Mint Review: Is Mint App a Safe Free Budgeting App That’s Worth It?

How Do I Join?

Joining can be done with just these few simple steps.

• Step 1: Click the “Sign up” button at the top of their home page here and fill out the account information.
• Step 2: Once you are done, they will send you an email to confirm. Click the link in your email to finalize your account.
• Step 3: Download the app on your phone, if you want. You can get it on the Apple App Store and the Google Play store.

After that, you are ready to start making a budget and take control of your finances!

Is Mint Safe to Use?

Yes. Mint has a two-factor authentication process so it makes it hard for people other than you to access your data.

Before using your account on any device, you must validate it or else you will not be allowed to access your information. This can be done either through your email or phone.

Additionally, all of your personal information is kept safe. Mint will never sell it to someone.

Features of Mint

These are the biggest features of Mint that have made this app so popular.

On the app you can:

• See everything in one place
• Track bills
• Track account balances
• Get saving tips
• Get tips for dealing with debt
• Detailed budgeting options
• Free credit score
• Bill play reminders
• Multi-factor authentication
• Syncs across all platforms

Pros & Cons

Before downloading the app, check out this list of pros and cons to help you decide if you want to take the time to use Mint.

Pros

Some positive things about the app are:

• You get weekly summaries of your finances.
• Your alerts can come via email or text.
• Free budgeting tools help you keep on track.
• You can set savings goals.
• You can automatically sync your financial data into Mint.
• Track your credit score without any fees.
• Two-factor authentication keeps your data safe.

Cons

While there are many good things with this app, there are also features missing from it that some other apps of similar variety have. For instance:

• There’s a lack of investing features.
• Sometimes the app takes weeks to sync to your bank.
• You can’t import your data from other apps into Mint.
• There is no Bill Pay feature which automatically handles your bills for you.

Better Business Bureau Rating

Before downloading the app, you might want to make sure the business that owns it is legitimate. That’s why we are looking at the Better Business Bureau profile for it.

Mint is owned by Inuit, Inc. It is not accredited by BBB, most likely because the business has not sought it.

Inuit has been in business for 36 years. It’s rated -A because of their quick action for handling customer complaints.

There have been 1,297 complaints closed in the last 3 years. 440 complaints have been closed in the last 12 months. There are 375 reviews of the company, which averages out to 4 stars out of 5.

If you’d like to see the full BBB profile, click here.

Mint Customer Reviews

Seeing all the features of the app is great, but do they actually work?

Check out what actual users of the app have to say about Mint on Reddit.

“Mint is great as a free dashboard. I can check it daily to make sure nothing weird is going on with my cash reserves/credit card spending and as a one-stop shop to keep an eye on my investments. I’m not a big fan of their categorization of expenses and budgeting/goals. I prefer a simple spreadsheet with my monthly bills and manually recording expenses,” said one Reddit review.

“Mint is still my go to. I’m at a point in my life where I’ve been working for a few years. I have been at the budget game long enough that I don’t need to track every penny or categorize every transaction. I know what purchases are within reason and what is not. I use Mint to make sure everything is growing slowly and methodically as it should. It’s not a perfect program and the syncing can be pretty annoying. But, it’s all I need right now,” said another Reddit review.

There are over 133 thousand reviews for the app on the Google Play app store. It averages to over 4 stars out of 5. On the Apple App store, there are over 440 thousand reviews which average to be 4.7 stars out of 5.

How Does Mint Make Money?

This app is entirely free, so you might be wondering how they make money.

The app can recommend you paid financial services which Mint will get a referral bonus for. There are also a few ads on the app.

The app also can let you sign up for premium access to your credit report.

Mint sells aggregate financial data to people. Don’t worry that this means your personal data is being given out. In reality, Mint is just selling data about consumer spending, average credit card balances, how many users plan retirement, and more. All of this information is compiled from their entire user base, meaning the information can never be tied back to you.

Final Thoughts

So is it worth it?

For a free budgeting app, it’s honestly not that bad. There are a lot of budgeting apps like Mint out there, but there is a reason this one is so popular. It’s simple to use and easy to understand. We hope this review has helped you decide if you want to use Mint.

Are there any budgeting apps you like to use? Have you used Mint before and if so how would you review Mint? Let us and our readers know about your experiences in the comments below.