It has been over one yr since Intuit shut down the favored budgeting app Mint. I used to be a Mint person for a few years; thousands and thousands 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 normal cash administration.
Forward of Mint’s demise, I gave Credit Karma, Intuit’s different monetary app, a attempt however discovered it to be a poor Mint various. So I got down to discover a true alternative in one other budgeting app. The next information lays out my expertise testing among the hottest Mint alternative apps accessible at the moment.
Our choose for greatest Mint various stays Quicken Simplifi, even this lengthy after Mint being shut down, due to its simple to make use of app, good revenue and invoice detection and its reasonably priced value. However there are many different stable choices on the market for these with completely different wants. For those who’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
Greatest Mint options in 2025
No pun supposed, 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 person interface, with a touchdown web page that you just simply preserve scrolling by way of to get an in depth overview of all of your stats. These embody 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 respect is the power to arrange financial savings objectives elsewhere within the app. I additionally respect the way it affords neat, nearly playful visualizations with out ever wanting cluttered. I felt at dwelling within the cellular and internet dashboards after a day or so, which is quicker than I tailored to some competing companies (I’m taking a look at you, YNAB and Monarch).
Getting arrange with Simplifi was largely painless. I used to be significantly impressed at how simply it linked to Constancy; not all finances trackers do, for no matter motive. That is additionally one of many solely companies 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 a number of months now: I want Simplifi provided Zillow integration for simply monitoring your private home worth (or at the least a tough estimate of it). Varied opponents together with Monarch Cash and Copilot Cash work with Zillow, so clearly there is a Zillow API accessible to be used. Because it stands, Simplifi customers should add actual property manually like some other asset.
In observe, Simplifi miscategorized a few of my bills, however nothing out of the bizarre in comparison with any of those finances trackers. As you’re reviewing transactions, you can too mark in the event you’re anticipating a refund, which is a singular characteristic among the many companies I examined. Simplifi additionally estimated my common revenue higher than another apps I examined. Most of all, I appreciated the choice of with 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 also be self-explanatory and may possible accommodate your most popular budgeting methodology. Simply verify that your common revenue is correct and you should definitely arrange recurring funds, making word of that are payments and that are subscriptions. That is essential as a result of Simplifi reveals you your complete take-home revenue in addition to an “revenue after payments” determine. That quantity contains, nicely, payments however not discretionary subscriptions. From there, you’ll be able to add spending targets by class within the “deliberate spending” bucket. Deliberate spending may also embody one-time expenditures, not simply month-to-month budgets. Whenever you create a finances, Simplifi will counsel a quantity based mostly on a six-month common.
Not dealbreakers, however two issues to bear in mind as you get began: Simplifi is notable in you could’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 refund 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 sophisticated than it must be, particularly within the cellular app. (My recommendation: Use the online app for fine-tuning particulars.) Monarch additionally didn’t get my revenue proper; I needed to edit it.
When you’re arrange, although, Monarch affords a powerful degree of granularity. Within the budgets part, you’ll be able to see a bona fide stability sheet displaying budgets and actuals for every class. You will additionally discover a forecast, for the yr or by month. And recurring bills will be set not simply by service provider, however different parameters as nicely. For example, whereas most Amazon purchases is likely to be marked as “buying,” these for the quantities of $54.18 or $34.18 are undoubtedly child provides, and will be routinely 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 printed this story in December 2023, Monarch introduced an in depth reporting part the place you’ll be able to create on-demand graphs based mostly on issues like accounts, classes and tags. That characteristic is on the market simply on the internet model of the app for now. As a part of this identical replace, Monarch added assist for an aggregator that makes it doable to routinely replace the worth of your automobile. This, mixed with the present Zillow integration for monitoring your private home 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 cellular app is generally self-explanatory. The primary dashboard reveals your web price; your 4 most up-to-date transactions; a month-over-month spending comparability; revenue 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 circulate; high revenue and expense classes; money circulate 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’ll be able to see how your web price modified over completely different durations 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 circulate, finances and recurring. Like most of the different apps featured right here, Monarch can auto-detect recurring bills and revenue, even when it will get the class fallacious. (All of them do to an extent.) Expense classes are marked by emoji, which you’ll be able to 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 house, 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. Just 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 means that you can grant entry to another person in your loved ones — possible 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 must do no matter the place you select to take your Mint knowledge.
Moreover, Monarch simply added the power to trace Apple Card, Apple Money, and Financial savings accounts, due to new performance introduced with the iOS 17.4 replace. It is not the one one both; at the moment, Copilot and YNAB have additionally added related performance that will likely be accessible to anybody with the newest variations of their respective apps on a tool operating iOS 17.4. As a substitute of manually importing statements, the brand new performance permits apps like Monarch’s to routinely pull in transactions and stability historical past. That ought to make it simpler to account for spending on Apple playing cards and accounts all through the month.
