On building a social fintech product, and learning from our first 50,000 Braid Pools.

The premise of multiplayer fintech is simple: money is inherently social, and more software should exist to support this sort of usage. Financial products are adamantly single-player, but a year after our first piece of this topic, this is slowly starting to change. 2021 was a small preview into what’s to come.

What is multiplayer fintech?

Multiplayer fintech refers to products that are designed for multiple users to collaborate in some way around money. The functionality of the product itself must be tied to multi-user use. PartyBid is a great example, while an individual checking account with a referral program wouldn’t qualify. There’s a dearth of collaborative, multiplayer products in fintech and financial services, though collaborative software is a well-established category (Figma, Github, Google Docs, Dropbox, and more).

Lessons from 50,000 Braid Pools

Braid launched on Product Hunt in July 2020 after a small friends and family beta. We designed a money pool — a shared wallet, essentially — that supports multiple users, custom permissions and a pool debit card. Our goal was (and is) to build a new account type designed for multiple users, that can exist alongside joint accounts and business accounts. There’s a whole world of groups, collectives, friends, families, etc. that those two buckets don’t cover.

So far, 50,000 pools have been created using Braid, and we’ve processed tens of millions in payment volume. We’ve learned a lot about social norms related to sharing money, which will be the focus of what we’ll share here. Though we’ve also encountered our share of technical and regulatory challenges, that’s the reality of building financial software, and applies to single-player and multiplayer products all the same. Designing a user experience that is both compelling and compliant is part of the assignment. The social aspect of money, on the other hand, has some very specific implications for anyone working on a multiplayer product.

Here are a few observations :

1. Every pool is different. The creativity and magic we’ve seen show a real need for this sort of product. We’ve seen, just in the past few weeks: a fund for a small Foundation, a shared Discord server, a memorial pool, a treasury for a Pokémon League, gift pools for kids, DAOs, travel funds, savings pledges, families pooling money for eldercare, bands, studio space pools, and more. Every day we’re surprised by new ways that people are using the product. Related aside: we made the decision to change the product name from “group account” to “pool” this year, which helped a lot. Names matter.
2. There is a lot of labor associated with sharing money. The physical and emotional labor associated with collecting and managing money for some shared thing is very real, and it’s often unpaid. If you’ve ever been this person, you know the feeling — the visceral sort of dread that comes with having to collect, reconcile, pay expenses, and keep track of everything. You’ll sometimes spend more and need to collect again. Some people repeat this cycle month after month. Is it really worth it for the credit card points?
3. Fronting money is a huge pain point. This comes up a lot, but many people have come to accept that this is simply how shared expenses work. Fronting money, then tracking the expense and getting reimbursed is a ton of work. Because this behavior is so entrenched it’s been a challenge to show people that there’s another option. Pooling money up front means you can spend directly out of the pooled funds, and you always know how much is left to spend. One Braid member said, “ I switched us over to Braid from a combo of Google Sheets, Splitwise, and a house bank account…[and now there’s] no more reimbursement system for me to manage.”
4. Keeping pooled funds separate from personal funds is important. The person in charge of organizing money on behalf of a group is often forced to transfer funds into their own personal bank account. This creates confusion around what money is personal and what money technically belongs to the group. Having a dedicated place to keep group funds is meaningful.
5. Trust, transparency and safety are paramount. We knew this was important when we started, but the gravity of this has become even clearer over the past year. Signing up for a new financial product is not the same thing as signing up for a new photo app, and ensuring that every new member knows we take safety and security seriously is paramount for us.

Every [X] should have a wallet

Another observation from the past year is that the account structure and offerings within the existing financial system are inflexible and normative. An account must be for an individual, two people (joint account), or a business. But there are so many examples of groups that don’t fit in one of those buckets. This realization has become even more pronounced for us in 2021.

A few months ago someone said, “every classroom should have a wallet.” The idea that an [X], a thing— a classroom, a band, a rental house, a motorcycle enthusiast club — should have its own wallet feels so obvious. And yet, the work required to make this a reality — technical, regulatory, and behavioral in nature — is not trivial. These wallets need to embrace multiple users and transcend any one individual. This is our North Star, and where we want to end up.

