What is the $1 fee? [Edited]

DJPJ

I was just billed, a week before my subscription renews, for $1. WHY IS THIS and why did Quicken not let me know?

splasher

The $1 is the way businesses confirm that the credit card is valid.  If you look at your credit card website immediately after a gas purchase, you will find a $1 pre-charge that is cancelled days after the purchase.  Generally, they never have anything but a "pending" status.

About your title, "I own it".  No you don't, you purchased a license to use the software with online banking privileges for a given amount of time.  Your subscription is about to end and you are setup for auto-renew. 

Normally, you can change the auto-renew status at the Quicken.com website, but you might need to contact Quicken Support to change it for this renewal.

Boatnmaniac

@DJPJ - You only need to renew your subscription if you wish to continue using Quicken's online services such as transaction download, quotes, Mobile and Quicken on the Web.  If you do not renew, then these and other online services will end but you will still be able to continue using Quicken manually provided you are not running Starter edition.  Starter will become read-only once the subscription expires.

Boatnmaniac

DJPJ said:

Thanks for that quick answer. I have one other question: since I am not 'trading' or investing much, but simply have income related investments such as bonds, can I downgrade to Deluxe. I am only asking because I do not like the increases in how much I am now having to pay Quicken for their premium end of their offerings. I am actually shopping now for an alternative and [Removed - Soliciation] offers a product (checking it out) and I will likely migrate to another program so Long as I can import my Quicken data successfully. I have been using Quicken since the EARLIER EVER editions. I am quite perplexed by the apparent profit motive with an annual model, which is motivating me to move elsewhere!

You can downgrade or upgrade at whenever you want and Quicken will either credit or charge you only for the difference in the subscription costs so it is not needing to buy another whole new program.  You should be able to accomplish this in your online Quicken.com account or you can Contact Quicken Support to assist you on this.

BTW, if your concern is the cost of the subscription you might want to consider searching for retailer (i.e., Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, etc.) deals.  It is not uncommon to find something at a lower cost....just make sure that what you buy is a subscription product that comes with the activation code and you are not buying one which is being offered as a special for new subscribers.

Boatnmaniac

DJPJ said:

Well, I would be comfortable paying a lower price for the premier, say around $45 a year. I paid $47 for the intro price for the first year. I am also beginning to think that the Premier version is more than I need. I am looking at Personal Capital as well...Since the Mint product is also about "data mining" - - thanks for the tip - - I will stick with the Big Q for another year and downgrade to the Deluxe version.

FYI:  I just noticed that Staples has a "special buy" price of $31.19 for a 1 year Deluxe CD.  This is not the new subscribers special price...it's good for existing subscribers.  Stay away from the Quicken products that say they are for new subscribers.  You can use the activation code provided with that to renew your subscription.

splasher

The $1 is the way businesses confirm that the credit card is valid.  If you look at your credit card website immediately after a gas purchase, you will find a $1 pre-charge that is cancelled days after the purchase.  Generally, they never have anything but a "pending" status.

About your title, "I own it".  No you don't, you purchased a license to use the software with online banking privileges for a given amount of time.  Your subscription is about to end and you are setup for auto-renew. 

Normally, you can change the auto-renew status at the Quicken.com website, but you might need to contact Quicken Support to change it for this renewal.

DJPJ

Thanks for that quick answer. I have one other question: since I am not 'trading' or investing much, but simply have income related investments such as bonds, can I downgrade to Deluxe. I am only asking because I do not like the increases in how much I am now having to pay Quicken for their premium end of their offerings. I am actually shopping now for an alternative and [Removed - Soliciation] offers a product (checking it out) and I will likely migrate to another program so Long as I can import my Quicken data successfully. I have been using Quicken since the EARLIER EVER editions. I am quite perplexed by the apparent profit motive with an annual model, which is motivating me to move elsewhere!

DJPJ

Splasher, your support is truly appreciated here.

Boatnmaniac

@DJPJ - You only need to renew your subscription if you wish to continue using Quicken's online services such as transaction download, quotes, Mobile and Quicken on the Web.  If you do not renew, then these and other online services will end but you will still be able to continue using Quicken manually provided you are not running Starter edition.  Starter will become read-only once the subscription expires.

splasher

Downgrade to Deluxe, yes, you can.  It does not have the "free" bill/check pay and a few other "useless" (imo) features, but it has everything you need to track saving, checking, cash, investment, liability and loan accounts.

Boatnmaniac

DJPJ said:

Thanks for that quick answer. I have one other question: since I am not 'trading' or investing much, but simply have income related investments such as bonds, can I downgrade to Deluxe. I am only asking because I do not like the increases in how much I am now having to pay Quicken for their premium end of their offerings. I am actually shopping now for an alternative and [Removed - Soliciation] offers a product (checking it out) and I will likely migrate to another program so Long as I can import my Quicken data successfully. I have been using Quicken since the EARLIER EVER editions. I am quite perplexed by the apparent profit motive with an annual model, which is motivating me to move elsewhere!

You can downgrade or upgrade at whenever you want and Quicken will either credit or charge you only for the difference in the subscription costs so it is not needing to buy another whole new program.  You should be able to accomplish this in your online Quicken.com account or you can Contact Quicken Support to assist you on this.

