Back in the day, Quicken was “the bomb” when it came to Money management. When Quicken first launched in 1983, personal finance nerds everywhere were overjoyed.

The personal finance software program allowed people to manage their money on a computer instead of on paper. You could create a budget, record banking transactions and more.

However, it’s the 21st century now and things have changed. Although Quicken has done well at keeping up with changing technology, there are other Money Management systems out there.

Some have trumped Quicken in terms of features and benefits. Here are some of what we feel are the best alternatives to Quicken in 2019.

You might find that these Quicken alternatives make money management easier — and even fun.

A Quicken Overview: What is Quicken?

Quicken is the likely the oldest computerized budgeting service out there. It’s a software program that allows you to create a budget, manage spending, and view and pay your bills.

The software program has other benefits, too, such as tracking your investments and retirement planning help. However, there are other, newer players to the personal financial management game that you may find do Quicken one better.

Best Quicken Alternatives

Since Quicken launched over 35 years ago, many other companies have gotten into the money management market. Some have come and gone.

Others have stuck around. They offer services you might find valuable. Here are some of our favorite Quicken alternatives.

1. Personal Capital

Personal Capital makes the top of our list for Quicken alternatives. The company was founded in 2009. You can use its money management system to keep track of all of your financial accounts in one place.

Bank accounts, credit card and loan accounts, investment accounts and more can all be tracked with your Personal Capital account. The Personal Capital platform is attractive and easy to use.

Its easy-to-read dashboard gives you an overview of your assets, liabilities and your net worth. In addition, it tracks your income and your spending. It also lets you create a budget and helps you see if you’re on track to stay within your budgeted amount for spending.

And possibly best of all: It’s free. Using Personal Capital won’t cost you a dime.

The company also has an added service: wealth management. You can manage all of your investment accounts in the same place you track the rest of your financials. Personal Capital charges an annual management fee for doing so: 0.89% for the first $1 million you’ve got invested.

Management fees decrease if you’ve got more than $1 million for them to manage. This makes Personal Capital a full service money management choice. You’ll find more information in our full review of Personal Capital.

2. You Need a Budget (YNAB)

You Need a Budget is another tried and true option for money management. The program was founded in 2004 by a college student who was struggling to make ends meet.

YNAB has three main goals it wants to help you accomplish with your money:

• Stop living paycheck to paycheck
• Get out of debt
• Save more money

In order to accomplish these goals, YNAB will help you set up a budget that works with your lifestyle. There are no right or wrong expenditures; it’s all about spending in a way that helps you meet your financial goals.

From there, YNAB helps you plan for unexpected expenses and budget fails.  Everyone has them, so there’s no use in pretending they don’t exist. Instead,  YNAB will help you find a way to navigate them successfully.

Along the way, YNAB helps you get out of debt, save more money and live off of last month’s paycheck. This way you’re building a money cushion that can help you overcome unexpected expenses.

YNAB costs $84 per year, which equates to $7 a month. The first 34 days are free, so you can try it out and see what you think.

3. Mint

You may have heard of Mint by Intuit. Mint features a website and app that currently boast more than 15 million users. Mint’s goal is to let you see all of your money in one place. It has several features that can help you to:

• Budget and manage your money
• Track your bills
• Categorize spending
• Monitor your credit score
• Track your investments

And more. Mint is a popular choice because of its thorough and easy-to-use interface. Bonus: Mint is also free. You won’t pay anything to use it.

Mint make its money by offering clients products and services. When you purchase a product or service, Mint gets a commission. Some of the other choices shown here do charge a subscription fee, but Mint doesn’t.

The downside of this business model is that there are a lot of advertising messages throughout the site. But if you don’t mind those, you can’t beat the price of Mint.

Get all the details in our comparison of Mint vs. Personal Capital.

4. Tiller

Tiller (also known as Tiller Money) was created in 2014 and as has quickly risen to be well respected and used. When you sign up for Tiller, you’ll start by syncing your bank and other accounts with it.

Tiller will then automatically download your financial transactions to either Google or Excel spreadsheets in a secure manner. This makes money management super easy.

You can arrange your income and expense categories and make them custom-fit your money management style. There are no bill-pay features or investment tracking features, but Tiller will make money management easier for you.

Tiller costs $59 per year to use. However, you can try it free for the first 30 days. You can find out more in our full review of Tiller.

5. EveryDollar

EveryDollar is the budgeting app created by the Dave Ramsey team. The website says it can help you create your first budget in less than 10 minutes.

EveryDollar uses a zero-sum budget concept to help you make the most of money management. You can also set financial goals in line with Ramsey’s Baby Steps program to help you improve your financial picture.

EveryDollar’s basic service is free. However, there is another version called EveryDollar Plus that costs $99 a year. The main benefit of EveryDollar Plus is that it will automatically download and sync your financial transactions to your EveryDollar account.

