Will eight imports a month be enough for you?
Asgeir Albretsen
Published
A lot of budgeting apps ship with hidden limits that surface just as you start to use the app properly. Luma is built differently: the free plan has one real limit, and it is clear from the start.
Most people never hit that limit. But some do, and it is surprisingly easy to work out whether you are one of them.
The only thing that actually separates Free from Plus
Both plans let you save, edit and delete as many transactions as you like. There is no cap on the number of lines in your budget, no expiry date on your history, and no limit on the number of categories.
The difference is one thing: how many bank-file import sessions you get per month.
An import session is one upload of a CSV file from your bank. Whether the file contains 20 transactions or 300, it counts as a single session. On Free you can complete up to 8 such sessions during a calendar month. On Plus there is no monthly limit.
A quick overview
| Luma Free | Luma Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of transactions | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Manual entry | Yes | Yes |
| Import sessions per month | Up to 8 | No limit |
| Export of your own data | Yes | Yes |
| Best suited to | Manual entry, or weekly imports from a single account | Frequent imports from one or several accounts |
Who does not need Plus
If you record most expenses manually and only use the import feature as an occasional extra check, Free is comfortably enough. The same goes for anyone with a single bank account and a steady weekly import rhythm. Four to five sessions a month still leaves you three to four in reserve for weeks where things do not go to plan.
So you do not need Plus to keep a living and accurate budget.
Who might feel the limit
Some users burn through the 8 sessions faster than they expected. That tends to happen in one of these scenarios:
- You have two or more bank accounts and import from all of them weekly. Four weeks and two accounts a week already comes to 8 sessions, with no buffer.
- You spot a mistake in an import and upload the file again. A couple of those rounds eat into the reserve.
- You are in a tight saving month and want updated numbers twice a week rather than once.
- You are new to Luma and upload history from several periods during your first week.
In these cases it is not that 8 is too few in itself, but that your usage sits outside the typical pattern the Free plan is sized for.
The question that decides it
Think back over the last four weeks. Did you get close to the cap? Did you find yourself choosing between importing now and saving sessions for something more important?
If no: Free is fine. Carry on.
If yes, or if you know you have two accounts and want to import from both weekly: Plus is probably worth it.
The Free plan is not a fallback for people who cannot be bothered to pay. It is a fully adequate option for people who do not need the extra sessions.
The advice is concrete: start on Free, count your import sessions after a month, and only upgrade if you actually feel the limit. Most people do not.