The rise of the DAO

DAOs are a great example of an entity that doesn’t cleanly fit in any one legal bucket, and this wouldn’t be a proper piece about multiplayer fintech in 2021 if we didn’t talk about DAOs.

In the past year, the rise of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) has shown the potential of this new type of organization, and watching them evolve and experiment has been a lot of fun. Although DAOs exist mostly in the crypto/web3 world, there is a lot of potential for crossover in 2022 and beyond. For example, what will be the ConstitutionDAO of 2022?

There is so much overlap between DAOs and our work at Braid, because collaboration around money is ultimately a social undertaking, regardless of whether the currency is dollars or crypto. What matters is what these groups can achieve when they pool their resources and time. We’re curious about DAOs and exploring a few tools we might be able to offer to support this growing movement.

Pools in 2022

We’re focused on creating an accessible, fast and simple way to pool money, and that goal will inform our work in 2022. To that end, we want to:

• Add more payment methods to Braid. You should be able to fund a pool with whatever payment method you want — a bank account, debit card, credit card, Paypal, and even crypto.
• Continue to make money movement frictionless and instant. There are real limitations in the current system, both technical and financial, that make this goal especially difficult to achieve. But it’s also the most worthwhile. Fast, frictionless movement of money benefits everyone.
• Explore different pool types. We’ve gotten member feedback around supporting specific types of pools, for saving, investing and crypto. Each of these would be a large undertaking, but we want to eventually support all of these pool types.

Interested in learning more about Braid? We’d love to hear from you, email us at hello@braid.co.

Written in Oakland, CA, December 2021. Special thanks to everyone who provided feedback on the draft.

Update October 2025: We’ve recently launched Pool, you can check it out at https://poolmoney.com. We look forward to your feedback.

The rise of co-living has felt inevitable — it’s a flexible, affordable housing option that creates a sense of community and belonging in a way that other options don’t. It’s popularity has been well-documented, and rightfully so.

But there are still issues around how to share and co-mingle money for communal living. In addition to deciding which expenses are shared versus individual, collecting and managing money is tough because there’s not really a product that caters to co-living payments. Instead, what often happens is a combination of several products tied together with a spreadsheet, and normally one person managing it all.

Below, we’ve written about some of the issues we’ve seen, and the tools we’ve built to make the process easier. We look forward to your feedback!

THE CURRENT SETUP

We’ve spoken with hundreds of shared houses (co-living, intentional communities, co-ops, short-term shares and more) and discovered a few consistent themes:

• Collecting money, then consolidating it…but where? Using various apps to collect (Venmo, Zelle, Paypal) means it can take days to consolidate funds into one place. But after collection, where does the money go? Often it’s one person’s personal bank account, a joint bank account, or a business account if the house uses an LLC (which is a whole other set of administrative burdens).
• Receipt tracking and reimbursements are time-consuming. They also make it hard to know what you’re actually spending. Some houses use Excel spreadsheets or expense tracking apps, but in general, it’s hard to have a sense of how much is getting spent in real-time. And waiting to get paid back is always a pain.
• Multi-user access is really hard to find. The only financial products that support multi-user access right now are joint bank accounts and business bank accounts. But those are a pain to open, and aren’t flexible when it comes to someone leaving or new people joining.

BRAID POOLS

We spent a long time learning about the problems with group payments and co-living, and much of Braid V1 was designed to combat these issues. We call them Braid Pools. They include:

1. No Fees. We don’t charge any fees to use the app. No monthly fees, no transfer fees. As a business, we make money through debit interchange when our members use their debit card.
2. Multi-user by design. Your group can have several admins, and can easily add or remove members.
3. No receipt tracking or waiting to get paid back. When you spend directly out of your pool, there’s no need to enter the expense or reimburse anyone.
4. Dedicated space — no funneling money through your personal bank account. Keep group money separate from personal money.
5. Emphasis on trust and transparency. When you have multiple people managing your house expenses, it spreads around the work and creates a greater sense of trust and transparency.
6. Recurring payments. Set up recurring requests and never forget a payment.

POOLS FAQ

What’s a Braid Pool?

