In my house, we use both Personal Capital and Mint. I couldn’t live without Personal Capital’s investment tracking, net worth, and retirement planning tools, while Mint gives us a nice overview of our spending and has great budgeting capabilities.
Technology has legitimately streamlined our budgeting, spending, and investment practices with a variety of personal finance apps and money tracking tools. Personal Capital and Mint are two of the most popular free options, but is one better than another for managing your money?
Before I take a deep dive into each personal finance tool, let’s take a close look at the basics of each…
Personal Capital
Personal Capital was founded in 2009 and now has over 2 million users and manages over $9 billion in assets.
Personal Capital offers two services, a paid version that acts more like a robo-advisor for clients with over $200K in investment assets and a free one that can be used by anyone. Since I’m talking about Personal Capital vs. Mint, I’m going to focus on the free version of PC, which has a lot to offer.
Its main focus is on your net worth, investment tracking, and helping you prepare for retirement. It does this with some really robust tracking and analysis tools that are available in the free and paid version, like:
- 401(k) fee analyzer
- Asset allocation tool
- Investment Checkup
- Retirement planner
To learn about everything Personal Capital offers, including their paid services, you can read my full Personal Capital Review for 2024.
Mint
Mint was founded in 2006 and was acquired by Intuit in 2009. They’ve grown to over 10 million active users, seeing over 250 billion transactions per year.
Mint’s goal is to give you an overview of your finances by offering a variety of personal finance tools, like:
- Budgeting
- Spending analysis
- Bill pay reminders
- Credit monitoring
They also offer investment tracking and goal setting tools, but they aren’t as robust as what Personal Capital offers.
Personal Capital vs. Mint, how does each app stack up?
I’m going to break down the most important components of each app to help you decide which money tracking tool is best for you.
Signing up
Most money tracking tools have a pretty similar sign-up process, and Personal Capital and Mint are no different. You just need an email address and a secure password to set up your free account. After that, there are a few differences…
Signing up for Mint
- Mint asks you to add your cell phone number to verify your account’s safety, but it isn’t required.
- You’ll need to enter your country and 5-digit zip code, which helps Mint find the best offers for you (more on this later).
- If you already have an account with any other Intuit products like Quicken and TurboTax, you can use the same account when signing up for Mint.
Signing up for Personal Capital
- Personal Capital requires a phone number during this process to ensure your account’s safety.
- There is an optional questionnaire that asks for some basic information (name, age, planned retirement age, and amount saved), which is how the app starts to build a personalized retirement plan for you.
The verdict on signing up – hard tie
Linking accounts to Personal Capital and Mint
After you’ve created your account, you’ll need to start linking your financial accounts. To get the best picture with either money tracking tool, you will need to link all of them – assets, liabilities, etc. These are things like:
- Checking and savings accounts
- 401(k)
- Student loans
- Mortgage
- Car(s)
- Credit card accounts
- Student loans
- Investments
- IRA
- Other retirement accounts
- Property
Both apps give you a list of some of the largest and most used financial institutions, and you can easily search for any that aren’t listed. Don’t forget to link accounts from micro savings or micro investing apps like Stash, Acorns, or Qapital.
If you need to take a break from linking accounts during the sign-up process or forget about something, it’s a little easier to pick back up with Personal Capital. You just click the + sign at the top left-hand side of your dashboard and link what you need to.
When I was linking my investment accounts to Mint, I did have a couple of issues:
- I was prompted to link one account, but then it took me a while to figure out how to add another. The “Add Accounts” tab is nearly hidden under the browser bar, and you can also add an account by clicking on the gear image in the left side of your homepage… this took a lot of clicking around to figure out.
- After linking one investment account, instead of giving me the option to add another, Mint wanted me to click on “Invest now with fewer fees,” which took me to a page of offers for different brokerages.
Verdict on linking accounts – Personal Capital wins
Synchronization
The point of money tracking apps is to make it easy to see everything in one place. Rather than needing to log into your checking account and credit card companies, you see everything in front of you at once, with numbers you should be able to trust.
At least that’s the goal…
I’ve had issues with Mint synching my transactions. I’ve heard my readers complain about this too. And when I was writing this overview of Personal Capital vs. Mint, I ran into it again.
