Personal finance apps help you track spending, create budgets, meet financial goals, and stay on track. When you’re married, using an app can streamline your path to financial goals. You might have looked at a few options, but it’s hard to narrow down the best budgeting app.
Consider CountAbout vs Mint. They’re both excellent budget apps. CountAbout focuses on robust reporting and customization, while Mint is a free app specializing in personal budgets. Which one is right for you? Keep reading to discover how CountAbout compares to Mint.
What is CountAbout?
CountAbout is an internet-based budgeting tool. It can import data directly from Quicken, Mint, or your financial institution. It seamlessly integrates with over 12,000 banks to log transactions automatically.
And automatic importing is a key factor in tracking your spending.
With CountAbout, you can set up and customize your budget, categorize transactions, and even run reports. It also provides visual representations of your spending, so you can tell quickly where you’re overspending or where you need to make changes.
What is Mint?
Mint is an online personal finance tool. It’s great for setting up a budget, setting goals, and getting an overall look at your financial situation in one place.
Mint connects to your financial accounts to automatically track and categorize your spending. Every time you log into Mint, you get a real-time view of your overall financial situation.
Like CountAbout, Mint provides infographics and reports, so you have a bird’s eye view of your financial information.
Features You’ll Find with CountAbout and Mint
When you compare CountAbout vs Mint, you’ll see that both programs have many things in common. That’s because they’re two of the best personal finance apps designed to help you create and use a budget. Here are the common features they both have:
- Automatically import transactions: CountAbout and Mint link to your bank, credit card, and other financial accounts to import deposits, withdrawals, and expenses automatically.
- Customizable expense categories: CountAbout and Mint have preloaded expense categories, but you can also customize them to fit your specific budgeting needs. (Although with CountAbout you can modify or delete preset categories, and Mint, that's not the case).
- Create and track your budget: Create a custom budget and track your spending to make it easier to stick to your goals.
- Accessible on multiple devices: CountAbout and Mint are internet-based, and you can access them by app or on the web.
- Investment tracking: CountAbout and Mint both also track your investments to help you reach your financial goals
Features You Only Get with CountAbout
- Import directly from Mint and Quicken
- FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early) tools
- No advertisements
- Robust reporting options both in traditional format and picture/graph options
- Account reconciliation similar to how you’d check and balance a checkbook
- Invoicing option to bill clients for your side hustle or small business
Features You Only Get with Mint
- Credit score monitoring
- Personalized goals and track your progress
- Bill reminders, so you don’t miss a payment
- Weekly finance summaries via email
CountAbout vs. Mint: Which Is Better?
Mint has history on its side, having been around since 2006. Through the years, it’s grown to be a highly coveted app that’s used by millions. But CountAbout is an excellent option with more customization options. Which is better? Let’s compare.
Budgeting
CountAbout
CountAbout lets you budget for the year and breaks your spending goals down into a monthly plan. You can see a year at a glance, which is helpful to recognize long-term trends and smaller expenses that might add up over time.
It also offers the option to save for annual expenses every month. By inputting the yearly amount, CountAbout lets you know how much to set aside each month so you’ll have enough when the bill comes due.
Mint
Budgeting is where Mint shines. Mint has predefined main categories that you can’t change but lets you add subcategories to customize your budget.
With its automatic transaction download, Mint memorizes your transaction categories and loads them for you. Mint also uses historical data to help you assess your long-term financial health.
Collaboration with Your Spouse
CountAbout
CountAbout doesn’t support multiple users with separate login IDs and passwords. But it allows you to share an account with your spouse if you share your login information.
Mint
Mint also allows only one user per account. But sharing your login information with your spouse gives you both access to the transactions and financial information.
Paying Off Debt
CountAbout
CountAbout doesn’t support debt payoff goals specifically. While you can set up a budget to help pay your debt off, the app doesn’t have a tool that tracks progress.
