The Guiabolso app no longer exists. It was acquired by PicPay in July 2021 and shut down in November 2022, after its functions were absorbed into the "My Finances" section of the buyer's app. If you're looking for the app, that's what happened.
The story, in order
- 2012: Thiago Alvares and Benjamin Gleason found the fintech, which starts out as financial consulting and turns into a spending management app.
- By 2019: it reaches more than five million users and starts using automatic statement reading to categorize spending, flag above-average fees, and recommend financial products.
- July 2021: it is acquired by PicPay, already with more than six million users. What interested the buyer was less the user base and more the technical capability to read banking data, built for Open Finance.
- November 2022: the app is shut down. Users were able to export their own data as an already-categorized spreadsheet, and what remained was deleted or anonymized in accordance with the LGPD.
What was left, and where
The functions didn't disappear: they became the personal finance section within PicPay, with the same idea of pulling the statement, categorizing spending, and showing where the money went. The bank-connection technology became infrastructure for the buyer. Anyone who just wants spending control today chooses between the feature built into their own bank's app, Open Finance aggregators, and the good old spreadsheet.
The part that matters if you run a business
This story is the cleanest example of a risk almost no one accounts for: the tool you use every day can be bought and shut down, and the notice comes with a deadline. In Guiabolso's case the outcome was civilized — there was data export and the LGPD was followed. It isn't always like that.
It's worth asking three questions about every third-party system your operation uses today:
- Can I get my data out of here? If the answer is "you can copy it screen by screen," you don't have the data, you have access to it.
- If this service shuts down in ninety days, what stops working? Customer records, service history, and scheduling tend to be the answers.
- Whose account is it? A service registered under an employee's name or a former vendor's is an ownership problem before it's a technical one.
The fix isn't to distrust every app, it's to keep the information that sustains the business in something you control. That's the reasoning behind a custom-built system, and the same permission logic appears in before connecting AI to your email.
Frequently asked questions
Is Guiabolso still around?
No. The app was acquired by PicPay in July 2021 and shut down in November 2022, after its expense-tracking features were folded into PicPay's personal finance section.
Who bought Guiabolso?
PicPay, back in July 2021. At the time, Guiabolso had more than six million users, and the deal's main draw was its technical ability to read and categorize banking data—capability it had built for Open Finance.
What happened to the data of people who used Guiabolso?
Before the shutdown, users were able to download their own information in a spreadsheet, already consolidated and categorized. Whatever remained on the servers was deleted or anonymized, in line with Brazil's General Data Protection Law (LGPD).
Who founded Guiabolso?
Thiago Alvares and Benjamin Gleason, in 2012. The company started out as a financial advisory service before evolving into the well-known expense-management app.