First of all, what is Mint Personal Finance Software for Mac? If you are looking for a solution that can help you with your personal finance management, Mint is right on time. It has everything you need to see at once where your money goes and how it is distributed among all financial aspects of your life.
Mint personal finance software is one of the best programs you can use to keep track of your spending and budget. Mint personal finance software is one of the most comprehensive products for your Mac. With this program, you will be able to view your finances easily. Mint account can be added quickly, so you can make sure that everything is accounted for. Some people love to track their spending, and others find it a time-consuming and stressful chore. There are more and more apps on the market that can do the hard work of organizing your spending for you. At just a glance, you can see where your money is going and how much you have coming in.
But with so many different apps on the market, it can be hard to know which one is the best. CNBC Select compared over a dozen options when rating the best budgeting apps and best expense tracker apps, and we found that the most popular ones have nearly 5 out of 5-star ratings and hundreds of thousands of customer reviews.
We ranked the Mint budgeting app as the best free option out there. In addition to offering basic budgeting features, Mint also provides bill payment reminders, customized alerts when you’re over budget and a credit monitoring service. Below, we review the Mint budgeting app to give you all the details on its features, including the tools, perks, safety, pricing, availability and ratings so you can decide if it is the right app for managing your money.
Mint budgeting app review
Mint
Learn more information about Mint has been collected independently by CNBC and has not been reviewed or provided by Mint prior to publication.
- CostFree
- Standout features show income, expenses, savings goals, credit score, investments, net worth
- Categorizes your expensesYes, but users can modify
- Links to accounts, bank and credit cards
- AvailabilityOffered in both the App Store (for iOS) and on Google Play (for Android)
- Security featuresVerisign scanning, multi-factor authentication and Touch ID mobile access
See our methodology, terms apply.
Pros
- Free to use
- Syncs to your bank accounts and credit cards
- Users can create savings goals, track investments
- Customized alerts when over budget, for large transactions, ATM fees, etc.
- Bill payment reminders
- Credit monitoring service
- Offers blog and education tools, such as a loan repayment calculator
- Security features include Verisign scanning, multi-factor authentication and Touch ID mobile access
Cons
- Some user reviews complain of ads, glitches in-app, expenses assigned to wrong category
Mint budgeting app tools
Mint syncs to your bank accounts, credit cards and retirement accounts to track your income, purchases and savings.
The Mint budgeting app comes with a daily budget planner, which suggests budget goals based on your spending. You can adjust your goals (and/or add new ones) as you use the app.
Mint will automatically update and categorize your expenses for you, but you have the option to revise and add categories as needed. You can also create your own savings goals and track your investments in the app.
Perks
Unlike many other budgeting apps, Mint stands out for going beyond just budgeting and offering credit monitoring. Users get 24/7 access to their credit score for free, a credit report summary, as well as notifications of changes in their TransUnion® credit report.
Mint will also send alerts if you’re being charged an ATM fee, going over budget or if there’s been a large or suspicious transaction on your account.
The app’s monthly bill payment tracker allows you see all your bills at one glance, and you can get reminders on upcoming due dates and alerts if your funds are low.
For those looking for more resources to help them along their financial journey, Mint has its own educational blog, as well as tools you can use, like a home affordability calculator and a loan repayment calculator.
Safety
Safety features include security scanning with VeriSign for transferring data and multi-factor authentication for accessing your account. Mint will require a 4-digit code to view your account or Touch ID.
It’s also worth noting that Mint is an Intuit brand, which is the company behind TurboTax® and QuickBooks®, which millions of people use to store sensitive financial data.
Pricing
While the Mint app is free to use, there are in-app ads. Be prepared to do a lot of ad-watching with any free budgeting app. There is not option to upgrade to an ad-free version.
Availability and ratings
The Mint budgeting app is available in the App Store (for iOS) and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple Watch. It is also available on Google Play (for Android).
Rating in App Store at time of writing: 4.7 out of 5 (over 625,000 ratings)
Rating on Google Play at time of writing: 4.5 out of 5 (over 180,000 ratings)
Bottom line
If you’re new to budgeting apps or tired of paying for the one you currently use, Mint is the best free option for you.
Users have access to all the typical budgeting app features, plus credit monitoring, customized alerts and educational tools to coach them along the way.
For those more serious about budgeting who don’t mind paying a monthly or annual fee, consider the You Need A Budget (YNAB) budgeting app. Instead of using traditional budgeting buckets, users allocate every dollar they earn to something (known as the “zero-based budgeting system” where no dollar goes unaccounted for).
YNAB
You Need a Budget, or YNAB, is a personal finance software that’s aimed to help you improve your financial literacy as you manage your monthly budget. As you create your budget and manage your daily finances, the software provides you with tutorials that will help you tackle some of the tougher financial topics. If you’ve been struggling with bad financial habits, YNAB can help you break those through a few basic financial management rules.
