Quicken has gone subscription now.

flhrci

Final Approach
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David
I just looked at the 2018 version online. $45/year "deluxe version membership" now. That is after a 10% discount for being an existing customer. The higher versions cost more. Dang. Used to be you had to buy a new version every three years to keep the online transactions downloading. Quicken recently separated from Intuit and has now obviously seen the cash cow of subscriptions. It makes it more expensive now.

David
 
Not surprising. QuickBooks has been subscription based for years.
 
Yeah I'm steamed.
They don't always have the best upgrades. I have rental property and I need it to work right... especially at tax time. Might be time to look for something else.
 
I only use Quicken in the manual mode - no automatic downloads or syncing. I'll not accept a subscription, but one doesn't want to be an orphan.
What are the realistic pc-based (non-subscription!) alternatives to Quicken, has anyone looked recently?
 
Yes, all of the software vendors are realizing that they can decouple R&D expenses from revenue by going to subscriptions. IOW, they are admitting that they can no longer offer upgrades that customers find attractive enough to pay for, so they have to lock in the revenue some other way.

Adobe was a pioneer at this. Their last quarterly report showed a huge revenue increase, beat the analysts' estimate on profits, and BTW reminded customers that they will be raising subscription prices beginning in the spring. They are just finishing the phase of sucking people in and now beginning the phase of screwing them. IMO anyway. If they double the price and lose 40% of their customers, they are $$ ahead in the cash register. So, lots of room to move.

I recently switched 25 years of transactions to MoneyDance, which seems to me to be the best current alternative. It took hours of dog work correcting import errors, etc. but I have been parallel running MD and Quicken for a couple of months now and have not seen problems. MD does have a current problem with importing stock prices due to Yahoo cutting off their stock price API, but I think having automatic stock price import is an existential issue for MD so I expect them to solve the problem.

Here is more than you ever wanted to know (124 posts): http://www.early-retirement.org/for...-up-with-quicken-moneydance-anyone-89448.html

Windows will be going subscription too. If you've been watching, M$ has been repeatedly reminding us that "Windows is a service." Hard to guess when this bitter pill will be stuffed down our throats but IMO it is inevitable and not far off.
 
From Quicken website...
Under pricing and availability, there is some discounting for 2 year membership that helps a little.
https://www.quicken.com/content/quicken-launches-2018-product-line

You can see other (better?) two year deals at retailers like Office Depot, etc.

If you read through the problem reviews (amazon as example) the issues are typical when they switch versions.
 
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I just looked at the 2018 version online. $45/year "deluxe version membership" now. That is after a 10% discount for being an existing customer. The higher versions cost more. Dang. Used to be you had to buy a new version every three years to keep the online transactions downloading. Quicken recently separated from Intuit and has now obviously seen the cash cow of subscriptions. It makes it more expensive now.

David
I'm still using Quicken 2004 on the Mac. Does everything I need. Which is why the MacBook Pro is still on 10.6. and the new Macbook is latest OS, 10.12.?
 
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Also from their site.
@murphey yours isn't on the list so I guess it never expires ;)

Quicken Product Discontinuation Date
Quicken for Mac 2007 and 2007 for Lion* October, 2016
Quicken 2014 US April 30, 2017
Quicken 2014 Canada May 31, 2017
Quicken 2015 Windows and Mac April 30, 2018
Quicken 2016 Windows and Mac April 30, 2019
Quicken 2017 US Windows and Mac April 30, 2020
Quicken Subscription Products 1 - 2 years from purchase date
Quicken Premium Support One year from purchase date or upon subscription expiration
*Assisted support and product updates for Quicken for Mac 2007 and 2007 for Lion was discontinued when Quicken for Mac 2017 was released in October, 2016. The Mac 2007 product and connected services will continue to function until your financial institutions choose to discontinue online support. Please see this FAQ for more details.
 
