Last updated: April 2026 | Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Quick answer: Mint shut down permanently on March 23, 2024. Its former users now face a clear choice: move to Empower (formerly Personal Capital) for investment tracking and retirement planning, or find a dedicated budgeting app like YNAB or Rocket Money. This guide explains exactly which option fits your situation.
What Happened to Mint?
If you’re searching for “Personal Capital vs Mint,” here’s the most important thing to know first: Mint no longer exists.
Mint’s parent company, Intuit, officially shut down the app on March 23, 2024. Intuit pushed its users toward Credit Karma — another Intuit-owned product — but most former Mint users quickly discovered that Credit Karma doesn’t replicate what made Mint useful. It lacks budgeting tools, spending alerts, and the month-to-month tracking features that millions of people relied on.
That’s why so many people are still asking how Empower (the new name for Personal Capital) compares to what Mint offered. The answer matters, and it depends entirely on what you actually need.
Personal Capital vs Mint: At a Glance
| Feature | Empower (Personal Capital) | Mint (now closed) |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Active ✅ | Shut down March 2024 ❌ |
| Cost | Free (paid wealth mgmt. available) | Was free |
| Best for | Investing & retirement planning | Budgeting & expense tracking |
| Net worth tracking | ✅ Excellent | ✅ Good |
| Investment analysis | ✅ Industry-leading | ⚠️ Basic |
| Budget by category | ❌ Very limited | ✅ Strong |
| Retirement planner | ✅ Advanced | ❌ None |
| 401(k) fee analyzer | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Credit score tracking | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (was free) |
| Bill tracking & alerts | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Mobile app | ✅ iOS & Android | Was available |
| Paid wealth management | ✅ From $100,000 minimum | ❌ No |
What Was Mint?
Mint launched in 2007 and was acquired by Intuit in 2009 for $170 million. At its peak, it had over 3.6 million active users. It was one of the first personal finance apps to automatically sync bank accounts, credit cards, and loans in one place — a concept that seems obvious today but was genuinely revolutionary at the time.
Mint’s core strengths were:
- Category-based budgeting — set monthly limits per spending category and get alerts when you were close to exceeding them
- Bill tracking — see upcoming due dates and receive reminders
- Credit score monitoring — free quarterly credit score updates
- Spending trends — month-over-month comparison of your expenses
- Goal setting — save for a vacation, emergency fund, or debt payoff
What made Mint popular wasn’t just the features — it was the simplicity. You linked your accounts once and it just worked. For everyday budgeters who wanted to stop overspending, Mint was genuinely effective.
Intuit shut it down in March 2024 not because it was failing, but to consolidate its consumer finance products around Credit Karma. That decision left millions of users looking for alternatives.
What Is Empower (Formerly Personal Capital)?
Empower is a financial aggregator and wealth management platform. It was founded in 2009 under the name Personal Capital and rebranded to Empower after being acquired by the Empower Retirement company.
The free version of Empower connects to virtually any financial institution — banks, brokerages, 401(k)s, IRAs, mortgages, credit cards — and gives you a consolidated dashboard of your entire financial life.
But Empower was built with a different purpose than Mint. While Mint started from the question “where is my money going?”, Empower starts from “am I on track to retire comfortably?”
Empower’s free tools include:
- Net worth dashboard — see all your accounts, assets, and liabilities in real time
- Investment Checkup — analyzes your asset allocation and compares it to your risk tolerance
- 401(k) Fee Analyzer — identifies hidden fees eating away at your retirement savings
- Retirement Planner — projects your future net worth and models different retirement scenarios
- Portfolio performance tracking — see your returns over time and compare to benchmarks
- Cash flow overview — a basic income vs. expense view
For investors and people building long-term wealth, Empower’s free tools are genuinely exceptional. No other free app comes close to its retirement planning capabilities.
Head-to-Head Comparison
1. Budgeting Tools
Winner: Mint (by a wide margin) — but Mint is gone
This is the biggest gap. Mint was a budgeting-first app. You could set a monthly budget for each spending category — groceries, restaurants, gas, entertainment — and Mint would automatically pull in your transactions, categorize them, and alert you when you were approaching or exceeding your limits.
Empower’s budgeting tools are minimal by comparison. You can see a cash flow summary and set a general monthly spending target, but you cannot assign budgets per category, set up bill tracking, or receive spending alerts. For someone who relied on Mint to manage daily spending, Empower will feel like a significant downgrade in this area.
If category-by-category budgeting is what you need, Empower is not the right replacement. YNAB, Rocket Money, or Copilot Money are better alternatives.
2. Investment Tracking and Analysis
Winner: Empower — clearly
This is where Empower leaves Mint far behind. Empower’s investment tools are among the best available for free anywhere.
Key investment features Empower offers (and Mint never had):
- Asset allocation analysis — see exactly how your portfolio breaks down across stocks, bonds, cash, and international holdings
- Investment fee analysis — calculates the total fees you’re paying across all your investment accounts and shows how those fees compound over time
- Portfolio performance — tracks your actual returns and compares them to market benchmarks
- Investment Checkup — compares your current allocation to an Empower-recommended allocation based on your age and risk tolerance
- Retirement Planner — projects your portfolio value at retirement using your actual savings rate, expected returns, and planned spending
For anyone with a 401(k), IRA, or brokerage account, these tools provide real, actionable insight that most financial advisors would charge for.
3. Net Worth Tracking
Winner: Tie (both were strong)
Both Mint and Empower excelled at aggregating accounts to give you a real-time net worth picture. You could link banks, credit cards, investment accounts, mortgages, and even manually add assets like real estate or cars.
