EarnWise

Inspiration

In India, millions of people — gig workers, street vendors, daily-wage earners — run their livelihoods without ever tracking what they actually earn or spend. Most have no formal financial records, no visibility into savings patterns, and no idea which government schemes or microloans they might already qualify for. We wanted to build something that meets them where they are: simple, mobile-first, and genuinely useful — not another finance app built for people who already have a bank app and a budget spreadsheet.

What it does

EarnWise is a simple, mobile-first web app that helps informal workers track their daily income and expenses, understand their financial patterns, and discover government schemes they're eligible for.

• Daily entry: Log income and expenses in seconds, in plain language
• Dashboard: Visual weekly/monthly breakdown of earnings vs. spending
• AI Insights: An AI assistant analyzes spending patterns and gives plain-language, personalized tips — no financial jargon
• Scheme Matcher: Matches the user's profile against schemes like PM SVANidhi and Mudra Loan, so they know what support they may already qualify for

How we built it

• Frontend: React, mobile-first responsive design
• Backend/Auth/Database: Firebase
• AI Layer: LLM API (Claude) to generate personalized financial insights and match users to relevant schemes based on their logged data
• Charts: Recharts for visualizing income/expense trends
• Deployment: Vercel

Challenges we ran into

• Designing an interface simple enough for users with little to no experience with finance apps
• Making AI-generated financial insights feel personal and actionable rather than generic
• Structuring scheme-eligibility logic so the AI recommendations stayed accurate and relevant

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• A working end-to-end flow: log an expense → see it visualized → get an AI-generated tip → see matched schemes
• Kept the UI simple enough that a first-time user could use it without instructions
• Built something with a real, tangible use case beyond the hackathon

What we learned

• How to design AI prompts that produce genuinely useful, non-generic financial advice
• The importance of designing for users with low digital literacy, not just power users
• How to quickly prototype and ship a full-stack AI product under time pressure

What's next for EarnWise

• Voice-based entry in regional languages for even lower-friction logging
• Partnerships with microfinance institutions and scheme providers for real-time eligibility checks
• Community savings goals and gamified financial literacy modules

Built With

• claude-ai
• firebase
• javascript
• react
• recharts