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If you're looking to replace Quicken, you're in the right place.
For years, Quicken was the name in personal finance software.
But let's accept reality – Quicken breaks a lot. It doesn't sync your accounts randomly, you have password problems, screens that should appear are blank, and it's just not a great experience anymore. Sometimes it feels like they're just getting you to buy the newer version, right?
Quicken was once the most popular and powerful personal finance management software out there.
But Quicken isn't what it used to be. It's hard to innovate a platform built in 1983. Back then, cell phones were bricks (if you could afford one) and apps were what you ordered at a restaurant. Quicken has faced a lot of technical issues and its support is meh at best. (if you own Quicken for Mac, you know this headache first hand)
In 2010, Intuit acquired Mint for $170 million. In 2016, Intuit sold Quicken to private equity firm H.I.G. Capital. That tells you something.
Look:
If you're tired of Quicken, its support and sync issues, and want a suitable free alternative or replacement – we have some options.
Here are some of the best Quicken alternatives available:
Our Best Picks
Why It'll Work For You
Personal Capital is our Editor's Pick as the best Quicken alternative because it covers nearly as much ground as Quicken (no billpay) and regularly updated so you don't have to worry about sync problems. It has a solid suite of investment tools, a robust budgeting system, and portfolio analysis that beats the rest. It's free.
Hands down the best spreadsheet automation tool on the market. If you want to move to a spreadsheet you can customize to exactly what you need, Tiller will pull the data for you. You can build it from scratch or use a template, and Tiller will save you a ton of time and hassle.
15 Best Quicken Alternatives:
1. Personal Capital
If you're a long time user of Quicken, you're beyond the “help me build my budget” phase.
If you're more interested how your investment account is performing and less interested in just knowing how much you're spending on groceries, Personal Capital is a great Quicken alternative (but it'll also pull your credit card transactions so you will know how much you spent on groceries if you want!).
Personal Capital is a full-featured, free, personal finance management tool that focuses on helping you with investing.
It has a powerful mobile app (also means it's a cloud-based service) that replicates the web experience. They're free because some users pay them for their wealth management services (optional). They are not stuffed with advertisements like some other free tools. You can read my full review of Personal Capital.
Why it is a good alternative to Quicken: It's better than Quicken because it's updated, has a rich set of tools for investment and retirement, and it has a budget and expense tracking component. It's a website and not a software application, there's no software to download and patch or update (ugh) – that's all done automatically.
I am a fan of their retirement planner, a tool that helps you project your future financial needs and whether you'll get there. It's worth checking out.
One other vote of confidence for this Quicken replacement is their CEO – Bill Harris. He was formerly the CEO of Intuit and PayPal. You know he has the leadership skills to dominate in this space and the ability to lead teams to build financial systems that are top notch (the rest of the leadership team is very impressive in their own right!).
What could be better? The budget and expense tracking are good but it's not as old as Quicken, so it's not as developed as Quicken. I don't find it to be a negative because it works for me, but people with really complicated budgets may find it limiting.
(since you access it with a browser, it is compatible with Mac OS!)
2. Tiller
One of the most popular personal finance tools out there is a little software application known as Microsoft Excel.
People love spreadsheets.
You can customize it, tweak it, and get it tailored to exactly what you need. The only downside to spreadsheets is how you need to pull the data yourself… and who really wants to do that? Quicken was great back in the day when there weren't nearly as many sync issues because it pulled the data for you.
There's a solution:
Welcome Tiller – a $4.92 a month service (after a free 30 day trial) – that pulls your data for you and puts it into a Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel document.
You can start with one of their free templates or build your own, but after the initial work you'll have a fully automated spreadsheet tailored to what you need. You can use this to track your net worth, set a budget, or anything else you can imagine. (see our review of Tiller)
Why it is better than Quicken: Quicken is now cloud-based so if you want to avoid putting your data into the cloud, going with a spreadsheet is your best option. Tiller makes it possible for you to get automation AND keep your data locally.
3. You Need a Budget (YNAB)
You Need a Budget is one of the best budgeting software tools available.
Think of it like Mint with a personality and a philosophy.
YNAB's philosophy revolves around four rules:
Those four pillars form the foundation for a budgeting app that has helped many people transform their financial lives.
If you're looking to transition to a financial tool that will help you (as in help you make the change, not just record expenses), you should take a look at YNAB.
Why it is better than Quicken: Quicken only tracks your budget, YNAB does that AND helps you build a budget that meets the demands of your life and your savings needs. If you want to change the way you budget, while still tracking it, YNAB is your solution.
YNAB is not an entire personal finance management suite – it focuses on budgeting and only budgeting. You won't get investment tools, retirement planning, or wealth management. It's strictly about building, maintaining, and transitioning into the budget you want.
4. CountAbout
The founders built CountAbout to be a Quicken alternative. Founded in mid-2012, it is one of the only personal finance apps that will import data from Quicken (and Mint!). If you're looking to transition away from Quicken but worry about losing all your data, you can feed it your Quicken file and it'll populate itself. That'll make the transition far less painful!
Like Quicken, CountAbout isn't free but it costs $9.99 for the Basic subscription and $39.99 for Premium subscription. The Premium subscription includes automatic transaction download. A subscription model means you have complete data privacy and you won't get annoying ads like with Mint.
Why is it a good alternative to Quicken? CountAbout has a lot of similar features to Quicken’s: split transactions, recurring transactions, attachments, budgeting and more.
CountAbout is web-based, with multi-factor account security, so you don't have to download a program onto your computer, and there's no need to deal with unwieldy syncing issues – all you need is a web browser. And with CountAbout’s iOS and Android apps, your financial information is always at your fingertips.
Check out the key features (reminds me a lot of Quicken):
5. Pocketsmith
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