I bought the subscription. It was only $29.99/year. I figure I come out slightly ahead since I am one of those that upgrade, and I use both the Mac and Windows version. In any case, it was less than some other subscriptions to software that is less useful to me.
 
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Also from their site.
@murphey yours isn't on the list so I guess it never expires ;)

Quicken Product Discontinuation Date
Quicken for Mac 2007 and 2007 for Lion* October, 2016
Quicken 2014 US April 30, 2017
Quicken 2014 Canada May 31, 2017
Quicken 2015 Windows and Mac April 30, 2018
Quicken 2016 Windows and Mac April 30, 2019
Quicken 2017 US Windows and Mac April 30, 2020
Quicken Subscription Products 1 - 2 years from purchase date
Quicken Premium Support One year from purchase date or upon subscription expiration
*Assisted support and product updates for Quicken for Mac 2007 and 2007 for Lion was discontinued when Quicken for Mac 2017 was released in October, 2016. The Mac 2007 product and connected services will continue to function until your financial institutions choose to discontinue online support. Please see this FAQ for more details.
I've got 2016 with no plans to update until 2019. I do use the software to access my bank accounts and credit cards directly (the only thing that will actually stop working) but I prefer to save the fees for the two upgrades and see what competitors come in to fill the breach.
 
Been running Quicken for years, but after this version becomes obsolete, no more. I don’t need to upgrade software that does what I want.
 
I bought the subscription. It was only $29.99/year. I figure I come ou slightly ahead since I am one of those that upgrade, and I use both the Mac and Windows version. In any case, it was less than some other subscriptions to software that is less useful to me.
The problem I see is that to use my own data I will be required to pay a subscription fee basically forever. Not interested in being held hostage like that. I don't mind paying for upgrades once in a while, but I do mind being forced to pay whether they are delivering any additional value or not. And IMO "or not" is the likely outcome of this.
 
The problem I see is that to use my own data I will be required to pay a subscription fee basically forever. Not interested in being held hostage like that. I don't mind paying for upgrades once in a while, but I do mind being forced to pay whether they are delivering any additional value or not. And IMO "or not" is the likely outcome of this.
If you stop paying for the subscription, you will still be able to enter transactions manually, just like when your three years expired with the previous versions. I understand that people don't like the subscription model. I didn't either, when other software started going that way, but that's the way it is nowadays.

What happens if your subscription expires or you don’t renew? Do you lose access to Quicken?
No, you don’t lose access to Quicken. You’ll still be able to use Quicken to view all your data, enter transactions manually, and view/print reports. Online-based features will be turned off, meaning you won’t be able to download transactions directly from your bank or use Bill Pay, but you will still be able to enter transactions manually and access all your data. If you decide to renew your subscription, all the online-based features will be turned back on. (Note that this does not apply to the Quicken Starter edition. If you are using Quicken Starter, all your data will become read-only when your subscription expires.)

https://www.topfinancialtools.com/quicken-2018-membership-subscription-information/
 
@Everskyward, if you can show me that all that stuff is legally guaranteed in an enforceable license agreement that does not preclude class action suits and does not limit damages to the price paid for the software, I'll believe it. If not, you have to realize that it is all subject to change at any time, at Quicken's discretion IOW, it's the current Marketing BS and nothing more.
 
@Everskyward, if you can show me that all that stuff is legally guaranteed in an enforceable license agreement that does not preclude class action suits and does not limit damages to the price paid for the software, I'll believe it. If not, you have to realize that it is all subject to change at any time, at Quicken's discretion IOW, it's the current Marketing BS and nothing more.
Of course things can and do change. But you can say that about any replacement you're thinking of getting.
 
Of course things can and do change. But you can say that about any replacement you're thinking of getting.
YMMV, but I view the probability of MoneyDance suddenly encrypting my local data file and holding it hostage to be low probability. I view the probability of some new VP/Finance at Quicken deciding to goose revenue by taking some hostages as much higher. Remember, the buyer of Quicken is a private equity firm looking to turn its investment for a profit ASAP. Dollars drive that business. Making customers happy is only a necessary evil, not an end in itself.

