by Youssef El Beqqal · · Updated
Best Mint Replacements After Its Shutdown
TL;DR
Mint's shutdown replacements split into a few real categories: bank-linked options like Rocket Money and Monarch Money, an AI-leaning option like Copilot Money, and manual-entry options like YNAB and MoneyFlow, depending on which parts of Mint mattered most.
Mint's shutdown didn't just remove an app. For a lot of long-time users, it removed years of logged history and a daily habit built around one specific tool, with a deadline to figure out what replaces it.
What Mint actually did, broken into pieces
Mint bundled several things into one app: bank-linked transaction tracking, category budgets, bill reminders, a free credit score, and a net worth view. Not every replacement covers all of it, so what matters is which of those pieces are actually used regularly, not which app looks most like Mint.
Where the replacements land
Rocket Money and Monarch Money both replicate Mint's automatic-import model: Monarch leans more toward a full financial dashboard, and Rocket Money leans toward subscription and bill tracking. Copilot Money is also bank-linked, with a heavier focus on AI-assisted categorization and spending trends. YNAB (You Need A Budget) keeps a zero-based category system Mint didn't really have, but requires entering transactions by hand instead of pulling them automatically. MoneyFlow skips bank-linking entirely and centers on one number, income minus everything already committed, instead of category budgets.
The bank-linking question Mint's shutdown raises
Mint's core model depended on linking every account. Its shutdown is a reasonable point to reconsider that tradeoff specifically, not just to pick whichever replacement looks most similar. What a budgeting app actually needs from a connected account is worth checking against what each replacement asks for.
The habit matters more than the history
Old transaction history doesn't have to be rebuilt for a new tool to work. What matters is getting back into the routine of checking a number regularly, and a fresh start tracked from today builds that habit faster than trying to reconstruct years of the past.
MoneyFlow offers a fresh, privacy-first place to rebuild that habit, without requiring the bank-linking Mint was built around.
