The Mint shutdown left a gap. Here's what I actually tried.

When Intuit announced Mint was shutting down in late 2023, I — like millions of other Mint users — went looking for a replacement. What I found was a market full of products that each got a few things right and most things wrong.

This is an honest account of what I tried, what worked, what didn't, and why I eventually built my own thing.

DisclosureI founded one of the tools in this list (Crestfolio). I've tried to keep the rundown honest — including the situations where a competitor is the better pick. Where I actually land is at the end.

What Mint actually did well

Before we talk about replacements, it's worth being honest about what Mint did right, because every replacement is implicitly judged against it.

I used Mint mostly for budgeting and bill reminders. The bill reminder system was genuinely useful — it caught due dates I would have otherwise missed. Net worth tracking worked, though I never felt like I had a complete picture of my portfolio and debt positions in one view. Account aggregation was harder than it should have been; I gave up on it eventually because the connections always seemed to be drifting, requiring manual reconnection.

The category accuracy was the biggest day-to-day frustration. I'd recategorize transactions correctly, and the next month Mint would revert them back to whatever its default categorization wanted. Not consistently — just enough to make me wonder if my changes had even saved.

And then, after Intuit acquired Mint in 2009, the product slowly turned into a commercial for other Intuit products. Pop-ups for TurboTax. Suggestions to upgrade to QuickBooks. By the end, it felt less like personal finance software and more like a lead generation funnel for the rest of the Intuit ecosystem. (For what it's worth, Intuit's other products do this too. It's the company culture, not just Mint.)

Still, when it was free and worked, Mint covered the basics well. The shutdown left a real gap.

Monarch: the obvious Mint replacement

The first place I went was Monarch Money. Monarch was the most obvious successor — they actively marketed to Mint refugees, and many former Mint users defaulted to them.

I lasted a few months.

The first sticker shock was the price. $15/month after years of Mint being free is a real adjustment. I could have lived with that if everything else worked, but I had the same account connection problems as Mint — except now I was paying $180/year for them. Connections would drift. I'd have to reconnect banks. Reconciling transactions to my actual statements turned into a manual chore.

To be fair, the underlying problem isn't Monarch's fault. Plaid (the service that connects personal finance apps to bank accounts) has limitations. Banks change their authentication systems. Two-factor flows break aggregator connections. This is structural across the industry, not a Monarch-specific issue. But "everyone has this problem" doesn't make me feel better about paying $15/month for it.

I eventually gave up and started looking elsewhere.

Who Monarch is right for: Households with relatively simple finances (a few accounts, no significant investments or business income) who want a clean Mint-like experience and don't mind the subscription cost. The product itself is fine. It just didn't fit my situation.

Copilot Money: beautiful but feature-thin

After Monarch, I tried Copilot Money. Copilot has a different angle than most personal finance apps — it's iOS and macOS only, designed beautifully, with an aesthetic that feels native to the Apple ecosystem.

I'm an Apple household, so the platform limitation didn't matter to me. I liked the interface enough that I signed up for the annual plan ($95/year, $13/month if paid monthly).

The problems became apparent within a few weeks.

First, the same manual reconciliation issue as Mint and Monarch. Categories would get assigned, I'd correct them, and the next time similar transactions came in, the corrections wouldn't stick. Still very manual.

Second, and more frustrating: Copilot is fundamentally a spending tracker. It does that well. But it doesn't have the depth on the investment side that I needed. I have multiple investment accounts across different platforms, and I wanted to see them all in one place with real analysis — sector allocation, performance vs. benchmarks, dividend tracking. Copilot's investment features felt like an afterthought.

If you live primarily on transactions in and out of checking accounts and credit cards, Copilot is excellent. If you have any meaningful investment complexity, you'll feel the limits quickly.

Who Copilot is right for: iOS-only households with simple finances who value design over depth. If your financial life fits on a single screen of transactions, Copilot is one of the prettiest ways to view it.

The other options worth knowing about

I didn't personally use these long enough to have detailed opinions, but they're worth mentioning because they show up in any honest Mint-alternative discussion:

Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) is the freemium option — the basic version is free, with premium features at $4–12/month. They focus heavily on subscription cancellation and bill negotiation, which is a real value-add if you have a lot of recurring subscriptions you've lost track of. Less compelling as a comprehensive financial picture tool.

YNAB (You Need A Budget) at $14.99/month or $109/year takes a different philosophical approach — zero-based budgeting where you assign every dollar a job. It has a dedicated following and is genuinely the best tool I know of for active budgeting. But it's not really a "see all my finances in one place" tool — it's a discipline tool. Different category entirely.

Empower Personal Wealth (formerly Personal Capital) is free, which is great. The catch is that they make money by trying to convert you into an advisory client. Their wealth management arm will call you. Repeatedly. If you can ignore the sales calls, the net worth and investment tracking is solid. If you can't, the noise gets old.

Quicken Simplifi at $3.99/month (or sometimes less on sale) is the budget option. Quicken has been around forever, and Simplifi is their attempt at a modern, web-based version. Lighter than full Quicken, more focused than Mint was. For someone who wants something more affordable than Monarch with reasonable features, it's worth a look.

