Top Budgeting Apps After Mint's Shutdown

TL;DR – Quick Summary: Mint was shut down by its parent company Intuit in January 2024, with final closure on March . Intuit redirected users to Credit Karma, which lacks Mint's core budgeting features — no custom budgets, no savings goals, no envelope management. The best replacements are Monarch Money (closest feature-for-feature Mint successor, founded by Mint's original product manager), YNAB (most powerful zero-based budgeting for users ready to take active control), Quicken Simplifi (most Mint-like interface at $2.99–$5.99/month), Empower (best free option for investment tracking and net worth), and Rocket Money (best for subscription tracking and bill negotiation). The right choice depends on whether you want active zero-based budgeting discipline (YNAB), passive tracking closest to Mint's style (Monarch or Simplifi), or free investment-integrated oversight (Empower).

Table of Contents

1. Why Mint Was Shut Down: What Happened

2. Why Credit Karma Is Not a Real Mint Replacement

3. Monarch Money: The Closest True Mint Successor

4. YNAB: Best for Zero-Based Budgeting Discipline

5. Quicken Simplifi: The Most Affordable Mint-Style App

6. Empower Personal Dashboard: Best Free Option with Investment Tracking

7. Rocket Money: Best for Subscription Management and Bill Negotiation

8. PocketGuard: Most Mint-Like Interface for Passive Trackers

9. Goodbudget: Best for Envelope Budgeting on a Free Plan

10. NerdWallet App: Free Spending Tracking with Financial Product Recommendations

11. How to Choose the Right Mint Alternative

Why Mint Was Shut Down: What Happened

Mint launched in 2006 as one of the first free, automatic personal finance and budgeting platforms in the US, pioneering the bank account aggregation and automatic transaction categorisation model that most subsequent budgeting apps adopted. Intuit acquired Mint in 2009 for $170 million, recognising the platform's potential to serve as a consumer financial data aggregator while generating revenue through product referrals and advertising. The core business model providing free financial tracking in exchange for displaying targeted credit card, loan, and financial product advertisements worked effectively in the 2010s but came under increasing pressure as consumer aversion to advertising grew, competition intensified from subscription-funded alternatives with better features, and Intuit's own strategic priorities shifted.

In November 2023, Intuit announced Mint would close on January 1, 2024, with final account access until March 23, 2024. The stated reason was the decision to consolidate users into Intuit's Credit Karma platform. Financial analysis of the decision suggests that Mint's advertising-based revenue model had become unsustainable relative to its operating costs, and that the user data and financial profile insights Mint had collected were more strategically valuable redirected into Credit Karma's credit product recommendation engine than maintained in a standalone budgeting product. For the 3.6 million users who relied on Mint for daily financial management, the closure created an urgent need to migrate to alternatives with their transaction history, budget categories, and financial data requiring export before the platform went dark.

Why Credit Karma Is Not a Real Mint Replacement

Intuit's recommendation that Mint users migrate to Credit Karma was widely criticised by former users and financial technology analysts as inadequate because Credit Karma is not a budgeting application. Credit Karma's core functionality is credit score monitoring, credit report access from TransUnion and Equifax, and personalised recommendations for credit cards, loans, and insurance products that generate revenue for Intuit through referral commissions. While Credit Karma allows users to link financial accounts and view transactions and spending by category, it does not provide the essential budgeting features that Mint users depended upon: custom budget creation by category with spending alerts, savings goal tracking with progress visualisation, rollover budgets, debt payoff planning, or forward-looking budget projections. The result is a tool that tells you where your money went a reactive spending log — without the planning and enforcement infrastructure that defined Mint's budgeting value proposition. Former Mint users seeking a genuine replacement must look beyond Credit Karma to dedicated alternatives.

Monarch Money: The Closest True Mint Successor

Monarch Money is the Mint alternative most consistently recommended by financial experts, personal finance communities, and former Mint power users and its origin story provides context for why: Monarch was co-founded by Val Agostino, the first product manager on Mint's original development team. Agostino built Monarch specifically to address the limitations of Mint, and the result is a budgeting application that preserves what was most valued about Mint while adding substantially more capability. Monarch connects to over 13,000 financial institutions through multiple aggregation networks (not just Plaid), providing more reliable bank connections than most competitors. Its dashboard provides a comprehensive financial overview including net worth, income and expense comparison, cash flow, and savings goal progress. Budget management allows both monthly fixed budgets and flexible "rollover" budgets for variable categories. Recurring expense tracking automatically identifies subscription spending. Couples and households can share access with individual logins, maintaining privacy while enabling collaborative financial management.

Monarch Money costs $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year (with discounts frequently available for annual subscribers). It has no free tier beyond a trial period. For former Mint users accustomed to a free product, the subscription cost is the primary adjustment but users who have migrated consistently report that the ad-free experience, more reliable bank connections, and richer feature set justify the cost. Monarch is available on iOS, Android, and web.

