Jig vs Plates

Quick Comparison

What Jig Does Best

Jig is built around AI receipt parsing. You upload a photo of any receipt and Jig extracts every line item, the subtotal, tax, and tip automatically. There is no manual entry involved. You then assign items to the people who ordered them, and Jig distributes tax and tip proportionally based on what each person ordered.

Because Jig runs in the browser, nobody at the table needs to download anything. You open the site, scan the receipt, and share the result as a link. The whole process takes under a minute, and it works for any kind of receipt — not just restaurants. Grocery runs, bar tabs, group purchases at a store: if there is a receipt, Jig can split it.

Jig requires no account and is completely free. There are no premium tiers or feature limits.

What Plates Does Best

Plates is purpose-built for restaurant dining. It is a companion app from the Splitwise team, designed to make splitting a dinner check easy. You enter the items from the bill, assign them to diners, and Plates calculates each person's share including tax and tip.

The biggest advantage of Plates is its tight integration with Splitwise. If your group already tracks shared expenses in Splitwise, Plates can push the split directly into your Splitwise group. This means the dinner expense automatically shows up in your running balance without any extra steps.

For groups already embedded in the Splitwise ecosystem, Plates provides a smooth dining-specific workflow that feeds into their existing expense tracking.

Key Differences

The most significant difference is how you get item data into each tool. Jig uses AI to read the receipt photo and extract items automatically. With Plates, you type each item in manually. For a long receipt with many items, this manual entry adds real time and effort.

The second major difference is accessibility. Jig runs in any browser with no download and no account. Plates requires downloading an app and signing in with a Splitwise account. If you are splitting a bill with people who do not use Splitwise, Jig removes that friction entirely.

On the other hand, if everyone in your group already has Splitwise and you want the split to feed into your group ledger, Plates offers that integration out of the box.

When to Use Each Tool

• Use Jig when you want to scan a receipt with AI, avoid manual entry, and share a split link instantly — especially when not everyone at the table uses Splitwise.
• Use Plates when your group is already on Splitwise and you want the restaurant split to sync directly into your ongoing group balance.

The Bottom Line

Plates is a solid dining-focused tool if you are already in the Splitwise ecosystem. But if you want the fastest path from receipt to split — with AI doing the data entry for you, no app download, and no account — Jig is the more versatile and frictionless choice. It works for restaurants and every other kind of receipt too.

Want to see more comparisons? Check out how Jig stacks up against Splitwise, Tab, and Splitty.