Quicken Bets on Paid Model with New Simplifi Finance App

Need to Know

• Personal finance best-sellers Quicken are launching a new paid offering with the new Simplifi app.
• Simplifi users can track spending and manage budgets all in one place. 
• The ad-free app costs $3.99 per month or $39.99 for a year.
• In the past 30 years, over 17 million customers have used Quicken software.

Analysis

Quicken, the makers of the best-selling personal finance software in the US, is launching a new personal finance app to help the next generation of consumers manage their money. 

Simplifi, aimed at people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, provides users with a comprehensive but easy way to see all of their personal finance accounts in one place. And while there are now hundreds of different apps offering a similar promise for free, Simplifi will charge users $3.99 a month. This is what sets the app apart—Quicken is hoping users will invest in a finance app that offers specialized services.

Simplifi will allow users to track day-to-day spending, set spending alerts and create short- and long-term budgets. The app will also allow users to track spending in certain categories, such as food, transportation, and entertainment and can create a custom plan based on their monthly income and bills. 

While most of today’s free apps are interrupted with ads or designed to upsell you over time with premium features, Simplifi delivers a “transparent, ad-free experience” at $3.99 per month or $39.99 for the year. 

Explains Eric Dunn, Quicken’s CEO, “Plenty of people will settle for a free app, but we’re not addressing that part of the market. There’s a very large group of customers who are willing to pay to get results.”

Given Quicken’s reputation, Dunn is confident Simplifi’s target market will be willing to invest in the service. “As pioneers of personal finance, we saw an opportunity to help the next generation gain visibility into their finances and develop better financial habits, the way we have for their parents,” he said. 

Since its huge popularity in the 1990s, over 17 million people have used Quicken and the software still supports 2.5 million active users. The app’s shift to the cloud has provided a 40% growth in the last year alone. Quicken is also ad-free. 

Simplifi’s launch is well-timed with the start of the new year. A survey sponsored by Quicken shows that 90% of respondents are planning to try again to achieve last year’s failed resolutions. 

With nearly six out of ten Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck, it’s no surprise that 70% of respondents identified money as one of their top three sources of stress over the last several years. Another study showed that only 24% of millennials demonstrate basic financial literacy. 

Says Dunn, “We’re excited to launch Simplifi in time to help people make 2020 their most financially successful year.”