Quicken 2018 for Mac debuts, switches to subscription-only model
Quicken on Monday released the 2018 Mac edition of its personal finance software, making upgrades in areas like bill payments and investments, but primarily transitioning to a subscription-only model with Starter, Deluxe, and Premier packages.
Each tier scales up included features. The Starter package is aimed at "short-term financial goals," while Deluxe offers a more conventional featureset. Premier, finally, lets people "maximize...investments by improving portfolio performance and minimizing taxes," Quicken said. A Home, Business & Rental Property subscription is reserved for Windows users.
Each Mac subscription also comes with 5 gigabytes of Dropbox data for backups.
The new bill payment system introduces a streamlined workflow, with the ability to pay over 11,000 billers. Investment functions offer specific lot tracking and a customizable portfolio view, while loan tracking has been expanded with things like "what if" scenarios.
-l.jpg)
One-year Quicken subscriptions cost $34.99, $49.99, and $74.99, respectively. Two-year subscriptions are available only at retail, and cost $49.99, $79.99, and $119.99.
Each tier scales up included features. The Starter package is aimed at "short-term financial goals," while Deluxe offers a more conventional featureset. Premier, finally, lets people "maximize...investments by improving portfolio performance and minimizing taxes," Quicken said. A Home, Business & Rental Property subscription is reserved for Windows users.
Each Mac subscription also comes with 5 gigabytes of Dropbox data for backups.
The new bill payment system introduces a streamlined workflow, with the ability to pay over 11,000 billers. Investment functions offer specific lot tracking and a customizable portfolio view, while loan tracking has been expanded with things like "what if" scenarios.
One-year Quicken subscriptions cost $34.99, $49.99, and $74.99, respectively. Two-year subscriptions are available only at retail, and cost $49.99, $79.99, and $119.99.
Comments
I been using Quicken since I had a Tandy 1000 HX computer which must have been around 1989.
I do NOT like the subscription software model. I typically use the same version for several years until OS upgrades render it unusable. The subscription software model forces me to pay for an upgrade that is unnecessary. As such, I'll continue to use my current version of Quick for Mac as long as it functions. After that, I'll probably no longer be a Quicken user. One frustrating part is that I have decades of financial information stored in Quicken that can be difficult or impossible to transfer elsewhere.
Quicken on the Mac was a disaster when I last used it. It's one of the primary reasons I still run Windows on my Mac. Quicken 2016 and Quicken 2017 left my online banking interface inoperable so I do all my reconciliations manually, and don't even bother updating my investment accounts.
I've been using Quicken since Windows 3.1 days... Buh bye...
I ditched Quicken years ago and have been using Moneydance. More features, works well, great support. Good upgrade policy. The only drawback is there's no iPad version available. Banktivity and Moneywiz are also frequently mentioned as solid apps. Unfortunately, many of the personal finance apps now charge ongoing fees for online access, so it amounts to the same thing as an app subscription. I'm not certain, but I believe part of it may have to do with fees that financial institutions charge for online access.
Don't bother selling Intuit, the company that USED to own Quicken. Intuit sold both the Mac and Windows versions to a private company.
If you buy a standard application, you can use it in perpetuity (as long as your system runs).
You buy this Quicken and then stop paying, you don't get your magazine software anymore.
The Quicken Data Access Guarantee means that whether you renew your subscription or not, you'll always have full access to and ownership of your data. You can view, edit, export, and manually enter transactions and accounts for Deluxe and higher versions, even after your subscription ends*. Access to online services, such as transaction download, quotes, and mobile sync, along with access to Quicken Support, will end if your subscription does."
I haven't used Quicken in years so can't comment on its functionality, but if one uses it regularly then the pricing doesn't seem much more than annoying, if that. I'm not a fan of subscriptions, but that seems to be the future.
Ever since they re-hashed the user-interface to clean it up, rendering performance took a hit and them removing/modifying navigation buttons requiring my using my mouse/trackpad more often instead of my keyboard was more of a pain. This all started at release 2016.
This is all on a 2015 iMac 5K with 64G of RAM so it has way more than enough horsepower to run what should be a lite package.
So if it works fine for you, good. Had it worked like that for me that past few years, I would honestly be inclined to consider a subscription, but in my reality they dropped the ball, and hard. I'm not the only one in the pool and other users/friends have similar issues. Quicken's software took a bad direction, has bad support, and the quality of their software went downhill quickly. Making it a subscription model is almost an insult to users that had put up with its shortcomings for years. They haven't given me any reason to believe that going subscription is going to magically improve the quality of their software.
I personally stayed on Quicken 2007 until the end of last year when I finally moved to 2017. I have been using Quicken since version 1 so I have my entire banking and investment history in Quicken. I heard all the complaint with Quicken money, 2015 and 2016 so I stayed away and had no choose but to move to 2017 because 2007 was no longer support on Sierra. There are a few feature which I miss from 2007, but they fix a number of issue with online banking specifically with investments account which was not supported in 2007. Over all 2017 works well, and organized things better than 2007 did. Personally I am not going to 2018, no need to pay Quicken to help me optimize my investments. The only issue i have is the online balance in the mobile app not matching what I show on the Mac, this is has been an on and off issue with Quicken 2017.
For those who switch to other banking software, I played with them all, and yes Quicken did not keep up, mostly from GUI stand point, but those other software were simplistic, especially when it came to investment activities. If all you were doing was checking and credit cards they were probably fine. I personally like how Quicken use to minor your check registry. But time moves on and no one really records checks in their registry anymore. Hell I hardly write a check today. I mainly use Quicken to monitor all my various investment accounts. Since using online balance reconciliation I had very few issues.