Personal Capital and Mint both offer free tools for managing your finances and investments, respectively. In our Mint versus Personal Capital Showdown, we evaluate the two tools side-by-side to see which one is better.
Money management tools Mint and Personal Capital are regularly contrasted. While there are some parallels between the two, there are also significant variances that make their services rather different. Which platform you choose to work with will totally depend on what you want it to perform.
Do you have a personal savings account or a bank account? This is a question that everyone who is interested in online financial tools will ask at a certain point. Connect your accounts, track your working capital, and assist you to manage your money in general with both.
There are, however, distinctions between Mint and Personal Capital that make them more suited to certain jobs. Find out what they are in the next paragraphs.
The following is a comparison between Personal Capital and Mint.
However, each app has its unique advantages in both categories.
Personal Capital offers a premium service that will handle your assets for you.
There was a time when keeping track of your finances was a bit of a hassle. To get correct results, you have to enter everything by hand and perform a lot of arithmetic.
Technological advances have made our lives much easier. Rather than relying on antiquated financial monitoring techniques, just download an app to get started. There are so many alternatives to choose from that it might be difficult to decide which one is ideal for your situation. With our comparison of Mint vs. Personal Capital, we’re happy to assist.
Neither of these applications has received many positive reviews. In contrast, one is geared toward budgeting, while the other is more focused on investing. Because of our thorough description, you can evaluate the pros and drawbacks of each option, allowing you to make an informed decision about the direction of your financial future.
Mint Overview
A famous budgeting tool, Mint is one of the most widely used on the market today. Mint, which was founded in 2006, was acquired by Intuit in 2009. Learn more about Mint, its features, pricing, and reviews with our app review.
Mint has received more than 882,400 evaluations in the App Store and Google Play, far outpacing its competition. According to Forbes Advisors, Mint is among the Best Budgeting Apps of 2021.
You can automate your budgeting process using mobile applications like Mint, which may help you identify ways to save and lay money aside for future objectives. As of July 29, 2021, all account information and fees are current.
As a result of its simplicity, usefulness, and clever combination of financial features, Mint has received many Editors’ Choice Awards. All your internet financial accounts may be connected, and your credit score and net worth can be calculated quickly. It is easy to access Mint on a smartphone or Apple Watch, depending on your preference. This is made feasible by the fact that Mint regularly displays tailored advertising for credit cards and other financial goods, making it even more appealing.
To deliver a smarter, more customized, and more automated service, Mint’s developers continue to take advantage of machine-learning technology (AI). Overall, the site’s appearance has been streamlined. Users are now encouraged to improve their money management methods, rather than just passively following their accounts. Users are increasingly using mobile platforms, therefore the firm continues to develop its mobile apps. What’s made Mint the Editors’ Choice for free personal money management for several years (including 2020) just continues getting better and better, in general.
To gain a high-level picture of your financial health with Mint, you may connect all of your bank accounts in one digital area. Additionally, the app allows users to keep track of their spending and savings, and they may create and monitor budget objectives.
Credit cards, pensions and investment accounts, and other financial accounts may be synced with Mint. Mint also allows you to keep track of all of your monthly payments and receive reminders so that you can pay them on time.
Mint records your transactions after connecting your financial accounts and categorizes them into budget categories to make tracking easier. Users have the option of using Mint’s preset categories or creating their own custom categories to meet their specific requirements.
To better track your expenditure, you may also add tags and rearrange transactions. Users tend to have a wide variety of transaction types. A single transaction in Mint can be broken down into many categories, including any charges that may have been made.
No joint Mint accounts are available in Mint, which is designed for individual users. The same information can be viewed by two persons who have shared financial accounts.
The security of both Mint and its parent business, Intuit, is a top priority for both companies. A number of security mechanisms, including robust encryption and multi-factor authentication, are used by Mint to protect the privacy of its users. Mobile security codes of four digits are also available for Mint accounts.
Users can limit mobile access from within their accounts by logging into their accounts. In the event that your mobile phone is lost or stolen, you can disable easy accessibility from your online account or cancel your account remotely.
