It has been over one yr since Intuit shut down the favored budgeting app Mint. I used to be a Mint consumer for a few years; tens of millions of different customers like me loved how simply Mint allowed us to trace all accounts in a single place and monitor credit score scores. I additionally used it commonly to assist me observe spending, set objectives like pay my mortgage down sooner and with common cash administration.
Forward of Mint’s demise, I gave Credit Karma, Intuit’s different monetary app, a strive however discovered it to be a poor Mint various. So I got down to discover a true substitute in one other budgeting app. The next information lays out my expertise testing a number of the hottest Mint substitute apps obtainable at this time.
Our choose for finest Mint various stays Quicken Simplifi, even this lengthy after Mint being shut down, because of its simple to make use of app, good earnings and invoice detection and its reasonably priced worth. However there are many different strong choices on the market for these with completely different wants. In case you’re additionally on the hunt for a budgeting app to interchange Mint, we hope these particulars can empower you to decide on which of the best budgeting apps on the market will likely be best for you.
Desk of contents
Finest Mint alternate options in 2025
No pun meant, however what I like about Quicken Simplifi is its simplicity. Whereas different budgeting apps attempt to distinguish themselves with darkish themes and customizable emoji, Simplifi has a clear consumer interface, with a touchdown web page that you simply simply preserve scrolling by way of to get an in depth overview of all of your stats. These embrace your top-line balances; web price; current spending; upcoming recurring funds; a snapshot of your spending plan; high spending classes; achievements; and any watchlists you’ve arrange.
One other one of many key options I recognize is the flexibility to arrange financial savings objectives elsewhere within the app. I additionally recognize the way it provides neat, nearly playful visualizations with out ever trying cluttered. I felt at residence within the cell and net dashboards after a day or so, which is quicker than I tailored to some competing providers (I’m taking a look at you, YNAB and Monarch).
Getting arrange with Simplifi was largely painless. I used to be notably impressed at how simply it related to Constancy; not all funds trackers do, for no matter motive. That is additionally one of many solely providers I examined that provides you the choice of inviting a partner or monetary advisor to co-manage your account. One factor I’d add to my preliminary evaluation of the app, having used it for just a few months now: I want Simplifi provided Zillow integration for simply monitoring your house worth (or a minimum of a tough estimate of it). Varied rivals together with Monarch Cash and Copilot Cash work with Zillow, so clearly there is a Zillow API obtainable to be used. Because it stands, Simplifi customers should add actual property manually like every other asset.
In follow, Simplifi miscategorized a few of my bills, however nothing out of the atypical in comparison with any of those funds trackers. As you’re reviewing transactions, you too can mark in the event you’re anticipating a refund, which is a singular characteristic among the many providers I examined. Simplifi additionally estimated my common earnings higher than another apps I examined. Most of all, I appreciated the choice of having the ability to categorize some, however not all, purchases from a service provider as recurring. For example, I can add my two Amazon subscribe-and-saves as recurring funds, with out having to create a broad-strokes rule for each Amazon buy.
The budgeting characteristic can be self-explanatory and might doubtless accommodate your most popular budgeting technique. Simply test that your common earnings is correct and remember to arrange recurring funds, making word of that are payments and that are subscriptions. That is vital as a result of Simplifi reveals you your whole take-home earnings in addition to an “earnings after payments” determine. That quantity contains, nicely, payments however not discretionary subscriptions. From there, you may add spending targets by class within the “deliberate spending” bucket. Deliberate spending may also embrace one-time expenditures, not simply month-to-month budgets. If you create a funds, Simplifi will counsel a quantity primarily based on a six-month common.
Not dealbreakers, however two issues to remember as you get began: Simplifi is notable in that you would be able to’t arrange an account by way of Apple or Google. There’s additionally no choice for a free trial, although Quicken guarantees a “30-day a reimbursement assure.”
