
Do you want to understand your budget, control your household spending, monitor your credit score, or look for an alternative to Mint? We evaluate and rank the top apps that can help you improve your financial health.
The past three years have been challenging for many of us financially due to COVID, inflation, and the changes in the housing market. It is crucial to know where you are with your money—your income, expenses, budget, investments, and credit score. A personal finance app can help you stay on top of all that and possibly help you reduce your debt. Many apps are free, and the others are affordable at a few dollars per month.
Intuit has recently declared that it will discontinue Mint as of January 1, 2024, and that users can switch to Credit Karma (also owned by Intuit). Therefore, we have taken Mint off this list of the best personal finance apps. For more options, check out the other apps in this article that have budgeting tools, such as Simplifi (our favorite), Quicken, RocketMoney, and NerdWallet (which has some budgeting tools, but you can't make a custom budget yet).
With that in mind, we're here to share with you the best personal finance apps. See our suggestions below, along with some tips on how to pick the right personal finance software for your situation.
Personal finance software is an application or program that can help you manage your money better. With personal finance software, you can:
- Connect your bank accounts, credit cards, investments, and assets into one place.
- Track your income, expenses, savings, and debts automatically and in detail.
- Create a budget that matches your goals and priorities.
- Get advice and recommendations to optimize your finances.
- View reports and graphs that show your financial performance and progress.
However, not all personal finance software is the same. There are many personal finance software available in the market, with different features, prices, and quality. How can you choose the best personal finance software for you?
This article will help you find the answer. This article will give you a list of the 10 best personal finance software that you can use to manage your money. We will explain the features, advantages, disadvantages, and price of each software. We will also give you tips and tricks to choose a personal finance software that suits your needs and preferences.
Let's get started!
1. Quicken: The Most Complete Personal Finance Software
For years, Quicken has been your trusted partner in managing your money and spending. Today, it is the most comprehensive personal finance software you can find. Quicken Deluxe for Windows is a desktop program that comes with a mobile app that lets you access your financial data anytime, anywhere. The software is worth its yearly subscription fee because it covers all aspects of personal finance, such as tracking accounts, planning budgets, paying bills, and investing wisely.
Quicken Deluxe for Windows is ideal for personal finance enthusiasts who are happy to install a program on their desktop and work on it there. The software has four versions to suit different needs. Quicken Starter is a good choice for beginners, while more advanced users can benefit from the features of the higher versions in areas such as planning, investing, and small business finance. The software is user-friendly for anyone who knows how to use Windows applications.
Quicken has very complete and advanced features, such as:
- Connects your bank accounts, credit cards, investments, assets, and debts into one place.
- Track your income, expenses, savings, and debts automatically and in detail, with customizable categories, tags, and memos.
- Create a budget that matches your goals and priorities, with spending limits, alerts, and projections that you can set.
- Get advice and recommendations to optimize your finances, such as reducing costs, increasing income, saving, investing or managing your debt.
- View reports and graphs showing your financial performance and progress, with a variety of filter, sort and export options to choose from.
- Manage your investments easily and effectively, by viewing your portfolio, performance, allocations, fees and taxes.
- Manage your properties easily and effectively, by viewing your values, mortgages, rents and costs.
- Manage your business easily and effectively, by viewing your income, expenses, profit and loss and taxes.
- Manage your pension easily and effectively, by looking at your estimates, plans and income sources.
- Manage your taxes easily and effectively, by viewing your tax summaries, details and documents, and importing data into tax software such as TurboTax.
- Manage your family finances easily and effectively, by creating children's accounts, granting limited access, and monitoring their activity.
- Secure your data with reliable encryption, authentication, backup and recovery.
- Quicken Starter: This plan is suitable for those of you who want to manage your basic finances, such as connecting your bank accounts and credit cards, tracking your income and expenses, and creating your budget. This plan is priced at $34.99 per year.
- Quicken Deluxe: This plan is suitable for those of you who want to manage your advanced finances, such as connecting your investments and assets, saving for specific goals, and optimizing your finances. This plan is priced at $49.99 per year.