OrderLi is a newer entrant ($5.99/month for the paid tier, with a real free tier underneath). They've focused on a few features other apps don't have — budget periods that match your paycheck cycle (instead of forcing calendar-month budgeting), real-time tax projections from your paystubs, and a "Truly Available" balance that accounts for upcoming bills. They're in early access as of this writing, so the product is still maturing. But for someone with simple finances who wants a clean modern app at a lower price than most alternatives, it's worth a look.

None of these solved my actual problem.

What my actual financial situation looks like

Here's where this turns personal, because I think it's important to be honest about what I was trying to track.

My wife and I have somewhere between 25 and 30 accounts to keep visibility into. That includes:

• Our retirement accounts (multiple 401(k)s, IRAs, and Roth IRAs)
• A taxable brokerage account
• Cash management accounts and traditional banks
• Several credit cards
• Two rental properties and their associated bank accounts
• Two LLCs I operate (with separate banking and accounting)
• A nonprofit organization I help run
• Four kids' accounts (custodial investment accounts and banking)
• A few extended family members I help with financial decisions, where I need visibility into their accounts to give good advice

That's the real picture. It's not unusual for people in their 40s and 50s with established careers, families, and some investments. It is, however, well outside what most personal finance apps are designed for.

When I tried Mint, then Monarch, then Copilot, the same thing kept happening: each tool worked for some slice of my finances but missed the bigger picture. Mint could give me a budget. Copilot could show me beautiful spending charts. Monarch could aggregate accounts (when the connections held). But none of them could show me how my rental properties were performing alongside my investment accounts alongside my LLC books alongside the family members I was advising.

I tried managing it in a spreadsheet for a while. That didn't scale either.

Why I built Crestfolio

I built Crestfolio because I was frustrated that no personal finance app could handle my investment accounts, rental properties, and freelance income in one place.

Basic budgeting apps like Mint and Rocket Money were too shallow for anyone with a complex financial life. Institutional tools — the kind wealth managers and family offices use — cost tens of thousands of dollars per year and assume you have a financial professional on staff to run them.

Crestfolio fills that gap. It's a professional-grade financial platform built for self-directed investors, landlords, and small business owners at a price anyone can afford. Specifically:

• Personal ($7.99/month) handles the core — accounts, transactions, budgets, goals, debt payoff, net worth tracking.
• Wealth ($59/month) adds real investment analysis — benchmark comparisons, multi-year cash flow projections, dividend tracking.
• Family Hub ($69/month) handles multi-person households — including the sandwich-generation case where you're managing money for parents, spouses, and kids simultaneously.
• Small Business ($49/month) covers freelance and sole-prop accounting — Schedule C categories, 1099 management, quarterly estimates.
• Real Estate ($49/month) for landlords — rental income, NOI, cap rate, Schedule E generation.

You can subscribe to one tier or multiple. My own setup uses Personal, Wealth, Small Business, and Real Estate — because that's what my actual financial life requires.

I'm not going to pretend Crestfolio is the right answer for everyone reading this. If your finances fit on a single screen of transactions, Copilot is prettier. If you want disciplined budgeting, YNAB is better. If you don't mind the sales calls, Empower is free.

But if you've tried the Mint replacements and felt like none of them handled your actual complexity — multiple entities, investment accounts, rental properties, family members, business income — Crestfolio was built for exactly that.

So what should you actually use?

Honest recommendations by situation:

If you're a Mint refugee with simple finances (one or two accounts, no major investments, just want budgeting and bill tracking): try Quicken Simplifi at $3.99/month. It's the closest direct replacement at a reasonable price.

If you budget by paycheck cycle, not calendar month, and want live tax projections: OrderLi at $5.99/month. They've built their product specifically around paycheck-cycle budgeting and real-time tax estimates from paystubs, which most apps don't do.

If you have moderate complexity and value clean design (iOS/Mac household, primarily care about spending tracking): Copilot Money. Accept the limitations on investment tracking.

If you want Mint's exact experience and don't mind paying $15/month for it: Monarch is the obvious choice. Plaid connection issues are industry-wide, not unique to them.

If you have significant investments and want net worth tracking for free: Empower Personal Wealth. Mute the sales calls.

If you want to learn disciplined zero-based budgeting: YNAB. Different category, but worth considering.

If your situation looks like mine — multiple entities, rental properties, business income, family members you're tracking — and the others have all felt too shallow: try Crestfolio. Free trial, cancel anytime, and I'd genuinely rather you find it doesn't fit you in a week than feel locked in for a year.

That last one isn't a sales pitch. It's literally how I think about my own product. If Crestfolio isn't right for you, I'd rather you know quickly and find something that is. Personal finance is hard enough without paying for tools that don't fit your life.

Frequently asked questions

Matt Gray is the founder of Crestfolio, a personal finance platform built for people with more than one financial entity to track — rentals, businesses, investments, and family accounts in one place.