But, hey, they may turn out to be a group of selfless citizens looking to improve the world through Quicken. And the Easter bunny may come tonight to deliver with generous pensions for every PoA member..
 
I quit Quickbooks when they went subscriptions. Never looked back. Micro$oft had made Office subscription only, too. I will continue to use an older version - I don't need the additional "features" and I certainly don't need them to mine my documents, especially business stuff that's covered by NDA.

The HVAC company went auto-renew on their service contracts with a clause that you agree to pay whatever price they determine on renewal. To cancel, you must give them 60 days written notice, no notification period on their part for price increase. I ended up losing money on such a contract with ADT when I had to move and they insisted that the contract was non-cancelable.... And then tried to sell me a contract at the new place (the answer was not "no", it was "hell no".

This is the way all companies are going to assure themselves a steady revenue stream that they can increase practically at will.
 
YMMV, but I view the probability of MoneyDance suddenly encrypting my local data file and holding it hostage to be low probability. I view the probability of some new VP/Finance at Quicken deciding to goose revenue by taking some hostages as much higher. Remember, the buyer of Quicken is a private equity firm looking to turn its investment for a profit ASAP. Dollars drive that business. Making customers happy is only a necessary evil, not an end in itself.

But, hey, they may turn out to be a group of selfless citizens looking to improve the world through Quicken. And the Easter bunny may come tonight to deliver with generous pensions for every PoA member..
Do you think Moneydance is run by a group of selfless citizens? How long do you think they can stay in business doing that? Actually I tried Moneydance a few years ago since Quicken for Mac was terrible compared to Quicken Windows, which I had been using. But the Mac version of Quicken has improved so I quit using Moneydance even though I had paid for the program initially. They are all businesses, and their goal is to make money.
 
Yeah I'm steamed.
They don't always have the best upgrades. I have rental property and I need it to work right... especially at tax time. Might be time to look for something else.

Agree! Let us know what you find.
 
@Everskyward, you are free believe whatever you like. What I believe is that your view of how these two businesses will behave in the future is quite naive. End of discussion.


... This is the way all companies are going to assure themselves a steady revenue stream that they can increase practically at will.
Actually I'll give you a ray of hope on that: Now that Adobe has made their popular "LightRoom" software subscription-only, there are four or five software companies racing to develop LightRoom workalikes and advertising the fact that they will be licensing the software rather than selling subscriptions. So I am expecting/aka hoping to see the same thing in the personal finance space.
 
@Everskyward, you are free believe whatever you like. What I believe is that your view of how these two businesses will behave in the future is quite naive. End of discussion.
If Quicken changes their policies, I may switch software too, but I have no problem giving them the benefit of the doubt at this point.

I don't have the aversion to subscriptions as long as I make good use of the software. I bought the Adobe photo subscription. However I won't buy Office 365 or the Office 2016 subscription, since I don't need such a powerful word processor and I never learned how to make anything more than a simple spreadsheet on Excel.
 
Windows will be going subscription too. If you've been watching, M$ has been repeatedly reminding us that "Windows is a service." Hard to guess when this bitter pill will be stuffed down our throats but IMO it is inevitable and not far off.

Kill me now.
 
Been running Quicken for years, but after this version becomes obsolete, no more. I don’t need to upgrade software that does what I want.

I'm still running Quicken 2000. I never did use it to download transactions so don't mind not having that work. But a few years ago I bought You Need A Budget and loved it and transitioned most of my stuff to that. But last year YNAB also went subscription mode. I'm still using the "classic" and it's still downloading fine. I don't know what I'll do when that stops. I might have to go to a subscription, or just back to using a paper register. Nah.
 