- Quicken Premier: This plan is suitable for those who want to manage their investments and taxes, such as viewing your portfolio and investment performance, calculating your investment fees and taxes, and importing data into tax software. This plan is priced at $74.99 per year.
- Quicken Home & Business: This package is suitable for those who want to manage their business, such as viewing your business income, expenses, profit and loss, and taxes, as well as separating your personal and business finances. This plan is priced at $99.99 per year.
- The most complete and advanced personal finance software, with features that can fulfill all your financial needs.
- The most popular and trusted personal finance software, with decades of experience and a proven reputation.
- The most flexible and customizable personal finance software, with plans, categories, tags, memos, filters, sort, and export options that you can customize to your liking.
- The most expensive personal finance software, with prices that can reach $99.99 per year, depending on the plan you choose.
- The most complicated and difficult personal finance software to learn, with features that can confuse and intimidate you, especially if you're a beginner or unfamiliar with personal finance software.
- The heaviest and slowest personal finance software, with large file sizes and long loading processes, especially if you have a lot of data and features you use.
2. Mint: The Most Popular and Free Personal Finance Software
Mint is a widely used tool for budgeting and tracking expenses. You can let the software access your bank and credit card information to examine your spending and identify areas where you can save money and improve your finances.
For more responsibility, Mint lets you create alerts for payment deadlines and low balances to keep you on course. These features help you prevent costly fees on late payments and overdrafts from your bank account. When you create budget categories, Mint will tell you how much you can spend on things like food and gas. Mint is free to download and use on iOS and Android devices. You can also use it in a web browser on your computer.
Mint has quite complete and easy-to-use features, such as:
- Connects your bank accounts, credit cards, investments, assets, and debts into one place.
- Track your income, expenses, savings, and debts automatically and in detail, with predefined categories and tags.
- Create a budget that matches your goals and priorities, with predefined spending limits and alerts.
- Get advice and recommendations to optimize your finances, such as reducing costs, increasing income, saving, investing, or managing your debt.
- View reports and graphs showing your financial performance and progress, with multiple filter and sort options to choose from.
- Manage your investments easily and effectively, by viewing your portfolio, performance, allocations, fees and taxes.
- Manage your property easily and effectively, by viewing your value, mortgage, rent and fees.
- Manage your taxes easily and effectively, by viewing your tax summaries, details and documents, and importing data into tax software such as TurboTax.
- Secure your data with reliable encryption, authentication, backup and recovery.
Mint is a free personal finance software, without any fees. All you need to do is sign up with your email and password, and you can instantly access all of Mint's features.
Mint pros:- The most popular free personal finance software, with over 20 million users worldwide.
- The easiest-to-use personal finance software, with a simple, intuitive, and attractive interface.
- The most integrated personal finance software, with over 10,000 financial institutions connected, as well as other tax and accounting software.
- The most limited personal finance software, with not as many and sophisticated features as other personal finance software, especially for managing investments, property, business, retirement, and family finances.
- The least flexible personal finance software, with non-customizable categories and tags, and unmanageable spending limits and alerts.
- The least stable personal finance software, with frequent technical issues, such as synchronization errors, data duplication, or data loss.
3. YNAB: The Most Effective Personal Finance Software for Saving Money
YNAB is a personal finance software that helps you boost your financial knowledge as you plan your monthly budget. As you set up your budget and handle your daily finances, the software gives you tutorials that will help you deal with some of the harder financial topics. If you’ve been having trouble with bad financial habits, YNAB can help you overcome them with a few simple financial management rules.
The software connects to your bank account automatically, combining your spending information for analysis and budget tracking. You can monitor how you’re doing with your monthly budget and act if you’re overspending. However, it doesn’t have any investment tracking features.
YNAB has a 34-day free trial that lets you try the software while you figure out if it’s suitable for your personal finance goals. The full software costs $14.99 per month or $99 per year.
YNAB has very effective and unique features, such as:
- Connects your bank accounts, credit cards, investments, assets and debts into one place.
