Quicken Classic Deluxe user not happy about price increases

D Huck

Please advise.

I am not happy about the increases in pricing from 2023 $40 to 2025 $84. If I drop the Cloud Sync which mysterious appeared several months ago, will that reduce the annual fee?

I do not want mobile app, cloud syncing if it increases my annual fee. This feature was not explained fully when it appeared in the software.

I do not need any investment features or budget planning. I use this package only for tracking monthly expenses for tax purposes.

If I cannot reduce the annual fee charged and get a reimbursement for the over charge, I may have to switch to another software package.

Chris_QPW

Quicken Inc doesn't sell Quicken "piece meal" other than the editions Starter, Deluxe, …

But Starter might be what you want, it is "sometimes" cheaper than Deluxe and doesn't support investment or loan accounts. But the best way to get a reduced price is wait for a sale at a retailer.

pbmsmit

I agree with @D Huck Quicken is expensive because it has features I don't need/use. Quicken may think to offer 2-3 different versions to keep existing and attract new customers. I only use it to download my banking and investment accounts, but don't really need all the details for my investments because that is on Fidelity or CharlesSchwab, just the balances. Look at (free) tools like [Removed - 3rd-Party Software].

Chris_QPW

Quicken isn't for everyone, definitely if it doesn't fit your use case and there is another product that will do it for cheaper than you certainly should go for it.

I don't see Quicken Inc changing their pricing model Quicken Classic.

What you don't seem to get is by asking for specialized versions of Quicken you have increased Quicken Inc's cost, and you are asking for them to lower the price for this.

Both you have requested different features, and because they are less than what the edition you are using you think that you are saving Quicken Inc money. You are wrong. Every different configuration requires more development, QA, and support time. In fact, removing features that you guys have suggested don't save them anything, only cost more.

Quicken is actually only one program. The license controls what features to turn on or off or do something different. The investment and budget code is already there, and it has to be maintained for the people that are using it. Turning it off doesn't save Quicken Inc a dime. It costs them money because people will go for the lower edition.

pbmsmit

Looks this is a overheated sales guy from quicken, I don't think this bold reaction is from Quicken itself. "It costs them money because people will go for the lower edition." So it is their goal to make the most profit by charging the customers as much as possible?? Looks like that. And I doubt it, a more dedicated version (only 2 or 3) will attract new customers who didn't bought it (or quit it) because of the price. And yes people who need more functionality, they pay for it. Now they are tailgating on the majority who doesn't need it and pay for it.

One of the most important behaviors of a vendor is 'listen to the customer'. I'm an IT guy, and making 2-3 customized versions doesn't costs much, you don't make real different versions to maintain, it is still one program with some 'IF' logic in it. I have a program for my European accounts and they offer 3 versions without any issue. Want to upgrade/downgrade: change license key and it is done, so simple.

If this is a real answer from Quicken Management then I think all customers should reconsider their use of it and quit asap.

NotACPA

"Looks this is a overheated sales guy from quicken, I don't think this bold reaction is from Quicken itself. "

You're flat out wrong. @Chris_QPW is NOT a Q employee … he's another user, as am I.

IF we were Q employees, our user ID's would begin "Quicken …"

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20527488#Comment_20527488

You might be an IT person but clearly you aren't a business person. The main goal of any business is to make money. A business acts on a requests for features with the goal to make more money, not out of the kindness of their heart. And adding code complexity, QA testing, and support training for the different configurations isn't free.

You can believe all you want about the fact that offering such features will attract enough new users to pay for the addition costs but I don't and Quicken Inc has proven many times that they don't believe it either. Desktop personal finance software is a dying industry.

Quicken Inc consolidated the Rental and business editions, they got rid of a version that was like Starter that didn't have an online services, they change to a yearly subscription instead of a three year one, they refuse to remove the ads for the people that don't keep the subscription active, they now have online applications.

They clearly are not heading in the direction you want to go.

Boatnmaniac

So it is their goal to make the most profit by charging the customers as much as possible?? Looks like that.

The #1 rule of capitalism is to charge what the market will bear. Generally, that means to charge as much as the market will let them get away with. This is a capitalist country and capitalism reigns supreme for all for-profit enterprises. So, this statement is likely very true. I would be very disappointed in the owners of Quicken Classic if they were not abiding by that rule because that would likely mean Quicken will eventually go out of business and that would be a very sad day for me.

I'm an IT guy, and making 2-3 customized versions doesn't costs much, you don't make real different versions to maintain, it is still one program with some 'IF' logic in it. I have a program for my European accounts and they offer 3 versions without any issue. Want to upgrade/downgrade: change license key and it is done, so simple.

You are happy with just 2-3 versions (i.e., editions)? Then you should be very happy that Quicken Classic offers 4 editions. Take your pick: Starter, Deluxe, Premier and Business & Personal.

Quicken Classic is perhaps the most fully featured personal financial planning application in the market. Offering, designing and maintaining all those features does cost money and that translates into pricing. There are other products in the market that are less expensive but also lack much of the functionality and features that Quicken Classic has.

Quicken Inc. also offers an online-only product called Simplifi. It is less expensive than Quicken Classic but it is also not as full-featured. Simplifi has been a popular product for those who want a simpler product without some of the bells and whistles that are in Quicken Classic. You might want to check it out.

Chris_QPW

BTW I do get a kick out of the statement "it is still one program with some 'IF' logic in".

If anyone knows the first thing about combinations you quickly realize that it takes very few "ifs" to create something that is very complex. And there is almost always new code on the else of that if. And programs add to that complexity. For instance, you say "make an edition that you can't use tags". Simple statement, which causes needed changes in many places in the code.

And if you think that example was picked at random the Starter edition has that restriction, sort of. The clear intent was to block them but in the register you can enter them. But reports will not show them. This is just one bug that shows how the complexity manifests itself.

Another is just in remembering that it exists. Any SuperUser or Moderator would be sure to tell you that it is extremely hard to remember that edition Starter doesn't have this a given feature. Support has to become experts on not what all the features do but also what editions support what.

rsolli@

Although the almost doubling of the price of a subscription is at best, annoying. The amount of bugs and development of new features over fixing current features is not what I consider good customer service or experience. Most notable issues with QUICKEN is it's inability to handle investments correctly, connection issues with billers and financial institutions, inability to handle Digital currency and commodities such as gold or silver. Other issues such as simple math errors are unacceptable. I'm sure I have only scratched the surface. One might be able to grudgingly accept the rise in subscription pricing if these issues were resolved reasonably quickly. But alas, this is not the case.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20527536#Comment_20527536

I certainly can't argue with statement that Quicken has lots of problems, and even when on paper it looks feature rich the amount of features that actually work correctly is much lower and not knowing the ones to avoid can cause real big problems. And pity the person that actually really needs one of the "problem features".

But I also find that almost every person that talks about how Quicken Inc should fix bugs and not add new features, never fails to add that the new the features they want are an exception (support for gold or silver for instance).

And for the record almost every "connection problem" is out of Quicken Inc's hands to fix. Quicken Inc is far to small of a company to deal all the financial institutions. They pay Intuit to work with the financial institutions to provide these services. And most of the problems are caused by the financial institutions themselves. It starts with the fact that they will not all adopt one standard forcing the complications for a need for "aggregators" like Intuit.