Braid Pools are similar to a traditional “money pool” but a lot more flexible and persistent. They’re multi-user, so you can add as many admins and housemates as you like. Pools are private by default — your housemates need to be invited in order to make deposits, see transactions and spend from pools. And every pool comes with a debit card so you can spend directly from the pooled funds.

How do they work?

When you sign up, you’ll create a pool (or pools) for your house (“Groceries”, “House Fund”, “Rent and Utilities”, “Gardening”, “BBQ Sunday”, etc.) Then, invite your housemates, add monthly contributions to each pool, and set permissions. Anyone spending the money can get their own debit card if they want one.

Everyone is part of the pool and pays directly into it, so you don’t need to funnel money through anyone’s personal bank account, and you don’t need to set up an LLC to get a business account. You can make purchases directly out of the pool (either via debit card or account/routing number), so you don’t need to track receipts, either.

Will you check my credit?

We do not check your credit, but we do need to verify your identity if you are going to spend out of your pool/get a debit card.

Is it like Venmo? Is it crowdfunding? Is it a bank account?

We’re different from P2P apps (Venmo, Cash App, Paypal, etc.) because we are multi-user by design. You can manage the money with as many people as you’d like. We’re different from crowdfunding apps in that we’re not only focused on collection — we focus on the whole process: collect, share, manage, spend. Another important difference is we don’t take a cut of your collections. You keep 100% of what you collect.

HOW ARE CO-LIVING HOUSES USING BRAID?

Here’s are some examples of co-living-related pools on Braid:

• Groceries
• Utilities
• Rent/Mortgage
• House Upkeep
• Monthly Open Mics
• Furniture
• Social/Parties
• Build Projects (construction, outdoor)
• Garden/Farm
• “Misc”
• Art Projects
• Emergency

Let’s say you live in a house called Potrero Hill House, which has 3 different pools: Groceries, Utilities and House Fund.

Every month, you contribute $100 to each pool. Monthly expenses can either come directly out of the pool (no receipt tracking or reimbursements needed) or housemates can purchase items themselves and get reimbursed from the pool. Everyone has a sense of where the money is going in real-time.

Because each member can get their own debit card, there is no need to share one “grocery card” or have a house debit card, which has all sorts of logistical and security issues (you don’t know who is making purchases, it can get lost easily, you need to remember to grab it from the house, etc.)

When new members join, or existing members leave, simply remove them from the pools in a few taps. No need to fill out any paperwork.

Pools create a lot more transparency around house finances, because everyone can see exactly what is getting spent, and when. We’ve found that this creates more trust among the housemates, and has the added benefit of saving a ton of time. No more tracking receipts, figuring out who owes what, keeping a spreadsheet, waiting to get paid back.

It’s all there, right in the pool.

HOW CAN MY HOUSE SIGN-UP?

We understand this is a big decision that likely involves multiple people. We run short, optional Q+A sessions for houses and have found this is a great way to talk about shared finances with the rest of your house, if there’s interest. Schedule a Q & A session here.

To get started on your own, sign up here to get $10 toward your first pool. Feel free to play around on your own and let us know if you have any questions.

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I KNOW ABOUT BRAID?

We chose debit interchange as our business model because it allows us to keep our product free of fees, which is really important to us. Money between friends shouldn’t have fees. Additionally, this creates alignment between us and our members and gives us the freedom and flexibility to make the product better, without needing to charge per-transaction fees.

Braid is focused on building tools to make group payments easier, no matter how difficult or technical these problems are. Bringing added transparency to payments is too important. Group money needs its own set of tools and infrastructure, built around transparency, trust and collaboration.

The idea that money is an individual concern is antiquated. We can do so much more together than we can on our own, but the way that financial accounts are set up emphasize individual ownership and control of money. This is why social payments feel so messy and painful. Financial products are built around the concept of yours and mine. No one is really focusing on ours.

What if there were a way to share money that was just as fast and easy, but built with multiplayer use in mind? Something that could be easily customized, depending on the group and their internal norms and customs. We’ve written about this more here.

IS BRAID SECURE?

