Mint Vs. Quicken 2024- Which Is The Better Budgeting Tool? (2024)

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Mint vs. Quicken will be an important decision for you to get a handle on your money.

Have you given much thought to your finances?

You may want to know the best apps to track your money, develop a budget, manage investments, and improve your finances.

Quicken and Mint are two popular money management tools that can be used to track your personal finances.

Although they both have a lot of good features, there are a few important differences that you should know about.

Let’s take a look at their differences so you can decide which one is the better budgeting tool for your needs.

Mint Vs. Quicken Breakdown

There are similarities between the two budgeting apps, but also many crucial differences.

Mint Vs. Quicken Similarities

1. They have similar capabilities when it comes to helping you manage your money.

They can both accurately categorize receipts, payments, transactions, and so on to assist users in seeing where their money is going each month.

2. The two budget apps have online account integration with financial institutions, so you can upload transactions from your bank accounts and credit card accounts.

You can keep an eye on your investments, keep up with retirement planning, review charges on your credit card accounts, and more.

Although both are good budgeting tools, they have many differences.

Which one is better for you?

Pricing

Do you not use budgeting software because you’re worried about what it’ll cost you?

Pricing is one of the first differences that you should consider especially if you are on a budget. And one of the main Quicken vs. Mint differences is how much they each cost.

Mint

What makes Mint such a popular budgeting tool is that it’s completely free to use.

It doesn’t have any hidden in-app purchase fees that you will need to pay after setting it up and using it for a bit.

Mint makes money by showing ads on its website and the mobile app. They don’t show a lot of ads like some sites but they are there to help keep the site and app free.

Quicken

Quicken’s desktop software and Simplifi app are not free to use. The software packages also come with a companion app on iOS and Android.

The basic Quicken software package is called “Starter” and is currently priced at $35.99 a year. The other packages go up in price.

The most expensive is the Classic Business and is regularly priced at $133, but this is for business finances rather than personal usage.

At the time of this writing in late November 2021, the software was marked down 40% on all packages except for the Starter package.

The Simplifi by Quicken app is also not free to use and is a finance management app. It is currently is available in two plans – a yearly and a monthly.

The yearly plan is currently $2.99 a month and is billed yearly. The monthly plan is currently $5.99 a month.

Read our full Simplifi Review here. See how Simplifi compares to Mint in my Simplifi Vs. Mint article.

Budgeting Tools

Not a fan of doing budgets by hand? Well, that’s where Mint and Quicken can help you!

You can use personal finance software or mobile app to help manage your money by tracking spending.

In this section, we will look at the different ways you can manage your budgets through Mint and Quicken.

Mint

The Mint app has a lot of features and an easy budgeting tool that can help you make budgets, plan for bills, save money, and more.

Mint has one that you can use before you even sign up for a Mint account.

The Mint free budget calculator can help you understand your monthly finances and provide insights into where you’re spending the most money (and where you may cut back!).

The app’s simple interface makes it easy for anybody to operate.

Just enter your details, and it will calculate your total monthly income, total monthly expenditures, and total monthly savings automatically.

You can see whether you’re spending above or below your budget by consulting the provided results.

Mint allows you to create budgets that track your income and expenses with their Budget Tracker.

You can set goals like saving for an upcoming vacation or purchase and see how close you are to meeting that goal.

You can connect your financial accounts like your credit cards, bank, investment, mortgage accounts, etc.

It will track all of these accounts to help you see where you are spending your money and create a budget to help you stay on track. It also can recommend ways to save more money.

Quicken

Quicken is a powerful money management app with a budgeting tool that you can use to create a budget.

The Quicken software looks at your spending and income and creates a budget based on those values.

It allows you to create roll-over budgets and forecast your balances, and it’s simple to import Excel data from Quicken.

Monthly, quarterly, and yearly budgets are also easy to make and can be changed as needed.

The software can also help you set goals for yourself like saving up money for a vacation or home repair.

Savvy Tip: If you are new to budgeting, make it easy and less stressful by choosing a budgeting tool that may not have all the features you want at first but will help you take smaller steps to learn to budget.

Credit Score Monitoring

Your credit score may be the most valuable tool you’ve ever used. A strong one can save you a lot of money on loans, credit cards, insurance, and other expenses.