YMMV, but I view the probability of MoneyDance suddenly encrypting my local data file and holding it hostage to be low probability. I view the probability of some new VP/Finance at Quicken deciding to goose revenue by taking some hostages as much higher....
I've been a Quicken user since just about day one. I've never linked it to bank, credit card, stock or any other type of account. Don't use their Bill Pay, I just use the Bill Pay in my Banks site. It's a Check Register substitute for me. But I do use a lot of the functions like having it enter my 'recurring transactions' six months in advance and being able to enter other 'non recurring' ones that I know are coming up to get a projection of where I'm going to be a few months down the road. I have more than a couple accounts and move money between them a lot so the Transfer function is valuable to me. I actually move the money through the Banks site but having Quicken move it between 'registers' is a time saver. So what I'm wondering about this 'Hostage' thing is that is what you're saying is they could literally lock up my .QDF and .DAT files to make Quicken useless to me???? Could I stop that from happening by using my Firewall to 'block' them from access to my computer? I use none of their 'online' services so that wouldn't be a loss to me.
 
I’m using Quckbooks 2013 on my Mac. It does everything I want but I realize someday I’ll have to upgrade. So is there a newer version of Quickbooks for the Mac? I’m just seeing Quicken.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I actually just finished setting up MoneyDance last week or so. It was certainly interesting/scary to see exactly how much I spent on aviation this year.
 
@Everskyward


Actually I'll give you a ray of hope on that: Now that Adobe has made their popular "LightRoom" software subscription-only, there are four or five software companies racing to develop LightRoom workalikes and advertising the fact that they will be licensing the software rather than selling subscriptions. So I am expecting/aka hoping to see the same thing in the personal finance space.

Maybe, but there have been a couple of alternatives for a while. I've used dXo optics and it seems to work for a number of things, though it's not been a good library manager.

Lightroom has turned into colossal bloat ware and slowed down considerably. A LOT of users were torqued by that (and Adobe's policies). The making of competitive stuff has been underway for a bit. I use gimp instead of Photoshop....

Remember that a big part of the move to subscription services is that it allows the software company to collect massive amount of information from users. What Google and others have done has demonstrated how valuable that data is and how it can be exploited for marketing and other purposes. Every startup working on an app or service has data mining at the forefront of their design process.
 
.... So what I'm wondering about this 'Hostage' thing is that is what you're saying is they could literally lock up my .QDF and .DAT files to make Quicken useless to me???? Could I stop that from happening by using my Firewall to 'block' them from access to my computer? I use none of their 'online' services so that wouldn't be a loss to me.
@luvflyin, there are no rules to this game but I think you're pretty safe. For Quicken to go back and kill all the standalone product users would provoke such a s#1tstorm of bad PR and lawsuits that I don't think they would even consider it.

The degree of avarice expressed in their business practices depends on their strategy. If they are simply harvesting the brand, then their moves will be all about maximizing cash flow at almost any cost. If, OTOH, their plan is to make the business more profitable (which, apparently, it wasn't at Intuit) in preparation for selling it in a few years, then they are going to be a little more careful to keep at least some enhancements coming, keep customers happy and try to keep enrollment flat or increasing. I'd bet on the latter, but harvesting brands goes on all the time and is often a very profitable strategy.

Just for illustration, here is one of many, many, possible scenarios:

You, a loyal customer who has a standalone copy, decides that the current subscription price is acceptable and you sign up for a year. Sometime during that year you get a pop-up message that says "Updating Database." There is no option to decline. After that "update" you find that your standalone copy can't open the database any more.

Sometime along the way, the currently-weak database encryption is substantially strengthened. From that point, each time you open the program it fetches a decryption key from the mother ship, together with an expiration date sometime in the future (30 days maybe). If you do not use the program for 30 days or do not have internet access for 30 days, you will have to jump through some hoops to get access again. If your subscription expired and was not renewed, you can't get a new key and your database is toast. So the fact that you still have the most recent program version on your own computer is irrelevant.

After a couple of price increases you get annoyed and decide to switch to some competing program. You go to export your data and you find that there are no longer any export options that are useful for a complete export. They have been removed.