BTW, if your concern is the cost of the subscription you might want to consider searching for retailer (i.e., Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, etc.) deals.  It is not uncommon to find something at a lower cost....just make sure that what you buy is a subscription product that comes with the activation code and you are not buying one which is being offered as a special for new subscribers.

DJPJ

One comment above DID catch my eye: I do NOT use any on-line services, such as Quicken Bill pay OR downloading items for reconciliation as I do this manually within the Quicken Program. Can I therefore use the program I already "own" ( it is a Windows Based Program) without pay the exorbitant annual fee of over $70....thanks for your help!

Boatnmaniac

@DJPJ - If you are not using any online services, you can continue to use Quicken manually.  You can read more about this in the Data Access Guarantee: https://www.quicken.com/support/what-quicken-data-access-guarantee.

You should also note that once your subscription expires you will see a banner encouraging you to resubscribe that will take up about 25% of your screen.  Some find that really irritating and others don't seem to be bothered too much by it.  Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of that banner is to resubscribe. 

You might want to consider letting your subscription expire and see how much that banner might bother you and see which online services you do use (even updating your software to the latest version is an online service that will end) that you would no longer be getting.  Then if you decide afterward that you really do want to have online services you can resubscribe at that time.

And if you decide never to subscribe, again, you will be able to continue using your Quicken installation manually for as long as your computer and operating system supports it.

jacobs

DJPJ said:

I do not like the increases in how much I am now having to pay Quicken for their premium end of their offerings...  I am quite perplexed by the apparent profit motive with an annual model, which is motivating me to move elsewhere!

@DJPJ  I'm not saying we need to be sorry for them, or even terribly sympathetic, but I'll just offer some perspective...

1) Quicken is a business, and the goal of every business is to make a profit.

2) When it was owned by Intuit, Quicken didn't produce big profits. It's one of the reasons Quicken languished without significant growth or innovation for a long time, and Quicken for Mac development nearly died.

3) Quicken was bought out -- some might say "rescued from" Intuit -- by a private equity company, H.I.G. Capital. The purchase price was never disclosed, but Quicken needs to generate profits to pay off the debt incurred in buying the company, plus a positive return (profit) on the investment.

My reading of the situation is that Quicken was probably under-priced for what it took to maintain and continue to develop. And its old pricing model -- release a new version every year, and have it expire after three years, such that the majority of user paid once every three years -- didn't generate the revenue needed to maintain, grow and innovate. This allowed other software players to come into the space and nibble away at Quicken's user base, further eroding revenue. They needed to charge more to invest in improving the products -- we see this with Quicken Mac, where an enlarged development team is slowly but surely building a much better program -- and innovating -- like creating the new online-only Simplify product to compete against Mint and other online-only personal finance products. 

That leaves users in a spot where one could say, "hey, I don't want to pay so much each year to fund development of new products I don't even use, and to pay off debts to a multi-billion dollar investment company, and to increase their bottom line." Or, one could take a different view: "While I don't like paying more than in the past, I value what I get from using Quicken, and if this is the price of keeping Quicken healthy and vibrant so they'll stick around for the future, I guess I'm willing to pay a little more for that."

That all said, if you use Quicken pretty lightly, you may find there are other tools available which do what you need and cost less. One thing to keep in mind is that every product out there which is free is looking to profit off you in other ways. Personal Capital is geared toward investors, and while their app is free, they use it as a lead generator to acquire paying clients for their financial services -- so expect to be solicited if they find your income and assets worth going after. (Yes, they are examining your data. There is no free lunch. ) Mint's app is also free, but their model is to use it as a platform for advertising. They also mine users' data, aggregate it, and sell it. (Again, the service is free, but there's no free lunch.)

If you find one of these or other products fits your needs for managing your personal finances, and you're okay with the way they're looking at and monetizing your data, then you've got your answer. On the other hand, if you find Quicken offers better features for your personal finance needs, that you don't want to deal with trying to migrate your data and learn a new systems, and/or that you want more privacy for your data, then you've got your answer. There is no universal right answer; the right answer for each of us is something we can only decide for ourselves.

DJPJ

Well, I would be comfortable paying a lower price for the premier, say around $45 a year. I paid $47 for the intro price for the first year. I am also beginning to think that the Premier version is more than I need. I am looking at Personal Capital as well...Since the Mint product is also about "data mining" - - thanks for the tip - - I will stick with the Big Q for another year and downgrade to the Deluxe version.

Boatnmaniac

DJPJ said:

Well, I would be comfortable paying a lower price for the premier, say around $45 a year. I paid $47 for the intro price for the first year. I am also beginning to think that the Premier version is more than I need. I am looking at Personal Capital as well...Since the Mint product is also about "data mining" - - thanks for the tip - - I will stick with the Big Q for another year and downgrade to the Deluxe version.

FYI:  I just noticed that Staples has a "special buy" price of $31.19 for a 1 year Deluxe CD.  This is not the new subscribers special price...it's good for existing subscribers.  Stay away from the Quicken products that say they are for new subscribers.  You can use the activation code provided with that to renew your subscription.

DJPJ

Thanks, BoatManiac!!