Mint, a phone app that helps you budget your money and see exactly how much you’re spending, is one of those services that’s been quietly and competently soldiering on for years. Initially founded as Mint.com an astonishing seventeen years ago, the free tool will come to an ignoble end when 2023 winds down. (Mint and Mint.com are not to be confused with Mint Mobile, a cellular service.) Owner Intuit, makers of TurboTax and similar software, will shut down the service on January 1st, pushing existing Mint users onto its Credit Karma tool.
Intuit announced the shutdown on Tuesday, October 31st, with a tone that might be called questionable at best. “Intuit Credit Karma welcomes all Minters,” proclaims the headline, following with the news that the company is “reimagining Mint as part of Credit Karma.” Users will be automatically migrated to the new, combined service, with a chance to download their independent Mint data (and presumably close their account) before that happens. Once users transition their accounts from Mint to Credit Karma, their original Mint account will no longer be accessible.
Credit Karma was initially a fairly barebones credit check and monitoring service, but Intuit has been trying to rebrand it as a more holistic personal economic tool since the company acquired it in 2020. Intuit’s announcement says that Credit Karma now includes Mint’s tools that “monitor their cash flow and track their spending.” But as PC Mag notes, the new app will lack the ability to set monthly budgets and track spending and goals by category.
Mint users aren’t happy, to say the least. Fans of the service have been frustrated by slow and missing updates for years, a pattern that only seemed to intensify after Intuit’s Credit Karma purchase. Now all but forcing Mint users onto another tool, which doesn’t fully replicate the features they’re looking for, might be the last straw. On the /r/mintuit subreddit, alternatives beyond Intuit are being heavily discussed, with paid service Monarch emerging as an early favorite.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer
Michael is a former graphic designer who's been building and tweaking desktop computers for longer than he cares to admit. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order.