If you use the free EveryDollar account, you’ve got to manually enter your financial transactions. We’ve got more details in our review of EveryDollar.

6. CountAbout

CountAbout is a budgeting tool that lets you import your information from Mint and/or Quicken. This makes it really easy to make the switch if you’re looking for something different.

CountAbout’s graphs and charts make it easy to see where your money is going. And the service will help you set up a budget that works for you.

CountAbout has two budgeting options: a $9.99 per year basic option and a premium option, which is $39.99 per year. Note that the basic option doesn’t come with automatic downloading of account transactions. You’ll have to enter them manually.

If you choose the premium version, the service will automatically download your transactions.

7. GoodBudget

GoodBudget is budgeting software that’s based on the cash envelope system. With GoodBudget, you create cloud-based envelopes for all of your spending categories.

Then you put money from each month’s budget into those envelopes. You’ll sync GoodBudget with your bank accounts so it can help you track spending in each category.

You can use GoodBudget with a spouse or partner, too. Each person will always know how much is left to spend in budget categories. GoodBudget can help you save for larger, future purchases as well.

GoodBudget has a free version that gives you 10 regular envelopes and 10 additional envelopes. You can tie one account to the free version and use it on two devices.

GoodBudget also has a Plus account. It costs $50 per year and gives you unlimited envelopes. In addition, you can use the Plus version with up to five devices. This means you can get the whole family involved in household budgeting.

8. Status Money

Status Money is like a lot of other Quicken alternatives in that it allows you to sync your bank accounts and manage your money. And it’s a free program that will help you budget and track your credit score.

One interesting feature of Status Money is that uses a peer comparison feature to help motivate users. It has charts and graphs to show you how other people in your peer group are saving, earning, etc.

And it does this anonymously so that user privacy is protected. Yet, it gives you that added incentive to manage your money more successfully.

9. Moneydance

Moneydance is a personal finance program made for Mac, Windows and other platforms. It can help you budget, track your investments, manage online banking, pay bills and more.

The software also has a graphing tool that lets you create visual reports of your income and expenses. Other features include bill payment date reminders and a mobile app.

The program costs $49.99 and comes with a 90-day money back guarantee.

10. Dollarbird

Dollarbird uses calendars to help you manage your money. In this way, it’s different from other apps or programs.

It helps you manage money by allowing you track to your daily spending habits. In other words, it helps you focus on short-term money choices to help improve your overall money picture.

Dollarbird has three different plans to choose from:

• Free Plan for $0
• Pro Plan for $39.99 per year or $4.99 per month (intended for families)
• Business Plan with a customized price (intended for small or large businesses)

If you want a different approach to money management, consider Dollarbird.  

11. GnuCash

GnuCash is free personal finance accounting software. It allows you to track bank accounts, income, stocks and expenses.

This is free, open source accounting software.

12. Banktivity

Banktivity is a personal finance software program made for macOS and iOS. It’s produced by a company called IGG Software product. Banktivity was formerly called iBank.

Banktivity helps you with budgeting, bill paying and investment tracking. It uses an envelope system to help you budget. The Banktivity website says its customers save $500 a year on average using the program.

The Banktivity software system has varying costs depending on which features you want to use. The basic program starts out at $64.99 per year. However, there are discounts if you’re upgrading from an earlier program.

13. Moneyspire

Moneyspire is a personal finance program with several benefits. You can use it to:

• See where your money is going
• Create a budget
• Keep track of bills that need to be paid
• See all of your transactions in one place

In addition, you can easily move your information from Quicken and Mint to Moneyspire. And you can install the software on all of your computers with a single license.

This software also contains report capabilities that can help you monitor income, expenses and more. The regular price for the program is $49.99. However, they occasionally have online discounts.

In addition, they offer an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee.

14. PocketSmith

PocketSmith calls itself a time machine for your money. It’s a personal software program with cash flow forecasts to help you better understand your money’s potential.

It features automatic transaction feeds from your bank and a net worth tracker. In addition, you can use it to create a budget and track income and expenses.

PocketSmith has three programs to choose from:

• A free version, which comes with manual transaction input
• The Premium plan, which lets you see 10-year financial forecasts and more for $9.95 a month
• A Super plan, which lets you see 30-year financial forecasts and more for $19.95 a month

The cash flow forecast feature can be a great way to get motivated to save more money. This software is worth a look if you like the idea of forecasting your financial future.   

Summary

Quicken has gained a stellar reputation as trustworthy personal finance software. However, with market competition and technological advances, it’s no longer alone in that field.

There are many viable alternatives that may offer you a better personal finance management experience. It’s worth your time and effort to check those alternatives out to see if one might suit you better than Quicken.

Have you ever used Quicken? Or, have you used any of the other personal finance management programs listed here? If so, what was your experience?

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