Pretzel turns money into stories. (And sometimes, stories into money.)

Pretzel is the site and app we wished existed. Every time you open a finance app and try to see where your money actually is going, what you’re really wishing you had was Pretzel.

Every time I’m out to dinner and a friend asks, “What was that thing you got last time we were here?” I don’t understand why I can’t just look it up. Every time I log into my bank account and see a charge for “AMAZON DIGITAL SVC WA” and have no idea what I bought I get frustrated. Why can’t I just click it and see?

I’ve spent too many hours staring at lines on a bank ledger as if it’s going to tell me something insightful.

Our plan is simple: we want technology to help us all understand our money and our choices better than before. So we can change our habits, sure, but also sometimes just to know, just to see where our money is going and the stories that tells about us. That’s why we’re building Pretzel. — Al

Our Team

We're a small group of people from around the world, led by our founder Al Doan. We're writers, educators, engineers, and entrepreneurs who have worked in publishing, banking, teaching, retail and software.

We've also been executives, gas station attendants, quilters, office assistants, special needs instructors, bloggers, coders, and dental techs. We've made money a lot of different ways. Some of us have more of it than others. We work remotely from Kansas City, New York, London, Chicago, San José and Omaha.

We also work with writers and other creative contributors using a unique revenue sharing model. You'll see many of their stories around this site and in our newsletter.

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What We Believe

We think that stories are more powerful than numbers—even when those numbers are money.

To build Pretzel, we're creating content and software that makes dealing with the financial part of life—money management, shopping, even just talking about it—easy, fun, and less anxiety-inducing.

We don't think money is the most important thing in life. But we know that worrying about money makes life worse. Alleviating that worry, even a little, is why we're making Pretzel.

Frequently Asked Questions

So is Pretzel an app or a blog or... What are you?

Pretzel is a company that makes software and content. Our company is called Pretzel. Our app is called Pretzel. Our website is also called Pretzel. We're Pretzel.

Why did you call yourself Pretzel?

We could give you a fancy branding answer about "unwinding the salty twists of financial troubles," but to be honest we just really liked the name. It started as a bit of a "Maybe we'll change it later" sort of situation, but then it stuck.

How do I pitch a story for your blog?

Just email us! But maybe go check out the full FAQ linked below, which goes into detail about our rates, how we share affiliate revenue with contributors, what sort of content we're looking for and more.

How can I contact you?

We all individually have our social accounts, plus the Pretzel ones. Or you can just email! The contact form up top goes to all teams right now. When we launch our app into private and then public betas, we'll have a specific support channel for that. And if you're interested in getting into the private beta, just sign up for our newsletter. It's mostly the same stories you see on this site sent via email, but we'll also share information about the betas on that list when we're ready for people to properly break our software.

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