Personal Capital showed a completed transaction that went through my checking account earlier that day, but Mint didn’t show it. I checked a little bit later and Mint acknowledged that the transaction had been made, adjusting my balance but not my available balance.
Maybe I’m being a little over critical here, but I think this kind of stuff is important if you’re hoping to use one money tracking tool to show where you stand financially.
Verdict on synching accounts – Personal Capital wins
Budgeting
Okay, this is where Mint shines, not going to gloss over that at all. Mint really gives you more guidance when it comes to budgeting. Personal Capital, on the other hand, is more focused on your cash flow, which isn’t a horrible way to budget, but it’s not for everyone.
Here are a few highlights of budgeting with Mint:
- Mint sets a budget for you based on your spending habits, but you can build one on your own that helps you work towards your financial goals.
- There are around 100 different budgeting subcategories, and you can also create your own.
- With each category, you set the time frame, amount, and if a surplus can roll over.
- You get notifications if you are close to overspending in an area.
Personal Capital’s budgeting functionality is tied to your cash flow.
Cash flow is the amount of money you have coming in every month, from every possible source of income – paychecks, dividends, income on investment properties, earned interest, etc.
You can set your monthly Personal Capital budget to whatever you’d like, and then they use your transactions to show you where you’re at with your spending vs. cash flow… or money going out versus money coming in. This is a no brainer, but ideally, you have more coming in so you’re not running on a deficit.
Mint overall offers a more structured budgeting function that allows the average consumer, especially those dealing with a credit card or student loan debt, to take action with their budget.
Want even more options for budgeting? You can see how Mint compares to other popular budgeting apps:
- YNAB vs. Mint 2024: Which Budgeting App is Best?
- Quicken vs. Mint: Which Budgeting Tool is Better in 2024?
- Top Mint.com Alternatives: Best Budgeting Alternatives for 2024
- EveryDollar vs. Mint Comparison: Which Budget App is Best?
My only real complaint about budgeting with Mint is that they sometimes miscategorize transactions in strange ways. When I was trying out the Stash app for my Stash review, Mint categorized a deposit into my Stash account as “public transportation.” Personal Capital listed it as “other expense,” which is a little better.
The good news is that you can go back and recategorize transactions with each money tracking tool.
Verdict on budgeting – Mint is the obvious winner
Investing
Both Personal Capital and Mint let you link any investment accounts. Both apps show you the performance, value, and allocation of all of your assets. But here’s the difference…
Personal Capital really lets you interact with your investments.
There are easy to understand graphics. For example, under “Allocation,” I can click on “U.S. Stocks” and I’m given a complete breakdown of large, medium, and small cap value, core, and growth. Personal Capital gives you a visual representation of this, and the actual numbers for each part.
That may sound like a pretty intense investing tool, and not every investor is going to nerd out about this stuff as much as I do. But, Personal Capital gives you the tools to understand and utilize your investments.
If you are more hands off, Personal Capital offers a free Investment Checkup that analyzes the allocation, stocks, and costs of all of your investments. There is a full and easy to find a disclaimer about the checkup (super important). The checkup can tell you things like:
- Target allocation for your investments, based on historical performance and future projections
- Explains risk and return
- Which asset classes you are under or overweight in
- Which sectors you’re invested in
- How much you are paying in fees for each account and each holding
That is really robust investment information for a free money track tool, and legitimately one of my favorite things about using Personal Capital.
Verdict on investing – Personal Capital wins, hands down
Bill management
Neither app offers much in this department, so prepare to be underwhelmed.
Mint lets you set bill pay reminders. They did have a bill pay feature, which let you pay some of your bills through the app, but that was canceled.
Personal Capital pulls the due dates from your linked accounts to remind you, but you can’t add reminders for accounts you can’t link, like utilities.
Verdict on bill management – pretty boring tie
Customer service
Personal Capital is known for stellar customer service. There is an easy to find “Help” button in the bottom right corner of the screen, and if you can’t find the answer to your question that way, just click on the “Contact Us” button that shows up within the “Help” screen.
