Quicken
41.88 USD
Strengths
- Budgeting & investment tools
- 5GB Dropbox cloud backup
- Financial institution integration
- Phone and live chat support for all plans
- Integrated Bill Pay service
Weaknesses
- High price if you just want budgeting tools
- Limited functionality on mobile devices
Are you looking for financial and budgeting software – especially one that will help you manage your business and investments? If so, you need to check out Quicken.
It offers the budgeting, account aggregating, bill payment, and expense management capabilities of typical budgeting software, but also provides tools to help you track and manage your investments, including rental real estate. And if you run your own business, Quicken offers invoice preparation and emailing.
Quicken is one of the oldest personal finance software packages. The service was launched back in the 1980s, though it has gone through a change of ownership since.
Interested? If so, read on to see if Quicken will be the right financial software for you.
Table of Contents
- Quicken Plans & Pricing
- Quicken Starter: $41.88/year
- Quicken Deluxe: $47.88/year
- Quicken Premier: $71.88/year
- Quicken Home & Business: $107.88/year
- Features & Benefits of Quicken 2024
- Quicken Limitations
- Quicken System Requirements
- Pros and Cons
- What are some Quicken Alternatives?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Conclusion
Quicken Plans & Pricing
Quicken has several versions:
Quicken offers four different plans, ranging from their Starter plan for basic financial aggregation, budgeting and middle management, to their Home & Business plan for business owners and real estate investors. You can choose whichever plan best matches your own financial profile.
Each plan has an annual fee that comes with a 30-day money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied. The refund also extends to 30 days after automatic renewal of your membership each year.
The prices below also include a 10% discount on Deluxe, Premier, and Home & Business) that they’re currently offering.
Quicken Starter: $41.88/year
This plan is Quicken’s most basic package. It enables you to aggregate all your financial accounts on the platform, and then to create a budget and manage your bills.
The plan comes with the following features:
- Manage your money across desktop, web and mobile versions.
- See all your bank and credit card accounts on the platform.
- Create a budget to track your cash flow and spending.
- Automatically organize your expenses.
- Export your data into Excel.
- Take advantage of free official phone support from Quicken.
- Bill tracking (but not Bill Pay).
Quicken Deluxe: $47.88/year
Quicken Deluxe will help you to better manage your finances and improve your ability to save money. It offers everything in the Starter plan, but also enables you to manage and track your debt, as well as to set savings goals.
The Deluxe plan also has the following additional feature:
- The ability to track loans, investments, and retirement accounts from the Quicken platform.
Quicken Premier: $71.88/year
Quicken Premier specializes in helping you to better manage your investments. It offers all the capabilities of the Deluxe plan, but adds the following features:
- The ability to evaluate your investments using the Morningstar Portfolio X-ray tool.
- Evaluating buy-and-hold options using improved portfolio analysis.
- Compare your own investment returns with those of related market averages.
- Track the cost basis of your investments, and even create Schedule D for tax reports.
- The ability to make better investment buying and selling decisions using market comparisons.
- Bill Pay (along with Bill Tracking).
Quicken Home & Business: $107.88/year
Quicken Home & Business gives you all the features of Quicken Premier but has an emphasis on better management of your personal and business finances. In fact, it even gives you the ability to separate and categorize your business and personal expenses. It’s designed to be the financial management plan for you if you have your own business, own and manage rental properties, or both.
It offers the following additional features:
- Gives your business the ability to create and email custom invoices with payment links.
- Simplify tracking of your business tax deductions, as well as the ability to regularly track your business profit and loss.
- Run Schedule C and Schedule E reports to simplify tax preparation.
- Manage lease terms, rental rates, and security deposits on the platform.
- Rent tracking – both those that have been paid and those that are still outstanding.
- The ability to save rental documents on the platform.
Features & Benefits of Quicken 2024
If you have no experience with Quicken, many of the features of Quicken 2024 will be novel to you but have been around for quite some time.
Some popular features from previous versions:
- Transaction and expense management is the hallmark of Quicken, with the ability to track transactions on the go.
- Quicken Premium Support is a standard feature of Quicken Premier and Home & Business, but you can add it to the Standard and Deluxe plans for $49.99. It will give you unlimited priority access to Quicken customer care phone support for one year. However, standard customer support, including phone and live chat, are available on all plans.
