what is the difference between Quicken Starter and Quicken Deluxe?

JMack436

I recently just decided not to renew my yearly subscription of Quicken Deluxe, due to the price.
Quicken continues to work on my PC for most basic functions, but none of the online features are available - and now there are two permanent banners on the screen, nagging me to renew.
I looked at the "Renew" options from within the PC app, and it popped up a screen with four choices:
- Quicken Classic Business & Personal - $131.88/year

- Quicken Classic Premier - $95.88/year

- Quicken Classic Deluxe - $71.88/year

- Quicken Classic Starter - $47.88/year

I'm trying to determine what the differences are between Starter and Deluxe.
I can't even find this information on the Quicken website.
In fact, the Starter version isn't even mentioned on the website either…?
Where can I find a comprehensive "comparison" article? (Google has been no help)

All I'm interested in is basic record keeping - Quicken is basically just my electronic checkbook register. I don't need any of the online features, or budgeting or even financial planning.
I'm only interested in the ability to reconcile (manually) and generate reports at tax time.
Will the Starter edition be sufficient?
TIA

Boatnmaniac

Starter also does not allow tracking of investment accounts. Need Deluxe or higher to be able to do that.

There are also some really attractive steeply discounted prices for Quicken on NewEgg.com right now…$32 for Deluxe after taking the additional $4 bonus discount. This is for current subscribers and is not a "new subscriber" special. Be sure to make sure when buying from any retail outlet to select the option that are not marked for "new subscribers" because these cannot be used to resubscribe.

jacobs

The marketing wizards at Quicken have intentionally made their website almost impossible to compare the features between the different versions of Quicken subscriptions. They used to have a pretty good comparison page, and they inexplicably took it away last year! 😉

Fortunately, past pages on the Internet are captured in the Internet Archive, so we can go back and look at that comparison page from the past. I just picked a random date in 2022 to get this comparison page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221110145652/https%3A//www.quicken.com/product-selector

As you can see if you load the page, Starter does not track investment/retirements accounts or loan accounts, does not have tax reports by tax schedule, and does not have savings goals.

Also, note that if you have Quicken Starter and your subscription lapses, it becomes read-only, so you can't continue to enter any transactions manually.

eqpu

I recently just decided not to renew my yearly subscription of Quicken Deluxe, due to the price.

I am wondering whether Quicken revenue and/or subscribers has increased or decreased after the subscription model along with decrease in support time from around 3 years to 1 year for normal support including online services.

Based on the articles in this forum, I have a feeling that Quicken being a gold standard for personal finance software, many people are using it but have either discontinued the subscription due to price increases or are using Quicken 2013 or prior editions like me.

I feel that luck was on my side when in spite of purchasing Quicken 2013, Quicken 2015, I never used it and continued using Quicken 2012 as nothing much had changed for me. I never knew that Quicken Id and subscription editions are the future at that time. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to go back to a previous edition once the file with around 20 to 25 years of data is upgraded to a new edition and a lot more data was added in subsequent editions like 2015. Now, at least with 20 20 hindsight, I can upgrade to Quicken 2013 if required and stop there like some others have done.

Are any numbers for Quicken standalone revenue and/or active subscribers over the years available in public domain, either when it was with Intuit or even with current owners.

eqpu

Will the Starter edition be sufficient?

Short answer is Yes until Starter edition subscription is valid. No after that.

As mentioned above, Starter edition goes into read only mode once subscription ends.

jacobs

I am wondering whether Quicken revenue and/or subscribers has increased or decreased after the subscription model… Are any numbers for Quicken standalone revenue and/or active subscribers over the years available in public domain…

I have found very little such information. Since they were formerly a small division of a big publicly-traded company, sales and subscribers weren't specified when Intuit owned Quicken. In the 8 years since becoming a private company, there is no public information about revenue, profit or subscriptions.

One nugget of information was in a Tech Crunch interview with Quicken CEO Eric Dunn in September 2021. It reported: "Since the [spinoff from Intuit], it appears that Quicken has grown quite a lot. It currently has 2 million active users, which Dunn said is 'significantly higher' than what it had at the time of its spinoff from Intuit. The executive declined to reveal hard revenue figures but he did share that the company is profitable and has seen a 50% increase in annual sales volume over the five-year period, (or double-digit growth if you annualize it)." He also said in that interview that “we’re strongly profitable and have been consistently profitable since the time of the spinoff. We’re a very successful company, revenue-wise — far above what it ever was in the Intuit years." In a different podcast, I heard him describe Simplifi as a "fast-growing" product, although he didn't quantify it. Bottom line is that I think Quicken has grown its active user base and increased its revenue of profit since switching to subscription-based pricing.