Monarch Money grew on me. My first impression of the budgeting app, which was based by a former Mint product supervisor, was that it is tougher to make use of than others on this listing, together with Simplifi, NerdWallet and Copilot. And it’s. Modifying expense classes, including recurring transactions and creating guidelines, for instance, is a bit more difficult than it must be, particularly within the cell app. (My recommendation: Use the net app for fine-tuning particulars.) Monarch additionally didn’t get my earnings proper; I needed to edit it.
When you’re arrange, although, Monarch provides a powerful stage of granularity. Within the budgets part, you may see a bona fide steadiness sheet displaying budgets and actuals for every class. You will additionally discover a forecast, for the yr or by month. And recurring bills might be set not simply by service provider, however different parameters as nicely. For example, whereas most Amazon purchases is perhaps marked as “purchasing,” these for the quantities of $54.18 or $34.18 are undoubtedly child provides, and might be robotically marked as such every time, to not point out programmed as recurring funds. Weirdly, although, there’s no method to mark sure recurring funds as payments, particularly.
Not lengthy after I first revealed this story in December 2023, Monarch introduced an in depth reporting part the place you may create on-demand graphs primarily based on issues like accounts, classes and tags. That characteristic is offered simply on the internet model of the app for now. As a part of this similar replace, Monarch added help for an aggregator that makes it doable to robotically replace the worth of your automobile. This, mixed with the prevailing Zillow integration for monitoring your house worth, makes it simple to shortly add a non-liquid asset like a automobile or actual property, and have it present up in your web price graph.
The cell app is usually self-explanatory. The primary dashboard reveals your web price; your 4 most up-to-date transactions; a month-over-month spending comparability; earnings month-to-date; upcoming payments; an investments snapshot; an inventory of any objectives you’ve set; and, lastly, a hyperlink to your month-in-review. That month-in-review is extra detailed than most, delving into money stream; high earnings and expense classes; money stream developments; modifications to your web price, property and liabilities; plus asset and legal responsibility breakdowns. In February 2024, Monarch expanded on the net worth graph, in order that in the event you click on on the Accounts tab you may see how your web price modified over completely different intervals of time, together with one month, three months, six months, a yr or all time.
On the principle display, you’ll additionally discover tabs for financial savings and checking accounts (and all others as nicely), transactions, money stream, funds and recurring. Like most of the different apps featured right here, Monarch can auto-detect recurring bills and earnings, even when it will get the class unsuitable. (All of them do to an extent.) Expense classes are marked by emoji, which you’ll customise in the event you’re so inclined.
Monarch Cash makes use of a mixture of networks to attach with banks, together with Plaid, MX and Finicity, a competing community owned by Mastercard. (I’ve a fast explainer on Plaid, the business commonplace on this area, towards the top of this information.) As a part of an replace in late December, Monarch has additionally made it simpler to attach by way of these different two networks, if for some motive Plaid fails. Much like NerdWallet, I discovered myself finishing two-factor authentication each time I wished to get previous the Plaid display so as to add one other account. Notably, Monarch is the one different app I examined that lets you grant entry to another person in your loved ones — doubtless a partner or monetary advisor. Monarch additionally has a Chrome extension for importing from Mint, although actually that is only a shortcut for downloading a CSV file, which you’ll need to do no matter the place you select to take your Mint knowledge.
Moreover, Monarch simply added the flexibility to trace Apple Card, Apple Money, and Financial savings accounts, because of new performance introduced with the iOS 17.4 replace. It is not the one one both; presently, Copilot and YNAB have additionally added related performance that will likely be obtainable to anybody with the newest variations of their respective apps on a tool working iOS 17.4. As a substitute of manually importing statements, the brand new performance permits apps like Monarch’s to robotically pull in transactions and steadiness historical past. That ought to make it simpler to account for spending on Apple playing cards and accounts all through the month.
Monarch additionally lately launched funding transactions in beta. It additionally says invoice monitoring and an overhauled objectives system are coming quickly. Monarch hasn’t supplied a timeline for that final one, besides to say that the improved objectives characteristic is coming quickly.
