The Best Free Mint Alternative in 2026? Why Grove Is Actually Free (and How We Make Money)

When Mint shut down, millions of people learned an uncomfortable lesson: even a “free” budgeting app can disappear overnight when the business behind it stops making sense. And the apps that stepped in to catch Mint's users mostly had the same pitch — a free trial, then a subscription. YNAB now runs $109 a year. Monarch, Copilot, and most other Mint replacements charge monthly. If you're budgeting because money is tight, paying to budget feels backwards.

Grove was built for exactly that gap. It's a free budgeting and debt payoff app for the US and Canada — and “free” here means every core feature, not a stripped-down teaser. This article explains what makes Grove different from the apps you've probably already tried, and answers the question every skeptical person should ask: if it's free, how do you make money?

The problem with “free” budgeting apps

Most budgeting apps fall into one of three traps. The first is the paywall trap. You connect your accounts, get invested in the app, and then discover that the feature you actually need — debt tracking, bank syncing, more than two accounts — sits behind a subscription. By the time you hit the wall, switching feels like starting over, which is the point.

The second is the Mint trap. The app is free because you are the product in ways that aren't explained, and when the economics stop working, the app gets shut down or sold, and your years of financial history go with it.

The third is the spreadsheet trap. Spreadsheets are free forever, but they demand time, formulas, and the discipline to update them manually every week. Most people abandon them within a month — not because they're lazy, but because manual budgeting is genuinely hard to sustain.

Grove is designed to avoid all three.

What Grove does differently

Every core feature is free at launch — full stop. Connecting your bank, automatic budget creation, spending categorization, and your complete debt payoff plan. There is no trial clock, no “premium” wall in front of the features that matter, and no limit designed to frustrate you into upgrading.

Your budget builds itself. Grove connects to your bank securely through Plaid — the same connection layer used by major financial apps across the US and Canada — and automatically builds a 50/30/20 budget from your real transactions. You don't categorize months of spending by hand or guess at your numbers. You connect your bank, and about two minutes later you're looking at a budget based on how you actually spend.

Debt payoff is the center, not an add-on. Most Mint alternatives treat debt as one category among many. Grove treats getting out of debt as the main event: you can see your payoff plan, compare avalanche and snowball strategies, and watch your progress visually instead of staring at a shrinking number in a spreadsheet cell.

“Okay, but how do you actually make money?”

Fair question — it's the one we'd ask too, and the answer shapes whether you can trust a free app.

Grove plans to earn revenue in two transparent ways. First, through affiliate and partner recommendations: if Grove suggests a financial product — say, a savings account or a balance-transfer option — and you choose to use it, the partner may pay Grove a referral fee. You'll always be able to tell when a recommendation is a partnership, and you never have to act on one to use the app. Second, a paid tier is planned for the future with optional extras — but the core features you rely on today stay free.

That's the whole model. No selling your data, no bait-and-switch, no countdown to a paywall. We'd rather tell you plainly how the business works than have you wonder.

Grove vs. the alternatives at a glance

Compared to YNAB, Grove is free instead of $109/year, and automatic instead of built on manual envelope assignments that take real time to learn. YNAB is a powerful system for people who love the method; Grove is for people who want a budget without adopting a philosophy.

Compared to Mint (RIP), Grove has a business model we can explain in two sentences — which is exactly what Mint never had, and why it's gone.

Compared to spreadsheets, Grove updates itself. Your transactions flow in automatically, your categories stay current, and your debt progress recalculates without you touching a formula.

Who Grove is for

Grove is built for two kinds of people: those who have never budgeted before and don't know where to start, and those carrying debt who want a clear, visual way out. If you're a spreadsheet power user who enjoys tinkering with pivot tables, you may not need us. But if the words “just make a budget” have ever felt overwhelming, Grove does the math so you don't have to.

Try it in the time it took to read this article

Setting up Grove takes about two minutes: connect your bank, and your budget and debt payoff plan appear automatically. It's free, it works in the US and Canada, and there's no credit card required — because there's nothing to charge you for.