JMack436

"…many people are using it but have either discontinued the subscription due to price increases or are using Quicken 2013 or prior editions like me…"

I still have my copy of 2013 Deluxe, but apparently they also made it impossible to go back to.
I even tried exporting my current data file to .QIF format and importing that into a fresh 2013 installation. The result was catastrophic. Categories were renamed or deleted altogether, none of my accounts had the proper dates and current balances were off by hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Quicken has been reformatting these data files for years now, probably for the only purpose of preventing backwards compatibility.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20429001#Comment_20429001

If you want to take another crack on the QIF export/import look at this, it might work for you:

https://www.quicknperlwiz.com/changetransfers.html

And note that it was Intuit's policy to change the data format every year and did it in a way that wasn't backwards compatible. When Quicken Inc took over, they changed that but that was starting in Quicken 2016.

jacobs

And note that it was Intuit's policy to change the data format every year and did it in a way that wasn't backwards compatible. When Quicken Inc took over, they changed that but that was starting in Quicken 2016.

On the other hand, Quicken Mac has database updates with almost every bi-monthly release. That's because Quicken Mac is still actively building out new features which require frequent additions to or changes in the database structure, while Quicken Windows is a much more mature product. But I'm not sure why Quicken, or any company, would have much concern for backwards compatibility for users who are no longer paying for the product; their focus is on current customers and moving forward, not trying to prevent backward compatibility for ex-customers.

I've actually been curious why Quicken 2013 continues to be available for free download, allowing people to choose to stay on an old pre-subscription version of the program indefinitely. I understand it's used as a bridge for people moving from even older versions to the current version, but it seemshaving it freely available actually costs them some sales. I guess it's too small a number for them to worry about?

Chris_QPW

@jacobs said:

I've actually been curious why Quicken 2013 continues to be available for free download, allowing people to choose to stay on an old pre-subscription version of the program indefinitely. I understand it's used as a bridge for people moving from even older versions to the current version, but it seems having it freely available actually costs them some sales. I guess it's too small a number for them to worry about?

I have sort of always chocked it up to laziness but given the attention it gets for the purpose the "get it free and keep it" that is reported on here maybe the "pertinent" information hasn't gotten to the people that make those kinds of decisions.

The stated reason for keeping Quicken 2013 around was so that people with even older versions of Quicken have an upgrade path. Basically, viewed in the same way Quicken 2007 Mac is, but they are mistaken about its need.

Quicken 2014 had a bug in its first few versions that wouldn't allow it to convert Quicken 2009 and lower versions data files. That was later fixed, and every version past that including the current version has been able to convert any past data file from Quicken 2004 onward. Quicken 2004 is a true "bridge" version, or more precisely you need a version of Quicken 2000 through Quicken 2004 to convert a data file before those versions. Note that Quicken 2004 is also available for free download for this purpose.

JMack436

"..If you want to take another crack on the QIF export/import look at this, it might work for you: https://www.quicknperlwiz.com/changetransfers.html …"

That seems to have helped a LOT. Thanks.

Next question is, if I decide to resubscribe, can I "downgrade" to the Starter Edition, or will I have to stick with Deluxe?
I have heard that if you decide to unsubscribe from the Starter Edition that your data file will become read-only and no longer accessible.
My main concern with staying unsubscribed is, what's to stop the folks at Quicken from doing the same thing to my current Deluxe data file?

Chris_QPW

If if you let your subscription expire with the Starter edition it will treat your data file as read only. You need Deluxe to keep changing your data file in offline only mode with ads taking up about 20% of the main window.

JMack436

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20429163#Comment_20429163

But since I was already using Deluxe, can I renew a subscription while "downgrading" to the Starter Edition?

Jon

Yes, you can downgrade your subscription level when you renew. When I did that several years ago, I downgraded from Premiere to Deluxe.

Boatnmaniac

Starter also does not allow tracking of investment accounts. Need Deluxe or higher to be able to do that.

There are also some really attractive steeply discounted prices for Quicken on NewEgg.com right now…$32 for Deluxe after taking the additional $4 bonus discount. This is for current subscribers and is not a "new subscriber" special. Be sure to make sure when buying from any retail outlet to select the option that are not marked for "new subscribers" because these cannot be used to resubscribe.

Chris_QPW

@JMack436

You can downgrade any time you want, you upgrade anytime you want, that won't change how Quicken behaves for any given subscription edition. The data file isn't changed.

I would never downgrade to Starter edition, but if I was to do it, I would never "renew" I would create a new Quicken Id and purchase the Starter edition for it, and then switch the data file to that Quicken Id. That would give me the best options.

1. Use Quicken Starter with an active subscription.
2. Stop using Quicken and have a read-only access to data file.
3. Use the old Deluxe edition Quicken Id in offline mode, but with the version of Quicken that it was using when it expired (I would make sure that I have the install and the patches that were available at that time).
4. I could purchase Deluxe or above for a year and use either Quicken Id, and after that year let the subscription expire and then use it in offline only mode (with the ads of course).

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20429175#Comment_20429175

Yeah, that reminds me of something else, so what happens to Investment accounts when you downgrade to Starter?

Answer: they become read-only.

JMack436

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20429175#Comment_20429175

That works. Thanks.👍️

eqpu

what's to stop the folks at Quicken from doing the same thing to my current Deluxe data file

This is the official response for the above question

https://www.quicken.com/support/what-quicken-data-access-guarantee