Mint, a popular personal finance app, is shutting down and its owner, Intuit, is recommending users switch to Credit Karma, its platform that provides free credit scores and helps users manage their money.
Intuit announced that it is “reimagining” Mint as part of Credit Karma and that Mint users will have the option to transition to Credit Karma. The absorption of Mint by Credit Karma will be complete by January 1, according to a statement released by Intuit on Friday.
Mint has been a top online budgeting tool for years, with 3.6 million active users in 2021, as reported by Bloomberg. It was introduced in 2007 and revolutionized personal finance by gaining popularity as more individuals turned to free online services for budgeting and tracking their income and expenses.
The news of Mint’s closure led to outcry from loyal users on Reddit, particularly due to Credit Karma not offering the same budgeting tools.
“We are giving Mint users sufficient time to prepare for this change before their access to Mint expires,” stated Intuit Credit Karma in its Friday announcement.
Intuit, the owner of popular financial software applications such as TurboTax and Quicken, acquired Mint in 2009 from its founder for $170 million. At the time, Mint had 1.5 million users tracking approximately $50 billion in assets and $200 billion in transactions.
Credit Karma, a platform with 130 million users, helps individuals improve their credit scores and access personalized loan recommendations. Mint users will be able to transfer their linked financial accounts, historical balances, and net worth graph to Credit Karma. They will also be able to continue tracking their spending, net worth, and cash flow over time, according to Intuit.
However, Credit Karma does not offer a budgeting tool that allows users to set monthly budgets and budgets by category, which was a favorite feature among Mint users. Mint enabled users to link their spending accounts, automating the categorization of purchases into restaurants, groceries, bills, etc., making it easier to track expenses.
In August, Intuit’s CEO, Sasan Goodarzi, disclosed that Credit Karma generated $1.6 billion in revenue for the fiscal quarter ending on July 31, a 9% decline compared to the previous year. Goodarzi also anticipated a long-term annual revenue growth of 20 to 25% during an investor conference call.
Other popular budgeting apps include PocketGuard, Simplifi, and You Need A Budget. Following Intuit’s announcement of Mint’s closure, Monarch, a subscription-based personal finance app, reported an increase in new users transitioning from Mint.
Val Agostino, Monarch’s CEO and co-founder, commented on the decision of Intuit to discontinue both Mint and Credit Karma, citing the high costs of running data-aggregation and personal finance apps. Agostino, a former product manager at Mint, regarded Mint as a financially unprofitable venture compared to the revenue generated by Credit Karma, making the decision to focus on Credit Karma more logical.
Recent reports from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York highlighted the concerning levels of consumer debt, with U.S. credit card balances surpassing $1 trillion. As of August, credit card balances, the dominant type of household debt, were over 16% higher in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2022.