Empower handles this particularly well. The net worth dashboard is clean, historical, and updates reliably. Users who switched from Mint consistently report that Empower’s account syncing is more stable — fewer broken connections and fewer times you need to re-authenticate.
4. Retirement Planning
Winner: Empower — by far
Mint had no retirement planning tools. Empower’s Retirement Planner is one of its flagship features and one of the best free tools available for this purpose.
You can input your current savings, expected retirement date, planned spending in retirement, and Social Security estimates. The planner runs simulations — including market downturns — and shows you the probability that your money will last through retirement. You can model different scenarios: retiring early, spending more, changing your savings rate.
For anyone within 10–20 years of retirement, this feature alone makes Empower worth using regardless of its budgeting limitations.
5. Credit Score Tracking
Winner: Mint (when it existed)
Empower does not offer credit score tracking. This was a feature Mint included for free — quarterly updates based on TransUnion data.
If credit monitoring is important to you, Credit Karma (which inherited Mint’s user base) does offer free credit score tracking from TransUnion and Equifax. You can use Credit Karma for credit monitoring alongside Empower for investment tracking.
6. Bill Tracking and Alerts
Winner: Mint (when it existed)
Empower has no dedicated bill tracking feature. It will not alert you when a bill is due or warn you if you’re at risk of overdrafting. This was a core Mint feature that no single free alternative fully replicates.
Rocket Money comes closest to filling this gap for former Mint users — it tracks subscriptions, monitors bills, and can even negotiate lower rates on your behalf.
7. Security
Winner: Essentially equal
Both platforms use read-only connections to your financial accounts, meaning they can view your data but cannot move money. Both use 256-bit encryption and bank-level security protocols.
Empower uses a device registration system — new devices require verification via a code sent by phone or email, which adds an extra layer of protection. Neither platform stores your banking credentials in plain text.
8. Cost and Business Model
Empower: Free for all personal finance tools. Makes money by offering paid wealth management services to users with $100,000 or more in investable assets, at a fee of 0.89% annually (scaling down for larger portfolios). Expect occasional calls from Empower’s advisory team if you have significant assets.
Mint: Was free. Made money through display advertising and affiliate commissions from financial product recommendations. No longer available.
Who Should Use Empower?
Empower is the right tool if:
- You have investment accounts (401k, IRA, brokerage) and want to track them all in one place
- You want to understand your asset allocation and whether you’re taking too much or too little risk
- You’re planning for retirement and want to see projections based on your real data
- You want to identify hidden fees in your investment accounts
- You want a clear, real-time view of your total net worth
Empower is not the right tool if:
- Your main goal is tracking daily spending and sticking to a monthly budget
- You need bill due date reminders and spending alerts
- You want to track your credit score
- You’re in the early stages of financial management and budgeting basics are the priority
Best Alternatives to Mint in 2026
Since Mint is gone, here are the best replacements depending on what you need:
For budgeting and expense tracking:
- YNAB (You Need a Budget) — The gold standard for zero-based budgeting. Paid ($109/year), but users consistently report saving far more than that. Best for people who want to be intentional about every dollar.
- Rocket Money — Good free tier with bill tracking, subscriptions management, and spending alerts. Paid tier adds bill negotiation and premium budgeting features.
- Copilot Money — Excellent design and smart transaction categorization. iOS only, $13/month after free trial.
For investment tracking:
- Empower (Personal Capital) — Best free option by a significant margin.
For credit monitoring:
- Credit Karma — Free, includes TransUnion and Equifax scores. Weaker on budgeting features.
For an all-in-one replacement:
- No single free app fully replaces everything Mint offered. Most former Mint users end up using Empower for investments and YNAB or Rocket Money for budgeting.
The Verdict: Personal Capital vs Mint
This comparison has a somewhat unusual answer: these two tools were never really direct competitors, and the “better” choice depends entirely on what stage of financial life you’re in.
Mint was for budgeters. People in the phase of getting control of their spending, eliminating debt, and building their first savings cushion. If that’s you, Empower isn’t the right replacement — look at YNAB, Rocket Money, or Copilot.
Empower is for wealth builders. People who already have a handle on their spending and are now focused on growing investments, planning for retirement, and understanding their overall financial picture. For this group, Empower’s free tools are unmatched.
The good news: both are (or were) free. And nothing stops you from using Empower alongside a dedicated budgeting app. Many users do exactly that — Empower for the long view, YNAB or Rocket Money for the day-to-day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mint really gone for good? Yes. Mint shut down permanently on March 23, 2024. The app and website are no longer accessible. Intuit directed users to Credit Karma, but Credit Karma does not offer the same budgeting features.
Is Empower the same as Personal Capital? Yes. Personal Capital was rebranded to Empower after being acquired by the Empower Retirement company. The free financial tools are the same product under a new name.
Is Empower free? The personal finance dashboard, investment tracking, retirement planner, and all analytical tools are completely free. Empower also offers a paid wealth management service for users with $100,000 or more in investable assets, but this is optional.
Is it safe to connect my bank accounts to Empower? Yes. Empower uses read-only access — it can view your account data but cannot initiate transactions. Data is protected with 256-bit encryption and bank-level security. Empower has been operating since 2009 with no major security incidents.
What is the best free replacement for Mint in 2026? There’s no single perfect free replacement. For investment tracking and retirement planning: Empower. For budgeting and bill tracking: Rocket Money (free tier) or YNAB (paid). For credit monitoring: Credit Karma.
Does Empower have a mobile app? Yes. Empower has apps for both iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android.
Disclaimer: The information on this page is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. We are not licensed financial advisors. Always consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions. Some links on this page may be affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no additional cost to you.
Last reviewed: April 2026. We update this article whenever significant changes occur to the products mentioned.