OK, you decide to bite the bullet and print out everything that is important, then start from scratch with a new program. In the mean time your subscription has expired so you go to their web site to buy another month during which you can get this done. You find that while they quote prices on a per-month basis, the minimum purchase for a lapsed subscriber is two years.​

Are we having fun yet?

An important point here is that programs like Quicken, Adobe Photoshop, and Windows have market and pricing power because they are so dominant. Their users have few if any alternatives, so they must accept (at least in the short term) whatever the vendor decides to shove down their throats. Programs playing in more competitive market spaces simply do not have this power. If a program like PDF-reader Nitro Reader announced a subscription plan, people would simply switch to Foxit Reader or some other similar program. These games are all about switching costs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_barriers). The higher the switching cost, the more power the vendor has.
 
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@luvflyin, there are no rules to this game but I think you're pretty safe. For Quicken to go back and kill all the standalone product users would provoke such a s#1tstorm of bad PR and lawsuits that I don't think they would even consider it.

The degree of avarice expressed in their business practices depends on their strategy. If they are simply harvesting the brand, then their moves will be all about maximizing cash flow at almost any cost. If, OTOH, their plan is to make the business more profitable (which, apparently, it wasn't at Intuit) in preparation for selling it in a few years, then they are going to be a little more careful to keep at least some enhancements coming, keep customers happy and try to keep enrollment flat or increasing. I'd bet on the latter, but harvesting brands goes on all the time and is often a very profitable strategy.

Just for illustration, here is one of many, many, possible scenarios:

You, a loyal customer who has a standalone copy, decides that the current subscription price is acceptable and you sign up for a year. Sometime during that year you get a pop-up message that says "Updating Database." There is no option to decline. After that "update" you find that your standalone copy can't open the database any more.

Sometime along the way, the currently-weak database encryption is substantially strengthened. From that point, each time you open the program it fetches a decryption key from the mother ship, together with an expiration date sometime in the future (30 days maybe). If you do not use the program for 30 days or do not have internet access for 30 days, you will have to jump through some hoops to get access again. If your subscription expired and was not renewed, you can't get a new key and your database is toast. So the fact that you still have the most recent program version on your own computer is irrelevant.

After a couple of price increases you get annoyed and decide to switch to some competing program. You go to export your data and you find that there are no longer any export options that are useful for a complete export. They have been removed.

OK, you decide to bite the bullet and print out everything that is important, then start from scratch with a new program. In the mean time your subscription has expired so you go to their web site to buy another month during which you can get this done. You find that while they quote prices on a per-month basis, the minimum purchase for a lapsed subscriber is two years.​

Are we having fun yet?

An important point here is that programs like Quicken, Adobe Photoshop, and Windows have market and pricing power because they are so dominant. Their users have few if any alternatives, so the must accept (at least in the short term) whatever the vendor decides to shove down their throats. Programs playing in more competitive market spaces simply do not have this power. If a program like PDF-reader Nitro Reader announced a subscription plan, people would simply switch to Foxit Reader or some other similar program. These games are all about switching costs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_barriers). The higher the switching cost, the more power the vendor has.
Thanks for the info. I think I'm going to pay the 'switching cost' of building my own program in a Spreadsheet to do what I want it do. It'll take some time. I know Excel but from what I've been reading here Microsoft is on the way to forcing the 'subscription' thing. Just had to replace my computer and got it with Office preloaded. I chose 2016 over 365 because I didn't like the subscription thing. That was the first I had heard of that. And then I had to download and install Quicken which was when I learned abot their subscription thing. Didn't like it but had no choice. I'm going to start weaning myself away from these guys
 
@luvflyin, there are no rules to this game but I think you're pretty safe. For Quicken to go back and kill all the standalone product users would provoke such a s#1tstorm of bad PR and lawsuits that I don't think they would even consider it.