Mint
Mint automatically sets up a debt payoff goal based on the credit cards and loans you link to it. You can create a plan and track your progress to see how close you are to your goal. If your budget is tight, Mint lets you customize the plan based on what you can afford.
Reports and Trends
CountAbout
Reports are where CountAbout shines. Whether you want information on your account activity, spending amounts in certain categories, or data for a specific time period, CountAbout provides printable reports and visual representations at your fingertips. All reports are customizable, so you get exactly the information you want.
Mint
Mint has budget and financial reports, but they aren’t as robust as CountAbout’s reporting options. The reports from Mint let you see your spending, income, debt balances, and net worth. But the app doesn’t let you customize the reports.
Net Worth Tracker
CountAbout
CountAbout shows your net worth right when you log in. Additionally, you can create a graph that will trend your net worth over the past 12 months. CountAbout also has FIRE tools to visualize your path towards financial independence.
Mint
Mint has automatic net worth tracking built into the app. Because Mint tracks your income, expenses, loans, credit cards, and investments, a glance at your dashboard will show your net worth at any given point.
Cost
CountAbout
CountAbout has two payment tiers plus an add-on option:
- Basic: Includes all app features except automatic importing for $9.99 per year. You can manually enter your transactions to take advantage of the reporting options.
- Premium: For $39.99/year, the plan gives you access to all app features plus automatically downloads and imports transactions from your bank, credit card, and investment accounts.
- Add-on option: This allows you to attach unlimited images to your transactions, such as receipts or warranty information, for an additional $10 per year.
If you sign up for Basic or Premium, your CountAbout account comes with a 45-day free trial to take the app for a test drive.
Mint
Mint is a free app. There are no subscriptions or upgrade options. In exchange for free access, you’ll be subject to advertisements for financial products and services.
Customer Support
CountAbout
The only option to contact CountAbout support is by email. There isn’t a phone number for you to call for customer support. Once you connect with a representative, they can call you to work through the issue.
Mint
Mint doesn’t have a phone number to call for customer support, either. Finding help if you run into a problem takes a little effort on your part. There isn’t any obvious option, but there is a chat button on the site that connects you with a support professional.
Security
CountAbout
CountAbout has the option to enable two-factor authentication to increase account security. They don’t store any of your personal information, such as usernames or passwords, and will never sell your information or email address to a third party.
Mint
Like CountAbout, Mint has two-factor authentication to keep your information safe. However, Mint sells your information to third parties. It’s done with data aggregation that removes individual information so you can’t be identified.
App and Mobile Access
CountAbout
CountAbout has a mobile app that has all of the features and functionality of its web-based portal. The CountAbout app and online application sync together, giving you the same information no matter where you log in.
Mint
Mint also has a mobile app, although its features are limited compared to the online version. It’s great if you’re on the go and need to know your balance or have a question about a transaction.
The Bottom Line: CountAbout vs Mint
Mint is a budgeting powerhouse and has long been a household name. Because it’s free, many people use Mint to track spending and reach their financial goals.
CountAbout is an excellent budgeting app that offers many features you won’t find with Mint. The app lets you seamlessly import data from Quicken and Mint to make getting started with CountAbout easy and hassle-free.
They’re both great apps. Mint is best if you’re looking for a free budgeting app. But CountAbout has the advantage of its more robust features. But remember: The right budgeting app is the one you’ll use.
When looking at CountAbout vs Mint, take advantage of CountAbout’s free 45-day trial to test both options. Using the app you’re most comfortable with can help you manage your money and transform your financial habits.
Where do you stand on the CountAbout vs Mint debate? Which budgeting app do you use?
Please let us know in the comments below.
One Comment
Hi. I use Mint now but the data accessible for reporting is limited to the last rolling12 months. There is no prior year reporting capabilities. So if you want a years summary total report, you have to print it off on Dec 31 at 11:59pm! That sucks.
Does CountAbout maintain and report on prior years? Also can you setup budgets by month so that non monthly expenses can be budgeted in their proper month?
Thanks for doing such a great job comparing the two. ????????
Cheers, Paul