What to Do When Mint Shuts Down

DEFINITION

Wealth Aggregator

A tool that connects investment accounts, retirement accounts, and real estate to show total net worth — as distinct from a budgeting app that focuses on tracking spending by category.

DEFINITION

Monarch Money

A subscription-based personal finance app ($99/year) that launched as the leading Mint alternative for budgeting-focused users. Founded in part by former Mint employees.

DEFINITION

Empower (formerly Personal Capital)

A free net worth and investment tracking tool from Empower Retirement. Connects brokerage accounts, 401(k)s, and banks. Monetizes through its wealth management advisory business, which requires a minimum investment of $100,000.

What Actually Happened to Mint

Mint was free for 15 years, supported by ads and data partnerships. Intuit acquired it in 2009, kept it running as a separate product, then in late 2023 announced it was shutting down to consolidate users into Credit Karma.

The shutdown date moved from January 1 to March 23, 2024. Intuit had approximately 3.6 million active Mint users at the time, all of whom needed to find something else.

Intuit’s preferred answer was Credit Karma. Most serious Mint users rejected that quickly — Credit Karma is a credit score monitoring service and loan marketplace, not a financial management app. The experience of trying to use it as a Mint replacement is roughly equivalent to replacing your car with a bicycle because they both involve transportation.

The Three Types of Mint Users (And What Each Needs Now)

Mint’s user base split roughly into three groups, and each has a different best replacement:

The active budgeter. Used Mint’s category budgets, tracked every transaction, wanted to know exactly where the money went each month. This person needs Monarch Money or YNAB — apps built around the same transaction-categorization philosophy. Monarch is the softer landing (familiar interface). YNAB is more rigorous but requires behavior change to get value from it.

The net worth dashboard user. Opened Mint primarily to check the investment overview — how accounts are doing, what net worth looks like, whether the trend is up. This person doesn’t need a budgeting app. They need a wealth aggregator: Empower (free, investment-focused) or Thalvi ($9/month, purpose-built for investors without advisor upsell pressure).

The casual user. Checked Mint occasionally for a general financial picture, didn’t use the budgeting features deeply. This person is often overserved by dedicated replacements. A simple net worth tracker or even a manually updated spreadsheet may be enough.

Why Category-for-Category Replacements Frustrate Investors

The default recommendation you’ll see everywhere is “try Monarch Money.” For budgeters, that’s good advice. For investors, it leads to frustration.

Budgeting-first apps are designed around the assumption that your primary financial activity is spending management. Their interface is organized around transaction feeds, category budgets, and spending reports. Investment data exists but lives in a secondary screen.

If you were primarily using Mint to watch your investment accounts and net worth, a budgeting-first replacement makes the thing you actually care about harder to find. You’re paying for an app optimized for a use case that isn’t yours.

Migration Checklist

Before switching apps:

1. Export your Mint transaction history if it’s still accessible
2. Note your account connections (which banks, which brokerages) so you can reconnect them
3. Screenshot your net worth history if you want to keep the trend data
4. Decide: budgeting-first or investment-first as your primary use case

When connecting to a new app, start with your largest accounts. Your 401(k) and primary brokerage drive most of your net worth — get those connected and accurate before worrying about smaller accounts.

Most apps offer a 30-day free trial. Use it to verify that your key accounts connect cleanly before paying for a year upfront.