A Review and Comparison of Quicken and YNAB

Save More Money
People following the You Need A Budget (YNAB) Methodology save, on average $235 in their first 31 days. Quicken would rather embed advertisements in their software to get you to spend more.

No Costly Upgrades
YNAB has never once charged for an upgrade. Quicken forces you to upgrade by crippling your software after a certain period of time. We can keep building great new upgrades without charging our current happy customers a dime. How? Our customers tell their friends about us constantly!

Software that’s Easy to Use
Quicken is full of “bells and whistles” that you pay for, but they then sit and gather dust. Also, these extra useless features simply cause confusion and frustration. YNAB is built to have you focus on those things that actually bring results. You’ll be paying off more debt, saving more, and communicating better about money in no time.

Community and Support
With Quicken you’ll get the standard corporate canned responses to emails, waiting in line in support queues, etc. With YNAB we offer free weekly coaching in a small class environment, and we have the friendliest forums on the internet. If you email us, an actual person responds!

What Do Quicken “Converts” Have to Say About Switching to YNAB?

“The biggest difference here is that while Quicken/Money type programs really only provide a way to TRACK your money, YNAB actually provides you with a systematic way to CONTROL your money. Money and Quicken are just glorified check registers compared to this! AND, when updates and enhancements are released, you get them automatically, not the next year, and it isn’t asking you to go out and buy the whole program again every year!! Bottom line, way more value in YNAB than in anything else I have ever tried! Worth every penny!” source

“I agree with you on Quicken. I used to be a Quicken user. In fact, I downloaded a trial copy of Quicken 2008 to see what has changed (my curious nature, ha ha!) and it’s just gotten more convoluted. After I had installed it and entered my financial information, I still wasn’t sure if I was accounting for everything. Quicken only gives you a general sense of what you spent and projects what you will spend, but it takes up a lot of space to do so. Again, it only tells you what you generally are saving. YNAB goes beyond this, shows you what you are saving, spending and how to live off of last months expenses. For all the bells and whistles that Quicken and MS Money put out, sometimes simple is better and in YNAB’s case, much preferred.” source

What Makes YNAB So Different From Quicken?

In the end, it’s all about the Four Rules of the YNAB Methodology. The software is built to help you implement and follow these Four Rules of Money Management. Your results will amaze you!