Quicken Simplifi Review 2024

And while there is no free version, Simplifi is considerably less expensive than competitors with comparable offerings.

The simple design and numerous goal-setting features make Quicken Simplifi one of the best budgeting apps out there. If you’re looking for more advanced financial management tools, however, you may want to investigate some alternatives.

Alerts

The Notifications dropdown alerts users about upcoming bills, spending limits and unusual transactions.

Savings goals

You can set personalized savings goals, like a wedding or vacation, and regularly check how close you are to reaching them. Assign a month and a year for each goal and Simplifi will tell you if you’re ahead or behind and by how many months.

Spending plan

Quicken Simplifi users can see their monthly income after accounting for recurring bill payments and savings goals, giving them a good idea of what’s available to spend. You can look up to a year in advance, filter by category or look at other spending not tied to bills or planned expenses. All three categories — available, planned and “other” — combine to create a pie chart, letting you view how much money is available by month and day.

Customized reports

One of Simplifi’s best features is the customizable reports you can set up based on your spending, income or savings. The information is presented both in raw numbers and in graph form, making it easy to digest

Expense tracker

Unique to Simplifi, users can assign spending categories with unique tags and flag transactions to keep an eye on. Worried you’re spending too much on coffee? Create a Watchlist for coffee and see what you’ve spent on lattes this month, what your monthly average is and whether you’ve gone over your budget.

Refund tracker

Another unique feature: Plug in your expected refund and Simplifi will notify you when it comes in — or if it doesn’t. It’ll also let you know if the refund doesn’t match what you expected.

Investment dashboard

Few budget apps include investments, but Simplifi lets you track retirement accounts, brokerage accounts and more, and lists both their current market value and today’s changes. You can get details on the assets in each account, including the current price, the dividend yield and relevant news.

Sharing

You can share your Simplifi account with one other person — whether that’s your spouse, a financial advisor or someone else — even if they don’t have a subscription.

Credit monitoring

Simplifi’s Credit Score feature allows users to track their monthly VantageScore^® 3.0 credit score and review credit reports from Equifax®. It also shares tips on improving and protecting your credit score.

Achievements

If you need some moral support to stay on track with your money goals, Simplifi issues badges for unlocking financial objectives like logging in once a week, staying on budget and hitting net worth milestones.

While there is no free trial, subscribers can request a full refund within the first 30 days of signing up, either directly from Quicken or from Google Play or the Apple App Store.

Quicken Simplifi vs. Empower

Like Simplifi, Empower syncs to your accounts — and it provides many of the same money-management tools for free, including a budget planner, net worth tracker and cash flow tracker. But it’s more focused on overall wealth, rather than daily spending habits. That can give you a good bird’s eye view of your financial standing but isn’t as helpful if you’re trying to cut back on spending or remember to pay your credit card bill next month.

As a broader financial services platform, Empower offers its own investment accounts. Deposits over $100,000 come with personalized investment and retirement planning advice. Learn more with CNBC Select’s review of Empower.