- Quicken Data Access Guarantee will give you access to – and ownership of – your data, whether or not you renew your subscription.
- One subscription can be used on multiple devices – you can install Quicken on as many devices as you have.
- Bills management lets you see, track, as well as pay your bills within Quicken.
- A free credit score is included under Reports > Credit Score, you get a free updated score every three months. (there are now many free tools that offer a free credit score)
- A powerful mobile app is now included, with investment tracking, offline usage, and charting tools.
- Quicken World Mastercard is a credit card available specifically for Quicken members. You’ll also earn 2X points on payment of recurring bills, groceries, dining out, and other categories – all with no limits. You can even choose your own rewards. The card also comes with cell phone protection insurance, as long as the monthly phone bills are paid using the card.
What’s new for 2021 (just a small sampling):
- Receive regular updates automatically with the latest product enhancements.
- Faster investment management capability with Quicken for Windows – up to three times faster. Quicken for Mac is up to twice as fast.
- Quicken has included more than 500 customer requested improvements and fixes.
- Quicken now offers connections with more than 14,500 financial institutions and 11,000 online billers.
- Monitor investments with up-to-the-minute portfolio values. You can also monitor multiple brokerage accounts.
- Quicken for Windows now offers long-term capital gains showing scheduled transactions for the Premier and Home & Business plans
- 5 GB of secure online backup with Dropbox.
Quicken Limitations
Virtually no finance or budgeting software will be an ideal fit for all consumers, and that includes Quicken. Limitations you need to be aware of include:
Limited functionality on tablets and mobile devices. Since the program is designed for desktop and laptop computers, only a limited version is available for mobile devices and tablets.
The Starter and Deluxe plans may not be worth having if you want Premium Support. Adding premium support to either plan will increase the cost by $49.99. You can avoid this by subscribing to the Premier or Home & Business plans, where the higher support level is a standard feature.
Quicken System Requirements
The needs of the Quicken software are modest.
Here are Quicken’s technical requirements for Windows:
- Computer: 1 GHz or higher.
- Operating System: Minimum Windows 7, 8/8.1, or 10
- Memory: Minimum 1 GB Memory
- Hard Disk Space: Minimum 450 MB free disk space; 1.5 GB if .NET is not installed
- Monitor: 1024×768 or higher screen resolution, 1280×1024 minimum for Large Fonts settings
- Microsoft .NET 4.6 or newer (Quicken installer will install .NET if it’s not already installed on the system)
- Internet Connection: Broadband internet connection recommended; internet connection required for registration
- Online access is required for activation
Here are Quicken’s technical requirements for Mac:
- Computer: Intel-based Macintosh
- Operating System: Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.12 (Sierra), 10.14 (Mojave) or newer
- Online access is required for activation
Quicken Mobile requirements:
- IPhone, iPod Touch, iPad: requires iOS 9 or higher
- Android mobile and tablet: requires 4.1 or higher
- Not compatible with Windows Phone or Blackberry
Quicken on the Web can be used with current versions of Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Safari.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Allows for budgeting for both home and business
- Provides investment tools
- Financial institution integration
- Track and manage your bills
- Integrated bill pay service
- Phone and live chat support for all plans
Cons
- Limited functionality on mobile devices
- High price if you just want budgeting tools
What are some Quicken Alternatives?
The financial aggregator and budgeting space is a crowded one, which means you’ll have plenty of alternatives if you decide Quicken isn’t the right program for you. We have a longer list of Quicken alternatives but here are a few highlights:
Simplifi by Quicken
In early 2020, Quicken released Simplifi by Quicken. It’s a personal finance app that looks to capitalize on how more people are managing their money using apps, rather than full software programs. It contains a lot of the familiar tools you’ve come to enjoy in a budgeting app including budgeting, projecting, and setting savings goals.
The big downside ist hat despite being made by Quicken, the two are not compatible. You cannot import your Quicken data to Simplifi or vice versa.
Here is our Simplifi by Quicken Review.
Personal Capital
For planners and investors, Personal Capital is the best option as a Quicken alternative. It offers a suite of powerful tools to help you plan your investment strategy, analyze your existing investments for holes and imbalances while offering expense tracking (budgeting) tools that are pretty good. Their strength is definitely on the investment side so if you’re looking for a budgeting tool first and investment seconds, the next option is better.
