The Post-Mint Landscape
January 1, 2024 arrived and millions of Mint users were suddenly without their budgeting app. Intuit's decision to redirect users to Credit Karma felt like a bait-and-switch to many — Credit Karma is primarily a credit monitoring and product recommendation tool, not a budgeting app.
The good news: the alternatives are better than Mint ever was. The bad news: most of them cost money. Here's the full picture.
Mint's total registered user base exceeded 20 million at its peak, with an estimated 3.6 million active monthly users at shutdown. Source: Intuit (2023) — Source
What to Look for in a Mint Replacement
Before picking, get clear on which parts of Mint you actually used:
- Automatic transaction syncing — nearly every alternative has this
- Spending categories and budgets — varies significantly in quality
- Net worth tracking — not all apps do this well
- Investment account sync — limited in some apps
- Free tier — paid is increasingly the norm for quality apps
The Best Mint Alternatives
Copilot — Best for iPhone Users
Copilot is what Mint would have been if it had been built with a premium design ethos. Transaction categorization is smart and learns your habits. The budget interface is clean. At $13/month it's more expensive than Mint (which was free), but the experience is substantially better.
Honest take: If you're on iOS and want the best-feeling budgeting app, this is it. Android users need to look elsewhere.
Monarch Money — Best All-Around Replacement
Monarch has been the biggest beneficiary of Mint's shutdown. It offers everything Mint offered — budgeting, net worth, investment sync — plus collaboration features for couples, goals, and a strong web app.
Monarch Money saw a 3x increase in sign-ups in the weeks following Mint's shutdown announcement. Source: Monarch Money Blog (2023) — Source
Honest take: The most complete like-for-like Mint replacement. At $14.99/month it's not free, but households split it between two people and find it worthwhile.
YNAB — Best if Mint Wasn't Working for You
If you were a Mint user who tracked your spending but never really changed your behavior, YNAB is a different philosophy: give every dollar a job before you spend it. It requires more mental engagement, but it's the most effective behavioral tool in the market.
Honest take: YNAB is not for passive trackers. It's for people who want to make their money intentional.
Empower — Best Free Option
Empower's free tier syncs all your accounts — including investments — and gives you a clean net worth and cash flow view. It doesn't have Mint's budget-vs.-actual comparisons, but it nails account aggregation.
Honest take: The best no-cost option. The wealth management upsell is real but ignorable.
Rocket Money — Best if Subscriptions Are Your Problem
Rocket Money won't replace Mint's budgeting features, but if your biggest financial leak is subscriptions you've forgotten about, Rocket Money is the right tool. It finds recurring charges across all your accounts and makes cancellation frictionless.
Honest take: Start here if you've ever been surprised by a charge you didn't recognize. Pair it with something else for full budgeting.
Avenue — Best for AI-Driven Financial Awareness
Avenue approaches the problem differently from every other app on this list. Rather than showing you a dashboard and asking you to interpret it, Avenue reads across all your accounts and surfaces what matters in plain language.
It's designed for the person who found Mint's data interesting but wanted someone — or something — to actually tell them what it meant and what to do about it.
Americans with personalized financial guidance save on average 4x more per year than those without. Source: Vanguard "Advisor's Alpha" Report (2022) — Source
Honest take: If your frustration with Mint was "I see all this data but I don't know what to do with it," Avenue is the most direct solution to that problem.
Quick Comparison
| App | Price | Best For | Free Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot | $13/mo | iPhone budgeting | No |
| Monarch Money | $14.99/mo | All-around replacement | No |
| YNAB | $14.99/mo | Behavior change | No (34-day trial) |
| Empower | Free / AUM fee | Investment tracking | Yes |
| Rocket Money | Free / $6–$12/mo | Subscriptions | Yes |
| Avenue | — | AI-native insights | — |
The Bottom Line
Mint is gone and it's not coming back. The category it pioneered is now served by a handful of apps that are, genuinely, better — they just cost money. For a free option, Empower. For premium budgeting, Copilot or Monarch Money. For AI-native financial awareness, Avenue.
More comparisons: Apps Like Mint, Rocket Money Alternatives, and the full Best Finance Apps hub.