Let’s take a look at the Mint vs. Quicken Credit score monitoring tools.

Mint

Mint has a great credit score monitoring tool that is easy to use and understand.

With Mint, you can access your free TransUnion 3.0 VantageScore. It allows you to monitor the different factors on your score and how it changes over time.

Within minutes, you’ll receive your free credit report summary after you verify your identity.

It’s really handy to have your credit score and accounts all in one spot. You don’t have to log in anywhere else to another website.

Quicken

Quicken offers a credit score monitoring tool that is easy to use and understand. While Mint offers TransUnion’s score, Quicken offers the credit score from Equifax.

You can get your freeVantageScore credit score model based on Equifax data from Quicken as well.

It tracks your different credit accounts and what you have paid for each one, as well as other factors that affect your score.

The software also offers a detailed analysis of the factors that affect your score and how it may be improved.

Savings

Both Quicken and Mint have features that allow you to track your savings goals- and try to get that $1,000 emergency fund like Dave Ramsey suggests.

Some key differences are worth pointing out:

Mint

Mint has a savings goal feature, but it’s pretty limited if you want to do more in your personal finances.

Users can create only one goal for savings at a time with Mint.

This is helpful if you are saving up for something specific, like a vacation, car repair, or house. But it limits you if you are saving for several different things.

When your savings goal is linked to a savings account and the total in this account equals or exceeds your target, the program indicates that your aim has already been achieved.

Quicken

Quicken can handle multiple savings goals at once and allows you to save more than one savings goal at once.

The software allows you to set up multiple buckets of money with different names for each one.

For example, if you are saving up for a vacation and also for Christmas gifts, you can do both of these things at the same time.

You can even set your savings goals on an irregular schedule like bi-weekly or monthly.

Debt Repayments

It’s important to have a plan for paying off your debts. Quicken and Mint both allow you to see your debt in one place and then create a plan to pay off your debts.

Mint

Mint did, at one time, offer Bill Pay. They discontinued offering Bill Pay in June 2018.

Even though you can’t use bill pay anymore, you can still keep track of all your bills and money in one location. You’ll be aware of when you’re required to pay when it’s due, and what you can afford.

Mint also offers the Credit Card Payoff Calculator. It helps you determine your monthly payment amount and when you can completely pay off a credit card.

Quicken

Quicken has switched to a new Bill Pay system besides having pointers on taking care of your debt! Quicken Bill Manager includes two options for paying your bills with Quicken:

• Quick Pay: Quicken can send electronic payments to billers (payees) that have online accounts that may be accessed by Quicken. There are over 11,000 billers listed in this category.
• Check Pay: You can send a check to anyone in the United States with an address. The payment is processed through Quicken. You won’t have to print or hand out checks anymore.

Quicken offers a debt reduction planner to help you repay your credit card debt and more sooner.

Basically, what you do is put in your debt amount and the amount of the monthly payment you want to make.

The software will tell you how long it will take to repay the debt.

It’s not exactly 100% accurate, but it can be helpful.

Retirement Accounts

Do you want investment tracking to make sure you’re set to retire? This can help you to grow your money for the future.

Mint

Mint has a Retirement Calculator that you can use before you sign up. The Retirement Calculator helps you see how much money you will need to save for retirement.

Mint can help you figure out how much money you’ll need for retirement.

Fill in the calculator with your data and retirement goals, and Mint will give you an estimate of how much cash you’ll require to make your retirement planning come to fruition.

After you sign up for Mint, you can link your retirement accounts, including IRAs, pension plans, and 401(k)s, to Mint. You can add a variety of investment accounts and each one will be listed separately on the app.

Mint users may create retirement goals and a budget to reach them to stay on top of their retirement planning.

Quicken

Quicken is also a great option for retirement planning.

It offers the ability to link your tax-deferred accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs. It also allows you to keep track of your education savings plans, like 529 plans.

You can create financial goals or even watch lists for opportunities that might open up in your different accounts.

Tracking Investments

It’s difficult to keep track of your investments, especially if you have several different investments.

One way to make it easier is to use a personal finance tool that can help you with investment tracking.

How does Quicken vs. Mint investment tracking abilities compare?

Mint

Mint is an investment aggregator. It does allow you to link your investment accounts, but the capabilities are limited.

If you are only looking for an Investment Calculator, Mint has one that you can use before signing up for an account.

