When Mint closed, most of the recommended replacements were paid apps with a trial — not the same thing as free. These four are actually free to keep using. What varies is how much they do for free, and how they eventually make money from you. For the bigger picture beyond Mint specifically, our roundup of free net worth trackers covers the category; this list is focused on ex-Mint users.
What 'free' really costs
'Free' is a business model, not a gift, and the model tells you who the product serves. Empower's dashboard is free forever because it is a lead source for its wealth-management arm; use it long enough and you can expect a call about advisory services, which run 0.89 percent of assets a year with a $100k minimum. Rocket Money's free tier is genuine, but its economics lean on Premium upsells and a bill-negotiation cut of roughly 35 to 60 percent of what it saves you. Other free apps monetize attention through ad and tracking pixels, which means the free tier is paid for with your data rather than a card on file.
We would rather be legible about it. Ascend's free tier is funded by people who upgrade to Pro, not by advertisers or an advisory desk. We never sell your data and run no ad or tracking pixels.
| Free tier | What you get free | How it earns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empower | Free forever | Full net worth + investment analytics & retirement planner | Optional paid advisory service |
| Rocket Money | Free tier | Account connections, spending, subscription detection, basic budgets | Premium upsell + bill-negotiation fees |
| Spreadsheet | Free | Manual net-worth template with a chart; total control | Nothing (or $79/yr for Tiller feeds) |
| Ascend | Free tier | Full net worth incl. keyless crypto, percentile, retirement projection | Optional Pro ($99/yr) — never your data |
Empower — free, if you're an investor
Empower's dashboard is free forever and strong on the investment side: net worth, a retirement planner with Monte Carlo, and a fee analyzer. It's funded by an optional advisory service, so a wealth-management call is part of the deal. Crypto is manual entry only, and it's US-only. For ex-Mint users whose focus is investments rather than budgeting, it's the best free starting point.
Rocket Money — free, with an upsell
Rocket Money keeps a real free tier: unlimited account connections, spending tracking, subscription detection, and basic budgeting, with no card required. Its signature move — spotting and cancelling forgotten subscriptions — is genuinely useful. The catch is that the best parts (bill negotiation, more budgeting) sit behind a "pay what's fair" Premium tier, and bill negotiation takes a success fee. It's light on true net-worth tracking, and crypto is manual.
Spreadsheet — free and permanent
A spreadsheet is the one option that never asks for money. A free net-worth template — like the one from The Measure of a Plan — charts your total as you enter balances each month. It's free forever and entirely yours. The cost is time: you update everything by hand, and there's no syncing or crypto reading unless you add a paid feed like Tiller.
Ascend — free net worth, crypto included
Ascend's free tier is built to replace the exact thing ex-Mint users miss: the net-worth screen. It shows your full number across banks and 401(k)s (via Plaid), real estate (valued with the FHFA House Price Index), and keyless on-chain crypto across 11 networks — read by public wallet address, no seed phrase — which none of the other free options sync for you. You also get a net-worth percentile, a basic retirement projection, and one saved plan scenario, free.
What it costs later, plainly: Pro is $99/year and adds automatic brokerage sync, return-vs-market, a stock watchlist, and deeper planning — but the free tier isn't a trial and doesn't expire, and crucially, Ascend never makes money from your data. There are no ads, no tracking pixels, and nothing is sold. If you're coming straight from Mint, start with the ex-Mint users page.
Common questions
What is the best free Mint alternative?
It depends on what Mint did for you. If you mainly want subscription detection and light budgeting, Rocket Money's free tier is a close match. If you want a free retirement planner and fee analyzer, Empower's dashboard is strong. If you care most about tracking net worth across brokerages, banks, 401(k)s, real estate, and on-chain crypto, that is where Ascend's free tier is aimed.
Is there a free app like Mint?
Yes, several. Empower and Rocket Money both offer no-expiry free tiers, and a spreadsheet remains a legitimate option if you enjoy the upkeep. Ascend has a free tier too. It is not a trial and does not expire: you get full net worth, your net-worth percentile, a Monte Carlo retirement projection, and 15 AI copilot questions a month.
Do free finance apps sell your data?
Some do, and many that do not sell it still share identifiers like your IP or a hashed email with ad platforms. Read the privacy policy before you connect an account. For our part, Ascend does not sell data, runs no ad or tracking pixels, encrypts data at rest with AES-256-GCM, and lets you export everything or delete your account.
Bottom line: Empower is the best free option if you're investment-focused, Rocket Money if your pain is subscriptions, and a spreadsheet if you want zero cost and full control. If your net worth includes crypto and you want it read automatically — for free — Ascend is the closest thing to the Mint net-worth screen, brought back.