YNAB: Best for Zero-Based Budgeting Discipline

YNAB (You Need A Budget) is the most methodologically sophisticated Mint alternative, built around the zero-based budgeting philosophy where every dollar of income is assigned a specific purpose before it is spent, rather than tracking where it went after the fact. This proactive assignment approach — "giving every dollar a job" — produces better spending awareness and savings outcomes than Mint's reactive categorisation model for users who engage with it seriously. YNAB claims average users save $600 in their first two months and $6,000 in their first year of use — figures that reflect genuine behavioural change from active budget assignment versus passive spending tracking. YNAB connects to financial accounts for automatic transaction import, allows manual entry, and provides real-time budget status across all categories. Its reporting tools include age of money (showing how long money sits in your account before being spent), income and expense trends, and net worth tracking. YNAB costs $14.99 per month or $109 per year, with a 34-day free trial available. College students can access YNAB free for 12 months with proof of enrollment. Its learning curve is steeper than Mint or Monarch — new users typically require a week of active engagement before the methodology becomes intuitive — but this investment produces the most significant behavioural change of any budgeting app in the market.

Quicken Simplifi: The Most Affordable Mint-Style App

Quicken Simplifi is the Mint alternative that most closely replicates Mint's visual style and interaction model — a scrollable financial dashboard showing balances, recent transactions, spending by category, upcoming bills, and savings plan status. For former Mint users who want the familiar passive tracking experience without a steep learning curve, Simplifi is the least disruptive transition. Its spending plan feature automatically identifies recurring income and fixed expenses, then calculates available discretionary spending — a Mint-like "safe to spend" concept. It tracks subscriptions, generates spending trends, and integrates investment account balances into net worth tracking. Simplifi costs approximately $2.99 per month on promotional pricing for new subscribers (standard rate $5.99/month or higher depending on current pricing) — the lowest subscription price among premium Mint alternatives. It offers a 30-day free trial. Simplifi does not offer a free tier for ongoing use, and some users find its investment tracking less comprehensive than Empower's free offering. However, as the most Mint-like experience at the most accessible price point, it is the strongest entry point for Mint migrants who are uncertain about committing to a more different approach like YNAB.

Empower Personal Dashboard: Best Free Option with Investment Tracking

Empower (formerly Personal Capital) provides the most comprehensive free financial dashboard available as a Mint replacement, with particular strength in investment tracking and retirement planning analysis that Mint never offered. The free Empower Personal Dashboard connects bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, retirement accounts, loans, and real estate holdings to create a complete net worth picture. Automatic transaction categorisation and spending analytics replicate Mint's core tracking functionality. The investment dashboard analyzes portfolio allocation, fees, and performance identifying underperforming or high-fee investments in a way that can generate immediate financial value for users with investment accounts. The Retirement Planner tool projects retirement readiness based on current savings rates, investment returns, and expected expenses — a sophisticated planning capability unavailable in Mint. Empower is entirely free for these dashboard features, generating revenue by offering its paid wealth management services to users with investable assets above $100,000. It is not a zero-based budgeting tool its budgeting features are less structured than YNAB or Monarch but for former Mint users who primarily used the app for spending visibility and net worth tracking rather than active budget management, Empower's free offering is the strongest available replacement.

Rocket Money: Best for Subscription Management and Bill Negotiation

Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) is the Mint alternative with the most differentiated feature set going beyond passive tracking into active money-saving interventions. Its subscription tracker automatically identifies all recurring charges in linked accounts, alerts users to subscription creep, and enables one-click cancellation for unwanted subscriptions directly through the app. Its bill negotiation service — a concierge feature where Rocket Money's team contacts service providers (internet, phone, insurance) to negotiate lower rates on the user's behalf charges a success-based fee of 30% to 60% of the first year's savings. The free tier provides account linking, spending tracking, basic budgets, and subscription identification. The premium tier ($6 to $12 per month, user-selected) adds bill negotiation, custom budget categories, advanced spending insights, and smart savings automation. For former Mint users who most valued the platform for awareness of subscription spending and financial organisation rather than detailed budgeting categories, Rocket Money's subscription management capability makes it the most practically impactful tool for finding and eliminating hidden recurring costs many users report recovering $50 to $200 monthly in forgotten or unwanted subscription charges within their first month of use.

PocketGuard: Most Mint-Like Interface for Passive Trackers

PocketGuard's signature "In My Pocket" metric automatically calculating discretionary safe-to-spend money by subtracting upcoming bills, savings goals, and necessities from available income is the closest conceptual equivalent to Mint's at-a-glance financial awareness model for users who primarily want to know how much they can safely spend right now. Account linking is straightforward, automatic transaction categorisation works reliably for most major financial institutions, and the interface is clean and intuitive without requiring the methodological engagement that YNAB demands. PocketGuard's free plan connects accounts and displays the In My Pocket metric with basic budgeting. PocketGuard Plus ($12.99 per month or $74.99 per year) adds unlimited budgets, custom categories, and a debt payoff plan. PocketGuard's limitation relative to Monarch or YNAB is less granular budget management and fewer customisation options it is best suited to users who want simple, automatic financial awareness without complexity, rather than users who want to engage deeply with budget categories and goals.