The degree of avarice expressed in their business practices depends on their strategy. If they are simply harvesting the brand, then their moves will be all about maximizing cash flow at almost any cost. If, OTOH, their plan is to make the business more profitable (which, apparently, it wasn't at Intuit) in preparation for selling it in a few years, then they are going to be a little more careful to keep at least some enhancements coming, keep customers happy and try to keep enrollment flat or increasing. I'd bet on the latter, but harvesting brands goes on all the time and is often a very profitable strategy.

Just for illustration, here is one of many, many, possible scenarios:

You, a loyal customer who has a standalone copy, decides that the current subscription price is acceptable and you sign up for a year. Sometime during that year you get a pop-up message that says "Updating Database." There is no option to decline. After that "update" you find that your standalone copy can't open the database any more.

Sometime along the way, the currently-weak database encryption is substantially strengthened. From that point, each time you open the program it fetches a decryption key from the mother ship, together with an expiration date sometime in the future (30 days maybe). If you do not use the program for 30 days or do not have internet access for 30 days, you will have to jump through some hoops to get access again. If your subscription expired and was not renewed, you can't get a new key and your database is toast. So the fact that you still have the most recent program version on your own computer is irrelevant.

After a couple of price increases you get annoyed and decide to switch to some competing program. You go to export your data and you find that there are no longer any export options that are useful for a complete export. They have been removed.

OK, you decide to bite the bullet and print out everything that is important, then start from scratch with a new program. In the mean time your subscription has expired so you go to their web site to buy another month during which you can get this done. You find that while they quote prices on a per-month basis, the minimum purchase for a lapsed subscriber is two years.​

Are we having fun yet?

An important point here is that programs like Quicken, Adobe Photoshop, and Windows have market and pricing power because they are so dominant. Their users have few if any alternatives, so the must accept (at least in the short term) whatever the vendor decides to shove down their throats. Programs playing in more competitive market spaces simply do not have this power. If a program like PDF-reader Nitro Reader announced a subscription plan, people would simply switch to Foxit Reader or some other similar program. These games are all about switching costs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_barriers). The higher the switching cost, the more power the vendor has.

I've always likened the software model to illegal drugs - cheap/free at first, then you get hooked, then it's all your money or your life. People thought I was beging absurd....nope. This was true a couple decades ago, even more true now.
 
Thanks for the info. I think I'm going to pay the 'switching cost' of building my own program in a Spreadsheet to do what I want it do. It'll take some time. I know Excel but from what I've been reading here Microsoft is on the way to forcing the 'subscription' thing. Just had to replace my computer and got it with Office preloaded. I chose 2016 over 365 because I didn't like the subscription thing. That was the first I had heard of that. And then I had to download and install Quicken which was when I learned abot their subscription thing. Didn't like it but had no choice. I'm going to start weaning myself away from these guys
You may want to check out Open Office if you're starting a spreadsheet project from scratch. I've switched from Excel to OO for day-to-day stuff.
 
Thanks for the info. I think I'm going to pay the 'switching cost' of building my own program in a Spreadsheet to do what I want it do. ...
You might want to take a look at OpenOffice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice). I haven't paid much attention to it lately, but it has a spreadsheet that is said to be an Excel workalike.

I've always likened the software model to illegal drugs - cheap/free at first, then you get hooked, then it's all your money or your life. People thought I was beging absurd....nope. This was true a couple decades ago, even more true now.
Yes. When I had my business we used the Great Plains Dynamics accounting package. They offered annual "maintenance" contracts costing $Thousands that included some nominal support plus copies of upgrades as they became available. If you skipped the maintenance contract for a couple of years, then wanted to re-up a contract to get a new version of Dynamics, you had to pay the fees for all the years you skipped before they would sell you the current year contract. As Theodore Roosevelt said: “If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
 
This is all a plot by the Chinese to be able to provide and entice people to switch to a free software suite with backdoor reports on every key stroke. Oh, shucks, there I go being paranoid again. ;)
 
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