Copilot Money is perhaps the best-looking budgeting app I examined. It additionally has the excellence of being unique to iOS and Macs — a minimum of for now. Andres Ugarte, the corporate’s CEO, has publicly promised that Android and net apps are coming quickly. However till it follows by way of, I can’t advocate Copilot for most individuals with so many good rivals on the market.
Copilot Cash for Net and Android!
Because of the help from our customers, and the overwhelming optimistic reception we’re seeing from of us migrating from Mint, we will now say that we’ll be constructing @copilotmoney for Net and Android with a aim to launch in 2024.
We’ll proceed to…
— Andres Ugarte (@chuga) November 15, 2023
There are different options that Copilot is lacking, which I’ll get into. However it’s promising, and one to keep watch over. It’s only a quick, environment friendly, nicely designed app, and Android customers will likely be in for a deal with once they’ll lastly be capable to obtain it. It makes good use of colours, emoji and graphs that will help you perceive at a look the way you’re doing on the whole lot out of your budgets to your funding efficiency to your bank card debt over time. Specifically, Copilot does a greater job than nearly every other app of visualizing your recurring month-to-month bills.
Behind these punchy colours and cutesy emoji, although, is a few subtle efficiency. Copilot’s AI-powered “Intelligence” will get smarter as you go at categorizing your bills. (You can too add your individual classes, full together with your alternative of emoji.) It’s not good. Copilot miscategorized some purchases (all of them do), however it makes it simpler to edit than most. On high of that, the inner search characteristic may be very quick; it begins whittling down leads to your transaction historical past as quickly as you start typing.
Copilot can be distinctive in providing Amazon and Venmo integrations, permitting you to see transaction particulars. With Amazon, this requires simply signing into your Amazon account through an in-app browser. For Venmo, it’s a must to arrange fwd@copilot.cash as a forwarding handle after which create a filter, whereby emails from venmo@venmo.com are robotically forwarded to fwd@copilot.cash. Like Monarch Cash, you too can add any property you personal and observe its worth by way of Zillow, which is built-in with the app.
Whereas the app is closely automated, I nonetheless recognize that Copilot marks new transactions for evaluation. It’s a great way to each weed out fraudulent fees, and likewise be considerably intentional about your spending habits.
Like Monarch Cash, Copilot up to date its app to make it simpler to connect with banks by way of networks apart from Plaid. As a part of the identical replace, Copilot mentioned it has improved its connections to each American Categorical and Constancy which, once more, is usually a bugbear for some funds monitoring apps. In an much more current replace, Copilot added a Mint import choice, which different budgeting apps have begun to supply as nicely.
As a result of the app is comparatively new (it launched in early 2020), the corporate continues to be catching as much as the competitors on some table-stakes options. Ugarte instructed me that his staff is sort of executed constructing out an in depth money stream part as nicely. On its website, Copilot additionally guarantees a raft of AI-powered options that construct on its present “Intelligence” platform, the one which powers its sensible expense categorization. These embrace “sensible monetary objectives,” pure language search, a chat interface, forecasting and benchmarking. That benchmarking, Ugarte tells me, is supposed to provide folks a way of how they’re doing in comparison with different Copilot customers, on each spending and funding efficiency. Most of those options ought to arrive within the new yr.
Copilot does a pair attention-grabbing issues for brand spanking new prospects that distinguish it from the competitors. There’s a “demo mode” that appears like a sport simulator; no want so as to add your individual accounts. The corporate can be providing two free months with RIPMINT — a extra beneficiant introductory provide than most. When it lastly does come time to pony up, the $7.92 month-to-month plan is cheaper than some competing apps, though the $95-a-year-option is in the identical ballpark.
It’s possible you’ll know NerdWallet as a web site that gives a mixture of private finance information, explainers and guides. I see it usually after I google a monetary time period I don’t know and positive sufficient, it’s one of many websites I’m most certainly to click on on. Because it occurs, NerdWallet additionally has the excellence of providing one of many solely free budgeting apps I examined. In reality, there isn’t any paid model; nothing is locked behind a paywall. The primary catch: There are adverts in every single place. To be truthful, the free model of Mint was like this, too.