You can email 24/7 about specific financial institutions or services, upload files, etc. Your request is responded to quickly, usually within 24 hours. I’ve even been able to contact Personal Capital to help my readers with some of their questions.
Mint offers Chat, but it’s more of an email supported help, and I’ve never found it incredibly helpful or fast.
For customer service – Personal Capital wins
Security
Here’s how both Personal Capital and Mint are keeping your accounts and information safe:
- Both money tracking tools are read-only apps, which means that money can’t be moved in or out of your accounts via the apps. Not by you, the app, or a hacker.
- Your full name and account numbers are never displayed.
- Your data is heavily encrypted with the same level of security used by top financial institutions and companies.
- You can use fingerprint login through supported Apple devices.
Mint does go one step further with multi-factor authentication, which is becoming the new standard. Personal Capital hasn’t quite made that leap and asks that you register your computer before using.
Is Personal Capital safe to use? Yes, and I trust them with my information. Data breaches are now part of our new normal, and part of using personal finance apps like Personal Capital and Mint means that you are probably ahead of most in catching any issues.
Verdict on security – Mint wins by a very narrow margin
User experience
Silicon Valley has gotten really good and anticipating any needs in the market and filling those needs with apps that are intuitive and designed well. I really appreciate this.
Mint has worked really hard in the past couple of years to work out the kinks… we’ve got to get better at synchronization guys… and they’ve cleaned up that app a little bit. But, Personal Capital still offers a much better user experience IMHO.
Personal Capital is clean and focused on your finances. There’s no clutter, no ads, and you can easily find the tools you need. I hope you can see that in the screenshots I’ve got in this article, but if not, check them out for free to see for yourself.
Verdict on user experience – Personal Capital wins
Personal Capital vs. Mint – More to know
Both money tracking tools clearly have some great features, but there are a few more differences I want to point out about each.
How Mint and Personal Capital make money
Both are free tools, but Personal Capital is ad free because they make money by offering high-level investment services and wealth management tools for high net worth individuals. That means even in the free version, you aren’t seeing ads, and I really like this.
Mint makes money by showing users offers for outside financial services – credit card offers, brokerages, bank accounts, and more. You don’t have to click on any of these, but know that you’ll see them.
Personal Capital’s Retirement Planner
This is another really valuable free service that comes with Personal Capital, and the Retirement Planner works by analyzing:
- The information from all of your linked accounts
- Contributions you’re making to your retirement accounts
- Your current net worth
- Your planned age of retirement
All of that is put together to show you your trajectory towards your ideal retirement age. You can run multiple scenarios to find the best plan to put you on track for retirement. If you’re behind on retirement savings, this might be a huge wake-up call. And scary or not, this tool can help you get on track.
Personal Capital’s Retirement Fee Analyzer
Depending on how you’re investing your money, you may run into fees that can wind up costing you thousands of dollars over the course of your retirement strategy. By showing where you’re losing money, you can make adjustments to optimize your retirement funds.
Mint offers credit monitoring tools
Mint gives you quarterly updates on your credit score and also shows you what’s hurting and helping you and why.
Why is this valuable?
No matter what anyone says, your credit score is an important part of your financial life. A higher score opens you up to better rates on a mortgage, student loan refinancing, and lets you take advantage of some of the best credit cards for travel hacking (if that’s your thing).
If you are working on building your credit score, credit reports can show you how your hard work is paying off. And if there is ever any fraudulent activity, your credit score and report can help you rectify that situation.
I know many people who use Mint as a companion to Personal Capital for this very reason. It doesn’t hurt to see your credit report through Mint. That’s actually a pretty common myth about credit scores – it doesn’t hurt if you pull your score and report (like seeing it through Mint), but you will get a small ding if a lender or credit card company does.
What M$M readers are saying about Personal Capital vs. Mint
I love taking input from my readers to help even more people make informed choices about the tools and services that are on the market today. So, here’s what readers in my Millennial Money Man Facebook Community are saying:
“I like Mint for tracking my expenses and spending, I think at this point, because I’ve finally gotten it the way I like it, I find it’s more accurate and less time-consuming… I prefer PC for tracking my investments and net worth.”