Goodbudget: Best for Envelope Budgeting on a Free Plan

Goodbudget implements the envelope budgeting method allocating specific amounts to spending categories (envelopes) at the beginning of each month and tracking spending against each allocation throughout the month — in a digital format accessible across iOS, Android, and web. Unlike most Mint alternatives, Goodbudget does not link to bank accounts: transactions are entered manually (or imported via CSV), providing a hands-on budgeting experience that builds stronger financial awareness through active engagement with each transaction. The free plan provides 20 envelopes, access on two devices, and one year of transaction history. The Goodbudget Plus plan ($8 per month or $70 per year) provides unlimited envelopes, unlimited devices, and seven years of history. Goodbudget is particularly well-suited to couples and households who want to share budget visibility across devices and users who prefer not to grant third-party app access to bank account credentials. Its manual entry requirement makes it more time-intensive than account-syncing alternatives, but this investment produces stronger budget adherence in users who commit to the method.

NerdWallet App: Free Spending Tracking with Financial Product Recommendations

The NerdWallet personal finance app provides a free financial tracking dashboard account linking, transaction categorisation, net worth tracking, cash flow visibility, and credit score monitoring that serves as a functional Mint replacement for users who do not require sophisticated budget management features. NerdWallet's revenue model is transparent: it uses spending and financial profile data to recommend credit cards, savings accounts, loans, and insurance products where NerdWallet earns referral commissions. This creates the same fundamental dynamic as Mint's advertising model — free tracking in exchange for product recommendations but with recommendations that are generally well-matched to user financial situations rather than randomly served ads. The NerdWallet app's cash flow interface has been described as "well-designed and intuitive" by the Wall Street Journal. Its limitation relative to Monarch or YNAB is the absence of forward-looking budget planning tools it tracks what has happened rather than enabling structured management of what will happen.

How to Choose the Right Mint Alternative

Choosing the best Mint replacement requires identifying which aspect of Mint you valued most. If you primarily used Mint to see where your money went at the end of each month, Empower (free) or PocketGuard (free or Plus) provides this passive tracking capability with minimal transition cost. If you used Mint's budget categories and monthly spending limits actively, Monarch Money or Quicken Simplifi most closely replicates this experience with improved reliability and features. If you are ready to adopt a more proactive budgeting methodology that produces stronger financial outcomes, YNAB's zero-based approach delivers the most significant behavioral and financial impact worth its higher learning curve and subscription cost. If subscriptions and recurring expenses are your primary concern, Rocket Money's active cancellation and negotiation features deliver the most immediate practical value. If investment tracking and retirement planning matter alongside basic budgeting, Empower's free comprehensive dashboard is unmatched in the free tier.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Mint shut down?

Intuit shut down Mint in January 2024, with final closure on March 23, 2024, citing the decision to consolidate its consumer financial tools under Credit Karma. The underlying drivers were that Mint's advertising-based revenue model had become financially unsustainable relative to competitors charging subscription fees, and that Intuit's strategic priority shifted toward Credit Karma's credit-monitoring and product-referral business model. The closure forced 3.6 million active users to export their financial data and find alternative budgeting platforms.

What is the best free Mint alternative in 2025?

Empower Personal Dashboard is the best free Mint alternative for users who want automatic account linking, spending tracking, net worth monitoring, and investment analysis all at no cost. NerdWallet's app provides free spending tracking and credit monitoring. PocketGuard's free tier offers the "In My Pocket" safe-to-spend metric with basic budgets. Goodbudget's free plan provides 20 budget envelopes with manual entry. For users who want the most complete free budgeting experience, Empower is the strongest single choice, though it is better suited to tracking than to active budget category management.

Is YNAB worth it as a Mint replacement?

YNAB is worth the cost for users who are ready to shift from passive spending tracking — Mint's model — to proactive zero-based budgeting where every dollar is assigned a purpose before being spent. YNAB's average user savings claim ($600 in two months, $6,000 in the first year) is backed by independent user surveys, and financial advisors consistently cite it as the budgeting app most associated with genuine behavior change. At $14.99 per month or $109 per year, it pays for itself many times over for users who engage with its methodology. It is not the right choice for users who want passive tracking similar to Mint without methodological engagement.

Can I import my Mint data into a new budgeting app?

Several Mint alternatives specifically supported Mint data import at the time of the platform's closure. Monarch Money, YNAB, and Simplifi each offered Mint CSV import tools allowing transaction history to be carried over. If you still have a Mint data export (the platform allowed CSV downloads before final closure on March 23, 2024), import functionality varies by current app version check each provider's support documentation for current Mint import capability. If you did not export your data before the March 2024 closure, that transaction history is no longer retrievable from Mint.

What is the most similar app to Mint in 2025?

Monarch Money and Quicken Simplifi are most frequently cited as the closest experience to Mint in terms of interface design, automatic account linking, transaction categorisation, and monthly spending overview. Monarch was co-founded by Mint's original product manager and deliberately replicated and improved on Mint's core model. Simplifi's scrollable dashboard and spending plan approach closely mirrors Mint's visual and interaction style. PocketGuard's "In My Pocket" metric most closely replicates the at-a-glance "safe to spend" awareness that many Mint users found most valuable on the platform.