Best Online Finance Sites

Mint tops reviews

By a wide margin, we found the most top ratings for Mint.com, a free online financial-management site that launched in September 2007 and continues to evolve. Mint can track your bank and credit card accounts, along with brokerage, 401(k), IRA and 529 college-savings plans; it also can keep tabs on auto loans, student loans and mortgages. With user names and passwords provided by the user, Mint connects with your account holders and downloads the data; it then updates the information automatically each time you log into their website. As of early 2009, Mint is able to connect to over 7,500 U.S. financial institutions.

Mint.com sends out alerts, warnings and account summaries via email and text messages, and recently added an iPhone application. It also creates charts and graphs that show spending trends and other information. In response to complaints from users, it recently added the ability to create custom transaction categories. Mint identifies 401(k) accounts from previous employers and helps the user roll them over into an IRA; it even has a tool that can be used to calculate how much money would be saved with the move.

According to reviewers, what chiefly sets Mint.com apart from other online finance software is its Ways to Save feature. Based on data in the user's accounts, Mint suggests vendors that offer the same services the user is already paying for, but at lower prices. For example, if it detects that the user pays separately for services like phone, Internet access and cable TV, the software suggests a package deal, offered by a specific vendor, that would save the user money. Similarly, Mint might suggest a credit card with a lower interest rate than one the user currently has, or a savings account that earns higher interest. Some reviewers see these suggestions as thinly disguised ads, since Mint receives revenue from companies in exchange for suggesting their products; the companies are listed as sponsors of Mint.com. Others point out that it's easy enough to ignore these offers and that clicking the links opens a separate window, so you don't have to worry about navigating away from the Mint.com site.

Mint.com has won awards from PC World, TechCrunch and Finovate, and received a 2008 American Business Award (a "Stevie"). It is also a PCMag.com's Editors' Choice, with the endorsement: "For a free, comprehensive money-management tool, Mint.com is your best option." CNNMoney.com names Mint its top pick, based on the site's ease of use and investment analysis tools. Editors at Kiplinger's Personal Finance also say that Mint is their favorite site "for a fresh view of your big financial picture." Only two downsides are pointed out by reviewers: Mint does not allow users to enter transactions manually, so they can't track cash transactions or enter items that haven't yet posted to their accounts, and its online support forums are "weak," according to one reviewer.

Intuit, maker of Quicken desktop financial software, introduced Quicken Online in early 2008, and it has quickly become Mint.com's chief rival, in part because of its name recognition. Until October 2008, Intuit charged $3 per month for Quicken Online's services, but complaints from experts and users prompted the company to eliminate the fee. Since Quicken Online is now free, most reviewers see few differences between it and Mint. Both offer the same essential services: account aggregation, automatic account updates and categorization of transactions, reports on spending and other trends, mobile access to account information and automatic alerts as set up by the user.

Quicken Online is a close second

While Mint.com wins the highest rating in more reviews, Quicken Online also picks up some awards and is a frequent close runner up to Mint. One clear difference is that Quicken Online doesn't track investment accounts as well as Mint does; while Mint offers a granular look at investment accounts, Quicken Online shows only account balances. Mint also connects to more financial institutions. However, unlike Mint, Quicken Online does not display what some see as ads (aka Ways to Save), and does not use a third party vendor (Mint uses Yodlee) to transmit account information from user accounts to its website. Given Intuit's status as an established company, users may be more likely to trust Quicken Online than most other online software with the login names and passwords for their accounts.

Reviewers especially like Quicken Online's ability to forecast: the software calculates your risk of overdraft, your risk of a low balance and the expected amount you will spend in the next 30 days, based on your spending in the past. Recently, Quicken Online added another feature that both users and reviewers like: the ability to manually enter and categorize cash transactions, so that they are included in the software's analysis of spending trends (this alone might tip the scale over Mint.com for those who make mainly cash transactions). With Quicken Online, transactions can even be added via a mobile phone, so that as soon as you withdraw money from an ATM, you can add the transaction and assign it a category. Customer support is another strength of Quicken Online; there are online forums and blogs, and an Ask the Expert feature that allows users to ask questions or seek help from a Quicken expert. Another unique feature is that although online finance software inevitably mis-categorizes some transactions, Quicken Online learns from its mistakes, based not only on the user's corrections but also on those of other users, so that its categorizations become more accurate over time.

CNET reviewer Don Reisinger says that Quicken Online is "the most capable" of five online finance software products he tried out (the others were Mint, Buxfer, Geezeo and Wesabe). Reviewer Mason Currey, writing for Slate.com, gives Quicken Online a higher score than its runners-up, Wesabe and Mint. Charles W. Bush and Kathy Hwang, in a review posted on Forbes columnist Sramana Mitra's website, praise Quicken Online's ability to calculate the user's future financial situation. One negative for some users is that at this point, data from Quicken desktop software cannot be exported to Quicken Online, or vice versa. However, one reviewer notes that Quicken Online may appeal to those who already use TurboTax, another Intuit product, since Quicken Online data can be imported into the tax software, starting with the 2008 tax year.

Others also receive a few picks

Yodlee, the provider of account aggregation services for many other companies, including Mint, launched its own free finance software website, Yodlee MoneyCenter, in 2006. Yodlee MoneyCenter automatically aggregates and updates accounts, and can track virtually any type of account, including banking, investment, real estate, credit card, loan and PayPal accounts. It even tracks members' frequent flyer miles and reward program points. In addition, unlike either Mint or Quicken Online, Yodlee MoneyCenter enables users to pay bills and transfer funds without leaving the website, and to split transactions for more accurate categorization. It allows users to enter transactions manually, and creates reports showing spending trends; it even calculates a user's ongoing net worth. Yodlee MoneyCenter does not offer suggestions for ways users can save money, as Mint and some other online finance software products do.

Reviewers praise Yodlee MoneyCenter's capabilities, but criticize it for not being user-friendly. Its user interface is described as boring and sometimes confusing. CNNMoney.com, for example, calls Yodlee MoneyCenter the most comprehensive of four finance software websites reviewed, but says it lacks "eye candy," and that "it's hard to find the information to help you better manage your finances" on the site. Blogs, including GeekyWeekly.com, tend to review Yodlee MoneyCenter positively; blogger "Broke Grad" sums up the overall opinion when he writes that "the interface is pretty dull and navigation gets confusing at times, but overall, it gets the job done."

Social networking features are popping up in online finance software. Wesabe has been around since 2005, making it one of the oldest out there. Wesabe does not automatically categorize transactions; instead, users assign tags, which are used to budget and track expenditures. These tags are integrated into the social networking aspect; user tags generate money-saving tips, based on information from others in the social network. You can also provide your own tips to other users. Reviewers like the community aspect of Wesabe, but since it tracks only banking and credit card accounts, and offers relatively unsophisticated reports and tools for managing money, experts recommend it for younger users.