The software automatically links to your bank account, integrating your spending information for analysis and budget tracking. You can keep tabs on how you’re tracking toward your monthly budget and take action if you’re overspending. It doesn’t include any investment tracking capabilities. YNAB offers a 34-day free trial that allows you to use the software while you decide whether it’s right for your personal finance goals. The full software is $14.99 monthly or $98.99 annually.
Other alternatives
Mvelopes
The traditional envelope budgeting system helps you stick to a budget by using envelopes to manage your money. Once you’ve broken down your budget, you put that amount of cash into different envelopes. So, if you budget $100 for gas for the week, you place that amount in a “gas” envelope. Once you’ve spent that $100, that’s it. Mvelopes take this same approach to budget, except that it’s done digitally on your phone and computer rather than with physical cash.
Choose the financial goals that are most important to you, then add your bank accounts and set your income. Mvelopes will help you create a budget and set up your “envelopes.” The software tracks your spending and shows you what you’ve spent from each envelope to keep you on budget throughout the month.
The basic version starts at $5.97 per month, and you can try Mvelopes for 30 days for, free when you enroll in the premier plan at $9.97 per month.
Best for Taxes TurboTax
You may not necessarily need TurboTax to manage your finances throughout the entire year, but when it’s tax time, the software can come in handy. While it’s one of the pricier tax preparation tools, it’s also consumer-friendly, walking you through your tax preparation to help you accurately file your tax return. Entering your tax information is fairly simple—you can import your W-2 information from your employer or take a picture of it and the software will transfer the information into the form.
If you’ve used TurboTax in previous years, the software will remember your personal information and ask whether there have been any major changes. The most basic version lets you file your federal and state return for free if all you use is form 1040 with no attached schedules.
On the higher end, TurboTax Live connects you with a tax expert to give you personalized advice and answer questions about your tax return. Paid versions of TurboTax include a feature to help you uncover deductions you may not have known were available to you. While you can use TurboTax on the web, you can also download the software to your device for added security.
Best for Investing FutureAdvisor
If you’re a DIY investor looking for low-cost access to a financial advisor, FutureAdvisor is a great option. The investment software provides personalized recommendations to help you diversify your portfolio, which you can follow or not follow as you see fit. You’re eligible to sign up for the software if you have at least $5,000 in investable assets. FutureAdvisor manages the assets you transfer into the account for a flat annual fee of 0.5% of the managed assets, billed quarterly at 0.125%. When you transfer your assets into the account, FutureAdvisor works to consolidate them into accounts with its partners, Fidelity or TD Ameritrade.
Personal Capital
Personal Capital allows you to manage all your financial accounts in a single platform. You can include your bank accounts, mortgage, and other credit accounts, plus your investment accounts, to have your complete financial picture right in front of you. If you have multiple accounts—as most of us do these days—using Personal Capital can save you from having to switch between multiple screens to understand where you stand.
If you have a portfolio of more than $100,000, you can get personalized financial advice based on your goals. While you’re charged a fee for this service, financial advisors are obligated to provide you with advice that works in your best interest.1
Use the software to tell whether you’re on track with your retirement and other investment goals. Even if you’re not quite ready to take advantage of the financial advisor, you can use Personal Capital to track your finances and investments in one place. There is no monthly fee, and the annual management fee is tiered based on the investment amount.
Best for Spreadsheet Management Tiller Money
Tiller Money lets you see all your money in one place by automatically updating your checking, credit card, loan, investment, and other account data into a customizable Google Sheet or Excel template. Tiller Money lets you choose from templates that organize your data for you or you can customize your spreadsheet to suit your needs. It’ll also send you daily emails with a summary of your recent transactions and balances. The service costs $79 per year or $6.58 per month, but you can take advantage of the 30-day free trial to decide whether it’s right for you.
Our methodology
To determine which budgeting apps offer the best user experience, CNBC Select analyzed over a dozen apps offered by the top companies in this market and looked at their pricing, features, user reviews and ratings.
We narrowed down our ranking by only considering apps that sync transactions from users’ bank accounts, come with low (or no) cost to sign up, are easy to use and can be accessed on multiple devices so are accessible and compatible for most.
The five apps we selected for this ranking are either free, offer a free version or have a free trial for users to test out before signing up.
All of the apps in our round-up have a sizable number of user reviews and high ratings. Each app on this list has at least 1,000 reviews in both the App Store (for iOS) and on Google Play (for Android), as well as a rating over 4 stars (out of 5) on both platforms.
Other factors we looked at included apps’ security features, user customization and educational tools offered.
Conclusion
Mint is an easy-to-use and powerful personal finance software for mac. While Mint’s home page might seem to be oriented towards the personal finance requirements of individuals, it is suitable both for individuals and small businesses. The program will help you track bank accounts, credit cards, investments, loans and more.
Mint Software is a free personal finance software program that enables users to make an inventory of their money. This tactic helps you make smart money decisions by focusing on your cash flow. Mint Software allows you to customize the software based on your needs, track multiple accounts and preferences to provide you with the most accurate financial details.