“For a tool like this, I’m much more concerned with investing and retirement planning than budgeting, so Personal Capital fits my needs much better. I love the You Index to track your investment performance relative to the S&P and Dow. The retirement planner is awesome as well.”
“Big time Mint Man… I love that it gives me an overarching view of everything that I have due/have paid recently.”
“My favorite part of Mint is over time trending data and the ability to compare months or years spending/income.”
“I have a bit more history with Mint, as I used it throughout college to help me manage my beer/food budget… As I started getting more serious about the PF side of things I turned toward Personal Capital to help me manage my net worth and long term goals… So between the two, I get my yin and yang for my short term and long term money goals.”
“I think it’s great that Personal Capital allows you to plan your retirement, but I like how easy Mint is to use and that it’s, for the most part, simple. When you first start out in trying to manage your money, I think that thinking too far ahead could overwhelm you. Once you know what you are doing, then I think switching to Personal Capital will help you take the next steps in your financial journey.”
Personal Capital vs. Mint – My final word
When it comes to choosing a winner for the Personal Capital vs. Mint test, overall, I think both of these tools are great. But personally, Personal Capital is my top pick. I’m more interested in retirement planning, and I just like the overall look of Personal Capital. That might seem a little silly, but design matters.
This doesn’t mean that you should overlook Mint, because they clearly offer an awesome budgeting tool for the price.
If you’re not sure which one you’d like, just try them both. They’re free, so what do you have to lose? Definitely not your money.
BabyShark
I use both. I started with Mint years and years ago, when it was first becoming popular and have had it ever since. I like Mint for tracking my expenses and spending, I think at this point, because I’ve finally gotten it the way I like it, I find it’s more accurate and less time consuming.
I started using PC a little over a year ago. I prefer PC for tracking my investments and net worth. I tend to ignore the spending because I know it’s inaccurate (it qualifies my savings deposits as income, rather than transfers unless I tell it otherwise) but I love the charts.
I also use two manual spreadsheets to track everything every month. The more data, the better!
Millennial Money Man
Oh wow you’re all over it haha! That’s great. I really don’t see any reason for not using both tools. I agree that the spending info is not that great on PC. I’m sure they added it in to compete with Mint, just like Mint added in investment trackers to compete with PC. Either way…they’re free. I feel like that erases all of the small negatives you know?
Greg
Question for the experienced Mint users out there. Can you budget for future months? For instance, can I budget each month thru the end of 2017? It’s very important to me that I can see how my year is projecting to end up. Thanks in advance!
Go Finance Yourself!
I’m a big fan of Personal Capital as well. I tried to use Mint several years ago, but had difficulty linking all of my accounts. I’m sure that it’s much better now, as this was a while ago, but it was a big turnoff for me. If I have to manually update my accounts, then the tool loses a lot of value for me.
For a tool like this, I’m much more concerned with investing and retirement planning than budgeting, so Personal Capital fits my needs much better. I love the You Index to track your investment performance relative to the S&P and Dow. The retirement planner is awesome as well.
Great write-up on these tools. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Millennial Money Man
No problem! They are just so different in terms of functionality. I don’t think one is better than the other. We have a credit union that is a little tough to connect to both tools, but I think that is more of a product of the credit union having old technology than it is PC or Mint not working.
Mrs. Picky Pincher
Oooh, the second I read this headline I thought, “It’s on!” For me personally I prefer Personal Capital. I think Mint misses out on a lot of data and it’s not as well-rounded when it comes to looking at your budget holistically.
Millennial Money Man
Yeah I prefer it too, Mint just seems a little messy to me. I have a hard enough time keeping things organized as it is haha!
Financial Panther
I use both but I tend to use Mint way more. The reason is that Personal Capital doesn’t connect to all of my accounts, so unfortunately, I’m not able to get a full picture of my money. The main thing that Personal Capital doesn’t seem to work with is HSAs. I use my HSA as an stealth retirement account, but Personal Capital can’t seem to find it.
I did reach out to them once about it and they indicated that they don’t support HSAs, and it seems like they haven’t added that functionality yet. Maybe you can use your sway to convince them!? For most people, it won’t matter all that much. I’d still say download both (I use both) and link up your accounts with them.