Everyone is welcome to use Mint. There are no paid versions of the app. When you sign up for a free account, you receive full access to all features and advantages of the app. It’s because of this that Mint’s revenue comes from strategic relationships with other firms. Advertisements for products may be deemed invasive by some users. There is no paid option to eliminate the ads.
You can monitor and track your investments with Mint, which is not an investing app. In budgeting software, you’ll be able to see all of your assets in one place. This includes 401(k), brokerage accounts, individual retirement accounts, and more. Using the investing tracking program, you may analyze your asset base to market benchmarks, as well as track investment costs to determine if there are any that aren’t essential.
Mint offers free access to credit scores and credit monitoring tools to all of its users. This is possible as a result of a collaboration between TransUnion and Experian. As a result, your credit score will not be adversely affected by checking it on Mint.
With your credit report snapshot and score, you’ll also receive information on how scores are calculated and measures you can do to enhance your score. Credit monitoring is also provided for free by Mint via TransUnion. A user can sign up to get real-time alerts from TransUnion whenever it receives fresh creditor information.
Free and easy-to-use, Mint is both. Overall, the software performs exactly what it’s supposed to do. Budgets and expenditures may be tracked, and you can obtain a summary of your money.
This is especially true if you’re conducting a thorough dive into your money and budget. Saving money is made easier with Mint’s insights.
As far as free budgeting applications go, Mint is hard to beat in terms of value. Not perfect, but a good tool for budgeting pros and novices alike.
The Mint account creation process begins with a tour of Mint’s features. Then, Mint asks you for the usernames and passwords for your banking, credit card, and other financial account information. As a result, the site is essentially worthless if you don’t consent to these connections. Despite this, you can manually input transactions.
By selecting Profile in the toolbar, you may perform a few more setup activities. Your contact and demographic information is left blank on this screen (this helps better target your ads). You’ll see data boxes for all of your accounts and links to further setup chores after clicking Settings. Notifications are the most important ones. You may sign up for email and web-based alerts, such as those about future payments and changes to your credit score, by clicking on the link. Your account balance or credit availability can also be alerted if it falls below a specific level or dollar amount.
You decide how much information Mint can track. As many accounts as possible should be connected to the service if you want a complete view of your money and the finest advice from the service. Your home and automobile are examples of assets that Mint can assess the worth of using third-party sources.
Mint’s biggest feature is that it analyzes your spending patterns and trends within minutes of setting up an account since it pulls data from the last few months. Or, to put it another way, you have immediate insight into your fiscal viability. Mint can inform you what you’ve been doing with your cash within minutes of opening up your account since it has accessibility to your history.
Mint’s UI is undoubtedly aesthetically and usability-impressive. Simple design makes it difficult to get lost in it. As well as Mint’s Overview screen, which provides a one-page snapshot of your financial situation, the Mint Dashboard is also quite helpful in this regard. If you force an update, it refreshes once a day. You may configure it to show just what you wish to view. To view everything, you’ll need to scroll a lot.
Each of your financial accounts and assets is listed in the left vertical window along with their total worth. Your entire assets and liabilities, as well as current net worth, are calculated by the site, along with charts showing Cash versus Credit Card Debt and Net Income over the past six months. It’s entirely up to you what’s displayed and what isn’t displayed. This means that you can exclude real estate from your net worth. This is possible if you wish to exclude an emergency fund from showing up in your list of accessible money. You also have the option of excluding a joint checking account from your personal budget.
A list of forthcoming payments is displayed in the right pane, as well as a chart of your spending, your credit score, and a graph of your current budget compared to your actual expenditure. Your progress and status will be displayed if you’ve set goals and linked your investment accounts. Financial goods Mint believes you’ll appreciate are linked to in a series of visual links at the bottom. This page allows you to examine statistics as well as to conduct actions, such as adjusting your budget and checking for outstanding payments.
Mint has a lot more to offer than just the main screen. The site’s functionalities are divided by a toolbar at the top of the page. We’ll cover everything from transactions to credit scores to bills to budgets to trends to investments and ways to save money!
Since Mint has imported all of your cash and credit account data, you’ll likely spend a lot of time on this page. In a checkbook register-like format, they are shown on the web. Each entry includes a date, a description, a category, and a dollar amount, as well as other information. However, sometimes you’ll need to manually alter the category for a transaction (such as Food & Dining, Shopping, Entertainment, or Bills & Utilities). Subcategories can be edited in Mint, but not the major categories.