You can create investment objectives, project investment growth, and search for opportunities to improve your investment performance by entering a few important figures!

Quicken

Some investment tracking features are offered in the Quicken Deluxe version, but even more are available in premium plans—the Premier and Business finances.

Quicken lets you:

• track any publicly traded equities you don’t own to monitor them, create stock watchlists.
• track your assets and retirement accounts
• use Morningstar’s Portfolio X-ray tool to analyze your assets.
• Examine your cost basis and produce tax reports to see whether any changes are required.

Finance Reports

The reports that you may create are an important weapon in your money management arsenal. Mint and Quicken provide personal finance reports to help you manage your money.

Mint

Mint has mini-reports that cover your Net Worth, Credit Score, Current Debts, Monthly Income vs. Monthly Expenses, and Investing Performance.

It also allows you to find out your daily statistics, a monthly summary, and an annual overview of your spending.

Quicken

With Quicken, users can get more comprehensive financial reports, including budget spreadsheets, monthly spending by category, and cash flow projections.

Quicken has reports on cash flow from investments, purchases by payee or category, and recent investment activity, among other things.

You may personalize this report to include only the data that is of interest to you.

You can export your reports as PDFs and then print or share them electronically with tax professionals or advisors to help with your tax reports.

If you are comparing Quicken vs Mint in the area of financial data reports, it’s easy to see that Mint has limited capabilities when it comes to creating reports about your personal financial situation!

Bank Reconciliation

A bank reconciliation report is a comparison of your financial transactions between your bank card statements and the bank statements.

Mint

Mint currently doesn’t provide a bank reconciliation report.

Quicken

Quicken provides a bank reconciliation function that can help reconcile both online banking account balances and the bank account with a paper statement.

Reconciling isn’t required, but some people want to reconcile their accounts to ensure that their data in Quicken matches what appears on their bank’s statement.

Transactions in the period indicated on your current bank statement, as well as prior transactions, might all have an impact on reconciling.

You also have the option to reconcile accounts connected to online services in addition to the accounts where you have manually entered transactions.

Property Management

Property management is all about keeping records of your house or any real estate you manage.

It’s important to know the value of your home, the amount you owe on your property, and also keep up with tax-related payments.

Mint

One of the features Mint offers is a property management feature.

With this feature, you can add your vehicles, real estate, and other property you may own. This will help calculate your net worth.

Quicken

Quicken also offers property management in a couple of different ways.

You can add your personal property like in Mint but Quicken Home and Business also has the feature to manage your rental property.

There are numerous things you can do with the Rental feature.

You can get a report of lease payments, accept online rental payments through PayPal, check security deposits, and you can also track tax-related payments and export them to the tax software.

Other Alternatives

Mint and Quicken are not the only personal finance software.

There are several great alternatives to Quicken and Mint for financial management:

Empower (Formerly Personal Capital)

Empower is a powerful tool to manage your investment accounts.

It not only tracks your spending and investments, but it also can help you optimize your asset allocation, financial goals, and even retirement planning.

Did we mention that it is free for you?When it comes to comparing Empower vs. Mint, once again it comes down to what you need in a personal finance app.

EveryDollar

EveryDollar is also a good alternative to Mint and Quicken, making it easier for you to manage your money.

It’s especially useful if you find yourself not sticking to your budget because it forces you to stay within the guidelines of your weekly allowance.

Tiller

Tiller is an easier alternative if you just want to track your spending. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Mint or Quicken, but it is free and without any ads.

Final Thoughts

Mint and Quicken are both great personal budgeting tools to manage your money, pay off debt, and more. Picking the best one always comes down to you- it depends on what you’re looking for in budgeting tools.

If you need help getting started with your budget, then Quicken and Mint can both get the job done with their simple set ups and great service tools.

Quicken is a fantastic option for individuals searching for an in-depth approach to actively manage every aspect of their finances. It’s great for people who would rather have locally installed software on their computer.

Mint is the best personal finance tool for individuals who want something that is free and is simple to use. It’s perfect for those who enjoy cloud-based software and powerful mobile apps that can keep up with a busy schedule.

The best advice we can give is to take into consideration your needs and then pick the one that best meets them. You can try Mint since it’s free first, see how you like it- after all, why pay for something when you can get by on freebies.