Millennial Money Man
I actually talked to them about your issue the last time I called in (I believe you mentioned it in my last review?) and they said that they support it. Obviously that doesn’t help if it’s still not working, but I’ll try again and see what they say!
Financial Panther
Odd, I have a tweet from their Chief Product Officer in 2016 where they told me that they don’t support HSAs. And I know at least in October of last year, my HSA at Fidelity never appeared in my dashboard, even though other Fidelity accounts did appear.
Is there anyone out there who’s successfully linked up an HSA with Personal Capital before? As of today, I haven’t been able to do it.
OffensiveMoney
Big time Mint Man… Haven’t tried out personal capital. But, like u said it seems to be very good for tracking investments/retirement accounts.
Mint recently added a new bill pay tool. I’ve yet to try paying bills through the interface, but do have all my bills linked up to it. I love that it gives me an overarching view of everything that I have due/have paid recently.
Only downside I’ve had so far is from linking my lease whip to it (ya ya ik you hate them but I got a great deal 😉 ). It reflects the total cost of the car and not just my 2 year lease.
Millennial Money Man
I saw that bill pay tool, but we already have our stuff on a system. Don’t worry, I’m not judging haha!
Sonya
I’m a long-time Mint user, but I love reading about all of the additional features PC has to offer. The downfall is that my local bank and mortgage company are not supported through PC yet. Do you know how long (or how many requests) it takes for them to add a financial institution?
Millennial Money Man
Interesting – that is a downfall! I don’t know the specific number of times, but if you want to email me and let me know what the names of the banks are I’d be happy to ask them about it!
Gary @ Debtfreeclimb
I have both but prefer Mint. Mainly because it categorizes transactions better. There are more categories and you can create custom categories. Also, Personal Capital always incorrectly tags my transactions, ex credit card payments should be labeled “transfer” and not “expense”. That causes me to waste time adjusting where as Mint you can set certain purchases to always come in a a certain category.
My favorite part of Mint is over time trending data and the ability to compare months or years spending/income.
Maybe when I start investing more I’ll utilize Personal Capital though.
Millennial Money Man
Yeah it definitely seems that Mint is better at categorizing transactions. I think you’ll like PC for your investing.
Matt Spillar
Good recap of two of the most popular financial apps out there. I think they’re both great and are very useful. Personally, I use both.
Mint I check everyday, usually multiple times. I like to see all my spending transactions as they come in and I make sure everything is categorized properly. This keeps me up to date on our spending habits, and ensures there are no incorrect or fraudulent charges on our accounts.
Personal Capital I check about once a week to get a snapshot of my networth and the graphs of how our investments are doing. I haven’t used the fee analysis or retirement calculators yet, but I definitely think those are valuable features.
I love that both get updated automatically without needing to manually log transactions. I agree with you that the easier it is to get started, the more likely millennials will actually use it. I’ve heard great reviews about YNAB, but I just have no interest in keeping receipts and logging every transaction manually.
Millennial Money Man
Yeah I’ve heard good things about YNAB, but I’m the same. I hate keeping receipts if I don’t have to.
Chonce
I think it’s great that Personal Capital allows you to plan your retirement, but I like how easy Mint is to use and that it’s, for the most part, simple. When you first start out in trying to manage your money, I think that thinking too far ahead could overwhelm you. Once you know what you are doing, then I think switching to Personal Capital will help you take the next steps in your financial journey. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Kathy
It’s nice to read the comparison between PC and Mint, and to read all the comments for additional perspective. And to learn that there is yet another tracking/budgeting tool, YNAB (there are probably many more). Have you looked at Dave Ramsey’s free budgeting tool, Every Dollar? I’d love to know what you think.
Millennial Money Man
Hey Kathy! Glad you liked the post. Honestly I haven’t tried that one out yet.
The Grounded Engineer
I have used Mint for about six years now. I wouldn’t say that I love it, but its purpose is to help me track my spending and provide a clean view of all of my accounts. And it does both of these tasks well.