Security is a front-and-center concern for us. All payment and personal information is encrypted end-to-end, and we work hard to keep your group’s money safe and secure. Inside of your own group, everyone gets their own card, with specific spending permissions. You can create spending caps, or limit spending in your group to a few people. Whatever makes you feel most comfortable.

ARE YOU WORKING ON NEW FEATURES FOR CO-LIVING?

Yes! We have several features in the works to support our growing community of co-living houses. Primarily:

• Improving recurring payments and automatic reminders to ensure that payments are streamlined and easy
• Building in account funding via debit card to make payments faster and easier

There are so many different types of shared house configurations, and we hope to build a product that is flexible and easy for all of them to use. This is our primary focus, and we are here to listen to all of your suggestions.

31% of the U.S. adult population shares a home with someone they are not romantically involved with, and the toolset that serves this population has the potential to be so much better. Share a house, share a life, why not share money too?

HOW CAN WE CONTACT YOU?

We are always looking for feedback, and are happy to answer any questions. Reach out to hello@braid.co. If you want to sign up, see the section above on this or visit https://braid.co/.

Yet, with a few exceptions, finance and fintech have remained stubbornly single-player. We still call it personal finance. Though information sharing is pervasive, truly collaborative, multiplayer experiences have not yet emerged. Instead, we are left with the same stale products that the financial industry has been offering for forever: joint accounts. The problem with joint accounts of all types, for lending, saving, everyday spending, and investing, is that they can be quite difficult to set up, painful to maintain, and don’t accommodate short-term, non-partner or non-family use-cases particularly well.

Traditional banks and financial products are still trying to enforce traditional, normative modes of living. Women had a hard time getting their own credit cards until 1974 (thanks RBG), and as recently as 2012 paid half a percentage point more in credit card interest rates than men (source). Want more than two people on your joint account? Only a handful of banks allow that, and a lot won’t let you sign up for one online.

If the primary tool of one’s financial life is the checking account, what’s missing right now is a layer of collaborative tools that live on top of our primary accounts. These tools could allow us to spend, lend, borrow, save and trade together. This is an area of enormous opportunity.

Banks as both pervasive and invisible

We need more collaborative financial tools. These tools aren’t new banks necessarily, but rather, they live on top of our primary accounts and allow us to transact around money together. In his post this weekend, Mario Gabriele at The Generalist wrote:

“…a bank is not a thing, an entity, so much as a set of behaviors. Already, in our interactions with each other, we act as financial agents — paying one another, lending, saving together — what would it mean to provide tooling to enable that? To make a bank both pervasive and invisible?”

You shouldn’t need to have the same bank as another person to transact with them. Banks haven’t adapted to a world where two people with different primary banks might want to share money for a short project, an investing group or a summer sublet. It’s not in the interest of a bank to offer such a product, so why would they?

Banks decided decades ago which sort of shared experiences around money were permitted, and which ones were not. In that time, technical and regulatory hurdles, along with issues around fraud prevention and AML have served as strong barriers to new entrants.

Finance has lagged behind other industries in facilitating multiplayer experiences, because the banks don’t seem to want these interactions to happen. Most big banks offer a bundled experience, and aim to have an offering for every financial need. Offering a best-in-market product isn’t necessarily when your customers are locked in. It’s so difficult to move away from a primary bank that most people just…don’t. Only 4% of consumers switched their primary bank in 2018.

Cokie Hasiotis, one of the excellent trio of writers at Fintech Today, put it best here:

if we owned our account & card numbers, we would be empowered to shop around for financial services the way we shop for everything else https://t.co/6Od79RpkWU

Sure, this is part of the promise of blockchain technologies, and there were a few responses to this tweet that said something like “but Bitcoin tho.” Fine. But we’re talking about mainstream retail banking. Checking accounts.

That P2P apps like Venmo, Cash App and even Paypal have emerged despite such headwinds shows the massive need for more bank-agnostic, multiplayer financial tools. And none of these apps allow users to create truly shared accounts.

Groups as financial entities

In their essay on the emergence of Squads, called Squad Wealth, Other Internet talks about the rise of groups as financial entities:

“The group is the basic user class for the tools we need today as a society, yet few pieces of software allow the squad as a whole to produce cooperatively and generate wealth together.”

