Quicken was traditionally known as one of the best personal finance software options for desktop users. However, the Mac version had traditionally lacked the features found in the PC version, and that was disappointing to many users. While last year's version was a big improvement, it still wasn't there for everyone.
After using Quicken for Mac 2019 for several weeks, we're happy to see that Quicken has continued the improvements over prior years. It's not as robust as we'd like to see yet, but it's definitely been moving in the right direction. So, how did Quicken for Mac 2019 do?
Honestly, it's an incremental improvement over 2018. But we like the direction it's going, and if you can get a great deal on pricing (which you typically can on or when they have a sale), it could be worth it. Key Features Of Quicken For Mac 2019 Quicken For Mac continues to build on the many traditional features that Quicken users expect. As always, it comes with great spending tracking (compared to other online options like and ), it has investment tracking, and budgeting.
For 2019, they have improved the usability of the platform, but the navigation is still a little challenging. Even after using Quicken for about a week, I still find it hard to get to different reports. It's not intuitive. They also improved the web interface for Quicken.
If you don't want to use the desktop software, and prefer a web version (like what you get with Mint), you can have that now. But I prefer the app over the web version. Here's what the home screen looks like. The pricing for Quicken For Mac 2019 continues to be a focus point for most users. Quicken changed their pricing model last year to a subscription-based model, instead of a one-time fee. I see this as both good and bad. It's bad, because many Quicken users kept their software for years, and never upgraded.
Home » Quicken For Mac 2019 Review – Incremental Improvements And A Better Mobile App. Best For: Basic budgeting, no investments. Users with investments and loan tracking. I purchased Quicken 2018, and I am glad a own Parallels, as Quicken 2018 for mac does not come close to the windows versions I have used. Quicken 2019 for Windows imports data from Quicken for Windows 2010 or newer, Microsoft Money 2008 and 2009 (for Deluxe and higher). Quicken 2019 for Mac imports data from Quicken for Windows 2010 or newer, Quicken for Mac 2015 or newer, Quicken for Mac 2007, Quicken.
For users, this was fine - because you could avoid bad rollouts like Quicken for Mac 2017. However, to continue to receive updates and banking information, you had to update every few years anyway or Quicken would cut you off. It's good, because my hope is with more recurring revenue, Quicken can continue to improve their software and ensure banking connectivity. Quicken For Mac 2019 has three price points this year. I think 90% of users would benefit simply using the Deluxe version, which is $49.99/yr at full price. Here's what the pricing looks like.
It's hard to say if Premier is worth the huge additional price. I think Deluxe is the best value, for the added features of investment and loan tracking. But I've never used BillPay, and I highly recommend that most people don't use a service like BillPay because not only does Quicken charge more, but many banks charge for the service as well. Note: For Windows, there is also a Home and Business version. However, we think most consumers with a small business would benefit more from using a tool like, versus using Quicken Home and Business. Special Promotional Pricing As you probably already know, Quicken is notorious for running promotional pricing all the time. Recently, they were offering 40% off their prices - which I think is a fair price for the product.
I would have a hard time paying $49.99 per year for Deluxe, but paying $29.99 per year makes much more sense - especially considering that I would typically upgrade every 2-3 years, this aligns much better with the pricing I'd expect. However, in our search for deals, we found that Amazon.com is offering a 14-month subscription of the Deluxe version for $38.49 (which is 30% off full price). Given the $49.99 price is $4.17 per month, Amazon's deal is $2.75 per month. Still not as good as Quicken's own sale, but the second best deal we've found.
Quicken World Mastercard Another interesting product/feature that Quicken launched this year is the Quicken World Mastercard. The Quicken credit card provides real-time transaction notifications in the Quicken mobile app, and offers integration with Quicken for Mac desktop. This card also gives you a free year of Quicken Deluxe when you spend at least $500 in the first 90 days. If you already have a subscription, you'll get a 1 year extension. The card offers 2x rewards points on all your qualified spending, and has no annual fees.
Given that this card is really about integration with Quicken, we're surprised that you don't get Quicken free every year as long as you spend at least $500 per year. Otherwise, all the rewards are on par or below the other. Filed Under: Tagged With: Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, or other advertiser and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Comment Policy: We invite readers to respond with questions or comments. Comments may be held for moderation and are subject to approval. Comments are solely the opinions of their authors'.
The responses in the comments below are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any company. It is not anyone's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered. About Robert Farrington. Robert Farrington is America's Millennial Money Expert, and the founder of, a personal finance site dedicated to helping millennials escape student loan debt to start investing and building wealth for the future.
You can learn more about him One of his favorite tools is, which enables him to manage his finances in just 15-minutes each month. Best of all - it's free! He is also diversifying his investment portfolio by adding a little bit of real estate.
But not rental homes, because he doesn't want a second job, it's diversified small investments in a mix of properties through. Worth a look if you're looking for a low dollar way to invest in real estate. You’re totally right on that long term value – that’s why I’m not sure at full price. However, at $29.99, now we’re talking $300 over 10 years – which is on par with what Quicken users have been paying for the last 10-15 years anyway with required upgrades.
