The demise of Mint, the beloved budgeting app, has caused its millions of users to consider alternatives. That makes it as good a time as any for everyone to consider a money management tool.
Plenty of people don’t bother with these tools, which can help with everything from tracking debt to keeping a running total of your net worth. According to a recent survey by Javelin Strategy & Research, 41 percent of people don’t use any money management app or website aside from their bank’s.
Many budget app users, however, were fervent fans of Mint. When it became available in 2007, it was a kind of miracle, sucking in your debit and credit card transactions and then sorting and summing them by category.
Intuit, which bought the company two years later, is shutting down Mint and trying to move users to its Credit Karma offering. Credit Karma is known for its free credit scores and lacks some of the budgeting tools that appealed to Mint users.
Dylan Lerner, a senior analyst at Javelin, had a couple of suggestions for people looking for a Mint alternative and those trying money apps for the first time. First, see what your bank offers. After years of hostility toward outside-company access to their customers’ data, banks have realized that if they don’t offer decent tools, more and more of their account holders will seek them elsewhere.
Then, rigorously test drive anything new, since it doesn’t cost much, if anything, to try these tools. “Every user is a little different,” Mr. Lerner said. “It’s very personal, given that it is personal financial management.”
This week, I gave several Mint competitors that I’ve tracked for years an opportunity to introduce themselves to users looking for a new home. Here’s what their representatives said.
Copilot Money
Website: copilot.money
Price: $13 per month or $95 annually.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Feature you’re most proud of: “Copilot Intelligence,” which helps the app use artificial intelligence to learn how users want to categorize transactions.
Say something nice about a competitor: “Lunch Money, a great budgeting app designed and built by just one person, offers multicurrency support among other things we don’t yet do.”
What you want to improve: Web and Android availability.
Offering for Mint customers: Two-month free subscription (the code is RIPMINT). The company is working on a data-importing tool.
Monarch Money
Website: monarchmoney.com
Price: $14.99 per month or $99.99 annually.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Feature you’re most proud of: Using multiple so-called aggregators, third parties that make it easier for customers to integrate all their outside accounts and keep them updating. (Integration and update fails are not uncommon among such apps.)
Say something nice about a competitor: “Mint has a cool feature that notifies customers when a bill is due. People seem to really love and rely on it!”
What you want to improve: The ability to track due dates.
Offering for Mint customers: Free trial, discounted annual subscription, data importer, explainer from a co-founder (a former Mint product manager).
PocketGuard
Website: pocketguard.com
Price: A premium version for $7.99 per month, $34.99 annually or $79.99 for a lifetime subscription.
How it makes money: Subscription fee and fees from third-party services like Billshark.
Feature you’re most proud of: “In My Pocket,” a “safe-to-spend figure” after covering all necessities and other expenses.
Say something nice about a competitor: “Monarch provides detailed customization to all aspects of budgeting, from transactions and categories to planning and forecasting.”
What you want to improve: Doing more research on user experience.
Offering for Mint customers: The company is developing data-transfer tools for Mint users. And the $34.99 annual fee is lower than it used to be for all users.
Quicken Simplifi
Website: quicken.com/simplifi
Price: $3.99 per month.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Feature you’re most proud of: Personalized spending plans and watch lists for potential trouble spots.
Say something nice about a competitor: “We’ve learned from Mint and Intuit and have created a solution that brings together the best of both worlds.”
What you want to improve: Expanding the network of financial institutions from which people can download data beyond the existing 14,000.
Offering for Mint customers: Three months free, and the company has posted a guide to importing Mint data.
Rocket Money
Website: rocketmoney.com
Price: A premium version on a sliding scale for $4 to $5 per month (but only if you pay for a year in advance at $48 to $60), or $6 to $12 if you pay each month.
How it makes money: Subscription fee, success fees from bill-negotiation service, credit card fees, referral fees from third parties like auto insurers.
Feature you’re most proud of: The subscription management feature that prompts people to cancel services they may no longer need, which has been used over a million times.
Say something nice about a competitor: “For couples looking to combine finances, Honeydue’s platform is user-friendly and can help take the stress out of merging finances.”
What you want to improve: Using artificial intelligence to make the service more personal.
Offering for Mint customers: A free trial period, and free data-transfer tools are coming soon. The company has posted a Mint vs. Rocket Money comparison chart.
Tiller
Website: tillerhq.com
Price: $79 annually.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Feature you’re most proud of: Transaction tracking in customers’ own spreadsheets, which creates fewer worries about security or control of the data.
Say something nice about a competitor: “YNAB’s ‘rules for money’ are great, and undoubtedly helpful, for many.”
What you want to improve: Adding more features to the personalized daily email summary.
Offering for Mint customers: A Tiller-vs.-Mint comparison chart, tips for switching and an F.A.Q.
YNAB (formerly known as You Need a Budget)
Website: ynab.com
Price: $14.99 per month or $99 annually.
How it Makes Money: Subscription fee.
Feature you’re most proud of: The “YNAB method” — four habits that teach people how to spend, save and give without second-guessing. One couple got “YNAB WIN” license plates for their new car.
Say something nice about a competitor: “We love how Rocket Money is helping people manage and cancel their subscriptions.”
What you want to improve: “While we don’t apologize for requiring more hands-on engagement than most of our competitors, we are excited about simplifying the experience of getting started with YNAB.”
Offering for Mint customers: A 34-day free trial, multiple transition explainers and a video.
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