Monarch additionally not too long ago launched funding transactions in beta. It additionally says invoice monitoring and an overhauled objectives system are coming quickly. Monarch hasn’t offered a timeline for that final one, besides to say that the improved objectives characteristic is coming quickly.
Copilot Money is likely to be the best-looking budgeting app I examined. It additionally has the excellence of being unique to iOS and Macs — at the least for now. Andres Ugarte, the corporate’s CEO, has publicly promised that Android and internet apps are coming quickly. However till it follows by way of, I can’t advocate Copilot for most individuals with so many good opponents on the market.
Copilot Cash for Net and Android!
Because of the assist from our customers, and the overwhelming optimistic reception we’re seeing from people migrating from Mint, we will now say that we’ll be constructing @copilotmoney for Net and Android with a objective 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 have the ability 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 every thing out of your budgets to your funding efficiency to your bank card debt over time. Specifically, Copilot does a greater job than nearly some other app of visualizing your recurring month-to-month bills.
Behind these punchy colours and cutesy emoji, although, is a few refined efficiency. Copilot’s AI-powered “Intelligence” will get smarter as you go at categorizing your bills. (You can too add your personal classes, full along with your selection of emoji.) It’s not good. Copilot miscategorized some purchases (all of them do), nevertheless it makes it simpler to edit than most. On high of that, the interior search characteristic could be very quick; it begins whittling down ends in your transaction historical past as quickly as you start typing.
Copilot can also be distinctive in providing Amazon and Venmo integrations, permitting you to see transaction particulars. With Amazon, this requires simply signing into your Amazon account by way of an in-app browser. For Venmo, you must arrange fwd@copilot.cash as a forwarding handle after which create a filter, whereby emails from venmo@venmo.com are routinely forwarded to fwd@copilot.cash. Like Monarch Cash, you can too 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 respect that Copilot marks new transactions for evaluate. It’s a great way to each weed out fraudulent costs, and likewise be considerably intentional about your spending habits.
Like Monarch Cash, Copilot up to date its app to make it simpler to hook up 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 Specific and Constancy which, once more, is usually a bugbear for some finances 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 informed me that his staff is sort of carried out constructing out an in depth money circulate 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 embody “sensible monetary objectives,” pure language search, a chat interface, forecasting and benchmarking. That benchmarking, Ugarte tells me, is supposed to provide individuals 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 fascinating issues for brand new clients that distinguish it from the competitors. There’s a “demo mode” that looks like a sport simulator; no want so as to add your personal accounts. The corporate can also be providing two free months with RIPMINT — a extra beneficiant introductory supply 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.
You might know NerdWallet as a website that gives a mixture of private finance information, explainers and guides. I see it typically once I google a monetary time period I don’t know and positive sufficient, it’s one of many websites I’m most probably 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 a paid model; nothing is locked behind a paywall. The primary catch: There are adverts in every single place. To be honest, the free model of Mint was like this, too.
Even with the inescapable bank card affords, NerdWallet has a clear, easy-to-understand person interface, which incorporates each an online and a cellular app. The important thing metrics that it highlights most prominently are your money circulate, web price and credit score rating. (Of word, though Mint itself provided credit score rating monitoring, most of its rivals don’t.) I significantly loved the weekly insights, which delve into issues like the place you spent essentially 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 significantly particular class choices when organising your accounts (assume: 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’ll be able to arrange recurring payments. Importantly, it follows the favored 50/30/20 budgeting rule, which has you placing 50% of your finances towards belongings you want, 30% towards belongings you need, and the remaining 20% into financial savings or debt repayments. If this works for you, nice — simply know you could’t customise your finances to the identical diploma as some competing apps. You may’t at the moment create customized spending classes, although a word contained in the dashboard part of the app says “you’ll have the ability to customise them sooner or later.” You can also’t transfer gadgets from the needs 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 some of the onerous setup processes of any app I examined. I don’t assume this can be a dealbreaker, as you’ll solely must 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 finances trackers to supply credit score rating monitoring, it additionally wants extra of your private information throughout setup, together with your birthday, handle, cellphone 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 routinely detecting my common revenue. In my case, it counted a big one-time wire switch as revenue, at which level my solely different choice was to enter my revenue manually (which is barely annoying as a result of I’d have wanted my pay stub helpful 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’ll be able to at all times transfer cash from one envelope to a different in a pinch. These envelopes can embody lease and utilities, together with unexpected bills like vacation items and the inevitable automobile restore. The thought is that in the event you finances a specific amount for the unknowns every month, they gained’t really feel like they’re sneaking up on you.
