When Mint shut down in January 2024, I had to actually figure out what I was going to use instead. I’d been coasting on Mint for years — not because it was perfect, but because switching felt like effort. Losing it forced me to actually compare the options.
I tried four of these apps myself. Here’s what I found, and how to tell which one fits your situation.
At a Glance
| App | Bank Sync (Free) | Best For | Entry Style | Paid Tier? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Empower | Yes | Full financial picture | Automatic | Wealth management (optional) |
| PocketGuard | Yes | Stopping month-end overspend | Automatic | More accounts + goals |
| Goodbudget | No | Envelope budgeting | Manual | More envelopes + accounts |
| EveryDollar | No (free tier) | Zero-based budgeting | Manual | Bank sync + extras |
| Honeydue | Yes | Couples | Automatic | None — fully free |
| Rocket Money | Yes | Subscription audit | Automatic | Bill negotiation |
Empower — Best for Seeing the Full Picture
Empower connects bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, retirement funds, and loans in a single dashboard. The tracking features are completely free. Most budgeting apps stop at spending — Empower also shows net worth, cash flow, and investment performance alongside the monthly spending breakdown.
If you’ve been avoiding looking at your 401(k) or have accounts scattered across three different institutions, this is the fastest way to see everything without building a spreadsheet yourself.
The trade-off: Empower’s actual business is wealth management. Once your investment balance hits a certain threshold, you’ll get outreach from advisors. It’s easy to decline and there’s no pressure, but it’s worth knowing why the tracking tools are free.
Where it falls short: The budgeting features are more passive than proactive. If your problem is overspending, not ignorance, Empower doesn’t do much to stop you.
Best for: People who have multiple accounts, some investments, and want one view of where they actually stand financially.
PocketGuard — Best for Stopping the Month-End Scramble
PocketGuard’s core feature is a single number: “In My Pocket.” It takes your income, subtracts fixed bills, savings contributions, and necessities, and shows what’s actually safe to spend.
I used PocketGuard for about three months. The thing that surprised me was how often I’d look at my checking account balance — say, $1,800 — and feel fine, when actually $1,200 of that was already spoken for by rent, utilities, and a card payment coming out in a few days. PocketGuard does that subtraction automatically and shows you the real available number.
The free version connects to bank accounts, auto-categorizes transactions, and lets you set spending limits by category with alerts when you’re getting close. The paid upgrade adds more account connections and savings goals — not necessary for most setups.
Where it falls short: The free tier limits how many accounts you can connect. If you’re tracking multiple income streams or several credit cards, you’ll hit the ceiling fast.
Best for: Anyone who consistently runs out of money before the end of the month and wants a hard-to-ignore spending guardrail.
Goodbudget — Best for Envelope Budgeting Without the Cash
Goodbudget takes the envelope method — allocating cash into labeled envelopes for groceries, rent, entertainment — and makes it digital. At the start of each month, you fill each virtual envelope. Every purchase gets manually subtracted from the right one. When an envelope hits zero, you’re done in that category.
The free plan gives you 10 envelopes across two devices. No bank sync — everything is entered manually.
That friction is the point. I switched to Goodbudget when I was trying to cut back on eating out, because the automated apps weren’t working. Reviewing a weekly summary didn’t change anything. Manually typing in “$14 — ramen” right after ordering it did. The 30-second act of logging a transaction makes you more aware in a way that passive tracking never quite manages.
If you’ve tried auto-syncing apps and still overspend, this is the logical next step before paying for YNAB.
Where it falls short: Manual entry is a real time commitment. If you’re making 50+ transactions a month across multiple categories, this gets tedious.
Best for: People who’ve tried automated budgeting apps and still overspend. Also good for anyone who wants zero-based budgeting without paying $14.99/month for YNAB.
EveryDollar — Best Free Zero-Based Budgeting App
EveryDollar runs on zero-based budgeting: before the month starts, every dollar of income gets assigned a job. Income minus allocations = zero. Nothing is unaccounted for.
The free version is manual-entry only. There’s no bank sync until you upgrade. Build the budget at the start of the month, log transactions by hand, check whether you stuck to it. Clean interface, simple logic.
For anyone who wants to test zero-based budgeting before committing to YNAB ($14.99/month), the free EveryDollar is the better place to start. If the method doesn’t work for you, you haven’t paid anything.
Where it falls short: Without bank sync, it’s easy to fall behind on logging and have the budget become meaningless by week two.
Best for: People following the Dave Ramsey method, or anyone who wants to test zero-based budgeting without paying first.
Honeydue — Best Free App for Couples
Honeydue is built for shared finances. Both partners connect their accounts and choose exactly how much visibility to give each other — fully shared, partially shared, or private. Per-category monthly limits with notifications, plus an in-app chat to discuss transactions in context.
It’s the only app on this list with zero paid tier. Fully free, no upgrade.
The problem most couples run into is that one person tracks spending and the other doesn’t — then money conversations happen only when something’s already gone wrong. Honeydue gives both people the same information in real time without requiring a scheduled check-in.
Where it falls short: Feature set is more limited than other apps. If you want detailed reporting or investments tracked, it’s not the right tool. But for shared daily spending visibility, nothing else on this list comes close.
Best for: Couples who share expenses and want visibility without handing over full access to every account.
Rocket Money — Best First Step If You’re Starting From Zero
Rocket Money scans transactions to identify recurring subscriptions and shows them in one list with the monthly cost of each. The free tier includes that subscription overview plus basic budget tracking.
I ran this after Mint shut down and found $43/month in charges I’d either forgotten about or stopped using — a streaming service I’d meant to cancel, a fitness app from 18 months earlier, an annual software charge I hadn’t noticed renewing. That took about 10 minutes.
After canceling, the move is to redirect that amount immediately into a high-yield savings account before it gets absorbed back into daily spending. The paid version ($4–$12/month) adds bill negotiation — sometimes worth it for cable or insurance bills, not necessary for most people.
Where it falls short: Budget tracking features are basic. It’s a great starting tool but not a long-term budgeting system.
Best for: Anyone who suspects they’re paying for forgotten subscriptions, or wants a fast audit before starting a savings push.
How to Pick
Match the app to your actual problem, not the one with the most features:
- Don’t know where your money goes → Empower
- Know where it goes, still overspend → PocketGuard
- Want proactive control before spending → EveryDollar or Goodbudget
- Managing money with a partner → Honeydue
- Starting from scratch, not sure → Rocket Money first (find the forgotten charges, then pick a budgeting app)
Use whichever you pick for at least a full month before deciding it isn’t working. One week isn’t enough time to build the habit.
Common Questions
Are these apps safe for bank connections? Most use Plaid for read-only access — they see transactions but can’t move money. If you’d rather not connect your bank at all, Goodbudget and EveryDollar work entirely on manual entry with no loss of core functionality.
Do they sell your data? Most monetize through premium upgrades or financial product referrals, not direct data sales. Read the privacy policy before connecting accounts — specifically whether data is shared with third parties for advertising purposes.
What replaced Mint? Mint closed January 2024 and redirected users to Credit Karma, which has limited budgeting features. For the closest Mint-equivalent experience — automatic transaction tracking, spending categories, monthly overview — Empower and PocketGuard are the best matches.