Does SplitTabsBot actually send money between people?

No — it only tracks who owes whom. /balance and /settle just display numbers; no real money moves through Telegram or the bot.

What's the difference between /balance and /settle?

/balance shows each person's running net balance. /settle goes further and shows the minimal settlement — the smallest set of transfers that clears every balance, rather than everyone paying everyone.

Is the payer automatically included in a split?

Yes — when you /add an expense with people to split it between, the payer is always counted as one of the people sharing the cost. Log /add 42.50 dinner @alice @bob after Alice paid, and Alice isn't charged for her own share twice — she simply carries the other person's half as a balance. It also means you never have to list yourself in the split separately.

What happens if someone leaves the group mid-trip?

Their balance doesn't disappear. Any expense already logged with them in the split still counts toward the group's ledger and still shows up in /balance and /settle — leaving the chat doesn't clear a debt. Settle up before the last person checks out if you want the book to close cleanly.

Can we keep using it after the trip ends?

The ledger belongs to the group, not the trip, so whatever's left in it keeps working. Most groups run /settle, pay each other, then /clear for a clean slate before the next big shared cost — or leave the balances as they are and let the next expense land on top of them.

How much is Pro and what does it add?

A one-time 150 Stars payment unlocks the whole group, not just one member — it removes the 20-expense cap and adds /export for a CSV of the ledger.

What happens when we hit the 20-expense free limit mid-trip?

New /add entries stop being accepted until the group upgrades. Pro is one payment from one member covering the whole group, so mid-trip you don't have to pass a hat — and if the trip is nearly over, finish paying up and run /clear rather than upgrading for two more dinners.

How to Split Bills and Track Expenses in a Telegram Group

Splitting a shared bill in a group chat usually means someone doing mental math out loud, or a spreadsheet nobody remembers to update. SplitTabsBot keeps a running expense ledger inside the Telegram group itself: log each expense as it happens, and the bot works out who owes whom — with the fewest possible payments, not everyone paying everyone. (The settlement algorithm is the part that saves real money: for most groups it collapses a dozen partial debts into 2–3 transfers.)

It only tracks numbers, not real money — there's no payment processing inside the bot, just a shared ledger and a settlement calculation.

That distinction matters for a trip, a shared apartment, or a recurring group buy: SplitTabsBot tells the group exactly who should pay whom and how much, but the actual payment still happens however your group already pays each other — cash, a bank transfer, whatever you use.

A worked example makes the difference obvious. Four people on a weekend trip: Alice pays $120 for the rental, Bob pays $86 for groceries, Carol pays $40 for fuel, and Dave pays $18 for parking — $264 total, so everyone's fair share is $66. If you logged all four and asked for a naive settlement, five separate payments would bounce around the chat. Run /settle instead and the group gets the short version: Dave and Carol each owe $48, and they pay it to Alice and Bob, done in a handful of transfers.

The point of the ledger is that it's shared, not personal. Nobody's app is the source of truth and nobody has to remember what they paid three days ago — the group chat itself is the record, and anyone in the group can check /balance at any moment without asking.

Keep reading

Steps

Add SplitTabsBot to your group. The ledger is scoped per group — each group gets its own tab.
Log expenses as they happen with /add. Example: /add 42.50 dinner @alice @bob — amount, description, and who it's split between. The payer is always included in the split automatically.
Check balances anytime with /balance. Shows each member's net balance — who's owed money and who owes it, based on everything logged so far.
Get the minimal settlement with /settle. Takes no arguments. Shows the fewest transfers that would square the group up, instead of every person paying every other person.
Undo a mistake or reset with /undo and /clear. /undo removes the most recent entry; /clear wipes the whole group's ledger and starts over.
Type the split the way you'd say it out loud. A real log line looks like /add 42.50 dinner @alice @bob @carol — dollars and cents, a short description everyone will recognise later, then every username sharing that cost. Got the wrong amount in? /undo and /add again beats trying to quietly average it out later.

Good to know

Free: 20 expenses per group. Pro is a one-time 150 Stars (≈ $3) payment for the whole group, not per member, that removes the cap and adds CSV export via /export.
When NOT to reach for it: if two people are splitting one bill exactly in half and nobody else is involved, the maths is trivial — write a number in the chat and skip the ledger. If your group needs itemised receipts rather than a running total, or wants per-person category budgets, the ledger tracks amounts and descriptions but isn't a finance app. Same if the group settles instantly by cash and never carries a balance — a clean ledger that always reads zero isn't buying you anything.
Edge cases worth knowing before the group is angry: /undo removes only the most recent entry, so log the expenses in the order they happen and fix mistakes immediately rather than three days later. A member who leaves the group still shows in balances for expenses already logged against them — leaving doesn't erase what they owe. Members are identified by their Telegram usernames in the group, so if someone changes theirs mid-trip, tag them exactly as they appear when you log each new expense.
The first few times, the group wants different things from /balance — some people want to know who is owed, some want to know who owes them. Both readings come off the same command, which is why it can be run twice a day during a trip without changing anything or nudging anyone toward paying up.
SplitTabsBot never moves real money — /balance and /settle only calculate and display numbers.
No banking or payment details are ever stored — just amounts, descriptions, and who was in each split.
The ledger is scoped to the group it was entered in — clearing one group's data doesn't touch any other group's tab.
You can be in as many different groups running SplitTabsBot as you want — a household group and a trip group, for example — and each keeps its own separate ledger and balances.
CSV export on Pro gives the group a record outside Telegram, useful for reconciling a trip's costs afterward or keeping receipts for a shared budget.

See SplitTabsBot About the bot Open in the hub

FAQ

Does SplitTabsBot actually send money between people?: No — it only tracks who owes whom. /balance and /settle just display numbers; no real money moves through Telegram or the bot.
What's the difference between /balance and /settle?: /balance shows each person's running net balance. /settle goes further and shows the minimal settlement — the smallest set of transfers that clears every balance, rather than everyone paying everyone.
Is the payer automatically included in a split?: Yes — when you /add an expense with people to split it between, the payer is always counted as one of the people sharing the cost. Log /add 42.50 dinner @alice @bob after Alice paid, and Alice isn't charged for her own share twice — she simply carries the other person's half as a balance. It also means you never have to list yourself in the split separately.
What happens if someone leaves the group mid-trip?: Their balance doesn't disappear. Any expense already logged with them in the split still counts toward the group's ledger and still shows up in /balance and /settle — leaving the chat doesn't clear a debt. Settle up before the last person checks out if you want the book to close cleanly.
Can we keep using it after the trip ends?: The ledger belongs to the group, not the trip, so whatever's left in it keeps working. Most groups run /settle, pay each other, then /clear for a clean slate before the next big shared cost — or leave the balances as they are and let the next expense land on top of them.
How much is Pro and what does it add?: A one-time 150 Stars payment unlocks the whole group, not just one member — it removes the 20-expense cap and adds /export for a CSV of the ledger.
What happens when we hit the 20-expense free limit mid-trip?: New /add entries stop being accepted until the group upgrades. Pro is one payment from one member covering the whole group, so mid-trip you don't have to pass a hat — and if the trip is nearly over, finish paying up and run /clear rather than upgrading for two more dinners.

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Curious what the Pro features cost? See pricing.