Even with the inescapable bank card provides, NerdWallet has a clear, easy-to-understand consumer interface, which incorporates each an online and a cell app. The important thing metrics that it highlights most prominently are your money stream, web price and credit score rating. (Of word, though Mint itself provided credit score rating monitoring, most of its rivals don’t.) I notably loved the weekly insights, which delve into issues like the place you spent probably the most cash or how a lot you paid in charges — and the way that compares to the earlier month. As a result of that is NerdWallet, an encyclopedia of economic information, you get some notably particular class choices when organising your accounts (suppose: a Roth or non-Roth IRA).
As a budgeting app, NerdWallet is greater than serviceable, if a bit fundamental. Like different apps I examined, you may arrange recurring payments. Importantly, it follows the favored 50/30/20 budgeting rule, which has you placing 50% of your funds towards stuff you want, 30% towards stuff you need, and the remaining 20% into financial savings or debt repayments. If this works for you, nice — simply know that you would be able to’t customise your funds to the identical diploma as some competing apps. You possibly can’t presently create customized spending classes, although a word contained in the dashboard part of the app says “you’ll be capable to customise them sooner or later.” You can also’t transfer gadgets from the desires column to “wants” or vice versa however “Sooner or later, you’ll transfer particular transactions to actively handle what falls into every group.” A NerdWallet spokesperson declined to offer an ETA, although.
Lastly, it’s price noting that NerdWallet had one of the onerous setup processes of any app I examined. I don’t suppose it is a dealbreaker, as you’ll solely need to do it as soon as and, hopefully, you aren’t organising six or seven apps in tandem as I used to be. What made NerdWallet’s onboarding particularly tedious is that each time I wished so as to add an account, I needed to undergo a two-factor authentication course of to even get previous the Plaid splash display, and that’s not together with the 2FA I had arrange at every of my banks. This can be a safety coverage on NerdWallet’s finish, not Plaid’s, a Plaid spokesperson says.
Exactly as a result of NerdWallet is likely one of the solely funds trackers to supply credit score rating monitoring, it additionally wants extra of your private information throughout setup, together with your birthday, handle, telephone quantity and the final 4 digits of your social safety quantity. It’s the identical with Credit score Karma, which additionally does credit score rating monitoring.
Associated to the setup course of, I discovered that NerdWallet was much less adept than different apps at robotically detecting my common earnings. In my case, it counted a big one-time wire switch as earnings, at which level my solely different choice was to enter my earnings manually (which is barely annoying as a result of I’d have wanted my pay stub useful to double-check my take-home pay).
YNAB is, by its own admission, “completely different from something you’ve tried earlier than.” The app, whose identify is brief for You Want a Funds, promotes a so-called zero-based budgeting system, which forces you to assign a function for each greenback you earn. A incessantly used analogy is to place every greenback in an envelope; you may all the time transfer cash from one envelope to a different in a pinch. These envelopes can embrace hire and utilities, together with unexpected bills like vacation presents and the inevitable automobile restore. The thought is that in the event you funds a specific amount for the unknowns every month, they received’t really feel like they’re sneaking up on you.
Importantly, YNAB is just involved with the cash you’ve got in your accounts now. The app doesn’t ask you to offer your take-home earnings or arrange recurring earnings funds (though there’s a approach to do that). The cash you’ll make later within the month by way of your salaried job shouldn’t be related, as a result of YNAB doesn’t have interaction in forecasting.
The app is tougher to study than every other right here, and it requires extra ongoing effort from the consumer. And YNAB is aware of that. Inside each the cell and net apps are hyperlinks to movies and different tutorials. Though I by no means fairly received snug with the consumer interface, I did come to understand YNAB’s insistence on intentionality. Forcing customers to draft a brand new funds every month and to evaluation every transaction shouldn’t be essentially a foul factor. As YNAB says on its web site, “Positive, you’ve received pie charts displaying that you simply spent an obscene sum of money in eating places — however you’ve nonetheless spent an obscene sum of money in eating places.” I can see this method being helpful for individuals who don’t are likely to have a variety of money in reserve at a given time, or who’ve spending habits they need to right (to riff off of YNAB’s personal instance, ordering Seamless 4 occasions every week).