Importantly, YNAB is barely involved with the cash you could have in your accounts now. The app doesn’t ask you to offer your take-home revenue or arrange recurring revenue funds (though there’s a method to do that). The cash you’ll make later within the month by way of your salaried job isn’t related, as a result of YNAB doesn’t have interaction in forecasting.
The app is more durable to study than some other right here, and it requires extra ongoing effort from the person. And YNAB is aware of that. Inside each the cellular and internet apps are hyperlinks to movies and different tutorials. Though I by no means fairly bought snug with the person interface, I did come to understand YNAB’s insistence on intentionality. Forcing customers to draft a brand new finances every month and to evaluate every transaction isn’t essentially a foul factor. As YNAB says on its web site, “Certain, you’ve bought pie charts displaying that you just 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 strategy being helpful for individuals who don’t are likely to have a whole lot of money in reserve at a given time, or who’ve spending habits they wish to appropriate (to riff off of YNAB’s personal instance, ordering Seamless 4 instances 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 could have main financial savings objectives you wish 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 strategy looks like overkill.
PocketGuard is likely one of the solely respected free finances trackers I discovered in my analysis. Simply understand 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 totally free, except you retain issues easy with one money account and one bank card. When it comes time to improve to PocketGuard Plus, you could have 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 individuals will respect paying as soon as and by no means having to, uh, finances 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 finances. The primary overview display reveals you your web price, complete property and money owed; web revenue and complete spending for the month; upcoming payments; a helpful reminder of when your subsequent paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you could have; and any objectives.
Like another apps, together with Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an “after payments” strategy, the place you enter your entire recurring payments, after which PocketGuard reveals you what’s left, and that’s what you’re speculated to be budgeting: your disposable revenue. Clearly, different apps have a special philosophy: keep in mind your entire post-tax revenue and use it to pay the payments, buy belongings you need and possibly even save just a little. However in PocketGuard, it’s the “in your pocket” quantity that’s most outstanding. 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 embody 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 often make the app really feel janky. Greater than as soon as, it prompted me to replace the app when no updates have been accessible. The net model, in the meantime, feels just like the cellular app blown as much as a bigger format and doesn’t make the most of the additional display actual property.
Of word, though PocketGuard does work with Plaid, its main bank-connecting platform is definitely Finicity. Organising 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 in a position to do it by way of Plaid, however PocketGuard doesn’t make it simple to entry Plaid within the app. The one method, so far as I can inform, is to knowingly seek for the identify of a financial institution that isn’t accessible by way of Finicity, at which level you get the choice to attempt Plaid as a substitute. Like I mentioned: the expertise will 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 tug 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 the moment 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 companies depend on Plaid, the company claims.
To be clear, you don’t want a devoted Plaid app to make use of it; the expertise is baked into a wide selection of apps, together with the finances 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 use to look yours up instantly. As soon as you discover yours, you’ll be prompted to enter your login credentials. You probably have two-factor authentication arrange, you’ll have to enter a one-time passcode as nicely.
Because the intermediary, Plaid is a passthrough for info that will embody 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 corporations. 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 gathering “extra monetary knowledge than was wanted.” As a part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to vary a few of its enterprise practices.
In an announcement offered 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 individuals extra transparency into Plaid’s position in connecting their accounts, and guaranteeing that our workstreams round knowledge minimization stay on observe.”
My high Mint various picks
To conclude, you is likely to be questioning what app I made a decision on for myself in spite of everything 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 person 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 perfect total choice.
Tips on how 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 selection quickly. Sadly, importing knowledge from Mint isn’t as simple as getting into your credentials from inside your new app and hitting “import.” In reality, any app that advertises the power 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.
Notice: Downloading on a per-account foundation may appear extra annoying, however might provide help 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 options
Earlier than I dove into the world of budgeting apps, I had to perform a little research. 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 buddies and colleagues what finances monitoring apps they is likely to be utilizing. A number of the apps I discovered have been free, similar to Mint. These, after all, present a great deal of adverts (excuse me, “affords”) to remain in enterprise. However many of the accessible apps require paid subscriptions, with costs usually 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 alternative, any companies I selected to check wanted to do a number of issues: import your entire account knowledge into one place; supply 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 set to work 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 stability. 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 instances 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 stability alerts and account linking. For those who pay for the premium tier, the service may also provide help to cancel undesirable subscriptions. We didn’t take a look at 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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