Another price increase???

Question

Anyone else pissed off from the email announcing another annual subscription price increase and telling us "Your continued support helps us keep improving the product you rely on — from fixing over 200 bugs to enhancing performance." - So … they constantly have bugs to fix and raise the prices annually anyway???  Criminal!!!

Steven Latus · Answer

I love Quicken. I've been using it since version 2 for DOS (1989). It's one of the very first programs we ever bought along with the very first PC we ever bought in December 1988—an IBM Model 30 286—for $3616.85 (and you thought computers were expensive today 😉).

I use it pretty much every day; it takes a lot of the drudgery out of keeping track of bills, spending, taxes, etc. For what it does, I think the price is quite reasonable.

Chris_QPW · Answer

So … they constantly have bugs to fix and raise the prices annually anyway??? Criminal!!!

You are trying to imply that they put the bugs into Quicken just so that they can charge more to fix them.  I suppose some companies/people might do that but that is far from the truth for Quicken.

Quicken is a complicated program dealing with complicated online services that people are asking for.  They have no need to purposely put in bugs, they come with the territory.

They could stop today developing any new features and have plenty of bugs to work on far into the future.  And yeah, some people might even pay even just for those bug fixes.  What might be a non-problem to one person might be one that another person really wants.  But it more than that.

The added feature list is quite long over the years.  Yeah, they might not be features you want either but that is the way it goes.  No one could afford a truly custom version of Quicken, so we pay for what the community and Quicken Inc has decided is important.

Sceptic · Answer

@Richard Donlon  -

I get why the subscription model frustrates people — a lot of software moved to subscriptions without adding much value, so the whole category feels like a cash grab.

But Quicken’s subscription isn’t really about “paying to fix bugs.” Bugs exist in every financial program. What you’re actually paying for is the ongoing work required to keep Quicken compatible with thousands of banks, credit unions, and brokerages.

Every time a financial institution changes its security protocols, login flow, OFX/QFX format, MFA requirements, or connection endpoints, Quicken has to update its code. If they didn’t do that, half the downloads would break within a year.

That’s the part people don’t see — the maintenance of the entire banking ecosystem behind the scenes.

As for the price: Quicken isn’t competing with free budgeting apps. It’s one of the few tools that gives you:

• full investment tracking (cost basis, wash sales, corporate actions)

• decades of local financial history

• deep reporting and tax tools

• local data ownership instead of cloud lock‑in

• stability — it’s been around for 40 years and still opens files from the 1990s

If someone only needs basic budgeting, Quicken is too expensive. But if someone wants a full financial cockpit — investments, history, reporting, and control over their own data — Quicken is still one of the only programs that does all of that in one place.

The subscription isn’t fun, but the value is in what it prevents: missed bills, overdrafts, tax mistakes, and losing track of long‑term financial trends. One overdraft fee costs more than a year of Quicken.