CentSense vs Mint (2026): What Freelancers Should Use Now That Mint Is Gone

Published: June 5, 2026 · Reading time: 7 min

TL;DR: Mint is gone — Intuit shut it down in early 2024 and pushed users to Credit Karma, a credit-score and financial-products app, not a rebuilt Mint and not a tax tool. Even when Mint existed, it was a personal budgeting app with no Schedule C categorization, no IRS-rate mileage log, and no tax export. CentSense Solo ($5/month) does the one job Mint never did: it reads each business receipt, tags it to the right Schedule C line, logs mileage at $0.725/mile, and exports a CPA-ready CSV. The right move for most freelancers: a budgeting app for personal cash flow, CentSense for the business books.

For more than a decade, millions of people opened Mint to see where their money went. Then, in early 2024, Intuit pulled the plug and funneled users into Credit Karma. If you ran a freelance business through Mint, the shutdown exposed something that was always true: Mint was never a tax tool. It tracked spending; it never tracked deductions. Here's what Mint did, why its replacement doesn't fill the gap for self-employed people, and what to use instead.

What Happened to Mint

Intuit officially discontinued Mint and migrated accounts to Credit Karma (which Intuit acquired in 2020). Credit Karma surfaces some spending and net-worth views, but its core business is credit scores, credit monitoring, and recommending financial products. It is not a faithful Mint rebuild, and — importantly for freelancers — it has no more Schedule C functionality than Mint did.

So if you're searching "Mint alternative," split the question in two:

1. Personal budgeting — replaced by apps like Monarch Money, YNAB, Rocket Money, or Credit Karma.
2. Self-employment taxes — never covered by Mint at all. That's where a Schedule C tool comes in.

What Mint Was Built For

Mint was a personal-finance aggregator and budgeting app. Its strengths were:

• Account aggregation — bank, credit card, loan, and investment balances in one place
• Budgets by category — spending limits and trend charts ("Groceries," "Gas," "Shopping")
• Bill reminders and a free credit score
• Net-worth tracking across all accounts

It answered, "Where did my money go this month?" — a useful question for your personal life, never for your Schedule C.

What CentSense Is Built For

CentSense does one narrow thing well: turn business spending into a tax-ready record.

• AI receipt scanning — photograph a receipt; it extracts vendor, date, and amount and stores the image
• Schedule C categorization — each expense is tagged to the correct Schedule C line (advertising, supplies, meals, and so on)
• Mileage logging — business miles at the 2026 IRS rate of $0.725/mile
• CPA-ready CSV export — a categorized report your preparer or tax software can use directly

It answers a different question: "What can I deduct, and what do I owe?" See how to track business expenses as a freelancer and the best apps to track business expenses.

Side-by-Side

Every row Mint "won" is a personal-finance feature; every row CentSense wins is a tax-compliance feature. They were never really the same kind of product.

Why a Budgeting App Was Never a Tax Tool

Mint categorized spending, so it could feel like bookkeeping. But its categories were budget buckets — not Schedule C lines like "Supplies — Line 22," "Car expenses — Line 9," or "Meals — Line 24b at 50%." At tax time, a freelancer relying on Mint still had to:

1. Separate every business transaction from personal — Mint pooled them
2. Re-map each one to the correct Schedule C line
3. Reconstruct mileage Mint never tracked
4. Find receipt images Mint never stored

That reconstruction project is precisely what a Schedule C tool exists to prevent. Mixing personal and business spending in one app also blurs the line the IRS cares about — see business vs. personal expenses.

The Real Answer: A Budgeting App + CentSense

Mint tried to be everything; the cleaner setup for a freelancer is two focused tools that stack:

• A budgeting app (Monarch, YNAB, Rocket Money, or Credit Karma) for personal cash flow, bills, and net worth
• CentSense for business receipts, mileage, and Schedule C deductions

Run business spending through CentSense — ideally on a dedicated business card (see credit card rewards and business deductions) — and let your budgeting app handle personal life. At $5/month, CentSense is cheaper than the deduction it routinely surfaces, and it keeps your business books out of your personal budget, where they never belonged.

If you're weighing specific Mint replacements, see CentSense vs Monarch Money, CentSense vs YNAB, and CentSense vs Rocket Money.

Who Should Pick What

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Mint still available in 2026?

No. Intuit shut Mint down in early 2024 and migrated users to Credit Karma, which Intuit also owns. Credit Karma offers some net-worth and spending views but is primarily a credit-score and financial-products app — it is not a rebuilt Mint and it is not a self-employment tax tool. If you were relying on Mint to track business spending, you need a dedicated Schedule C tool, not its replacement.

Could Mint do freelance taxes?

No, and neither can its successors. Mint was a personal budgeting app — it aggregated accounts, set budgets, and tracked spending in categories like 'Groceries' and 'Shopping.' It never mapped expenses to Schedule C lines, never logged mileage at the IRS rate, and never produced a tax-ready export. Freelancers who used Mint still had to reclassify every business transaction by hand at tax time. CentSense was built to do exactly that classification for you.

What's the best Mint alternative for self-employed people?

It depends on what you need. For personal budgeting, apps like Monarch Money, YNAB, Rocket Money, and Credit Karma fill Mint's old role. But for self-employment taxes — the part Mint never handled — you need a Schedule C tool. CentSense Solo ($5/month) scans business receipts, tags each to the correct Schedule C line, logs mileage at $0.725/mile, and exports a CPA-ready CSV. Many freelancers run a budgeting app for personal cash flow and CentSense for the business books.

Does CentSense track my whole financial life like Mint did?

No, and that's intentional. Mint tried to be a dashboard for your entire financial life — bank accounts, credit cards, loans, investments, budgets. CentSense deliberately does one narrow thing: it turns business spending into a tax-ready Schedule C record. It scans receipts, categorizes by tax line, logs mileage, and exports for your CPA or tax software. If you want a full personal-finance dashboard, pair CentSense with a budgeting app.

How much does CentSense cost compared to Mint?

Mint was free, supported by ads and financial-product referrals — which is part of why Intuit eventually shut it down. CentSense has a free tier with 10 AI receipt scans per month, and the Solo plan is $5/month with unlimited scanning and mileage logging. For a freelancer, that $5 typically pays for itself many times over with a single deduction Mint would have left buried in a personal budget category.

Authoritative References

• IRS — Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business
• IRS — Self-Employed Individuals Tax Center
• IRS — Standard Mileage Rates

Related reading: Best expense tracker for self-employed · CentSense vs Monarch Money · Expense tracking spreadsheet vs app

Replace Mint's Missing Half

Mint never did your Schedule C — and its replacement doesn't either. CentSense scans every business receipt with AI, tags it to the right Schedule C line, logs mileage at the IRS rate, and exports a CPA-ready CSV. Solo plan is $5/month with unlimited AI receipt scanning.

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This guide is general education for U.S. freelancers and Schedule C filers in 2026. It is not personalized tax advice — bring your specific situation to a CPA or EA.