My colleague Valentina Palladino, realizing I used to be engaged on this information, penned a respectful rebuttal, explaining why she’s been utilizing YNAB for years. Maybe, like her, you’ve got main financial savings objectives you need to obtain, whether or not it’s paying for a marriage or shopping for a home. I counsel you give her column a learn. For me, although, YNAB’s method appears like overkill.
PocketGuard is likely one of the solely respected free funds trackers I discovered in my analysis. Simply comprehend it’s way more restricted on the free tier than NerdWallet or Mint. In my testing, I used to be prompted to pay after I tried to hyperlink greater than two financial institution accounts. A lot free of charge, until you retain issues easy with one money account and one bank card. When it comes time to improve to PocketGuard Plus, you’ve got three choices: pay $7.99 a month, $34.99 a yr or $79.99 for a one-time lifetime license. That lifetime choice is definitely one of many few distinctive promoting factors for me: I’m positive some folks will recognize paying as soon as and by no means having to, uh, funds for it once more.
From the principle display, you’ll see tabs for accounts, insights, transactions and the “Plan,” which is the place you see recurring funds stacked on high of what appears to be like like a funds. The primary overview display reveals you your web price, whole property and money owed; web earnings and whole spending for the month; upcoming payments; a useful reminder of when your subsequent paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you’ve got; and any objectives.
Like another apps, together with Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an “after payments” method, the place you enter your entire recurring payments, after which PocketGuard reveals you what’s left, and that’s what you’re purported to be budgeting: your disposable earnings. Clearly, different apps have a unique philosophy: keep in mind your entire post-tax earnings and use it to pay the payments, buy stuff you need and possibly even save just a little. However in PocketGuard, it’s the “in your pocket” quantity that’s most distinguished. To PocketGuard’s credit score, it does an excellent job visualizing which payments are upcoming and which of them you’ve already paid.
PocketGuard has additionally publicly committed to including some fashionable options. These embrace rollover budgeting, categorization guidelines and shared family entry.
Though PocketGuard’s UI is simple sufficient to know, it lacks polish. The “accounts” tab is just a little busy, and doesn’t present totals for classes like money or investments. Seemingly small particulars like weirdly phrased or punctuated copy sometimes make the app really feel janky. Greater than as soon as, it prompted me to replace the app when no updates had been obtainable. The net model, in the meantime, feels just like the cell app blown as much as a bigger format and doesn’t benefit from the additional display actual property.
Of word, though PocketGuard does work with Plaid, its main bank-connecting platform is definitely Finicity. Establishing my accounts by way of Finicity was largely an easy course of. I did encounter one hiccup: Finicity wouldn’t connect with my SoFi account. I used to be capable of do it by way of Plaid, however PocketGuard doesn’t make it simple to entry Plaid within the app. The one approach, so far as I can inform, is to knowingly seek for the identify of a financial institution that isn’t obtainable by way of Finicity, at which level you get the choice to strive Plaid as a substitute. Like I mentioned: the expertise might be janky.
What’s Plaid and the way does it work?
Every of the apps I examined makes use of the identical underlying community, referred to as Plaid, to drag in monetary knowledge, so it’s price explaining in its personal part what it’s and the way it works. Plaid was based as a fintech startup in 2013 and is at this time the business commonplace in connecting banks with third-party apps. Plaid works with over 12,000 monetary establishments throughout the US, Canada and Europe. Moreover, greater than 8,000 third-party apps and providers depend on Plaid, the company claims.
To be clear, you don’t want a devoted Plaid app to make use of it; the know-how is baked into a wide selection of apps, together with the funds trackers I examined for this information. As soon as you discover the “add an account” choice in whichever one you’re utilizing, you’ll see a menu of generally used banks. There’s additionally a search area you should utilize to look yours up instantly. As soon as you discover yours, you’ll be prompted to enter your login credentials. In case you have two-factor authentication arrange, you’ll must enter a one-time passcode as nicely.
