple who splits the expenses, I wish to regularly split our bills X%/Y%, so as to reflect our earnings power
“Wait, but don’t all couples split the bills this?”
Not really. Alternatives include:
• Bill expenses to specific individual (e.g. all living expenses billed to Person A, all travel expenses billed to Person B)
• The couple with 1 shared account (and all expenses are paid from that account)
Measuring Success
Activation & Monetization
Based on the user personas above, it seems to me that few users would actually need this service regularly enough to pay for Splitwise Pro (even though it only costs ~ USD 3/month).
Essentially the bar seems pretty high for user engagement (e.g. time spent, active user), or frustration with manual calculation (e.g. foreign currency conversion, manually keying in receipt items) before there would be a willingness to subscribe to Pro.
(To note, monetization also seems to come from licensing API integrations with commercial applications)
The value proposition for Splitwise today also seems weakened with innovations in the payments space enabling interbank retail transfers with such convenience.
Retention
However, once a user becomes a paying user, we may expect that retention should be pretty high since the user would have deemed this service sufficiently needful.
Happiness
Splitwise has an App Store rating of 4.5 stars and ranks no. 16 among the Finance category (in the SG market). The reviews generally center around much praise for the app’s usefulness and convenience. Rather than complaints, I seem to see more feedback and suggestions being raised.
Overall, there’s little to hate about Splitwise and the solution it brings to the use case of shared expenses. The question is just whether there is enough to love about the app that we’d become a paying user.
Feature Progress
I’m surprised little have changed in Splitwise over the past few years, and I actually wondered if they were still (barely) operating.
The good news is that they seem to be:
- ~20 iOS version updates in the past 12 months, though mostly bug fixes and improvements
- Raised a series A back in 2021 (according to Crunchbase). But put this in perspective — Splitwise has raised ~$30.2 on record, from 6 fundraisers since 2011. That’s a long time + I wonder where Splitwise actually is in the process of finding its product market fit.
- Splitwise’s executives still seem active (from some LinkedIn stalking) with no “side gigs”
Feature Wishlist
As a mental exercise, I thought it’d be good to consider “with the current implementation, what problem(s) remains unsolved?”
Here are some problem statements and product ideas that I think Splitwise could consider.
Preview Pro Features to Non-Paying Users
As mentioned above, the hurdles to activate non-paying users to paying users seem pretty high. Splitwise’s pro features do solve some specific real-world painpoints of expense sharing, that users may not even be aware of.
By previewing some pro features to non-paying users, Splitwise can effectively seed the thought of paying a little extra for a little more extra convenience.
The App does try to strategically position the ‘View more charts’ button, but this is not enough. (i) The button feels almost random; as a user, I don’t need this information / more charts via the Pro feature (ii) “What does it look like?” What lies beyond this purple button is a total mystery.
Build Out More Capability Around Insight of Personal Expense Management
The current implementation of the chart and graph features on Splitwise pro seem pretty basic, mere data visualization. Extending the value proposition slightly beyond expense sharing, into synergistic areas like personal expense management, could increase user adoption, retention, and activation.
Consolidate Features onto App, as a Mobile-First Approach
Splitwise seem to have a tendency to split features across various platforms, rather than having everything integrated in one place:
- Fairness Calculators (browser)
- Plates by Splitwise (mobile)
- Splitwise Pay (mobile)
Perhaps Splitwise doesn’t mind some cannibalization here. Just waiting to see the ‘survival of the fittest’ show among it’s distinct products accessed via distinct channel/devices.
Download screenshot summary of expenses — usually communication is done in the context of group chats.
While expenses are logged on Splitwise, most communication for groups are done via external app (and that’s fine, Splitwise need not build a chat feature).
User story: As a user participating in a Splitwise group, I would want to be able to generate a tidy 1 page summary (on a phone screen) to share with my group, so as to provide everyone a consolidated glance of the IOUs outstanding.
As such, an export or share function which generates a mobile-firendly single page summary, would be greatly faciliate such conversations outside of the app.
‘Nudge all’
Alternatively, a ‘nudge all’ function in the form of a push notification, or action required notification (if users are already logged in to app), which directs users back to the app screen would suffice.
Problem statement: As a user participating in a Splitwise group, people would forget to settle up and I’d have to keep track of their “debts” as well as send occasional reminders.
These direct, awkward conversations can be avoided through such a nudging feature, to remind users of their outstanding obligations to fulfill… by a certain date (i.e. nudging feature + deadline feature)
I hope this article has been a helpful dip into the product space. Please feel free to share any ideas or feedback on how I can write/think/communicate better! ◡̈
