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The demise of Mint, the beloved budgeting app, has led millions of users to consider alternatives. That makes it a good time for everyone to consider a money management tool.
Many people don’t worry about these tools, which can help you with everything from keeping track of 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 other than their bank’s.
However, many budget app users were avid fans of Mint. When it became available in 2007, it was something of a miracle, sucking in your debit and credit card transactions and then sorting them by category and adding them up.
Intuit, which bought the company two years later, is closing Mint and trying to convert 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, senior analyst at Javelin, had a few suggestions for people looking for a Mint alternative and for people trying money apps for the first time. First check what your bank offers. After years of hostility toward third-party companies’ access to their customers’ data, banks have realized that if they don’t offer decent tools, more and more account holders will look elsewhere.
Then, give something new a thorough test drive, since it doesn’t cost much to try out these tools. “Every user is a little different,” Mr. Lerner said. “It is very personal as it involves personal financial management.”
This week I gave several Mint competitors that I’ve been following for years the chance 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 per year.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Position you are most proud of: “Copilot Intelligence,” which allows the app to 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 multi-currency support, among other things we don’t do yet.”
What you want to improve: Availability via internet and Android.
Offer for Mint customers: Free two-month subscription (the code is RIPMINT). The company is working on a data import tool.
Monarch money
Website: monarchmoney.com
Price: $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Position you are most proud of: Using multiple so-called aggregators, third parties that make it easier for customers to integrate all their external accounts and keep them up to date. (Integration and update errors are not uncommon with such apps.)
Say something nice about a competitor: “Mint has a cool feature that alerts customers when an invoice is due. People really seem to love and trust it!”
What you want to improve: The ability to track expiration dates.
Offer for Mint customers: Free trial, discounted annual subscription, data importer, explanation from a co-founder (a former Mint product manager).
PocketGuard
Website: pocketguard.com
Price: A premium version for $7.99 per month, $34.99 per year or $79.99 for a lifetime subscription.
How it makes money: Subscription fees and costs of third-party services such as Billshark.
Position you are most proud of: ‘In My Pocket’, a ‘safe amount to spend’ after all necessities and other expenses have been covered.
Say something nice about a competitor: “Monarch provides detailed customization for all aspects of budgeting, from transactions and categories to planning and forecasting.”
What you want to improve: Do more research on user experience.
Offer for Mint customers: The company develops 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.
Position you are most proud of: Personalized spending plans and checklists for potential trouble spots.
Say something nice about a competitor: “We learned from Mint and Intuit and created a solution that brings the best of both worlds together.”
What you want to improve: Expanding the network of financial institutions from which people can download data beyond the existing 14,000.
Offer 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 every month.
How it makes money: Subscription fees, bill negotiation service success fees, credit card fees, referral fees from third parties such as auto insurers.
Position you are most proud of: The subscription management feature that prompts people to cancel services they may no longer need has been used more than a million times.
Say something nice about a competitor: “For couples looking to combine their finances, Honeydue’s platform is easy to use and can take the stress out of merging their finances.”
What you want to improve: Using artificial intelligence to make services more personal.
Offer for Mint customers: A free trial and free data transfer tools are coming soon. The company has posted a comparison chart for Mint vs. Rocket Money.
Tiller
Website: tillerhq.com
Price: $79 per year.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Position you are most proud of: Tracking transactions in customers’ own spreadsheets, reducing concerns about the security or control of the data.
Say something nice about a competitor: “YNAB’s ‘rules for money’ are great and will undoubtedly be useful to many.”
What you want to improve: Add more features to the personalized daily email digest.
Offer for Mint customers: A Tiller vs. Mint comparison chart, tips for switching, and an FAQ
YNAB (formerly known as You Need a Budget)
Website: ynab.com
Price: $14.99 per month or $99 per year.
How it makes money: Subscription fee.
Position you are most proud of: The “YNAB Method” – four habits that teach people how to spend, save and give without hesitation. One couple received “YNAB WIN” license plates for their new car.
Say something nice about a competitor: “We love how Rocket Money helps people manage and cancel their subscriptions.”
What you want to improve: “While we make no apologies for requiring more hands-on involvement than most of our competitors, we are excited about simplifying the experience of getting started with YNAB.”
Offer for Mint customers: A free trial period of 34 days, multiple explanations about the transition and a video.