Personal Capital is able to offer their tools for free because they charge for wealth management. But if you have at least $100,000 to invest, Personal Capital can also provide a hybrid of automated and human-guided investment management for a single advisory fee.
Mint
For personal accountants, Mint is the best option for tracking and categorizing your expenses. They have an investment tracking portion of the tool but the planning and projecting aspects are not as strong as Personal Capital. Mint’s budgeting suite, though, is peerless because they’ve had such a long time to develop it.
Intuit acquired Mint in 2009 and they shut down Quicken Online shortly thereafter. Mint is able to offer their tools for free because they are heavily ad-supported.
You Need A Budget – YNAB
For those looking to establish a budgeting process and get a handle on their finances (ie. do more than track it), You Need a Budget is your tool. They rely on a methodology for planning out your budget that has worked for thousands of members. They offer a free trial because You Need a Budget (YNAB) is not free, they do not have ads and they have a strong community and team supporting it.
CountAbout
CountAbout is a personal finance tool that may complement Quicken. That’s because it can import data directly from Quicken – which would make the transition from Quicken to CountAbout a smooth one. Like Quicken, you can download transactions automatically from many different financial institutions. It also offers budgeting, custom income and spending categories, and financial reporting.
And like Quicken, CountAbout has an invoice feature for freelancers and small businesses. In fact, you can even transfer data to and from Freshbooks and Quicken. And while you can purchase several different plan options, all are less expensive than those offered by Quicken. You should be aware however, that CountAbout is a bit weak when it comes to investments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not anymore, Quicken moved to a subscription service so you no longer have to buy Quicken every year but you do pay every year in the form of a subscription fee. If you have a legacy version of Quicken, you do not have to pay every year but Quicken support does get discontinued over time.
No, Quicken is a personal finance software package for individuals while QuickBooks is an accounting software package for businesses.
Quicken is not free but does have a free trial so you can try it out to see if it works for you. There is no way to get Quicken for free but there are many comparable alternatives to Quicken that are free.
Quicken has four versions and they vary in cost:
– Quicken Starter is $41.88 per year
– Quicken Deluxe is $47.88 per year
– Quicken Premier is $71.88 per year
– Quicken Home & Business is $107.88 per year
Conclusion
In today’s complicated, fast-paced world – where all things financial seem to be in a constant state of flux – having some sort of personal finance and budgeting software in place is close to a necessity. Quicken should be on your short list of candidates for the job. That’s especially true if you have a small business or you operate as a freelancer, and need certain business services, like invoicing.
But if you don’t think Quicken will work for you, the alternatives listed above should be considered.
What do you think of Quicken?
Jim @ Route To Retire says
Nice review, Jim!
I’ve been using Quicken since version ’98… that’s a long time. I agree that it does have its pros and its cons – always has.
I’m still running Quicken 2017 and don’t want to move to the subscription model. I’m using Personal Capital and Mint as well and trying to push Quicken to the curb. It’s a tough one since I’ve been using Quicken for so long, but I think it’s time.
Do you use Personal Capital exclusively to manage your finances or do you use other programs/services as well?
— Jim
I know a lot of folks who still use Quicken but so many do so because they feel they’re locked in. There’s years of data in there and they don’t want to lose it… but man the headaches seem to keep piling up for them. Maybe the subscription model will get them to keep things working seamlessly all the time?
I use only use PC and an Excel spreadsheet to manage it all. My spreadsheet is the equivalent of most people’s Quicken, just completely manual. I kind of like it. 🙂
David Novick says
I’ve been using Quicken for years and while it’s bloated and cumbersome I have customized it to such an extent that to get the same customization in YNAB, Personal Capital, CountAbout, etc is not only time-consuming it’s darn near impossible. These apps simply cannot cope with the level of customization I’ve done with Quicken… which, in some sense, is a testimony to Quicken’s flexibility. That said and with Mint clearly out of the picture for Quicken, I am hoping that the company takes Quicken online so that I can use it with my Pixelbook.
If you’ve customized it to fit like a glove, nothing out of the box will work as well. The other tools are not designed to be customized to that degree too, so if it works, don’t mess with it.
