YNAB Alternatives: Best Budget Apps After Mint Shut Down

YNAB is the gold standard for budgeting apps, but at $14.99 per month or $109 per year, it is not cheap. After Mint shut down in early 2024, millions of people needed a new home for their budgets. The best YNAB alternatives are EveryDollar (free zero-based budgeting), Monarch Money (modern bank-linked tracking), Copilot (Apple-first AI-powered insights), and Goodbudget (digital envelope method). Each serves a different budgeting style.

Why Are People Looking for YNAB Alternatives?

Two forces converged. Intuit shut down Mint in early 2024, pushing millions of users to find a new budgeting app. Many landed on YNAB, the most recommended alternative, only to discover it costs $14.99 per month or $109 per year with no permanent free tier. The 34-day trial is generous, but the price tag after that is a barrier for budget-conscious users.

YNAB’s method — zero-based budgeting where every dollar gets a job — is genuinely effective. According to YNAB, the average new user saves $600 in their first two months. But the method is not exclusive to YNAB. Several apps offer zero-based budgeting or equally effective approaches at lower or no cost.

The question is not whether YNAB works. It does. The question is whether you need to pay $109 per year for software that executes a method you could do with a spreadsheet or a cheaper app.

What Are the Best YNAB Alternatives Right Now?

The four strongest alternatives are EveryDollar (free, manual zero-based), Monarch Money (paid, bank-linked with household features), Copilot (paid, Apple ecosystem with AI categorization), and Goodbudget (free tier, digital envelope method). Each excels at a different thing. No single app replaces every YNAB feature.

Is EveryDollar the Best Free Alternative to YNAB?

Yes, if you are willing to enter transactions manually. EveryDollar’s free tier offers unlimited zero-based budgeting with custom categories, sinking funds, and no time limit. The only major feature behind the paywall is automatic bank transaction imports. At $79.99 per year for premium, it is still $29 cheaper than YNAB annually.

Ramsey Solutions, which makes EveryDollar, reports that the free version includes all core budgeting features plus live support. Premium adds bank syncing for $79.99 per year or $17.99 per month. If you compare EveryDollar Premium to YNAB, you get a similar zero-based experience at a lower price.

The philosophical difference: YNAB teaches “give every dollar a job” and encourages rolling with the punches when you overspend a category. EveryDollar follows Dave Ramsey’s stricter “baby steps” framework. If you want method-agnostic budgeting without a financial guru attached, YNAB has the edge in flexibility. If you want structure, EveryDollar delivers.

What About Monarch Money for Couples?

Monarch Money is the best option for couples and households managing shared finances. It allows multiple users to view and manage the same budget, supports joint and individual accounts, and offers flexible categorization that works for both partners. At $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year, it is priced similarly to YNAB.

Monarch was co-founded by former Mint engineers, which shows in the interface design. It handles complex financial situations — multiple bank accounts, investment tracking, net worth monitoring, subscription management — in a way that YNAB does not natively support well.

If your budgeting needs are simple (one person, one income, basic categories), Monarch is overkill. But if you share finances with a partner and want a single dashboard that both people use, Monarch is the strongest current option. For broader guidance on managing banking and payment tools, see our best digital banks guide.

Is Copilot Worth the Premium Price?

Copilot is the best budgeting app for people deep in the Apple ecosystem who want AI-powered transaction categorization and spending insights. At $14.99 per month or $119.99 per year, it is the most expensive option on this list. It is also the most polished in terms of design and user experience.

Copilot uses machine learning to automatically categorize transactions more accurately than most competitors. It learns your spending patterns and gets better over time. The interface is built natively for iOS, which means it feels faster and more responsive than web-based apps wrapped in a mobile shell.

My honest assessment: Copilot is a luxury budgeting app. It looks great and works smoothly, but you are paying a premium for design polish and AI features that save you maybe two minutes per week of manual categorization. If budget is a concern (which, if you are reading about budgeting apps, it probably is), the free alternatives offer 90% of the value.

Can You Just Use a Spreadsheet Instead?

Absolutely. A Google Sheets budget template costs nothing, gives you complete control over your categories and formulas, works on any device, and never changes its pricing or gets acquired by a company that shuts it down. The tradeoff is convenience: no automatic bank syncing, no mobile notifications, and no visualizations without building them yourself.

For people who are comfortable with spreadsheets, templates from the financial independence community (available free on Reddit and personal finance blogs) are remarkably effective. Some track net worth, debt payoff, savings rate, and monthly spending all in one workbook.

The spreadsheet approach also avoids the privacy concerns of linking bank accounts to third-party apps. Every budgeting app that offers bank syncing uses a data aggregator like Plaid, which means a third party has access to your transaction data. A spreadsheet keeps everything local. For people learning to budget with inconsistent paychecks, read our guide on budgeting with irregular income.

For more on how we evaluate and compare financial tools, read our research methodology.

MyMomToken.com is not affiliated with any of the apps listed above. This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.