Mint vs. Copilot: A budgeting app deep dive

An honest 2023 review: Mint vs Copilot

First things first...if you’ve been here in my community for more than a minute, you know my husband and I have been using Copilot to automate our finances and ultimately help master our money management routine for roughly 2 years now.

I stumbled into the app after years of trial and error coupled with frustrations around budgeting. Until Copilot, budgeting was one of those things that, while extremely beneficial & effective in helping us reach our money goals, felt like a bit of a dreaded chore no matter what system we had in place. One of the systems we had tried, and ultimately threw in the towel on, was Mint - one of the OG budgeting apps. 

Since converting to Copilot I have sung their praises and genuinely feel they have the best overall experience based on my historical trial and error, but I often get questions and have been reasonably begged to do a comparison between Mint & Copilot on numerous occasions.

As it has been some time since I’ve actually used Mint myself… I was curious and eager to compile a current, honest comparison.

So here I am...

I took the time to set up everything in Mint (insert the sweaty smiling emoji as setting up a new budgeting app from the ground is definitely always the hardest/most time-consuming part, IYKYK!) and spent several days reassessing their 2023 experience.  

For some initial grounding here before I dive into my more subjective hot takes comparing the 2 experiences… here is a side-by-side of the hard facts at the top level. 

And now for the main act– 

My hot takes and 2023 comparison of varying product features within each app. 

Important context: for this comparison/blog review - I am comparing the FREE Mint version vs Copilot, a paid experience for all users.  I wanted to compare this way for a couple of reasons: 

1. In the paid experience for Mint - the overall user experience & app design does not change. You are simply granted the rights to a few more product features & no ads when you pay for Mint. 
2. I know many have a hard time justifying paying for a budgeting system, period. Since Copilot does not offer a free version, I wanted to compare and contrast a truly free experience and a paid one. 

Overall User Experience

Copilot takes the cake - hands down.

User experience (aka the overall feeling/ease users experience when using a product, application, system, or service) is important to me. As someone who works full-time in product marketing within the app development world, I will admit my standards might be higher than the general population. But even for those of you who may not notice/care as much in this arena as I do - I think it is critical to your success to have a budgeting tool that is delightful and easy to navigate! Otherwise… womp womp… budgeting feels like a chore and you won’t feel inspired or motivated when viewing a tool that is integrated into your weekly, or even daily, routine.

Why Copilot wins here (by a mile if I’m the judge)... 

At a high level - Copilot’s desktop and mobile apps are clean and intuitive (and the emojis definitely make budgeting more exciting, judge me). 

I’ll let you tell me here - which screen feels more inviting and more intuitive upon app open?

• Mint opens up with a fairly simplistic view of spending a month to date. To view transactions, you must navigate to specific accounts (checking or a credit card for example) and review transactions that way – there is not a one-stop shop for reviewing transactions. 

• Copilot’s all-encompassing “dashboard” showcases your pace against your monthly budget, ALL recent transactions to review (and quickly recategorize if needed), visually appealing budget circles, and a view of upcoming recurring bills in addition to income for the month.   

Speaking of transactions - I love love love how user-friendly the all-encompassing transactions tab is within Copilot. It aggregates all transactions across the accounts you have linked. Most people make purchases across more than one account (checking, credit cards, etc) so this is critical if you ask me. 

• Need to execute a quick search and filter to all of your “Starbucks” transactions or find that Venmo payment? Easy peasy with the search bar. 
• Need to recategorize a transaction - takes 2 seconds with a quick click on it. 
• You can even add a note to transactions OR split 1 transaction into 2 spending categories. Say for example you run to Target and spent $100, but $20 of it was on groceries. Copilot has a quick and easy way to click the transaction, hit split, and split it up however you want. Love this.   

Mint on the other hand, really frustrates me when it comes to transactions. I tried hard with this one and their user experience just PMO to be frank! There isn’t a one-stop shop for viewing them - and if you need to recategorize a transaction, which I found myself doing OFTEN due to how they automatically categorize based on Mint’s preset categories, it takes more time. 

Here’s an example.. 

I don’t like to (and don’t feel it’s necessary) to get super nitty gritty with my budgeting. When it comes to food, for example,  - it’s either Groceries or Restaurants. I don’t need to break eating out at restaurants down into fast food, coffee shops, etc. Due to the way I am able to customize my categories with Copilot, it learns my transactions and categorizes them accordingly 99% of the time. With Mint - creating customized categories is possible with a little more effort, but I find that as transactions come through, they tend to fall into Mint’s predetermined more granular categories. 

That being said, my beloved Chik-Fil-A is coming through as Fast Food. Coffee Shops come through as coffee shops and so on… even though my budget only has 2 categories set within food (restaurants and groceries). Now, you can create “rules” to apply to all future transactions so that Chik-Fil-A would always come through as restaurants vs fast food moving forward, but I still found this a headache. Especially as there is not a quick and easy “transactions” page as you have within Copilot.

