The perfect Mint options

As a long-time Mint person, I used to be annoyed to say the least when information broke on the finish of 2023 that Intuit would shut Mint down. I, like tens of millions of others, loved how simply Mint allowed us to trace all accounts in a single place and monitor credit score scores. I additionally used it usually to trace spending, set targets like pay my mortgage down sooner and with basic cash administration.

So I got down to discover one of the best Mint options within the wake of its disappointing demise. I gave Credit score Karma, Intuit’s different monetary app, a attempt however discovered it to be a poor Mint substitute. The next information lays out my expertise testing among the hottest Mint alternative apps obtainable in the present day searching for my subsequent budgeting app.

Our decide for greatest Mint different stays Quicken Simplifi, even months after the Mint shutting down, because of its simple to make use of app, good earnings 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 may help you determine which of one of the best budgeting apps on the market can 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 simply simply hold scrolling via to get an in depth overview of all of your stats. These embrace your top-line balances; internet price; current spending; upcoming recurring funds; a snapshot of your spending plan; prime spending classes; achievements; and any watchlists you’ve arrange. You may as well arrange financial savings targets elsewhere within the app. I additionally respect the way it provides neat, virtually playful visualizations with out ever wanting cluttered. I felt at house within the cell and internet 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 principally painless. I used to be notably impressed at how simply it related to Constancy; not all price range trackers do, for no matter cause. 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 might 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 private home worth (or at the very least a tough estimate of it). Numerous 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 price range trackers. As you’re reviewing transactions, you may also mark in the event you’re anticipating a refund, which is a novel 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 with the ability to categorize some, however not all, purchases from a service provider as recurring. As an illustration, 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 possible accommodate your most popular budgeting technique. Simply examine that your common earnings is correct and make sure you arrange recurring funds, making word of that are payments and that are subscriptions. That is essential as a result of Simplifi exhibits you your whole take-home earnings in addition to an “earnings after payments” determine. That quantity consists of, effectively, payments however not discretionary subscriptions. From there, you possibly can add spending targets by class within the “deliberate spending” bucket. Deliberate spending can even embrace one-time expenditures, not simply month-to-month budgets. While you create a price range, Simplifi will recommend 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 which you can’t arrange an account via Apple or Google. There may be additionally no possibility for a free trial, although Quicken guarantees a “30-day a reimbursement assure.”

Monarch Cash 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 checklist, together with Simplifi, NerdWallet and Copilot. And it’s. Enhancing expense classes, including recurring transactions and creating guidelines, for instance, is a bit more sophisticated 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 formidable stage of granularity. Within the budgets part, you possibly can see a bona fide steadiness sheet displaying budgets and actuals for every class. You may 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 effectively. As an illustration, whereas most Amazon purchases could be marked as “purchasing,” these for the quantities of $54.18 or $34.18 are positively child provides, and might be mechanically marked as such every time, to not point out programmed as recurring funds. Weirdly, although, there’s no strategy to mark sure recurring funds as payments, particularly.

Not lengthy after I first printed this story in December 2023, Monarch launched an in depth reporting part the place you possibly can create on-demand graphs based mostly on issues like accounts, classes and tags. That characteristic is out there 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 mechanically replace the worth of your automobile. This, mixed with the present Zillow integration for monitoring your private home worth, makes it simple to rapidly add a non-liquid asset like a automobile or actual property, and have it present up in your internet price graph.

The cell app is generally self-explanatory. The principle dashboard exhibits your internet price; your 4 most up-to-date transactions; a month-over-month spending comparability; earnings month-to-date; upcoming payments; an investments snapshot; a listing of any targets you’ve set; and, lastly, a hyperlink to your month-in-review. That month-in-review is extra detailed than most, delving into money move; prime earnings and expense classes; money move traits; modifications to your internet price, belongings and liabilities; plus asset and legal responsibility breakdowns. In February 2024, Monarch expanded on the web price graph, in order that in the event you click on on the Accounts tab you possibly can see how your internet price modified over completely different durations of time, together with one month, three months, six months, a yr or all time.

On the primary display, you’ll additionally discover tabs for accounts, transactions, money move, price range and recurring. Like lots of the different apps featured right here, Monarch can auto-detect recurring bills and earnings, even when it will get the class fallacious. (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 mix 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 normal on this area, towards the tip of this information.) As a part of an replace in late December, Monarch has additionally made it simpler to attach via these different two networks, if for some cause 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 lets you 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 should do no matter the place you select to take your Mint information.

