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Author: Kaitlyn Short

LAST UPDATED: August 24th, 2022

Mint.com is one of the most popular personal finance sites on the internet. It’s been around since 2007. It’s owned by Intuit, which also makes TurboTax and QuickBooks. Mint is easy to learn and it automates nearly every aspect of making a budget and tracking your spending. Mint also offers Mint Bills, a free bill pay site, and a free credit score report.

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The Good

  • Free to use
  • Set up goals
  • Customize budget and alerts
Mint is free, and gets you up and running with your budget and account views within minutes thanks to their step-by-step tutorial when you sign up. After you set up your accounts, Mint imports the last 3 months of transactions. Mint's predefined categories are applied to each transaction and, based on these categories, it automatically creates a budget for you. You can add as many sub-categories as you like and Mint will remember these assignments going forward. Mint.com is one of the most popular personal finance sites on the internet. It automates nearly every aspect of making a budget and tracking your spending. Some of Mint's highlights include:
  • Free
  • Quick set up
  • Past transactions
  • Automatic budget creation
  • Customizable
  • Goal setting
  • Versatile home page
  • Free credit score
  • Triple layer security
  • Mobile access
Also, you're not stuck with the initial automatic budget; you can tinker with it to your own liking. In addition to budgeting, Mint also allows you to set up goals like paying off your credit card or saving up for a big purchase, and tracks your progress toward those goals. Since Mint can capture all of your accounts, the dashboard home page makes it simple to see your financial health at-a-glance, including:
  • Recent transactions
  • Spending by category
  • Budget tracking
  • Alerts
  • Advice and tips
  • Account balances
  • Net worth
Alerts can be customized based on your preferences. Mint will send notifications through email or text message informing you of a low balance, unusual spending, fees incurred or goals reached. The design is colorful and easy to read and you can customize it by adding or removing charts and widgets. Mint also supports mobile access, providing apps for:
  • iOS
  • Google Play
  • Windows Phone
  • Amazon
Mint is the only personal finance site to offer free credit score tracking, provided via Equifax - not even a credit card required. This feature is critical if you're saving for a big purchase like a home or a car. You can even opt to display your score on your home dashboard page so that you can keep constant tabs on it. To ensure high levels of security, Mint operates on a "triple layer security" system. Additional security authentication is required on mobile devices with a 4-digit pin for its mobile apps - or you can opt to use Touch ID fingerprint verification for iOS.
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The Bad

  • Manually add accounts
  • No demo
  • Too simplistic for some needs
While Mint gives you a detailed view of your financial past and present, it falls short on forecasting your future balances. You can't manually add accounts, which some people prefer instead of handing over their account information to automatically sync bank and credit card transactions. Mint also doesn't offer functionality to reconcile your bank statements (what we used to call "balancing your checkbook") either. Some common concerns regarding Mint include:
  • Advertising
  • Little pre-sign up info
  • Lacks forecasting
  • No reconciling
  • Few investment tools
Mint offers it's services for free, which means they have included advertising on the site.  Although it's simple to get set up Mint with the tutorials provided after you register, there is little pre-signup information offered on the website. Some people may feel uncomfortable signing up for a product they can't demo or even see in a video ahead of time. If you're a high-end user of investment and wealth management tools, Mint will probably seem too simplistic for you. It also doesn't support many financial institutions outside of the U.S. In fact, there isn't even an option to purchase an upgrade to get this type of functionality.
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The Bottom Line

Mint.com is one of the most popular online personal finance sites - and for good reason. It excels in helping you create and stick to a budget and keeps you on track with your financial goals across a wide variety of devices. Mint's free credit score tracking is a killer app which is unique among its competitors and this feature alone would be a good reason for choosing Mint. Its security pedigree, hailing from its parent company, Intuit, is solid and trustworthy. Those that use Mint can expect the following from their service:
  1. Free software
  2. Quality financial management tools
  3. Advertising on the app
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4.3

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104 Reviews

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Cassidy Gundersen Orem, UT

My husband and I used Mint for the first few years of marriage as it was the best tool we could find. The user interface drastically changed for the better during our time using it. It became more visual and easy to use. However, it often takes days to upload transactions and often has issues loading the app. It would pull old data and made budgeting difficult to do since it would often not upload properly. It is not very customizable, which is our biggest complaint. You are stuck using their templates and cannot change to fit your own needs. It also miscategorizes many transactions, which makes the entire budget system less effective.

7 years ago

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Alicia Holman Gilbert, AZ

When I used this product, my biggest complaint is that it's way too broad. It doesn't allow me to make changes to the site to make it more conducive to my needs. It is easy to use, but if I have questions, there isn't anyone to ask. I wish there was a better support system.

6 years ago

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Breanna Jones Herriman, UT

I use Mint to track my finances and help me budget. I like the ability to link up all of my accounts so I can view them all in one place. It is an easy way to check my finances. I check it more than I do my credit card and bank statements.

7 years ago

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Greg Francis Saratoga Springs, UT

Whether this is a function of mint, or the financial institutions that are linked, but I find that I am constantly having to sign in again, and resync accounts. One I get all info synced, the information is invaluable, but takes work to bring a wholistic picture of my finances.

4 years ago

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Abby Nelson Provo, UT

Mint can be useful for some, as it does collect your money and expenses. I found that some of my accounts kept unlinking, and it just wasn't worth the hassle since the entire point was to make it as easy as possible.

6 years ago

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Chase H Provo, UT

Love that it is free. Very similar to categorizing transactions in Quickbooks online. If you know how to build out your budget categories and if you keep up to date, it is a great option.

6 years ago

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Deborah Hyde Springfield, MO

I like that my bank account can be attached to mint and they let me know how I am spending my money. I have used the free accounts and found that the service is great.

6 years ago

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Joannetta Jarman Secaucus, NJ

A good website for checking credit and reminding us of bills. We like how it adds up all the utilities each month.

4 years ago

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Alison Roush Monmouth Junction, NJ

The Mint app is somewhat confusing to use, but the premise of the company is good!

3 years ago

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Sarah VanLeuven Orem, UT

I tried for a while but it was kind of confusing I’m not as helpful as I hoped.

3 years ago