The Best Personal Finance Software for 2023

Track your budget, spending, and credit score with top-rated financial software. We test and rate the software for you. Improve your financial health today.

COVID-19 and inflation have increased global financial anxiety. Know your money situation regardless of shocks. No one can predict their future. Understand your finances for the future.

Keep track of income, expenses, budget, and investments while monitoring your credit score. Personal finance software helps you make informed decisions, and most are free or affordable. Check out our reviews for the best options and tips for choosing the right one. Advice on selecting the software is provided toward the end of the article.

Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks

Why We Picked Quicken

Quicken has a long history of tracking income and expenses. It’s now the most feature-rich personal finance app. The Windows desktop software has an online app. Quicken Deluxe for Windows is an all-in-one personal finance solution. It offers simple account management, budgeting, bills, and investing.

Best for Free, Automated Financial Tracking

Why We Picked It

Mint is a popular personal finance website with smart tools and usability. It connects to all online accounts, tracks credit scores, creates budgets, and estimates net worth. Also, it’s free to use, giving you the option to try it out. The Mint has been the gold standard for years.

Who is it for?

Mint’s creative presentation of data and tools makes it easy for everyone to use. It has smart personal finance features to track income, spending, budgets, savings goals, and investments. Mint is both simple and comprehensive, appealing to both novices and seasoned managers. It’s for everyone who wants to keep a close eye on their money.

Best for Finance-Related Educational Resources

Why We Picked It

Mint’s creative presentation of data and tools makes it easy for everyone to use. It has smart personal finance features to track income, spending, budgets, savings goals, and investments. Mint is both simple and comprehensive, appealing to both novices and seasoned managers. It’s for everyone who wants to keep a close eye on their money.

Who is it for?

NerdWallet provides free financial account and credit score management without ad interruption. The site relies on ads to support content and tools, but a recent redesign reduced intrusiveness. Users enjoy an improved experience using NerdWallet.

Best for Free Credit Scores

Why We Picked It

Credit Karma monitors credit scores and alerts of potential breaches, for free. The site also helps find the best deals on credit cards, loans, and insurance. It provides answers and tips to improve credit scores and has great mobile apps.

Who Is it for?

Credit Karma offers educational tools for credit score improvement and alerts for credit issues. It helps us find better financial products. It benefits both those with good and poor credit scores.

Best for Detailed Budgeting

Why We Picked It

YNAB is a top choice for online budgeting tools. It combines accounting management and tracking systems. It also provides extensive educational resources for budgeting success.

Best for Adding Integrations

Why We Picked It

Moneydance is a desktop finance program almost as old as Quicken Deluxe. It has similar features, including budgeting, online banking, investment tracking, and more. It supports multiple currencies and cryptocurrencies, and you can add extensions for more features. Moneydance costs as much as Quicken, but add-ons make it different.

Who Is it for?

People who use Moneydance’s extensions will appreciate it. Extensions include financial forecasting and PayPal transaction import. Moneydance offers online bill-pay for free except for bank fees, which appeals to many. Those seeking Quicken alternatives and using Windows, Mac, or Linux will appreciate Moneydance. It’s a great choice for these users.

Best for Mobile Credit Management

Why We Picked It

Credit Sesame promotes smart credit management with its free version. It offers credit and debt-tracking tools to help increase your score. A premium subscription offers a detailed credit view and additional services. Sesame Cash, a companion bank account, offers financial features, like early payment.

Who is for

Credit Sesame’s standout feature is the Sesame Cash account. It’s useful for underserved communities and rewards cash use. Rent payments can be reported to improve credit scores. Free tools are available for credit monitoring.

Best for Investment Tracking

Why We Picked It

Personal Capital focuses on investing and retirement planning with sound personalized advice. It provides views of your holdings and retirement estimations. The platform manages transactions and tracks cryptocurrency. The user experience is excellent, and investment features are available for a fee.

Who is it for?

Personal Capital offers investment and retirement planning tools and feedback for financial accounts. It provides some features for free. Advisory services are available for portfolios with $100k or more. It caters to those who want to manage finances holistically.

Best for Monitoring and Analyzing Credit

Why We Picked It

WalletHub is solely centered around your credit score, unlike other personal finance websites. It provides analysis and ways to enhance your credit score quickly. You can access the information effortlessly without navigating through multiple menus.

Who It’s For

WalletHub finances its operations via credit card and loan ads, benefiting credit shoppers. Its calculators make it a top choice for budgeting, comparing borrowing costs, and future planning. It’s a valuable personal finance tool for anyone seeking financial advice.

Best for Transaction Management

Why We Picked It

Quicken’s Simplifi is a new personal finance site that has developed rapidly in recent years. Its dashboard is concise and useful, providing an instant overview of your finances. Innovative views of your data (such as watchlists, spending plans, and reports) keep you up to date. This keeps you constantly in sync with your finances.

Who It’s For

Simplifi is not a watered-down version of Quicken, despite being created by the same company. It targets a younger audience who want to track their financial accounts, monitor daily spending, and save money. The app’s purpose is to do all of these things without requiring hours of chart reading and report reviewing. It’s an effortless way to manage personal finances.

Most personal finance apps and services make it easy to track your spending and budget. Similarly, they also help set financial goals and monitor your investments. Additionally, many offer bill pay options and some even provide access to financial advisors. While the features vary by app, they all aim to simplify the process of managing your finances. Whether you’re looking to get out of debt, save for a big purchase, or simply keep better track of your money. There’s likely an app that can help you achieve your goals. Just be sure to do your research and choose one that aligns with your needs and financial situation.

The reviewed personal finance apps use encryption and other safety measures for your protection. However, you must also do your part to keep your information secure.

