Tricount is a well-established bill-splitter, especially popular across Europe, and it's good at tallying who paid what and telling everyone their net number. But it tracks; it doesn't collect. If you need the money gathered into one place instead of counted after the fact, the alternative is a group fund. TableCash collects the money: everyone chips in by card, it lands with one trusted organizer through Stripe, the organizer approves what leaves, and the whole group sees every dollar.

Tricount counts well, but the money stays put

Tricount has earned its spot. It's been splitting bills for years, it's a household name for group costs in much of Europe, and it does the tallying cleanly: log each expense, and it tells everyone exactly what they owe or are owed. For a group that just wants a fair number at the end of a trip or a shared flat, that's genuinely useful. But the app's job ends at the number. It never collects, holds, or moves a dollar, so once Tricount says who owes what, the group still has to go make the money move somewhere else. And for anything that has to be paid upfront, the counting is the easy part.

What each one actually does

1. Tricount tallies costs. A longtime bill-splitter that logs who paid for what and shows each person a net number. No money is collected or held by the app.
2. TableCash collects the money. Everyone chips in their share by card and it lands with one trusted organizer through Stripe, before anything gets booked or bought.
3. Tricount leaves settling up to you. It produces the numbers and trusts the group to pay them out privately, later.
4. TableCash puts one person in charge. The organizer holds the money and approves what leaves, and the whole group sees the balance, who chipped in, and what went out.

When you need the money, not the tally

Tricount is at its best when the spending already happened and you just want it split fairly, a weekend where everyone covered random things, a shared apartment's running costs. The gap opens when the money has to be there first: a group gift to buy before the birthday, a deposit due now, dues with a deadline. Then a net number doesn't help, you need the cash actually collected in one place, held by one person, with everyone watching it come in. That's what TableCash adds that a splitter can't. TableCash never holds the money; it moves through Stripe to the organizer, and the app is the record everyone can open. If you want the broader case, here's a Splitwise alternative that collects.