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 comparable performance that can be obtainable to anybody with the newest variations of their respective apps on a tool operating iOS 17.4. As an alternative of manually importing statements, the brand new performance permits apps like Monarch’s to mechanically 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 not too long ago launched funding transactions in beta. It additionally says invoice monitoring and an overhauled targets system are coming quickly. Monarch hasn’t supplied a timeline for that final one, besides to say that the improved targets characteristic is coming quickly.

Copilot Cash could be the best-looking budgeting app I examined. It additionally has the excellence of being unique to iOS and Macs — at the very least for now. Andres Ugarte, the corporate’s CEO, has publicly promised that Android and internet apps are coming quickly. However till it follows via, I can’t advocate Copilot for most individuals with so many good rivals on the market.

There are different options that Copilot is lacking, which I’ll get into. However it’s promising, and one to control. It’s only a quick, environment friendly, effectively designed app, and Android customers can 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 virtually 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 may as well add your personal classes, full together with your alternative of emoji.) It’s not excellent. Copilot miscategorized some purchases (all of them do), nevertheless it makes it simpler to edit than most. On prime of that, the interior search characteristic may be very quick; it begins whittling down ends in 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 by way of an in-app browser. For Venmo, you need to arrange fwd@copilot.cash as a forwarding tackle after which create a filter, whereby emails from venmo@venmo.com are mechanically forwarded to fwd@copilot.cash. Like Monarch Cash, you may also add any property you personal and observe its worth via Zillow, which is built-in with the app.

Whereas the app is closely automated, I nonetheless respect that Copilot marks new transactions for evaluation. It’s a great way to each weed out fraudulent prices, and in addition be considerably intentional about your spending habits.

Like Monarch Cash, Copilot up to date its app to make it simpler to connect with banks via 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, could be a bugbear for some price range monitoring apps. In an much more current replace, Copilot added a Mint import possibility, which different budgeting apps have begun to supply as effectively.

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 advised me that his staff is sort of performed constructing out an in depth money move part as effectively. On its web site, Copilot additionally guarantees a raft of AI-powered options that construct on its present “Intelligence” platform, the one which powers its good expense categorization. These embrace “good monetary targets,” pure language search, a chat interface, forecasting and benchmarking. That benchmarking, Ugarte tells me, is supposed to offer 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 clients that distinguish it from the competitors. There’s a “demo mode” that looks like a recreation simulator; no want so as to add your personal accounts. The corporate can 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.

It’s possible you’ll 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 almost definitely to click on on. Because it occurs, NerdWallet additionally has the excellence of providing one of many solely free budgeting apps I examined. In truth, there isn’t a paid model; nothing is locked behind a paywall. The principle catch: There are advertisements 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 person interface, which incorporates each an online and a cell app. The important thing metrics that it highlights most prominently are your money move, internet 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 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 monetary 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 possibly can arrange recurring payments. Importantly, it follows the favored 50/30/20 budgeting rule, which has you placing 50% of your price range 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 which you can’t customise your price range 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 objects 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 probably the most onerous setup processes of any app I examined. I don’t suppose it is a dealbreaker, as you’ll solely should 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 among the solely price range trackers to supply credit score rating monitoring, it additionally wants extra of your private information throughout setup, together with your birthday, tackle, 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 mechanically detecting my common earnings. In my case, it counted a big one-time wire switch as earnings, at which level my solely different possibility was to enter my earnings manually (which is barely annoying as a result of I might have wanted my pay stub helpful to double-check my take-home pay).

YNAB is, by its personal admission, “completely different from something you’ve tried earlier than.” The app, whose title is brief for You Want a Price range, promotes a so-called zero-based budgeting system, which forces you to assign a objective for each greenback you earn. A ceaselessly used analogy is to place every greenback in an envelope; you possibly can at all times transfer cash from one envelope to a different in a pinch. These envelopes can embrace lease and utilities, together with unexpected bills like vacation presents and the inevitable automobile restore. The thought is that in the event you price range a specific amount for the unknowns every month, they gained’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 means to do that). The cash you’ll make later within the month via your salaried job just isn’t related, as a result of YNAB doesn’t have interaction in forecasting.