I haven’t had a good opportunity to test Personal Capital out because they did not support my 401(k) provider. However, the customer service team has been solid and they are working to support my 401(k) provider within the next few weeks!
Millennial Money Man
Oh wow that’s great to hear! Yeah they seriously do have good customer support.
The Savvy Couple
We LOVE Mint.com. We have been using it since our last year in college. We love that it allows lot’s of customization and customer support is always there if you need them. Great review! We were planning on doing an in-depth review on mint.com in the near future.
Peter
Both tools looks great. I am in the searching process for a good budgeting/tracking/planning app, but both supports only US/CA users which is not a problem unless you live outside of the continent 🙂 Also I think in my country there is no chance that anything will sync transactions in the next decade so I have to log everything by hand (on paper so far). YNAB have a 34 days free trial period so anyone can try it. I think it is amazing, my only problem is that while it is great for tracking and budgeting it seems to me that they does not really have options for long term planning. Currently also experimenting with Buxfer too, it seems promising and its free. Do someone have any idea on apps which can plan for at least a year, but preferably 3-5 year period?
Financial Bloke
Ok that’s it! You pushed me over the edge! Personal capital here I come.
Based on your reviews, functionality is apples to oranges. Sure mint is great for budgeting, but I need more! Looks like Personal capital will be a great addition to my toolkit.
Thanks for the review
James
Millennial Money Man
No problem, I think you’ll like it!
Savvy_Saver
I have never used PC, but have been very happy with Mint for the 6 months or so I’ve been using it. To echo some previous posts though, I have also had issues linking all of my accounts, even though they are through major financial institutions.
I personally prefer to just use a monthly budgeting tool that helps me keep track of how much I am spending and what category my spending falls in. It’s totally a psychological thing, but when I frequently checked up on all on all of my assets, I actually became less motivated to save. I became complacent that I am “in a good place” for someone my age and was more likely to splurge on things I didn’t need. Linking just my checking account, credit cards, and car loan to Mint challenges me to stay within my budget each month and view automatic deposits into my savings account and 401(k) as an “expense.” I’ll then check up on these other accounts about once a month.
Maybe someday I’ll graduate to using a more holistic tool like PC, but for now I like to keep my savings out of sight and out of mind on a day to day basis so I’m not tempted to slack off on my savings 🙂
Emily
I use both applications for the specific purposes you’ve mapped out in your article. I have a bit more history with Mint, as I used it throughout college to help me manage my beer/food budget. Overtime the Mint functionality has drastically improved (for the better) and I use it every month to monitor and manage my miscellaneous budgets. I personally do better managing short-term money goals and seeing that savings rack up over time, so I really do prefer Mint.
As I started getting more serious about the PF side of things I turned toward Personal Capital to help me manage my net worth and long term goals. Like you said, the net worth tracker is the best feature of the whole program and that’s what I exclusively use it for.
So between the two, I get my yin and yang for my short term and long term money goals, and I’d recommend both to any of my family and friends!
Troy
Hi guys I’m looking at Personal Capital , Mint , Quicken because we have rental properties and I think Quicken is the only version that tracks investment properties ?
Sara @ Budget & Bliss
I don’t use either. We have used YNAB for a few years and I will gladly pay for the service. This tool has had such a positive impact on our life that it is such a small fee for what we have gained from it.
Dollar Barrister
Agreed with your comment above, Bobby, that Mint is “messy.” I always had trouble with it connecting to certain accounts and felt like there was too much information that was just “noise.” This was a few years back, though, so perhaps the system has gotten better.
I have not tried Personal Capital yet but over the last few years have built my own Excel spreadsheet that tracks cash flow, credit cards, net worth, and a savings (not a spending) budget.
Of course this requires my manual input but, at least for me, because I’m so invested in it, I’ve found this to be a much more effective way to track our family finances than relying on a third party.
I think the bottom line is that “what gets measured gets improved” and you just need to find a measurement system – Mint, PC, your own spreadsheet, whatever – that works for you, your situation, and your goals.
Matthew Havelka
tried using mint and some accounts it wont add and I verified the account information. Some it will say it added but wont show up under the bills. I want to use mint but it seems like its not very functional. Any advice or have others had this problem?