Click the Edit Details link underneath a transaction to continue working with it. In this section, you can add tags (such as Tax-Related, Reimbursable, and Vacatio). Duplicates and notes can be added, as well as the transaction is divided into various categories. As a whole, CountAbout’s transaction management features are less thorough.
Upon entering your Social Security number throughout installation, Mint obtains your credit score from TransUnion and displays it both on the homepage and under the Credit Score link in the taskbar. Your credit history and the elements that impact it may be viewed in Mint, but you don’t receive a comprehensive report. Credit Karma can help you with that. Your recent ratings and assessments from two of the three agencies may be obtained for free using this free service (TransUnion and Equifax). Because it suggests financial items that you might be interested in, it pays for itself.
Personal Capital Overview
Personal Capital is one of the most popular financial technology solutions available on the market. With the goal of merging cutting-edge technology with unbiased financial advice, Personal Capital was launched in 2009. As a result of improvements, the business currently manages assets worth over $12 billion. As a result of its wide range of services and capabilities, Personal Capital has consistently been recognized as the top personal finance app by us.
Personal Capital does not want to be called a Robo-advisor, but rather a digital signage service that that delivers personalised financial planning advice.
But the business was one of the first to provide investors with tools and digitize asset management processes. For portfolio management, Personal Capital is our top selection due to its better technology and ability to appropriately manage risk and taxes.
Based in Redwood Shores, California, Personal Capital is an online financial consultant and personal wealth manager. It also has offices in San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta, Georgia. Launched in 2009 by Bill Harris, Rob Foregger, Louie Gasparini, and Paul Bergholm, Personal Capital is a financial services company. It was once called SafeCorp Financial Corp. Name changed in 2010; officially released on September 9th of this year.
SEC-licensed investment adviser since 2012, Personal Capital is based in New York City. As a CNBC Disruptor 50 in 2014 and 2015, Personal Capital was named on the list. As of June 2015, Personal Capital handled assets of roughly $1.5 billion dollars.
In September 2015, 800,000 customers tracked $150 billion in assets using Personal Capital’s free investment tools. A financial education campaign was launched in June 2016 by the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) and Personal Capital.
Personal Capital obtained $75 million in Series E funding from IGM Financial in December 2016. Located in Denver, Canadian-owned Empower Retirement announced its intention to acquire Personal Capital in July 2020.
Dashboard, which is part of Personal Capital’s free service, lets you examine your whole financial picture in one convenient spot. There is easy-to-access information on your net worth, cash flow, portfolio balances, and portfolio allocations. All of your assets are displayed in the holdings section, where you may sort them by percentage, dollar amount, and whether they are “winners” or “losers.”
As the assets handled expand, more tools and services become accessible, including college savings planning, financial choice support, including insurance, home finance, stock options, and compensation, private banking services, and estate, tax, or legacy portfolio building.
In spite of the fact that this version is often regarded as being a budgeting program, it is actually rather limited in that regard. While investment instruments are large, there are a limited number of ways to do it. In addition to budgeting, the free version will also assist you to manage your investments and finances.
In its primary role, the dashboard is a financial account aggregator, which allows you to add all of your financial accounts to it. All of them are instances of this: investments, savings, checking, lending accounts, and credit cards. Your financial life may be consolidated into a single platform. The free version excels at this.
Among the free and useful tools offered by Personal Capital are an investment checkup, 401(k) fee analyzer, and expenditure tracker. Using them isn’t restricted to Personal Capital’s advisory service members, but you will need to register to log in.
In addition, Personal Capital includes spending analysis, which is a summary of your cash flow by category, such as groceries, health care expenses, clothing, and restaurants. Revenue sources and spending on connected accounts are likewise tracked by the program.
Your cash flow and spending patterns may be tracked with the free app. Expenditure categories and transactions can also be seen on an individualized level. In order to assist you in quickly identify where your cash is going, we’ll send you monthly reports that will help you track it down. However, if you’re looking for budgeting software, Personal Capital is unlikely to be your first option. Users are notified of upcoming expenditures, yet they are unable to pay them. Bills must be paid via direct debit from your bank account.