And before I wrap up this novel of a comparison around transactions (sorry I’m passionate)... the way Copilot has a tab to track recurring transactions is *chefs kiss*. It really helps you keep track of upcoming automatic payments such as bills/subscriptions AND the app itself is “smarter” as it uses this data to project spending. For example, if you already spent $100 on utilities but have a recurring transaction coming up in that category that will put you “over budget” the app will reflect this forecast in your “categories” tab and “dashboard”. 

Mint does not have a comparable feature, even with the paid version.

Investments

Moving into reviewing the user experience of the “investments” dashboard within each experience, I find Mint & Copilot more fairly comparable here, however, do have to give Copilot the W again here for a few reasons...

1. Copilot's “top movers” section of this tab is a value add over Mint. 
2. Copilot has a graph (not shown below) that breaks down and shows your asset allocation. Love this. Super beneficial. 
3. I don't like how Mint communicates performance in $$ growth vs %. $$ growth doesn't mean much to me, I want to know how my portfolio is doing compared to the market YTD. Most investors prefer to look at their performance this way. 

So, here’s a look at the investments tab within each - with both Mint & Copilot, you see your total portfolio at the top with a view of each account beneath.

And please excuse the black markings - while I am extremely transparent about income and spending, I do not openly share our net worth - too much risk and very little benefit in doing so.. You get the point 🙂

Mint’s Investment View

Copilot’s Investment View

Goals - A User Experience Win for Mint..

(However, I did just learn through communication with Copilot's in app) customer support that this feature is coming soon)

One thing I did really appreciate about Mint’s user experience… the ability to set & track money goals within the app. 

See below, I “set” a goal to save $5K in 12 months as an example. 

Month In Review - One Final User Experience win for Copilot. 

I freaking love this feature. Copilot provides you with a “Month in Review” for each month.

It’s a clean recap of spending, budgets, and cash flow (after taxes and any automatic contributions to retirement accounts).

April was a bit spendy for us - went way over our usual “budget” with a down payment made for new carpet installation and a trip to Saint Louis for me. These, however, were planned expenses - and tracking/understanding WHERE your money is going and feeling good about your decisions is the goal with budgeting in my book! 

Privacy - Your Data Matters! 

This one is important when you’re talking financial data - and Copilot takes the cake here too. 

Copilot is paid - for a reason. They do not generate revenue from advertising in app that is targeted at you specifically based on your spending data, etc. 

^^ This is the case with the free version of Mint. Not only do the ads clutter up the app experience but they are driven by your data being shared with advertising partners. See the below screenshot for context. 

As you can see in the text behind the advertiser disclosure - “we suggest offers based on things like your credit profile, approval odds, and spending habits”. Here’s a link to their full privacy statement if you’d wish to review it - https://www.intuit.com/privacy/statement/ 

Copilot, on the other hand, is a subscription model for a reason. You’re essentially paying for privacy (and a heck of a lot better user experience!!). 

Here’s some verbatim directly from their website… & if you’d like to review their privacy policy it can be found here. 

We’re in this for the long haul. We want to continue building and improving on Copilot for years to come, and subscription pricing makes that possible. We believe charging a fair price for a well-made product is among the most honest ways to run a sustainable business. We get to do the work we love, and you get the comfort of knowing that we’ll never sell your data or promote other companies’ products just to make a buck.

… and last but not least… PRICE. 

If you’re looking purely at price - Mint gets the gold here being free. 

While Copilot provides a much better, and safer experience with your data protected - if you are struggling to make ends meet as it is and need a free solution to get started, Mint would be the better choice for you. 

However, that being said, if you’re not budgeting at all - the savings you will find with an elevated and optimized tool like Copilot will very likely cover the cost of the subscription. 

In conclusion… 

After a genuine attempt to link Mint again, it doesn’t do for me.

Unless you’re an Android & Windows user (crossing my fingers this is coming someday with Copilot!!)...

Here’s what I would do if I were you…

Give Copilot a whirl for 2 months for free using my code MALLORY when you sign up.... You could simultaneously test Mint if you’d like as well!

Here is a little screen grab of where/when you'll enter my code for the 2 free months...  At the end of the day, if Copilot isn’t for you, you can cancel at any time after the free trial. 

As we approach #hotgirlsummer and the return of #studentloans (yes this is coming, scary I know!) it’s in your best interest to wrap your arms around your spending with healthy budgeting habits before the year starts to spiral out of control. I don’t want anyone here suffering from preventable #financialanxiety, because boy do I know what that feels like. 

Rooting for you always, 

Xx- Mal

**Disclaimer** I reached out to Copilot and asked them if they would be willing to sponsor this post and they obliged. They did not have any influence on my review.