Because the intermediary, Plaid is a passthrough for data that will embrace your account balances, transaction historical past, account kind and routing or account quantity. Plaid makes use of encryption, and says it has a coverage of not promoting or renting buyer knowledge to different firms. Nonetheless, I’d not be doing my job if I didn’t word that in 2022 Plaid was forced to pay $58 million to consumers in a class action suit for accumulating “extra monetary knowledge than was wanted.” As a part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to alter a few of its enterprise practices.
In a press release supplied to Engadget, a Plaid spokesperson mentioned the corporate continues to disclaim the allegations underpinning the lawsuit and that “the crux of the non-financial phrases within the settlement are targeted on us accelerating workstreams already underway associated to giving folks extra transparency into Plaid’s function in connecting their accounts, and making certain that our workstreams round knowledge minimization stay on observe.”
My high Mint various picks
To conclude, you is perhaps questioning what app I made a decision on for myself in any case of this analysis. The reply is definitely two apps: Quicken Simplifi, my total high choose, and Copilot Cash. For now, I’m actively utilizing each apps and nonetheless deciding, long-term, which I really feel extra snug with. I are likely to want Copilot’s quick, colourful consumer interface, however as I defined above, it is too missing in table-stakes options for me to go as far as to call it the very best total choice.
The way to import your monetary knowledge from the Mint app
Mint customers ought to take into account getting their knowledge able to migrate to their new budgeting app of alternative quickly. Sadly, importing knowledge from Mint shouldn’t be as simple as getting into your credentials from inside your new app and hitting “import.” In reality, any app that advertises the flexibility to port over your stats from Mint is simply going to have you ever add a CSV file of transactions and different knowledge.
To obtain a CSV file from Mint, do the next:
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Signal into Mint.com and hit Transactions within the menu on the left aspect of the display.
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Choose an account, or all accounts.
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Scroll down and search for “export [number] transactions” in smaller print.
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Your CSV file ought to start downloading.
Be aware: Downloading on a per-account foundation might sound extra annoying, however may assist you to get arrange on the opposite aspect, if the app you’re utilizing has you importing transactions one-for-one into their corresponding accounts.
How we examined Mint alternate options
Earlier than I dove into the world of budgeting apps, I had to do a little analysis. To discover a listing of apps to check, I consulted trusty ol’ Google (and even trustier Reddit); learn critiques of fashionable apps on the App Retailer; and likewise requested pals and colleagues what funds monitoring apps they is perhaps utilizing. Among the apps I discovered had been free, similar to Mint. These, in fact, present a great deal of adverts (excuse me, “provides”) to remain in enterprise. However a lot of the obtainable apps require paid subscriptions, with costs sometimes topping out round $100 a yr, or $15 a month. (Spoiler: My high choose is cheaper than that.)
Since this information is supposed to assist Mint customers discover a everlasting substitute, any providers I selected to check wanted to do a number of issues: import your entire account knowledge into one place; provide budgeting instruments; and observe your spending, web price and credit score rating. Besides the place famous, all of those apps can be found for iOS, Android and on the internet.
As soon as I had my shortlist of six apps, I started working setting them up. For the sake of completely testing these apps (and keep in mind, I actually was on the lookout for a Mint alternative myself), I made a degree of including each account to each budgeting app, regardless of how small or immaterial the steadiness. What ensued was a veritable Groundhog Day of two-factor authentication. Simply hours of getting into passwords and one-time passcodes, for a similar banks half a dozen occasions over. Hopefully, you solely have to do that as soon as.
What about Rocket Cash?
Rocket Money is one other free monetary app that tracks spending and helps issues like steadiness alerts and account linking. In case you pay for the premium tier, the service may also assist you to cancel undesirable subscriptions. We didn’t check it for this information, however we’ll take into account it in future updates.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-best-budgeting-apps-to-replace-mint-143047346.html?src=rss
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