$133 a month more on subscriptions than people think they spend. Pairly is the list.

For unequal earners

Down the middle is only fair if the middle is the same for both of you.

Splitting evenly is the default because it is easy to calculate, not because it is fair. When one income is a lot bigger, an even split quietly takes a much bigger bite out of the smaller one.

Set up my month
  • 14 days free
  • No credit card to start
  • One subscription for both of you

39%

of US couples earning under $50,000 keep their finances completely separate, against 17% of couples earning over $100,000.

Bankrate couples and money survey, 2026

Two people leaning on opposite sides of a kitchen island, talking, with coffee mugs and a closed laptop between them

Pairly does not connect to bank accounts or credit cards. It only knows what you type into it.

“It is fine. Honestly, it is fine.”

This is the one nobody wants to open, because raising it sounds like asking for a favour. Much easier when the split is a setting the two of you chose once, rather than something one of you has to bring up.

Alex. Sam. And the joint account.

Halving the bills looks perfectly fair on paper. Look at the last line of each page and it stops looking fair. That last line is the only one that matters.

Earns $5,400

Alex takes home$5,400
  • Into the joint account$2,670
  • Own savings$800
  • Gym$65
  • Phone$50
  • Subscriptions$40
Left to live on$1,775

Alex covers 63% of the bills. That is Alex's share of the household income, to the dollar.

Example figures, written for this situation. Pairly never guesses what you earn.

The same month, split two ways.

Same couple, same bills, two ways of dividing them. The difference is what each of them has left afterwards.

Down the middle

$4,200 of shared costs, halved

  • Alex earns $5,400puts in $2,100, keeps $3,300
  • Sam earns $3,100puts in $2,100, keeps $1,000

By income

64% and 36%, worked out from what each of you earns

  • Alex earns $5,400puts in $2,668.24, keeps $2,732
  • Sam earns $3,100puts in $1,531.76, keeps $1,568

Same bills, same total. Look at where the two bars end. Splitting by income leaves Sam $568.24 more each month, and the two of you finish it in a similar place rather than one of you finishing it with nothing.

Example figures. Pairly works with whatever you put in.

Your first fifteen minutes.

The order matters here. Incomes first, split second, bills last.

  1. What you each take homeReal numbers. Rounding to the nearest thousand defeats the entire point of this page.
  2. The split methodTry even, then try by income, and watch the last line of each person's page rather than the split itself.
  3. What goes into the shared pot
  4. The bills the pot covers
  5. Your own lines, kept out of the split

Decided once, and after that it is just a setting. Neither of you has to bring it up again.

So what do you actually do?

    Split by income, to the dollar

    Each share comes out of what each of you earns against the household total. Pairly does the arithmetic so neither of you has to propose a number.

    Proportional splitting

    See what each of you has left

    Fairness is not visible in the split. It is visible in what remains afterwards, which is the view Pairly puts in front of you.

    Available money

    Any share you like

    Proportional is a starting point, not a verdict. If sixty forty is what the two of you agree on, set sixty forty and move on.

    Custom split

The fair question

Does splitting by income not make it feel less equal?

It tends to do the opposite. An even split on unequal incomes leaves the person earning less with almost nothing while the other has plenty, and that gap is where resentment grows. Splitting by income is how you both end the month in a similar place.

My partner earns more and says it does not matter. Am I making it weird?

You are making it explicit, which is a different thing. Right now one of you is carrying an uneven load and no number has been said out loud. Putting it on a screen is what turns it from a feeling somebody has to raise into a setting you both chose.

What happens when the incomes change?

Change the number and every proportional split moves with it that same month. That is most of why proportional is worth setting up: a raise, a drop in hours or a gap between jobs does not need a renegotiation.

Fair is a number you both picked, not the one that was easiest to divide.

14 days free, then $4.99 a month or $47.88 a year for the two of you together.

Set up my monthWhat it costs

Sounds more like one of these?