You have to remember, Quicken pays to have access to that bank connectivity. I’ve heard it costs about $1 per account per year for a service like Quicken. When you think that the average user probably has 5-10 accounts linked, their ongoing data expense alone is $5-10 per each user. It makes sense that on that cost alone they can’t offer bank connectivity forever at a single one time fee. I’m concerned about the inability to track “Transfers” to loan accounts in the Budgeting function.
Our family was setting up a budget that involved 13 loans including 11 student loans that have to be paid for out of our checking accounts every month. This obligation is a substantial portion of our family budget, yet cannot be tracked with the latest version of the Quicken Deluxe for the Mac platform.
Many other users in the Users Forum complain about this deficiency and Quicken promises that they are aware of it and plan to make changes. Is this a fatal flaw for families that need to budget loan payments, or are you aware of a workaround that will address this problem. So I’m confused. Is it because when you setup the loan, it only counts the interest as the expense and not the full amount (since part of it was a transfer)? What I’ve found to work is renaming the split (I had to do this in prior versions of Quicken as well, and early versions with Credit Card Payments even) – “Student Loan Payment”.
You could even get specific by loan type. It looks like this: Then, when you go into your spending and budgeting, you can see it here – just look at the line for both Student Loan Payment and Loans (which is interest and I could also rename). I have been using Quicken Mac 2007 for all this time because my stock data has multiple lots with different purchase dates.
I bought the 2018 edition because they claimed it will handle multiple lots — and it does, though the import had a few glitches which I was able to work around. But I’m sorry I spent the time doing that, as the 2018 version is severely crippled. It won’t even let you print or export a simple “portfolio value report”: about the most basic function I can imagine; all you can do is look at it onscreen. Custom reports are all about transactions, not current holdings and values. It claims to generate exportable files for transfer to Q Mac 2007 and for Q Windows, but neither of them worked.
So your data goes in, but you can’t get it out, which doesn’t satisfy their “data guarantee.” I discovered this a few days after the 30-day money back period, but was able (after hours unsuccessfully trying to reach a chat agent, and half an hour of phone hold) to get them to refund my purchase price, but I’ll never get back the time I spent fixing the data importing or trying to make it do what it ought to do. I would advise everyone to avoid this product. Quicken Mac 2018 is a glorious flaming waste of time if you want a semblance of tracking investments. I have been using Quicken Mac since 2004. I have diligently been forced into upgrading purely because mac has improved with time and no longer can run older versions of Quicken. I am now on the 3rd round of customer service calls.
(I installed Mac 2018 this morning.) I am an expert Quicken user and know my way around my mac. Importing my data file was a breeze.
Thanks for that. My issue – when I sell shares of a security, it doesn’t update in the portfolio or cash. Three rounds of customer service and I am now asked to enter a transaction to sell shares.
And a transaction to remove shares. And a transaction to add a ghost “placeholder.” And if its a full moon maybe your shares will actually appear correctly. The other option is to go into your account and delete every possible transaction relating to the security you just sold. Compliance and data integrity nightmare. The graphics are fun and pretty just don’t actually use the data generated.
Back to the drawing board quicken. $50 annual fee? Thats laughable!
I have been using Quicken 2007 for 11 years. I pay my bills with Quicken, and reconcile my checkbook by downloading bank transactions with Quicken. I believe that at one time, I paid my bank a monthly fee for this privilege, but as far as I can tell, I pay nothing now.
How is Quicken 2018 different in this regard? Once upon a time, I reconciled my credit cards by downloading transactions from my credit card companies. I stopped doing that some time ago, but should I wish to start up again, does Quicken 2018 support that, and is there a charge for that?
I would just continue to use Quicken 2007, but I am concerned about the upcoming abandonment of 32 bit applications by Apple. Brian, I’m currently using Quicken 2008 and have 20 years(!) worth of data. I have been putting it off, but likely have to buy a new Mac, and like you am pretty sure I will be forced off the 32 bit application and have no choice but to upgrade at that time. To tell you I’m terrified of this is no understatement. Did you have a smooth transition pulling in all your accounts and data when you went up to Quicken 2018?
(Robert, feel free to reply regarding upgrading and pulling in data/accounts/history/etc) Thanks! You definitely won’t have a smooth transition. But, my real question is this (and I’ve been there with myself and my father, who had 20+ years of transaction data as well). Why do you need it? The only data we actually needed when my dad migrated over was the cost basis of a few positions in his investments. Everything else was nice, but didn’t matter for anything. I’d challenge yourself to see if there really is data you need/use regularly.
Also, can you print it or save it another way? At some point, you’re not going to be able to access that old stuff anyway, so planning ahead on this whether you upgrade or not is important. Quicken 2019 has a dreadful user interface.
GONE is the ability to run simple reports for this year, last year, date-to-date, etc. With any ease, if at all. GONE is the simple accounts window that you are used to. GONE is the empty register line at the bottom of your account window waiting for you to fill in the newest transaction (you have to use a “+” “New Transaction” clumsy interface now). I could go on. The people who revamped this app appear to have done ZERO research with real world users. The investment firm who bought Quicken?