This makes sense especially in 2020. COVID has resulted in the swift destruction of many small businesses, education systems, and social activities. It has shown us the gaps in our healthcare system, and resulted in sky-high unemployment.

Millennials are approaching middle-age and are now left to deal with the reality that our dreams of home ownership, social security or any government safety net, and growing old with dignity are mostly illusions. Our coming-of-age story is one of two massive financial crises, overwhelming student debt, NIMBYs blocking affordable housing in many urban areas, and a global health crisis (and avo toast). Many still live with their parents. As the poster children for “Generation Me,” we have truly found the limits of individuality. Taking a more collective-first approach could provide greater financial opportunities and stability, but the toolset is thin.

Our financial products must adapt, whether the banks want them to or not. The problem is too big, and too important. The emergence of groups as more than a social entity, but a cultural and financial one, will hopefully push demand for these products. From Squad Wealth:

“Group collaboration is now the strong default, putting squads at the center of social, cultural, and economic life.”

To be fair, this issue stretches beyond banks, as there is still pervasive social stigma around sharing money. At some point, talking about money and collaborating around it became scary and gauche. The role of “the money person” in any group is a fraught one. Trust is precarious. Collecting is often a nightmare. Tracking receipts is a time sink.

This is holding all of us back. We live in the world of my money and your money. Our money isn’t quite here yet, except within the confines of romantic partnerships, families and businesses. This is what makes projects like Card V. Card so interesting. It is nearly a satire, except that what they’re pointing out is complete true:

“Spending your own money feels bad. Spending someone else’s money feels good.”

When will we get to a place where our money is a concept that is widespread and accepted?

What collaborative tools enable

Siloed, individual financial tools make dealing with money inaccessible and opaque, and the greatest promise of collaborative financial tools is transparency. There is a reason why we are so starved for financial savvy and basic personal finance education. Social activity and sharing around money happens on the periphery, but not enough inside the products themselves. We talk about stock trading together, sure, but mostly make those trades alone. Trading clubs are still fairly niche, and I don’t know of any new, great software products that offer group trading accounts, other than joint accounts with a partner or family member.

Even simple, regular shared transactions such as a group of adults supporting their elderly parent are more complicated than they need to be. They usually involve one person collecting and tracking the payments and then sending money to the parent.

Or a creative project like a new podcast. There’s no need for a business bank account necessarily, though having one person track the expenses through their personal account is arduous. Pooling together an initial investment and then spending directly out of the pool allows for effortless tracking and transparency around exactly how much money is left in the budget.

Collaborative financial tools are far more pervasive in other cultures. Tandas in Latin America and Chama groups in Africa are two examples of collective financial habits and practices that exist and are widespread. But for a whole list of reasons, these practices have not become widespread in the U.S.

The power of collective action should extend to borrowing, investing, trading, saving and everyday spending in ways that we have not yet explored. Better tools can solve some of the stress and pain around tracking and collecting, and if done well, can unlock opportunities that are currently unattainable given the current system. We need more of them.

Finance is inherently social, but

Fintech will underdeliver on its promise if we continue to believe that all we need to build is modern infrastructure. We need to build a social layer to the mainstream financial system within the bounds of what people are already using. The blockchain industry is exploring similar ideas, but they are outside the limits of established regulatory frameworks.

Luckily there is a blueprint here. Fintech has a lot to learn from products like Figma and Dropbox. Social financial products will have as much in common with Pinterest as they do with Citibank.

It won’t be easy, though. Social software is messy and complicated because people are messy and complicated. AI won’t fix the awkward kitchen interactions you have with your roommate, who is late paying his rent. That said, there’s room for more tools, and ones that allow for more than bill splitting, joint accounts and shared personal financial management (PFM). We need change at the account level, too.

The part about Braid

This move toward collaborative financial products and tools is bigger than Braid, or any one single company. Our hope is that there will be a flood of these products that help us manage money, our money, in more intuitive, straightforward ways.

To that end, here are a few things we believe in at Braid about shared financial tools:

Build the best group account.