- Track your income, expenses, savings and debts automatically and in detail, with customizable categories and tags.
- Create a budget that is in line with YNAB's philosophy, ie:
- Give Every Dollar a Job: You should give a purpose to every dollar you have, so that you won't spend it on things that don't matter.
- Embrace Your True Expenses: You have to take into account the big or unexpected expenses that you will face in the future, so that you won't be surprised or short of money when they arrive.
- Roll With The Punches: You need to be flexible and ready to change your budget according to your situation and needs, so you won't feel guilty or stressed when you have to.
- Age Your Money: You should strive to spend the money you earned a month ago, not the money you earn now, so that you won't be living paycheck to paycheck, but rather have enough money in reserve.
- Get advice and recommendations to save your money, such as reducing costs, saving for a specific goal, or managing your debt.
- View reports and graphs showing your financial performance and progress, with multiple filter and sort options to choose from.
- Secure your data with reliable encryption, authentication, backup and recovery.
YNAB is a paid personal finance software, priced at $14.99 per month or $99 per year. However, you can try YNAB for free for 34 days, without entering your credit card information. You can also get a 10% discount if you are a student.
YNAB pros:- The most effective personal finance software for saving money, with philosophies and features that can make you more disciplined, responsible, and wise in managing your money.
- The easiest personal finance software to learn, with guides, tutorials, webinars, podcasts, blogs, and communities that help you understand and apply YNAB well.
- The most responsive personal finance software, with friendly, prompt, and professional customer service that can help you resolve any issues or questions you have.
- The most expensive personal finance software, which can cost up to $99 per year, depending on the plan you choose.
- The most limited personal finance software, with not as many and sophisticated features as other personal finance software, especially for managing investments, property, business, retirement, and family finances.
- The most rigid personal finance software, with non-customizable philosophies and features, and unmanageable spending limits and alerts.
4. Wallet: The Most Bank-integrated Personal Finance Software
Wallet is the most bank-integrated personal finance software.
Wallet is part of BudgetBakers, a Czech Republic-based company
founded in 2014.
Wallet has features that are quite comprehensive and easy to use, such as:
- Connects your bank accounts, credit cards, investments, assets and debts to one place, with over 3,500 supported banks worldwide.
- Track your income, expenses, savings and debts automatically and in detail, with customizable categories and labels.
- Create a budget that matches your goals and priorities, with spending limits and alerts you can set.
- Get advice and recommendations to optimize your finances, such as reducing costs, increasing income, saving, investing or managing your debt.
- View reports and graphs showing your financial performance and progress, with multiple filters and sorting options to choose from.
- Manage your investments easily and effectively, by viewing your portfolio, performance, allocations, fees and taxes.
- Manage your family's finances easily and effectively, by creating joint accounts, granting limited access, and monitoring their activities.
- Secure your data with reliable encryption, authentication, backup and recovery.
Wallet is a paid personal finance software, priced at $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year. However, you can try Wallet for free for 14 days, without entering your credit card information.
Wallet pros:- The most bank-integrated personal finance software, with the ability to connect your bank accounts easily and quickly, and get accurate and up-to-date data.
- The most user-friendly personal finance software, with a simple, intuitive and attractive interface, and features that are easy to understand and operate.
- The most affordable personal finance software, with relatively low prices, especially if you choose an annual plan.
- The most limited personal finance software, with not as many and sophisticated features as other personal finance software, especially for managing property, business, retirement, and taxes.
- The least flexible personal finance software, with non-customizable categories and labels, and unmanageable spending limits and alerts.
- The least stable personal finance software, with frequent technical issues, such as synchronization errors, data duplication, or data loss.
Personal Capital: The Most Effective Personal Finance Software for Managing Investments
Personal Capital is the most effective personal finance software for managing investments. Personal Capital is part of Personal Capital Corporation, a US-based company founded in 2009.
Personal Capital has very effective and unique features, such as:
- Connects your bank accounts, credit cards, investments, assets, and debts to one place, with over 14,000 supported financial institutions worldwide.
