Honest comparison · September 2026
Mint alternative without bank linking
Mint closed on March 23, 2024 and sent everyone to Credit Karma, which kept the account feeds and the net worth number but not the budgets, categories, or goals. Two and a half years on, here is what people replaced it with, and the case for the one option Mint never offered: typing your own numbers in.
What Mint was, and what broke
Mint was free because it sold ad placements and product referrals against your transaction data. When Apple and Google tightened tracking in 2021 and 2022, that model stopped paying, and Intuit folded the app into Credit Karma. The migration carried over linked accounts and the net worth figure. It dropped budget tracking, custom categories, and savings goals, and Intuit began deleting Mint history on its retention schedule. If you exported a CSV before the cutoff, that file is what you have.
The lesson most people took was "find another free aggregator." A quieter lesson is that a free app built on your bank feed is a business model with an expiry date, and that the feed itself was never the part that made anyone better with money.
The replacements, compared
| Feature | Monarch Money | YNAB | Empower | Tesserae |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $99.99/yr Core · $199/yr Plus | $14.99/mo or $109/yr | Free, with advisory outreach | $2.99/mo or $29.99/yr |
| How data gets in | Bank sync (Plaid and others) | Bank sync via Plaid, or manual | Bank sync |
|
| Budgeting | Flexible categories, rollovers | Envelope (zero-based) method | Basic cash-flow view |
|
| Net worth | Yes, with investment holdings | Yes, from linked accounts | Yes, the strongest free view |
|
| Retirement planning | Forecasting and what-ifs on Plus | None | A retirement planner with success odds |
|
| Couples | Household sharing | Family sharing, up to six | Joint view |
|
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Web, iOS, Android | Web, iOS, Android | Web, iOS, Android (US only) |
| Trial | 7 days | 34 days | Free | 7 days, plus a demo with no signup |
Prices and features as published by each company in September 2026. Check theirs before deciding; they change.
Where the others win
- Monarch is the most complete Mint replacement: transactions arrive on their own, get categorized, and the household view is good. If automatic is the point, this is the pick, and the $99.99 tier is the one most people need.
- YNAB is a method more than an app. If you've never budgeted and want a system that tells you what to do with every dollar, the envelope approach and the free workshops earn the price. The 34-day trial is the longest in the category.
- Empower is free and its net worth dashboard is excellent. The trade is that a human advisor will call, because that's the business. Fine if you can say no.
Where Tesserae wins
- Nothing to link. You enter balances and spending yourself, about ten minutes a month. No aggregator holds your bank password, and there is no feed to break or business model to expire.
- The check-in is the feature. Linking makes an app passive; the numbers move and you watch. Typing them in is what makes them stick. Mint users famously had a dashboard they never opened and still couldn't say their net worth within ten thousand dollars; ten minutes a month of entry is the cure for that.
- Retirement depth none of the three touch. Roth conversion ladders and the bridge to 59½, RMDs, Social Security timing including the projected 2033 cut, withdrawal order across account types, and 1,000 randomized market runs, all against your real accounts.
- Price. $29.99 a year is a quarter of Monarch and YNAB.
Where Tesserae loses
If you will not type your numbers in, it's the wrong tool, and no amount of copy changes that. It's US-only and dollars-only. It doesn't pull investment holdings or categorize transactions for you. Imports from CSV, Excel, and OFX/QFX files soften the entry, but the design is a monthly check-in, not a feed.
Who should pick what
- You loved Mint and want it back with a price tag: Monarch.
- You need to fix spending and want a method: YNAB.
- You want a free dashboard and don't mind the advisor pitch: Empower.
- You'd rather know your numbers than watch them, and you care about the retirement math: Tesserae.
Try the manual option before deciding
The demo is a full sample household you can open with no signup, every screen live. Ten minutes there tells you whether typing your numbers in is a filter you'd accept or the reason you'd never install it.