There is real power in pooling, spending, and managing group money together. Group spending already happens in individual silos, reconciled through spreadsheets and P2P apps and bill splitting apps. We think the transparency that comes with spending together is crucial.

We are not looking to re-invent an entire stack of personal finance products. Instead, we want to build the absolute best group account. You should be able to sign up with any bank, and get money into and out of Braid easily. The accounts should be trivial to set up and easy to customize. We should support groups of all shapes and sizes. The accounts should feel lightweight enough to use one for a weekend but trustworthy enough to use one for a decade.

Money movement should be frictionless and instant.

This is the responsibility of the entire financial industry. The fact that it’s still difficult to move money around is an issue, and many articles have been devoted to this topic. We are no exception and try to do our best internally to make money movement frictionless. Moving money in, out and around within Braid should be fast, reliable and safe.

We are building a tool for humans.

There is real social stigma around sharing money, and we are not only building infrastructure to make sharing money easier, we are also building a social product that real humans will use. We’re building tools to support and reinforce safe and friendly financial collaboration. This means we need to be mindful of the social interactions that happen on our platform, take precautions around user safety and privacy, and do our very best to ensure a positive experience for new and ongoing users.

We are really at the very beginning and believe that there is a lot of work to do to make collaborative financial tools accessible to all. We’d love your thoughts on the app or this post, feel free to write to us at hello@braid.co.

Written in San Francisco, CA, September 2020. Special thanks to everyone who read this and provided feedback, I really appreciate it.

Update October 2025: We’ve recently launched Pool, you can check it out at https://poolmoney.com. We look forward to your feedback, and you’re welcome to contact us: hello@poolmoney.com

Braid is a new group account.

We designed a group account that you can use with any bank (U.S. only, for now), and were voted #1 on Product Hunt just a few weeks ago. Use Braid to start a group, invite others, and add money from any bank. We created a group template especially for Homeschool pods.

Spend directly from the group.

Your group has dedicated virtual cards for online purchases, learning tools and subscriptions, its own account and routing number, and a physical debit card as well for snacks, supplies and more. Here is an example pod group. Each person deposited $60 into the group and then Chris purchased supplies from Office Depot with the virtual card. The group got a push notification when the transaction occurred.

Braid is safe, secure, and saves you time.

In a situation like this, one person would likely become the financial organizer of a pod. That person would be responsible for collecting payments, receipts and keeping a spreadsheet of expenses. That person might also front money when necessary, and get reimbursed. With Braid, you don’t have to route everything through one person. Everyone adds money each week or month and can see the expenses tracked in one place. The group admin can also set permissions about who has access to the pooled money.

Transparency is extremely important to us, and having a dedicated account just for your pod gives each member greater insight into where the money is going.

We are obsessed with security, and want you to know your money is totally safe. Our infrastructure uses best-in-class security practices in order to keep your money and your personal data safe and secure.

Partnering with Pandemic Pods.

There are many needs families will have to address, so we’ve partnered up with some other organizations that might be helpful to you or people you know. We’ll be working together in service to help all families make remote learning as successful as possible. Here’s a link to the PandemicPods.org website that can help you match if you’re still looking for or need to find families for a pod, as well as a connected Facebook page where you can get in touch with the organization running this partnership.

Funding Pods

If you represent a foundation or local/state/federal government and are interested in funding pods, please get in touch with us at hello@braid.co. We want to make it easy to distribute money directly to pods in need of financial assistance, and would love to hear from you.

How to Sign Up for Braid.

• Check out our website for more information
• Download from the App Store or the Play Store
• Get in touch if you have questions! We’re available at hello@braid.co or @braid_app on Twitter

In 2020, it’s really easy to send money, but still hard to share it.

It often goes like this: in a situation with shared expenses, someone ends up “The Treasurer”. This is the person who tracks the expenses, splits them up, and collects. It can be one person, or several. These Treasurers are everywhere: in shared houses/apartments, romantic relationships, families, bands, group trips, and more.

Payment apps have come a long way in the last decade, and it’s now trivial to send someone a one-time payment. But it gets annoying when you are splitting more than one expense. Do you split up each one individually, at the time of payment? Do you use a tracking app (there are many great ones), or make a spreadsheet? In all these situations, someone pays first, and the expense has to be tracked.