They’re doing nothing good here. I am one of thousands or millions stuck in Quicken 2007 and LIKE the interfaces in that version. Why can’t Quicken LISTEN to all the people screaming how unhappy they are with this product? I could care less about the online features. It’s just not there yet and I would never use it anyway. I have my stuff in the cloud, it’s fine.
I use Quicken on a desktop or laptop so the phone app is of no use for me. It’s fine to build that in for those who like it. But you have to perfect, as best as you can, the actual application first and foremost. Quicken has become bloated and unintuitive over the last few versions. They’ve lost sight of the original idea and purpose.
This is simple bookkeeping. And simpler, is BETTER, when it comes to accounting software.
Graphs, charts, and icons are fine, but can we please have the ability to turn them off. I don’t want to look at all the clutter constantly. Give me an accounts window (without the unnecessary folders for cash, cc, investments), individual account windows when I open them, keep the legacy register format that has been used for many decades (it just plain works and makes sense, newest on the bottom, empty one at bottom ready to be filled in), a way to run reports the way it’s done in 2007 (again, simple, makes sense, easy to get what you want out of it). STOP the incessant altering and revamping.
It does not work as well for the end users. Capital, sell this software to someone who gets it and will rework with some thoughtful acumen and intelligence. Forget the subscription plan too. It’s insulting. People upgrade as needed every couple years or so without be forced into it. Subscription methods set a bad tone between the company and it’s users. Allow users the respect to upgrade when they choose rather than strong-arming them into it from the get go.
I’ve been a Quicken for Mac user since, ahem, 1990, and some of my Q2007 files reach back that far. Hands down, the Quicken made for primitive Macs back then was much more powerful than Q2017. My main gripe is that I am in a business where I have to be able to create income reports based on memos, dates, etc., which was easy to do with the 3.5″ diskette version of Quicken in, say, 1994. This cannot be done in Q 2017. The last version that allowed this feature was Q2007, and it was very unstable in the last year or two, so I updated to the 2017.
From what I am hearing, the later versions are even worse than 2017. I also have Quickbooks online, but it doesn’t work for what I need either.
Maybe the new owners of Quicken are trying to kill the brand.
For years, Quicken was the leading personal finance program by far. And though its supremacy has been challenged by a growing list of competitors, it remains one of the most full-featured. It currently comes in four versions for Windows that allow you to do everything from build a household budget to manage and maximize investments, depending on which one you get. For basic budgeting, we tried Quicken Deluxe, which is currently being offered for $29.99 a year—50 percent off the retail price. Note: This review is part of our roundup of. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.
Quicken is desktop software, so whichever version you purchase, you’ll have to download and install it. Once you log in, Deluxe opens to the Home tab—essentially a real-time dashboard—where it walks you through a three-step set up. First you’ll link to your financial accounts and all your recent transactions for each will be downloaded to their own register. All this data is aggregated in the top third of the home tab in a section labeled See Where You’re Money Goes. By default, this section breaks out in a colorful graph your last 30 days of spending by category across all your accounts, though you can change these parameters in the settings. Michael Ansaldo/IDG Quicken’s dashboard tracks your spending, bills, and budget in real time. Next, you add your bills, either manually or by linking to online accounts, and your scheduled income.
All this information is added to the Stay On Top of Monthly Bills section in the middle third of the Home tab, which displays your projected checking account balance over the next two weeks based on that activity. You can also set up bill and income reminders, which will be listed here by date and amount. Finally, you’re prompted to create a budget. Quicken scans all your transactions based on your regularly occurring spending categories and produces a budget displayed as a series of bar graphs, each colored green or red to indicate if you’re under or over budget. Once it’s complete, you can add or delete budget categories to your liking and change the suggested budget amounts.
Your total budget is then shown is a single bar graph in the bottom third of the home tab indicating what you’re spend and how much you have left. If any categories are over budget, a warning icon appears alongside the overspent amount. While these home tab sections provide a running at-a-glance look at your finances, you can dive deeper into any one by clicking in it or by selecting it from the clearly labeled tabs at the top of screen. Michael Ansaldo/IDG You can generate all kinds of reports to dive into your financial data. To support your budgeting efforts, Quicken also generates a dizzying array of reports and graphs detailing your banking activity, net worth, account balances, spending patterns, and even transactions with tax implications, all of which can be exported to Excel. No matter how you want to chop up your financial data, seemingly Quicken offers a way. Though Quicken Deluxe is primarily focused on the daily in- and outflows of your cash, it also offers several tools for managing your longer-term finances.
These can assist you with getting out of debt, planning for retirement, analyzing your tax situation, and socking away money for college or vacation. Bottom line Quicken Deluxe is a capable tool for managing your household finances, but most of Quicken’s features have been mirrored or improved upon by other budgeting tools like Mint and Personal Capital, both of which can be used for free. Quicken’s real differentiator at this point is that it’s desktop software that stores your data on your computer, so if you’re still skeptical about managing your finances in the cloud, it may be the right choice for you.