The planner uses a series of “what if” scenarios to determine if you’re on track with your retirement goals. There are several ways to adapt changes in your situation, such as changing jobs or careers, having children or even accumulating money for college tuition. It takes into account external factors that might impact retirement.
Personal Capital’s retirement tools let you understand when you’ll be able to retire, as well as how big expenditures or pay increases may affect your retirement date.
Tax-deferred accounts, such as IRAs, are used to save higher-yielding investments in order to reduce today’s tax burden. Personal Capital does not use mutual funds in any of its managed portfolios since they are inefficient tax-wise. It is more common to substitute mutual funds with ETFs.
All users are said to be quite happy with the firm. Clients are allocated a financial advisor with whom they may interact at any time, which is regarded to be the company’s biggest scam. All users will be linked to the platform’s 24/7 advisers.
Tax payments are a concern for all participants on the financial market. But the software employs strategies for tax optimization to decrease your tax load. This implies that the service will be better evaluated and provide you with more lucrative ideas depending on which account you are using. Lastly, Personal Capital should be commended for its superb retirement approach.
Nobody on the financial market can promise 100 percent earnings, and that is no surprise. Everywhere, there are restrictions. After analyzing the client’s feedback, the pros and disadvantages of Personal Capital were identified and discussed. In order to open an investment account, clients must deposit at least $100,000. We’re all in agreement that this sum is quite costly, and not everyone who is interested in investing can afford it.
Some key components that are only available on the desktop website are absent from the mobile app, which is more practical. Currently, individuals spend more time on their mobile phones than on their computers, which may discourage some users.
The sign-up process takes a while, and you may need to be signed in for a while. Additionally, there is no apparent way to opt-out of receiving phone calls throughout the sign-up process.
Personal Capital is a secure haven. Personal Capital account information is encrypted and stored on the site in a one-way encryption token.
In order to use Personal Capital’s service, you must first register. You may use it to see what you have on hand. Reading-only data is transmitted through the service. Finale: Unless you post your account information in comment areas, which is something you should avoid, your account information will be hidden from view. As a result, consumers feel more comfortable if things don’t go according to plan because their accounts are insured up to $250,000.
As hard as it may be to believe, the Personal Capital free version is free. In addition to Robo-advisory services, the firm’s free version includes a number of beneficial features.
Personal Capital’s analysis tools should be viewed as a free account service. You can save money by increasing diversity or increasing your allocations using the fee analyzer.
The Investment Checkup is more useful because it pulls in all of your accounts, analyzes them, and makes suggestions about your overall portfolio mix. It would exceed all other Robo-advisors if this assessment just included the free service and value that Personal Capital delivers.
A human investment consultant charges between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of your portfolio’s worth to manage it, whereas Personal Capital does not. It’s worth checking out Personal Capital if you’re looking for a comparable level of service without paying the high fees.
It tackles accounting, retirement planning, and investment management, making it a great personal financial tool. Not every platform offers all the features you’re looking for. Money management services from Personal Capital are not required.
Personal Capital’s finance software is now the best way to keep control of your money online. This system, unlike others, allows you to manage your investment accounts. Our list of investment tools to consider includes it because of this.
There’s nothing like the retirement planner, which has been really helpful to me in a number of role-playing scenarios. The investing checkup tool is a great resource for high-level investment advice and recommendations. Financing is more affordable with the financial management service than with a traditional consultant, who typically charges 1 to 2 percent. But it’s not cheap compared to other robot advisers.
When it comes to those who don’t know how to properly invest their money, Personal Capital is a gift. if this is the case, you may want to explore a low-cost financial counseling service.
Mint vs. Personal Capital–The Basic Comparison
Mint is a personal budgeting tool available online. Essentially, it allows you to manage your whole personal finances from one tool. Your bank, saves, personal loans, securities, retirement savings, and even your PayPal account are included in this category of accounts. Mint allows you to view your financial condition as a whole, rather than as a collection of disparate components.
Mint, which is part of the TurboTax and Quicken families, is one of the most popular budgeting programs. The program allows you to manage nearly every element of your financial life through a single application. Lastly, and probably most importantly, the program is available for free.