“Group accounts” don’t really exist. The best thing out there is a joint bank account. To get one, you might have to switch banks or open a new checking account. Some banks require all the signers to come into a branch together to set one up, and some joint accounts don’t let you see who is spending what, because the account, routing and debit cards all have the same numbers.

Braid is a group account for shared expenses. We’ve been working on it for a while and we’re excited to share it with you today. We’re also going to share some of what we’ve learned from our early users, the ways they are using it, and the product features we’ve built to address this feedback. The app is available for iOS, and Android. Check it out and let us know what you think.

INTRODUCING BRAID GROUPS.

Our group accounts exist inside a messaging app. Why messaging? When there’s shared money, there’s usually a conversation. Why is the gas bill so high this month? Can I get you back next week when I get paid? Who is buying groceries this weekend?

Money is inherently social, and shared money especially so. A group chat is well-understood and trivial to set up, and sharing money should be too. Plus, they’re more fun.

USE IT WITH ROOMMATES, ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS, FAMILIES, EX’S AND MORE.

How are people using Braid? Roommates and couples are creating groups called “House” or “Us” for groceries and supplies (especially with living situations shifting due to COVID). We’ve also seen ex’s use Braid groups for shared child-related or pet-related expenses.

We want to make it easy to sign up, create a group, and add money from any bank. Then, group members can spend directly out of the group account, together, and there’s no tracking or collecting money later.

Family support is another big use-case. Especially with unemployment as high as it is, we’re seeing people creating groups with their elderly parents, or their recently graduated children.

ONE DEBIT CARD.

One challenge we encountered early on was how to enable users to spend directly out of their groups with a debit card. If someone had five groups, for example, we didn’t want to issue five cards. No one wants to carry around that many cards. Instead, the Braid Card pairs with any of your groups, right in the app. Tap next to the group you want to spend from, and swipe. You can do this right at the time of purchase.

PERMISSIONS.

A common question we get is “so if everyone has access to the money, won’t people steal it?” First, we encourage you to only share money with people you trust. But we’ve also added permissions to each group to make sure everyone feels comfortable. Want to add someone who can only deposit money, not withdraw? Want to make it so that only you, the Admin, can invite others? Want to create a $50 a day spending cap? All that is possible.

We’ve learned so much about permissions from other social software products in the last decade. Google Docs, Slack, WhatsApp, Dropbox, etc. have shown that clear permissions can greatly improve the user experience around shared documents/messages/files, and we think it’s important to do this with money, too.

ACCOUNT & ROUTING NUMBERS AND VIRTUAL CARDS.

Our hope is to make it as easy as possible to spend together. Every group has a unique account and routing number, which makes it easy to pay rent and utilities. You can also generate virtual cards for each of your groups for online shopping and recurring payments.

MOVING MONEY IS EASY.

Finally, we think it’s important to be able to move money easily, without switching banks. You add your primary checking account to Braid, and you can easily and quickly move money between your bank, your groups, and your friends.

FREE.

Braid is free to use. There are no monthly charges, card-related fees, overdraft fees, or bank transfer fees. The consumer pays nothing. We make money from interchange revenue from our debit card.

SAFE AND SECURE.

We are using best-in-class security and safety measures to ensure that your money and data are safe. We use Plaid to collect your bank credentials, and we never see them nor have access to them. The personal information you provide when you sign up is encrypted and transmitted securely.

TRANSPARENCY.

The last and most important thing about Braid is transparency. When you send someone money, you don’t really know where and how the money is getting spent. Instead, with groups, every transaction is paid out of the shared group, and all the transactions can be seen by everyone. We’re curious to see if this enables new discussions around money and shared spending.

We’re really interested in feedback and hope you’ll check out the app and let us know what you think. Keep in touch:

• Follow us on Twitter @braid_app.
• Sign up for our email list
• Get the app (iOS, Android)

Thanks for reading,

The Braid Team (San Francisco, CA)

Update October 2025: We’ve recently launched Pool, you can check it out at https://poolmoney.com. We look forward to your feedback.