Pricing policy is unfair to current users

jgianato

I have used Quicken and QuickBooks for may years. My renewal is up and the renewal cost is double if I were to buy a new program. I would think Quicken would want to keep its existing customers. You can buy the program online from third party vendors at a lower cost than direct.

jgianato

If you contact their customer support they offer you 30% off, but if you go online and buy a new subscription, it is 50% off.

splasher

You can buy the program online from third party vendors at a lower cost than direct.

If the third party vendors sold at the same price as Quicken, Inc, why would anyone buy from anyone other than Quicken, Inc?

but if you go online and buy a new subscription, it is 50% off.

Buying new versus renewing means that the information in the Quicken Cloud Account used to hold the synced information for QMobile/QWeb would be restarted and you would lose any history that you have built up. That history in the QCA may or may not be important to a user.

jacobs

@jgianato Have you never seen subscription offers with a teaser rate to get you started? Almost every magazine and newspaper offers such a discounted starter rate. Various types of streaming services, some cable/Internet services, phone services, etc. do the same. New users get a discount int their first year, because the companies try to attract new users who will then remain as long-time customers paying the going rate. It's simply a widely-used way of doing business.

And don't think that all customers should get the 50% off rate. If they did that, they'd quickly go out of business. So what you're really advocating for is to not offer a discount to new customers, just so existing customers don't feel slighted. And if that meant the company would gain fewer new customers, then they would end up hiking the rates even more to existing customers — so everyone would lose.

For renewing customers, it's often possible to find the program on sale at a discount. Currently, for instance, Newwegg.com has Quicken Deluxe for $36, and it appears not to be limited to new customers. That's a great deal! So rather than complaining about the new-versus-renewal pricing, I'd just snap that up and count it as a good bargain. (You can apply a purchased activation code to an existing subscription which has 6 months or less remaining until renewal, and it will add 12 months to the current expiration date.)