Personal Capital is largely an investing service, with some budgeting tools. Your investments are managed by a team of advisors. Like Mint, they function as an aggregate for your financial accounts, allowing you to combine all of your financial accounts into one place. As a result, Personal Capital may serve as an all-in-one financial management platform for individuals and businesses.
A free and paid version of Personal Capital are available. All the instruments and functions are accessible in all versions; active investment management is available in the premium version.
Personal Capital vs. Mint – Budgeting Services
To help you spend money sensibly, these two management systems let you keep track of your money. Of course, effective budgeting plays a significant role in this. So, how do the two firms stack up against each other?
Mint’s most essential feature is budgeting, and it excels in this area as well. Your bank accounts are linked when you create your Mint account. Use the service to its fullest potential.
When you have all of your financial information available on the platform, the Overview gives you a quick look at your finances as a whole. While Mint is able to combine all of your accounts within the program, its access to such information is “read-only” So they do not actively manage your financial accounts.
It categorizes your financial transactions. There are predefined categories, or you may create your own. You may classify and summarize all of your transactions using the program.
So you may establish a budget and compare it to what you really spent. In addition, the program allows you to compare your spending in each category to national norms. There’s a chance you’re going over budget in certain areas based on this.
Mint will also send you notifications. These alerts will let you know when certain invoices are due or if your credit limit has been reached.
Mint Goals is another aspect of the program. So you may set financial objectives like saving money, paying off your debts or saving for retirement. Your objectives may be set and tracked using the tools provided by these services.
Other financial offers can be analysed by Mint. If you’re looking for savings rates, credit card interest rate reductions, minimal investment fees or IRA rollover deals, they can assist you. This can allow you to save money in seemingly insignificant ways throughout your financial life, which may build up over time to a significant sum.
Monitoring of your credit score as an added bonus As a member of Mint, you’ll get access to your free credit report. A score improvement guide is available as well. In the case of questionable behavior, you will also get credit monitoring notifications. Equifax will notify you if new credit information is received from creditors. The service does not need you to give your credit card information, unlike many other credit monitoring services.
Personal Capital, on the other hand, offers a budgeting alternative, albeit one that is somewhat more limited. Their built-in feature makes it easy to keep track of your cash flow. Your spending tendencies will be shown, as well as the ability to view transactions in more detail. This way, you’ll know precisely where your money is going each month.
With their Cash Flow Analyzer, you may create a budget by recording all of your income and spending. Paying your payments on time and keeping track of your expenditures will be much easier. Saving for retirement or paying off debt may also be accomplished with the use of a budget.
Your spending goals may also be tracked using Personal Capital’s budget tracking feature. Budget objectives may also be set and the program will help you to dive down into your expenditures to identify precisely where you may be straying off course.
Again, they are simply tools to assist you in budgeting. Their budgeting features are far from being thorough.
Personal Capital vs. Mint – Investing
With respect to budgeting, Personal Capital is a weak competitor to Mint.
Mint offers investing benefits, as you might anticipate… they are, however, quite restricted. As with any other financial account, the site allows you to track your investment accounts. The only other thing you can do is summarize your investments in one spot. Neither investment advice nor real investing instruments are given on the platform. Use a different program to actively manage your money.
It is true that Mint does offer investment-related functions, including fee analysis. Even on investment statements, they are able to reveal expenditures that are otherwise concealed to the average investor. Included in this category may be advising or transaction fees, as well as 401(k) or other costs. Investing is a supplementary advantage, although it is more of an extension of Mint’s budgeting function.
Then there’s Personal Capital. As a matter of fact, this is what they are most interested in.
Personal Capital’s premium edition serves as both an asset management tool and a bank account aggregator, according to the company. Even while you can benefit from direct investment management, you will always be able to see the overall picture of your financial condition, even if your assets aren’t involved.
“Investment Checkup” is included in the free version. As part of the process, you’ll evaluate the risks and possibilities accessible to you. An allocated personal adviser is available at all times to provide guidance.
Among the tools included in both editions are the retirement planner, the 401(k) analyzer, and the investment checkup.