Three key things you can do are:

When importing transactions into a personal finance app, data clean-up is necessary. Transactions must be categorized as income or expenses. Apps usually guess the categories, but they can be changed, and transactions can be split among different categories.

Categorizing income and spending leads to accurate charts and reports. It helps with tax preparation and report generation. The summarized data is beneficial.

Some services allow adding tags to transactions, helping find related transactions easily. Tags help find tax-deductible expenses. For example, a tag named tax-deductible pulls up all tax-deductible expenses.

A list of all transactions across accounts in a finance app helps track unauthorized spending. The sooner you catch it, the faster you can alert the bank and block access. This helps prevent further unauthorized access to the account.

All reviewed personal finance services have a dashboard upon login. It may display key financial information like balances and bills. The dashboard can be the sole screen needed for an overview.

Dashboard visuals show income, expenses, and budget progress. Financial goals can be set and tracked. Live investment portfolio updates are available during market hours.

The overview displays data analysis highlights and allows for deeper exploration. Mint shows transactions by clicking a checking account balance. Credit Karma shows credit score details and changes. Overall, personal finance app dashboards provide quick insights for financial planning.

To be financially responsible, spend less than your income and track your expenses. Personal Capital advocates this approach. Budgeting tools in finance apps vary from basic to intricate.

Creating a budget is easier than setting your limits, which requires trial and error. Personal finance apps like Quicken Deluxe use past data as models. This helps answer, “How much do I usually spend each month?”

Mint treats each category as a budget with a selected frequency and amount. You can set a monthly spending limit on your car, groceries, and more. The colored horizontal bars display your adherence to each budget. Green means you’re good, and red means you’ve gone over. Tweak budgets by clicking up and down arrows to adjust spending habits.

Quicken Deluxe treats budgets as comprehensive tables, viewable by period, and automates data entry.

Set financial goals easily with a personal finance app. The app tells you how much to save monthly. NerdWallet lets you link your goals to accounts for automatic tracking.

Personal finance websites lack retirement and lifetime financial planning info. Quicken Deluxe offers extra tools for debt, tax, and financial planning. Personal Capital has free tools, but paid professional services for advanced planning. Its team of financial experts offers comprehensive planning services.

Moneydance provides free online bill-paying features, unlike other reviewed applications. You can link to your bank and use its bill-pay tools through Moneydance. Quicken’s Deluxe version charges a monthly fee for bill pay services.

Several applications allow the recording of bills and payments. Payment has to be done externally, but it can be integrated into personal finance. Mint and Quicken Deluxe are adept at this. You can connect to online billers or add offline bills. The platform reminds you when the bills are due and records manual payments.

A high credit score is crucial for better loan approval and interest rates. Understanding how it’s calculated and how to improve it is important. It’s not limited to credit cards but also affects mortgage and car loans. Knowing your current credit score is also essential.

Free sites like Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, NerdWallet, and WalletHub meet critical credit needs. Credit Karma is especially comprehensive, pulling scores daily from two major bureaus. The site provides access to credit reports and explains factors affecting your score. It also provides tips to improve your credit score.

Attractive interest rates and benefits can boost your credit score. Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, NerdWallet, and WalletHub display occasional ads. The ads are based on your credit profile and help to pay for the service. You can also explore marketplaces for additional products. Mint follows a similar model to maintain its free services.

Frequently canceling or acquiring credit cards affects your credit score. It’s essential to learn about suggested products to know the best options. This knowledge helps when you’re ready to apply. Being aware of good options helps you make better credit decisions.

A personal finance service can be used for daily income and expense management. Mint and Quicken Deluxe track assets like homes, vehicles, and investments. This helps in calculating your net worth. Keep data updated and connect all financial accounts, including those in debt.

You can leave out any account you don’t want to be shown in the app. It’s not mandatory to connect to all your accounts.

While budgeting and basic money-management tools may suffice, it’s important to keep track of available funds.

Personal finance services reviewed here have mobile apps with reduced functionality. You can view balances, transactions, and spending graphs. Some apps offer credit score and bill payment status information.

The reviewed services are consumer-friendly and aimed at tracking income, expenses, and earnings. Personal finance apps minimize the time required to learn them. Their effectiveness in simplifying the process may vary.

Quicken’s Simplifi boasts a clear and user-friendly interface with advanced navigation tools. NerdWallet provides editorial content, credit scores, and some financial tracking features. Both platforms offer a unique set of benefits for users.

Moneydance and Count About are user-friendly, but have outdated interfaces and are not recommended. Quicken Deluxe is feature-rich but has a mix of old and new content that can be overwhelming.

 A solution built from the ground up for online use might be more seamless. YNAB requires some learning but is easier for new users than before.

Learning any of these applications is easy if you’ve used standard navigation conventions before. They employ familiar features like toolbars, drop-down menus, and interactive hyperlinks. Users can quickly master them without much difficulty.

The ideal personal finance app varies based on your current requirements

Mint is the top pick if you want a free app and an overview of finances. Quicken Deluxe offers a comprehensive view of financial health and investment management tools. Credit Karma and NerdWallet are the best to improve credit scores. YNAB is best to focus on budgeting down to the penny.

It’s possible to use multiple personal finance apps at once. For example, use Mint for tracking finances and WalletHub for monitoring credit reports.

Each personal finance solution has unique offerings and different costs. Mint is our top pick for free services with its user-friendliness and comprehensive tools. Quicken Deluxe is our top pick for paid services.

We recommend Mint for online personal finance due to its usability, tool selection, and feedback. Additionally, it’s free, which is especially valuable during uncertain economic times.