Scrappy startup MyJibe is taking on Mint for the personal finance crown

It takes real guts to look a market leader square in the eyes and say “you’re going down.” That is exactly what newly launched Mid-Western startup MyJibe is doing. The company is taking on Mint in a struggle to see who can be the best web-based personal finance application.

MyJibe, which launched this morning, is like Mint in that it helps you track your spending and income, but the service goes farther than Mint does in terms of planning features, helping anyone prepare for a stable and secure future. The following is a provided screenshot of MyJibe in action:

This is how MyJibe differentiates themselves from Mint, a task that they must do or face obscurity:

[M]any people want and need more [than what Mint provides]. They want a plan for the future. They want to know that they are on track to reach their savings goals. They want to know with certainty what they can afford to spend, and they want fast, easy access to their financial advisor when they need it.  This is what MyJibe provides.

Perhaps the most striking difference between the budgeting features provided by MyJibe and Mint is that MyJibe is centered around the ‘envelope’ method, in which people segment their money into separate distinct locations, allowing them to very quickly see how much of their budget is left for a certain expense category, and so forth. The envelope system is the best way to go according to the MyJibe staff:

The beauty of [the envelope system] is you’re giving your money a job before you spend it, and you always know how much you have to spend.  While powerful, it’s not pragmatic in today’s cashless economy.  MyJibe makes envelope style budgeting electronic and automated, giving you both power and ease.

The other key feature that MyJibe provides that is perhaps better than Mint’s offerings is its planning tools. MyJibe will exhort you to plan, and even tell you exactly how much money you have left that still needs to be assigned a plan, and what to set aside for various costs, keeping your planning practical and maximized. Mint’s planning features are more one-dimensional.

However, Mint is the market leader for a reason. Mint’s user interface is more attractive, and its price is far superior. While MyJibe costs $7.99 a month, Mint is free. For the budget minded person looking to take command of their finances, avoiding recurring costs is a mantra. MyJibe does offer a free 10 day trial to sway undecideds.

Still, MyJibe does offer a compelling package for a startup so fresh to the market. Mint is a more mature product, and one that is, due to its scale and size, potentially more secure and prone to uptime. Still, MyJibe has several tools that any enterprising budgeter will want to have access to.

Both Mint and MyJibe are strong products, with MyJibe perhaps designed for the slightly more ‘hardcore’ planner. The bottom line is that if you aren’t using at least one of them, you need to start.