As part of its services, Personal Capital offers a 401(k) analyzer. As a result of analyzing the assets available in the plan, the advisor can provide recommendations for how to allocate assets.
When it comes to retirement planning, the Retirement Planner can help. Your annual contribution amount, for example, can be entered into the planner. You may also include important life events, like as saving for college or having a kid, in your plan.
Personal Capital may analyze your asset allocation once all of your bank accounts have been entered into the platform. You have the option of requesting or implementing changes to the accounts that it directly administers, such as your 401(k).
Personal Capital’s investment management is available to you if you choose the premium service. This service needs a minimum of $25,000 in assets under management and is subject to the price structure outlined in the next section.
A Unique Capital investment portfolio may be tailored to meet your risk tolerance and life objectives by identifying your personal preferences and life goals. They rely on Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), which focuses largely on asset allocation and asset diversification. In addition to index funds, your portfolio may also contain individual securities if it totals more than $100,000. In your asset base, you have a combination of US stocks, US bonds, foreign stocks, global securities, and some alternative assets, such as commodities, in place.
Tax optimization has also been included into Personal Capital’s investing strategy, however it is only available to paying subscribers. Selling failing assets in order to offset profits on winning ones is the basis of this approach. Long-term profits are kept to a minimum with this method of investing.
As part of the tax-allocation procedure, various asset categories are placed in the accounts where they will have the lowest tax obligation, according to the book. In tax-deferred accounts, for example, high-yield stocks and real estate investment trusts are maintained. Long-term capital gains treatment is achieved by storing assets that will likely result in capital gains in ordinary tax-deferred accounts.
People investing $1 million or more in Personal Capital can also join the Private Client Group. This will result in increasingly decreasing fees, as well as individualized wealth planning and investing advice. Direct access to a Certified Financial Planner and a team of professional advisers is also provided by these firms
Last but not least, Personal Capital has included the option to track bitcoin within the interface in its latest update. Investing in Bitcoin? Personal Capital’s dashboard will show its worth (and your overall holdings). For crypto investors, this is a game-changing feature.
Personal Capital vs. Mint – Fees
For comparison purposes, Mint does not impose a fee to users of their service, which makes it relatively straightforward to compare the two in terms of cost.
For its dashboard, Personal Capital does not collect any fees. Free financial management is available for both personal and business accounts, as well as investment management.
The fact that the aforesaid costs are all-inclusive is a big advantage. Account administration or any investing fees are not charged by Personal Capital. Those costs are all included in a single charge, which is dependent on the value of the assets managed.
Aside from its role as an investment mixer, Personal Capital allows you to have bank accounts on the site that are not really managed by the site. If you do not want to include controlled accounts in your 401(k) plan, you can do so. Those accounts will be consolidated by Personal Capital, but the fees it imposes will not apply to their balances.
Personal Capital vs. Mint: Security
It doesn’t matter what application you use or how much security it has. Technological advancements make it a necessary element of life.
Mint and Personal Capital, on the other hand, take specific steps to preserve your privacy. While they both employ bank-level encryption, We prefer Mint’s usage of a two-factor authentication system, which is a nice touch.
Your device is also authenticated by Personal Capital, helping to prevent unwanted access.
As far as your accounts are concerned, Mint and Personal Capital have read-only access to them. It’s impossible for them to make any adjustments or transfer any cash. Transactions can only be uploaded for reporting purposes by these companies.
Customer Experience
Neither Mint nor Personal Capital have a BBB A+ rating with extremely few consumer complaints, according to the BBB. Those who have reviewed Personal Capital on Trust Pilot prefer it over Mint, with most of them complaining about Mint’s constant advertising, which they felt made it less of an adviser and more of a salesperson.
Customer support at Personal Capital is superior to that at Mint.
A 24-hour response time is standard for emails sent to this company. But consumers complain that Mint’s reaction time is slow.
Personal Capital vs. Mint – Which is the Better Choice?
A pure budgeting program, Mint is the clear winner. When it comes to investment management, though, Personal Capital is the finest choice.
Truth be told, you don’t even have to make a choice between the two! Personal Capital and Mint both have expertise in various areas, so you can use Personal Capital for investing and Mint for budgeting. It’s a win-win situation all around!