- Track your income, expenses, savings and debts automatically and in detail, with customizable categories and tags.
- Create a budget that matches your goals and priorities, with spending limits and alerts you can set.
- Get advice and recommendations to optimize your finances, such as reducing costs, increasing income, saving, investing, or managing your debt.
- View reports and graphs showing your financial performance and progress, with multiple filters and sorting options to choose from.
- Manage your investments easily and effectively, with powerful features such as:
- Investment Checkup: You can get an analysis and evaluation of your investment portfolio, performance, allocation, fees and taxes, and get advice and recommendations to improve your investment returns.
- Retirement Planner: You can get simulations and projections about your income, expenses, savings and investments in retirement, as well as get advice and recommendations to achieve your retirement goals.
- Fee Analyzer: You can get information and comparisons on the fees charged by financial institutions or investment products you use, and get advice and recommendations to reduce these fees.
- Wealth Management: You can get professional investment advisory and management services from Personal Capital's team of experts, who will help you design and execute an investment strategy that suits your profile and goals.
- Secure your data with reliable encryption, authentication, backup and recovery.
Personal Capital is a free personal finance software, without any fees. All you need to do is sign up with your email and password, and you can instantly access all of Personal Capital's features, except Wealth Management. Wealth Management is a paid service, with fees varying depending on the amount of assets you manage, ranging from 0.49% to 0.89% per year.
Capital pros:- The most effective personal finance software for managing investments, with highly advanced and unique features that can help you improve your investment returns.
- The most free personal finance software, without any fees, except for the Wealth Management service, which also gives you great added value.
- The most integrated personal finance software, with the ability to connect your bank accounts easily and quickly, and get accurate and up-to-date data.
- The most limited personal finance software, with not as many and sophisticated features as other personal finance software, especially for managing property, business, retirement, and family finances.
- The least flexible personal finance software, with non-customizable categories and tags, and unmanageable spending limits and alerts.
- The least stable personal finance software, with frequent technical issues, such as synchronization errors, data duplication, or data loss.
How Safe Is It to Link an App to Your Bank Accounts?
Many personal finance apps allow you to connect to your financial institutions online. These apps fetch your transactions and other account information from your bank accounts, credit card accounts, brokerages, and other financial institutions so that you can view all the activity in one place. To connect, you usually enter your login details for those financial sites, though you often have to give extra security information—which is, of course, a good thing.
The personal finance apps we tested all use strong security methods. The ones that link to your financial accounts encrypt and safeguard your login information. Many rely on third parties, such as Plaid, to create secure connections. However, you also have to do your part to make the experience safe.
Three key things you can do are:
- Use a different username and password for your financial logins and the personal finance app. A password manager is the tool you'll want to use here.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication wherever it's available—again, for logging into the personal finance app and any linked bank accounts. Yes, it takes some extra time, but not nearly as much time as rebuilding your financial life if you’re the target of identity theft.
- Keep all your personal details, such as your date and city of birth, private because they can be used as authenticators to access financial data and accounts.
Reviewing the best practices for avoiding identity theft is always a good idea.
How Can a Personal Finance App Help You?
A personal finance app lets you import your transactions from credit cards and bank accounts and organize them. You need to assign the right categories to your transactions, such as income (salary, freelance payment, and interest, for example) or expenses (food, mortgage, utilities, and so on). Most apps suggest the categories, but you can always edit them and divide transactions into different categories. For example, if you shop at one store and buy dog food and a new lamp, you can split the amounts and label them as pet care and home furnishings.
By carefully assigning categories to your income and spending, the apps will generate graphs and reports that show you the source and destination of your money. This information is essential for budgeting and tax preparation. Some personal finance apps also allow you to tag transactions. This helps you find transactions that are connected in other ways. For instance, you can create a tag called tax-deductible, which makes it easy to retrieve all your tax-deductible expenses at the end of the year. Rocket Money has a feature for this in its transaction details. Some personal finance apps enable you to add notes and files.
