Mint shut down. Here's what to actually do now.

Intuit shut down Mint in March 2024. Twenty-five million users got a six-month notice and a forced migration into Credit Karma — Intuit's ad-funded credit-monitoring product. If you opened Credit Karma after the migration and felt something was off, you weren't wrong: you got moved into a fundamentally different product, optimized for showing you credit card ads, not managing your money.

Two years later, the dust has settled. Here's the honest landscape of where Mint refugees actually went, what worked, and what to use now.

What you actually lost when Mint shut down

Mint had real strengths — and real flaws. The strengths:

• Free
• Connected to virtually every US bank
• Auto-categorization that worked decently out of the box
• Bill reminders that didn't require any setup

The flaws:

• Constant ads
• Sold your data to third parties (it's how the "free" worked)
• Underinvested for years before being killed
• Limited budgeting tools — mostly tracking, not planning
• No real AI or forecasting
• English-only, despite a huge Hispanic user base

Where 25 million users actually went

Intuit made the migration to Credit Karma the path of least resistance — one click and your data was there. Most users took it. A smaller chunk went elsewhere. Here's the rough breakdown based on App Store reviews, Reddit threads, and public usage trends through 2024-25:

• Credit Karma — Most former Mint users (passive migration)
• Monarch Money — The biggest paid-conversion winner
• Rocket Money — Picked up the "just track my subs" crowd
• YNAB — Picked up the disciplined-budgeter crowd
• Empower (formerly Personal Capital) — Investment-focused users

The Credit Karma trap

If you accepted the auto-migration to Credit Karma and haven't actively reviewed your experience, please do. The product is structurally different from Mint:

• Credit-card recommendations everywhere
• Loan and refinance offers in your dashboard
• Credit score gamification that pushes you toward financial products
• Reduced budgeting tools compared to Mint

That's not a bug — that's the business model. Credit Karma earns money when you click a card recommendation and apply. Your data feeds those recommendations. Mint's budgeting features were an afterthought added during migration to keep users from leaving immediately.

If your goal is "manage my money," Credit Karma is structurally misaligned. It's a credit-monitoring product with a budget tab bolted on.

What to actually use now

The honest framework:

If you want free and don't mind ads

Stick with Credit Karma. Just be aware of what you're trading. The credit card recommendations are designed to extract value from you — be skeptical of every suggestion.

If you want a polished modern Mint replacement and have $14.99/mo

Monarch Money. Best Mint-replacement-feel UX. No ads. Solid forecasting. Couples-friendly. Downsides: pricey, English-only, no real AI.

If you're disciplined and want methodology

YNAB. Same price as Monarch but the philosophy is fundamentally different — you'll either love it or bounce off it. Best for people who want to actively change their relationship with money. Steep learning curve.

If you speak two languages or want AI

Plata. Bilingual EN/ES, AI assistant that actually answers questions about your money, $3.99/month — the lowest price among the modern alternatives. Built specifically for the Hispanic-American audience that Mint underserved. Same privacy stance as YNAB and Monarch (no ads, no data selling).

See the Plata vs Mint comparison →

If you mostly want subscription cancellation help

Rocket Money. Their concierge cancellation service is genuinely useful — they call companies on your behalf and cancel zombie subs. The rest of the app is upsell-heavy.

How to actually migrate (the practical guide)

1. Export your Mint history.If you still have an active Credit Karma account with imported Mint data, you can export transactions to CSV from the Credit Karma settings. Don't skip this — once you delete the account, the data's gone.
2. List your accounts. Banks, credit cards, investment accounts. Most modern alternatives use Plaid for connection — same security model as Venmo, Robinhood, etc.
3. Pick one alternative and try it for 14 days.Most charge after a free trial. Don't spread your data across three apps simultaneously — it gets confusing fast.
4. Re-categorize the first month manually. Auto-categorization improves with training. The first 30 days of corrections teach the engine your real spending patterns.
5. Set 1-2 budgets and one goal.Don't try to budget every category from day one. Pick the two that hurt the most (groceries + dining out for most people) and one goal (emergency fund, trip, debt payoff).
6. Cancel Credit Karma if you're leaving.Or at minimum, opt out of data sharing in their settings. You don't need two budget apps.

The real lesson

Mint shutting down is a reminder that "free" financial products are sustained by someone selling something — usually your data, usually credit products you don't need. $3.99-$14.99/month for an app that respects you isn't expensive. It's the going rate for software that doesn't need to monetize you.

Pick the one that fits your life — bilingual household, single disciplined user, polished UX seeker, methodology nerd — and stick with it for at least 90 days. The first month is rough in any tool. The compounding shows up in months 3-6.