The app is more durable to be taught than every other right here, and it requires extra ongoing effort from the person. And YNAB is aware of that. Inside each the cell and internet apps are hyperlinks to movies and different tutorials. Though I by no means fairly acquired snug with the person interface, I did come to understand YNAB’s insistence on intentionality. Forcing customers to draft a brand new price range every month and to evaluation every transaction just isn’t essentially a nasty factor. As YNAB says on its web site, “Positive, you’ve acquired 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 strategy being helpful for individuals who don’t are likely to have quite a lot of money in reserve at a given time, or who’ve spending habits they need 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’ve got main financial savings targets you need to obtain, whether or not it’s paying for a marriage or shopping for a home. I recommend you give her column a learn. For me, although, YNAB’s strategy looks like overkill.

PocketGuard is among the solely respected free price range trackers I discovered in my analysis. Simply realize it’s much 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 without cost, 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 possibility is definitely one of many few distinctive promoting factors for me: I’m positive some folks will respect paying as soon as and by no means having to, uh, price range for it once more.

From the primary display, you’ll see tabs for accounts, insights, transactions and the “Plan,” which is the place you see recurring funds stacked on prime of what seems like a price range. The principle overview display exhibits you your internet price, whole belongings and money owed; internet earnings and whole spending for the month; upcoming payments; a helpful reminder of when your subsequent paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you’ve got; and any targets.

Like another apps, together with Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an “after payments” strategy, the place you enter all your recurring payments, after which PocketGuard exhibits you what’s left, and that’s what you’re speculated to be budgeting: your disposable earnings. Clearly, different apps have a unique philosophy: take into consideration all your post-tax earnings and use it to pay the payments, buy belongings you need and possibly even save slightly. 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 dedicated to including some well-liked 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 slightly 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 obtainable. The online 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. Organising my accounts via Finicity was principally an easy course of. I did encounter one hiccup: Finicity wouldn’t hook up with my SoFi account. I used to be in a position to do it via Plaid, however PocketGuard doesn’t make it simple to entry Plaid within the app. The one means, so far as I can inform, is to knowingly seek for the title of a financial institution that isn’t obtainable via Finicity, at which level you get the choice to attempt 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 information, 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 in the present day the business normal 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 corporate claims.

To be clear, you don’t want a devoted Plaid app to make use of it; the expertise is baked into a big selection of apps, together with the price range trackers I examined for this information. As soon as you discover the “add an account” possibility 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 immediately. As soon as you discover yours, you’ll be prompted to enter your login credentials. When you’ve got two-factor authentication arrange, you’ll have to enter a one-time passcode as effectively.

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 information to different firms. Nevertheless, I might not be doing my job if I didn’t word that in 2022 Plaid was pressured to pay $58 million to shoppers in a category motion go well with for accumulating “extra monetary information than was wanted.” As a part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to vary 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 centered on us accelerating workstreams already underway associated to giving folks extra transparency into Plaid’s function in connecting their accounts, and guaranteeing that our workstreams round information minimization stay on observe.”

My prime Mint different picks

To conclude, you could 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 general prime decide, 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 desire 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 one of the best general possibility.

The way to import your monetary information from the Mint app

Mint customers ought to contemplate getting their information able to migrate to their new budgeting app of alternative quickly. Sadly, importing information from Mint just isn’t as simple as coming into your credentials from inside your new app and hitting “import.” In truth, 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 information.

To obtain a CSV file from Mint, do the next:

1. Signal into Mint.com and hit Transactions within the menu on the left facet of the display.

2. Choose an account, or all accounts.

3. Scroll down and search for “export [number] transactions” in smaller print.

4. Your CSV file ought to start downloading.

Notice: Downloading on a per-account foundation may appear extra annoying, however might make it easier to get arrange on the opposite facet, 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 do a little analysis. To discover a checklist of apps to check, I consulted trusty ol’ Google (and even trustier Reddit); learn evaluations of well-liked apps on the App Retailer; and in addition requested buddies and colleagues what price range monitoring apps they could be utilizing. Among the apps I discovered have been free, similar to Mint. These, in fact, present a great deal of advertisements (excuse me, “provides”) to remain in enterprise. However many of the obtainable apps require paid subscriptions, with costs sometimes topping out round $100 a yr, or $15 a month. (Spoiler: My prime decide is cheaper than that.)

Since this information is supposed to assist Mint customers discover a everlasting alternative, any providers I selected to check wanted to do a number of issues: import all your account information into one place; supply budgeting instruments; and observe your spending, internet 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 totally testing these apps (and bear in mind, I actually was on the lookout for a Mint different 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 coming 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 Cash is one other free monetary app that tracks spending and helps issues like steadiness alerts and account linking. For those who pay for the premium tier, the service can even make it easier to cancel undesirable subscriptions. We didn’t check it for this information, however we’ll contemplate it in future updates.