However, if you paid with cash, your bank will not have a record of it. In those cases, you can enter a transaction manually. The best personal finance app for this type of transaction management is Quicken Deluxe. A personal finance app displays a list of all transactions from all your accounts as soon as you log in. The faster you spot an unauthorized transaction, the sooner you can notify your bank and block access to the account.
How to Choose the Best Free Personal Finance App?
Most personal finance apps are free or have a free option of service. They usually earn money by displaying you relevant ads for financial products like credit cards or saving accounts. NerdWallet is our top pick for a completely free app. It integrates bank account imports and transaction management with great information about your credit score. It also has a lot of editorial content (including tutorials) on personal finance topics.
NerdWallet is partly funded by ads, but they are not intrusive. The app also monitors your net worth and cash flow as long as you link to all your online financial accounts. It does reveal your credit score and explain how it was calculated, although Credit Karma (also totally free) does a better job here.
How to Choose the Best Personal Finance App for You
The best personal finance app depends on your current needs. If you prefer a free personal finance app that gives you not only your money information but also personal finance education, NerdWallet is the best option. If you need a very detailed view of your money and financial health, along with some of the best tools for managing investments, Quicken Deluxe is the best choice. If you want to know and improve your credit score, you might want to use Credit Karma or NerdWallet. And if you want the best overall user experience that includes the basics and some creative tracking tools, try Editors’ Choice Simplifi by Quicken.
Conclusion
Personal finance software is an application or program that can help you manage your money better. With personal finance software, you can connect your bank accounts, credit cards, investments, assets, and debts to one place, track your income, expenses, savings, and debts automatically and in detail, create a budget that matches your goals and priorities, get advice and recommendations to optimize your finances, view reports and graphs that show your financial performance and progress, and manage your investments, property, business, retirement, taxes, and family finances easily and effectively.
This article has provided you with a list of 10 best personal finance software that you can use to manage your money, namely:
- Quicken: The most complete and advanced personal finance software, with features that can fulfill all your financial needs, but also the most expensive, complicated, and slow.
- Mint: The most popular and free personal finance software, with fairly comprehensive and easy-to-use features, but also the most limited, inflexible, and unstable.
- YNAB: The most effective personal finance software for saving money, with philosophies and features that can make you more disciplined, responsible, and wise in managing your money, but also the most expensive, limited, and rigid.
- Wallet: The most bank-integrated personal finance software, with the ability to easily and quickly connect your bank accounts and get accurate and up-to-date data, but also the most limited, inflexible and unstable.
- Personal Capital: The most effective personal finance software for managing investments, with very advanced and unique features, which can help you increase your investment returns, but also the most limited, inflexible, and unstable.
In addition to the personal finance software we have mentioned above, there are still many other personal finance software that you can try, such as:
- Moneydance: The simplest and most elegant personal finance software, with a minimalist, intuitive, and attractive look, and a fairly comprehensive and easy-to-use set of features, but also the most expensive, limited, and non-integrated.
- Banktivity: The most specialized personal finance software for Mac users, with a look that matches Apple's style and standards, and fairly complete and advanced features, but also the most expensive, limited, and incompatible with other operating systems.
- CountAbout: The most flexible and customizable personal finance software, with categories, tags, memos, filters, sorting, and exporting that you can set up to your liking, as well as fairly comprehensive and easy-to-use features, but also the most expensive, limited, and unsophisticated.
- MoneyWiz: The most affordable and trusted personal finance software, with a relatively low price, years of experience and a proven reputation, and fairly comprehensive and easy-to-use features, but also the most limited, inflexible, and unsophisticated.
- PocketSmith: The most unique and innovative personal finance software, with unusual and interesting features, such as financial calendar, financial forecasting, and financial search, and fairly complete and easy-to-use features, but also the most expensive, limited, and unstable.
Hopefully this article is useful and helps you to manage your money better. If you have any questions, suggestions, or criticisms, please write them in the comment section below. Thank you for reading and good luck!