ThriftySurgeon says
Excellent review of Quicken 2018, the addition of 15GB of Dropbox is a nice bonus. I used Quicken for several years, but I got tired of transactions not downloading appropriately and accounts not syncing correctly. I gave up in 2017 and switched to Mint.com.
Thanks for the post!
John says
Jim,
Enjoyed your posts. I have been a Quicken user since the beginning in DOS, but after the past 3 years I am looking for an alternative. Thanks for your substitutes list.
I believe Quicken is and will be on the decline, since it appears that the company is interested more in fast money and not a better product with customer focus.
John
They were acquired by a private equity firm!
Steve says
On the fence. Thanks for the review. Been using Intuit products since the blinking “c” prompt days, it seems. Quicken, Quickbooks and TurboTax. Always quirky but you learned to deal with it. Non-existent tech support (thank goodness for the committed community members!); bugs not fixed for years or work-around’s that quit working (ctrl-copy to get rid of voided checks and un-matched transactions), etc. I’m using premier 2015 and it quit downloading from my banks earlier this month. In the past, I would buy a new copy every three years (write it off on my rental home business) but now I’m hesitant to move forward. As a network administrator, I’ve never upgraded software until after the first major service pack! Let others beta test! I liked the fact we were able to load a copy of Quicken on up to three computers. I got both my late-teenage kids using it, while their financial situation is simple. Do you know if that is still allowed with this 2018 version?
Overall, Quicken, despite its quirks, was always a bargain in my book. Every penny into and out of our household was tracked, one way or another. Made pulling reports to do my taxes in TT a breeze. All the time spent during the year in Quicken, paid of during tax season. I’ll probably give it a go because old dogs don’t like new tricks, but might do things manually as I wait and see what happens with this new ownership. Again, thanks for your balanced review.
I know what you mean about not upgrading until at least version X.1 – a former software engineer, I recognize that new versions always have something unintended and that X.1 minor release is crucial! 🙂
With everything on the cloud now, I suspect the software won’t let you buy it once and use it three times. It is a bargain, but you should check out some of the alternatives that are free. They won’t replicate Quicken but they do get more updates (by virtual of being software that runs in the cloud) and I’m a bigger fan of them. But I understand you 100%, if the system works for you now (even if you have to use a few workarounds), there’s no push to switch and learn a new thing.
Bob Jones says
I’ve used Quicken since the DOS days. Now I am in the process of selling a long term rental property and also a vacation home and need to review my old quicken files to obtain my basis. I’m currently using 2017 Quicken Home and Business and I cannot open or convert my old Quicken files to get the data I need. All my years of keeping my data in quicken is now worthless. FIE on the new owners!
Lien says
Completely agree, Bob. It seems they bought the name only, and don’t care if product quality steadily erodes (and leaves a trail of frustrated customers in its wake). Sorry to hear about the issues you’ve experienced.
Lien says
I agree, good review. I think the connectivity issues and the decades-worth of bloat the software has accumulated are a deal-breaker for me.
Here is our experience:
We went through the 7 hours long painful process of linking all our accounts to the software (banking, credit cards, investments, etc) but Quicken Deluxe 2018 cannot connect with any banks or firms reliably (we use several national banks). It brings in duplicate transactions or no transactions and the balances are never right. Quicken blames the banks, but really how can multiple national banks be wrong when Quicken is the company we are paying for this service? It’s their job to get it right, not blame every bank in America for poor connectivity.
The investment and retirement planning tools simply do not work. Adjust your retirement age from 65 to 70… nothing changes. Add your current 401k deferral rate: it says you will have $0 net worth at retirement.
Support? There is no support for Quicken. Unless you call the phone number during business hours and hold for 30 minutes. There is no email support. Quicken admits it discontinued email support in 2013 to ‘better serve customers’.
The Community Support posting site is not even run by Quicken, you need to sign up for http://www.getsatisfaction.com to post any issues. Money completely wasted.
This is from a husband/wife team of a math major and a software engineer.
Incredibly frustrating and money wasted.
