Penno vs Mint: The Best Mint Alternative for 2026
Short answer: Mint shut down in January 2024 and migrated users to Credit Karma. For users who want a budget app without bank linking, account requirements, or subscription fees — the things Mint required to be free — Penno is the closest match in spirit. Penno is a one-time iOS purchase with manual entry, local-only storage, and no Intuit/Credit Karma data path.
What happened to Mint
Intuit acquired Mint in 2009 and ran it for 14 years as the dominant free personal-finance app in the US. In November 2023, Intuit announced Mint would be discontinued. The official shutdown completed in January 2024, with active users prompted to migrate to Credit Karma — another Intuit-owned product, focused on credit-card and loan affiliate revenue.
Mint users had two choices: accept the migration to Credit Karma (which is more aggressive about pushing financial products), or find a new budget app. The post-Mint app market split into several camps:
- Subscription-only successors: Monarch Money, Copilot Money, Quicken Simplifi — closest to Mint's feature set but paid monthly.
- Continued ad-supported / free tiers: Empower, NerdWallet — fewer Mint-style features.
- Privacy-first / local-first: Penno, Buddy, Actual Budget — different model entirely. No bank linking. Pay once.
This page compares Mint (as it was) with Penno, for users who liked Mint's free-and-simple positioning but are no longer willing to hand over bank credentials to any service after the Intuit consolidation.
The comparison table
| Feature | Mint (discontinued) | Penno |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Discontinued Jan 2024 | Active |
| Pricing | Free (ad-supported) | One-time App Store purchase |
| Account required | Yes (email + password) | No |
| Bank linking | Required for core features | Never |
| Auto-categorization | From bank feeds | Manual entry only |
| Cloud storage | Yes (Intuit servers) | No — local SQLite only |
| Ads | Yes (credit-card offers, etc.) | No |
| Data resale (per Mint's privacy policy) | Aggregated/anonymized usage data shared with partners | None — no data leaves device |
| Debt tracking | As accounts | First-class object with notes + partial payments |
| Recurring detection | From bank feed patterns | You add it; app auto-charges + reminds |
| Languages | English | 10 (incl. RTL Arabic) |
| Platforms | iOS, Android, web | iOS (Android planned) |
When Mint was the better choice (and what to do now)
Mint's pitch was simplicity: link your accounts, see everything in one place, free. The features Penno does not match:
- Zero-effort transaction import. Mint pulled every transaction from your bank automatically. Penno requires manual entry. If your spending volume is high (50+ transactions/month), the manual overhead is real.
- Net worth view. Mint aggregated checking, savings, credit cards, investments, and loans into a single net-worth number. Penno is budget-focused and doesn't model bank balances.
- Credit score tracking. Mint included free credit-score monitoring via a bureau partnership. Penno doesn't.
- Bill reminders from bank patterns. Mint detected upcoming bills automatically. Penno's recurring feature requires you to set them up — once configured, behaviour is the same, but the discovery is manual.
If those features were essential to your Mint workflow, the honest recommendation is Monarch Money (subscription) or Empower (free, ad-supported). Both require bank linking — Penno is a different product, not a Mint clone.
When Penno is the better choice
If your Mint frustrations were:
- "I don't trust Intuit / Credit Karma with my financial data anymore." Penno has no data path to anywhere. Local SQLite file. No telemetry. No analytics SDK.
- "I hated the ads." Penno has no advertising SDK in the binary. The App Store privacy listing confirms zero data collection — independently verifiable at the claims page.
- "I want to budget without giving an app my bank password." Penno never asks. There is no UI to enter bank credentials.
- "I want it to keep working without an account." Penno requires no signup, no email. Install, open, use.
- "I'd rather pay once than be in another subscription." Penno is a one-time App Store purchase.
Migration: moving from Mint or Credit Karma to Penno
If you still have Mint export data, or you've migrated to Credit Karma and can export from there:
- Export. From Credit Karma's Money tab → Transactions → export CSV. Older Mint exports work too (CSV format from Mint pre-shutdown).
- Convert format. Penno expects:
date,amount,type,category,note. Map Mint/CK's columns accordingly: Date → date, Amount → amount (negative for expense, positive for income), Description → note, Category → category, Type → "expense" or "income". - Create your categories in Penno first. Open Penno, add categories matching your Mint category names (or simplified — you don't have to keep all of Mint's auto-detected categories).
- Import. Settings → Import CSV → select the converted file. Note: import is destructive — it replaces all data in Penno with the imported file.
Honestly, most users find that migrating year-plus of Mint history isn't worth the conversion work. A fresh start in Penno (current month forward) is faster and gives a cleaner mental reset.
The privacy angle
The Mint shutdown was a forced privacy event for millions of users. Intuit's consolidation moved data into Credit Karma, whose privacy policy permits broader data use for credit-product targeting. Users who didn't read the migration fine print ended up with their financial data in a marketing-heavy product they hadn't actively chosen.
Penno's response to that pattern is architectural. There is no Penno cloud, no Penno data path, no Penno analytics. The app cannot consolidate user data into another product because Penno never has the data in the first place. The privacy story is enforced by the absence of code, not by a policy that can change.
Frequently asked questions
Is Mint still available in 2026?
No. Mint was discontinued in January 2024. The Mint apps were removed from app stores; existing users were migrated to Credit Karma. Both products are owned by Intuit.
What is the best free alternative to Mint?
There is no perfect free 1:1 alternative. The ad-free options are paid (Monarch, Copilot, Penno). Among free options, Empower has a financial-product-affiliate model (similar to Credit Karma); NerdWallet has a credit-score tracker plus product recommendations. Penno is paid one-time but ad-free and bank-linking-free.
Can I import my Mint data into Penno?
Not directly. Penno imports its own CSV format. Convert your Mint or Credit Karma export by mapping columns (date, amount, type, category, note) and import the result.
Does Penno auto-categorize transactions like Mint did?
No. Auto-categorization required bank-feed data, which Penno does not access. Every transaction is entered manually with the category you select.
Why was Mint shut down?
Intuit consolidated Mint's users into Credit Karma. Public reasoning focused on product unification; users perceived it as a shift toward Credit Karma's credit-card-affiliate monetization.
Will my Mint data get deleted if I just stop using Credit Karma?
This is a Credit Karma / Intuit question, not a Penno one. Their privacy policy and account-deletion process govern that. Penno is unrelated to Intuit.
Try Penno
The Mint refugee's option: no bank login, no account, no subscription, no ads, no Intuit.
Visit Penno home →Conclusion
If you want a Mint clone, Monarch Money is the closest official replacement and is doing the best job at the feature parity Intuit walked away from. If you want what Mint should have been — free of ads, free of corporate consolidation drama, and free of the bank-linking model that ties you to a third-party aggregator — Penno is the architectural opposite of Mint, and it costs less over five years than five months of Monarch.
See also: Penno vs Monarch Money · Mint alternatives roundup