15 Best Free and Paid Quicken Alternatives (2020)

Even though I’m not ranking these Quicken alternatives, I’ve decided to list my favorite first. Personal Capital is tops for me for a lot of reasons, mostly how it focuses on retirement planning – really, we’re all playing the long game. This financial app takes top status for more than retirement planning though, it’s also free.

Personal Capital has a comprehensive list of money tools that let you track your spending, see and interact with your investments, check your net worth, and more. This personal finance app takes a big picture approach, and it’s easy to use, offering a clean, intuitive interface.

I use Personal Capital on a near daily basis mostly for investment tracking and retirement planning. It offers a cool asset allocation tool, analyzes your fees (so you’re not leaving money on the table), and monitors your investment performance.

All it takes to use Personal Capital is signing up for a free account, connecting your accounts, and you’re good to go. They keep it free by offering fee-based wealth management tools for high net worth individuals. If you fall into that category, you can opt-in for those services or keep using the free version.

Sign up for Personal Capital with my exclusive M$M link.

While not everyone is going to get the most out of it, I’m adding QuickBooks Online to my list of Quicken alternatives because it’s a great way for side hustlers to track their business expenses.

In addition to managing your personal spending, QuickBooks Online will help your business by letting you create invoices, pay bills, print checks, manage client data, and more.

You can also take QuickBooks Online with you through mobile access, and they have a ton of integrations that make this a more comprehensive financial tool.

QuickBooks online starts at $20 per month (currently $10 on sale), but there are higher levels, Essentials, and Plus, that adds options for multiple users, tracking your time and project profitability, and more. Those options run $35 and $60 a month.

Start your free 30-day trial with QuickBooks online.

Mint has been one of the most popular Quicken alternatives since 2006. Owned by Intuit, of Turbo Tax fame, Mint has serious name recognition with a powerful budgeting platform to match.

Mint’s goal is to help you see your entire financial picture in one place, and because everything is cloud-based, you can access everything from both their desktop and mobile versions.

Mint shines with budgets and I know a lot of people who use it just for tracking their credit score, with new scores and credit alerts whenever they come in. Mint also lets you track your spending and bills, create budgets, and link your investments.

Mint is 100% free, but you will encounter some ads along the way.

Sign up here to manage your money with Mint today.

Goodbudget uses the envelope method to help you create a better budget that forces you to rely on the money you have coming in rather than using credit cards. The envelope method works by separating your expenses into budget categories that are each given their own envelope, so envelope for groceries, envelope for gas, envelope for eating out, etc.

You put cash in each envelope, and only use what’s in there. If you run out of cash in one envelope, you borrow from another. If you have money leftover in one, you can add it to your savings or debt payoff envelope.

The envelope system isn’t for everyone, but Goodbudget is one of the Quicken alternatives that teaches you how to use it with the help of technology. You simply link your accounts, track your spending, and make sure each envelope is being used as it should be.

GoodBudget lets you sync and share household budgets, it’s available as a desktop or mobile app, and has two different pricing models.

• GoodBudget Free includes 20 total envelopes, one account, two devices, and stores one year of history.
• GoodBudget Plus gives you unlimited envelopes and accounts, seven devices, seven years of history, and email support. It costs $6 per month or $50 per year.

Learn more about the envelope method and Goodbudget.

You Need a Budget (YNAB) is one of my M$M readers’ favorite budgeting apps. I’ve had readers tell me that it’s changed their lives!

M$M tip: Read my full review of YNAB to find out more about what it offers.

Like EveryDollar, YNAB is one of the Quicken alternatives that uses the zero-based budgeting method. It also runs on four principles:

• Rule 1: Give every dollar a job. You take the amount of money coming into your accounts, which you will link after signing up, and allocate every dollar until you’re back down to $0
• Rule 2: Embrace your true expenses. This is setting goals to help you with large upcoming expenses, like holiday spending, an emergency fund, etc. You set an amount you want to reach and put a certain amount of money in each category.
• Rule 3: Roll with the punches. This means flexibility and being able to move money around if you overspend in an area. Spend less on groceries than you thought, then move that over to savings.
• Rule 4: Age your money. The idea here is that you aren’t spending everything the minute it goes into your account. Ideally, they’d like you to get to the point where you are spending what you earned last month – the goal being to get out of a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.

YNAB claims that you’ll save an average of $6,000 in your first year. But, it isn’t free… YNAB runs $84 per year, and they offer a 34-day free trial.

Sign up for YNAB today.

Banktivity is one of a few native Mac applications in this list of Quicken alternatives, so read carefully Mac lovers – Banktivity syncs to your iPhone, iPad, and even Apple Watch, meaning you can easily take this budgeting app anywhere you go.

With Banktivity you can link your accounts, track your spending, pay your bills, see your investments, and create budgets. You can also generate reports to give you a better break down of your spending in certain areas, like in specific time frames or from certain companies. You can also easily search for things with Banktivity’s “Find” feature.

It’s a one time $69.99 fee to sign up and download Banktivity’s desktop app, which then allows you to download the app across your Apple devices.

Sign up for Banktivity and receive a 30-day free trial, no credit card required!

Countabout is built to be one of the best Quicken alternatives because it supports importing data from Quicken (Mint too). Countabout also offers many of the tools and features that Quicken supports, from budgets, reporting, graphs for income and spending, recurring transactions, split transactions, investment balances, and more!

Countabout has both a desktop and mobile app and comes with a 15-day free trial. There are two subscription levels, Basic at $9.99 per month and Premium at $39.99. The platform is clean and ad free.

Start your 15-day free trial of Countabout.

Out of the Quicken alternatives on this list, GnuCash is the only one that uses the double-entry accounting method that many business owners use to balance their books. Double-entry accounting means that every transaction must be listed twice, debiting one account and crediting another.

This is a tried and true method that may take some getting used to, but it creates a clear picture of your finances because it helps you understand how your money moves.

GnuCash gives you many of the same functions as Quicken, like splitting transactions, reporting with graphs and charts, managing multiple accounts, and more.

The look and feel of GnuCash is a little old school, but if you’re also running a business, it’s a great, free alternative to Quicken.

Learn more about GnuCash.