Ruth Ann Few says
I have used Quicken for at least 30 years. The new Quicken 2018 is an absolutely a disaster. DO NOT upgrade. I wish I had heeded the reviews—but I thought, I know Quicken, I have always used Quicken, I understand Quicken, I have personalized it for my finances, I have all of my bank, credit cards, and investment accounts in the program—what can go wrong. The answer is everything. I have spent endless hours trying to make it work, trying to make it useable, talking to tech support, and started new accounts. DO NOT UPGRADE to. Quicken 2018. I am so disgusted but I don’t know what I will do at this point. I have invested many years and many hours since upgrading. Hope springs eternal.
JJP says
I have been a Quicken user for many years. Previously, I used it for investment transactions but for the past few years I have gone to a spreadsheet. Quicken is not able to track options and it constantly placed downloaded transactions with placeholders. I am frustrated and as others have said, Quicken support is non-existent. Now I use it strictly for checking, credit card transactions, and only one financial house. For whatever reason, Quicken often can’t download transactions Discover and Citi Bank. I am using Quicken DeLuxe 2017 version.
Starting January 1, I will be switching over. I need a program that will keep track of my checkbook transactions and credit card accounts. I am looking at Count About as an alternative.
Doug says
I find myself with the same conundrum expressed by so many people. I’d keep my 2017 forever to avoid the subscription service and terrible product if it would keep downloading my bank transactions and stock prices.
STUPID what they’ve done to the product. The UI has gotten progressively worse to the point simple data-entry has become a pain even with 2017 version, no way in heck I’m going to 2018 and beyond with all the complaints of usability (I am also resistant to ANY subscription model, that alone makes me want to abandon my 25 years of Quicken use).
BUT – in this day and age of personal-data mining I am reluctant to trust companies to have my data. At least Intuit allowed us to keep our data on our hard drive – they could still grab pieces I suppose but the thought of letting Mint or Personal Capital know every single detail about my personal financial life scares the cr*p out of me.
So we’re all basically screwed! I am NOT HAPPY. I will keep using 2017 for as long as physically possible. I guess I’ll just hand-enter stock prices and hand-reconcile from my bank/CC statements until someone wakes up and creates an app that we can trust and that works.
MB says
After countless years with Quicken, I am still using my old version but no longer download, everything is now manual. I tried Personal Finance and at first realized the limitations, but after receiving a call from them asking me to add my investments, than all kinds of alarms set me off. Yes, someone in customer service does have access to Personal Finance and that is when I changed all my passwords and removed the program from my computer.
One alternative that might make sense for you is MoneyDance – it’s an application you download, pay for once, and is similar to what Quicken offers without having your information in the cloud.
https://wallethacks.com/moneydance-review/
Craig Rice says
I have used quicken for years, however, not really excited about having to pay the subscription fee every year. Just like so many other customers, not sure the updated software is actually worth the $54 a year. Seems like for what I use it for, it is not beneficial. May have to switch and go back to another software program that I only update every 3 years or so.
Oliver Street says
Quicken hasn’t updated the core code base that emulates a checkbook register since the early 1990’s (Win 3), and they may not have the source code for it. It may even be the DOS core code running in an emulator. For whatever reasons development has been restricted to pasting frivolous functions onto the core code. Keeping the hot keys left over from the PC-DOS versions has always required undocumented hacks that Windows can’t support securely and has been choking off for a decade. The DOS era hot keys are an anachronism they could have easily updated, if they have the source, no one would have missed them for long.
The core code should have been re-created and updated decades ago, but Intuit always looked on Quicken as the unprofitable ugly duckling that spawned its profitable services. Like the fees it extracts from financial institutions and investors for actually doing nothing useful to the dressed up OFX files called QFX files. They’re just QIF files with more tags and a pathetic encryption scheme, or it was a few years ago when I needed to import some out of date downloads that Quicken wouldn’t import.
I wouldn’t expect Vulture Capitalists to do anything useful with the program. The general model is to dress the company’s balance sheet up by accelerating revenue and deferring expenses, load it up with debt, and unload it on the first fool with more cash than good sense. Cutting the period when they allow the program to pull in data from 3y to 2y and finally 1y has exploited their monopoly status to boost revenue at the risk of developing real competitors. They should be looking to unload within 12-18 months before a competitor appears. After that there should be 1-2 years before the new entity files for Chapter 11 and voids the existing subscriptions.
Ron says
Had Quicken since the 90s. Using 2001 now. I track and balance with it only. Online tools for investment. Might try startup. I’m used to it and it works within the limited actions I require.