8 Best Quicken Alternatives for 2025 (#1 is Free)

Quicken was once the go-to budgeting tool. I used it when it was first released in the 1980s. Today, it’s been eclipsed by apps that enable you to manage every aspect of your finances, often for free. I’ve tested dozens of apps, and here are the best Quicken alternatives in 2025.

Editor’s Top Picks

Of all the options out there to replace Quicken (now called Quicken Classic), three stand out among the rest:

1. Rocket Money–This budgeting app is quickly becoming one of my favorites. For just a few dollars a month, they offer an excellent budgeting app and investment tracker. It keeps track of your subscriptions and helps you cancel them. Rocket Money will also negotiate lower prices for some monthly bills. There is a free version, and the paid version is as low as $6 a month.

App Store Rating: 4.4 (199k reviews)

2. Empower–The Empower Personal Dashboard is free and comes with a robust set of features unmatched by other alternatives. It easily handles budgeting, net worth, cash flow, retirement planning, and investment tracking. It also comes with excellent tools, including a retirement calculator, investment fee analyzer, and investment portfolio analyzer. Empower can now even track Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and thousands of other tokens. It’s the tool I use every day.

App Store Rating: 4.8 (280k reviews)

3. I’ve recently been testing Origin, which is a relatively new budgeting app. What sets it apart from the other apps on this page is that it is a total money management platform. You can track your spending of course, but you can also track your investments, invest on its platform, get a competitive APY on savings, do you tax returns, and get advice from Certified Financial Planners.

Origin offers a 7-day free trial, after which the cost is either $12.99 a month or $99 a year ($8.25 a month).

1. Rocket Money–Best for Budgeting

I’ve just started using Rocket Money to track both personal and business spending. Having used countless budgeting apps, including Quicken, Rocket Money has become one of my favorites. Both its desktop and smartphone app are easy to use. I had no trouble connecting my bank accounts and credit cards. It presents my spending data with easy-to-read graphs:

You can easily drill down into any spending category with the click of your mouse or tap of your phone. In addition, I’ve found the following features to be very helpful:

• Create rules to categorize future expenses
• Track subscriptions and enlist Rocket Money to help cancel those you no longer need
• Alerts let me know if unusually large transactions have occurred

Rocket Money offers a free version. The paid version is as little as $6 a month.

2. Empower–Best for Tracking Investments

Empower is the clear winner when it comes to finding a substitute for Quicken. It’s free, and it offers tools to manage every aspect of your finances. With Empower, you can link just about every financial account you have–checking, savings, credit cards, retirement accounts, investments accounts, HSAs, and even your home (via Zillow).

Once linked, Empower’s financial dashboard offers valuable insights into your finances. As an example, the tool enables you to–

• Track your spending by category
• Estimate when you can retire
• Calculate the cost of your investments
• View the asset allocation of your portfolio
• Generate a net worth statement
• Get alerts when bills are due
• Evaluate your investment portfolio
• Save for emergencies
• Track Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and thousands of other tokens without giving access to your crypto wallet.

I’ve used Empower for years. It’s the only option that in my opinion can handle every aspect of my finances, from budgeting to investing to retirement planning.

I’ve written a detailed review and guide of Empower that you can check out.

3. Simplifi–Best for Mobile Budgeting

Simplifi is the mobile app budgeting solution offered by Quicken. It was built from the ground up to be a mobile-first budgeting app. In fact, originally it was only available on mobile, although now it is available as a web app. I’ve used Simplifi extensively and found its features and user interface to be excellent.

It offers a rich feature set. Users connect their accounts for automatic download and categorization of transactions. You can easily track spending, set goals, and monitor your upcoming bills. Its reports look great and give you the budgeting details you need to make spending decisions. 

NEW: Simplifi recently added investment tracking, making it a more complete Quicken replacement. That being said, I much prefer Empower for tracking investments.

Simplifi costs $5.99 a month, but for a limited time they are running a 50% discount, bringing the price down to $2.99.

4. Tiller Money–Best Spreadsheet Budget Tool

I don’t know how they do it, but Tiller Money has figured out how to turn a Google Sheet into a dynamic budgeting tool. You link your bank accounts and credit cards to Tiller’s Google Sheet tool, which automatically downloads all your transactions. From there, you can create budgets, categorize spending, and generate reports.

I’ve used Tiller for three years for my personal and small business budgets. Tiller is ideal for those who love working with spreadsheets. I will caution you that setting up Tiller can be a bit daunting. The good news is that they have videos to walk you through each step. If I can do it, you can do it.

One thing to keep in mind is that you must manually categorize each transaction. For some, this is a show-stopper. They want the convenience of tools like Empower that automate this process. For others, they would prefer to categorize transactions themselves. It forces them to look at each entry, understand how they spent money, and properly categorize the expenses. Tiller does offer an auto-category tool that you can use to categorize transactions based on the description automatically.

With Tiller, you can also have your transactions downloaded to an Excel spreadsheet. This is an ideal approach for those who don’t want to keep their financial data in the cloud.

There is no right or wrong here. It comes down to preference. You get a 30-day free trial. After that Tiller costs $79 a year.

5. Monarch Money–Best for Couples

Monarch Money shares many of the features in the apps listed above. You can connect all your accounts, including investment and loan accounts. Once connected, Monarch syncs your accounts to generate your net worth. The app lets you see all your transactions in one place, set financial goals, and customize your dashboard.

Monarch is ideal for couples because of its collaboration features. Invite someone to your Monarch account with a separate login. They can view your data and connect their own accounts. This feature is particularly useful for couples who keep separate accounts but want to understand their combined financial picture.

Like Quicken Classic, you can also track all of your retirement and other investment accounts:

Try Monarch Money for free for 7 days, then as little as $7.50 a month.

6. You Need a Budget (YNAB)–Best for Basic Budgeting

YNAB is ideal for those looking just for a budgeting tool. In my view, there is no better app for creating a zero-based budget. YNAB’s interface is similar to a spreadsheet. The tool makes it easy to budget by category based on the money you have in the bank.

One of YNAB’s core principles is to give every dollar a job. You do that by deciding how you’ll spend every dollar in your checking account. As with other tools, you can connect your bank accounts and credit cards to YNAB. This allows for real-time updates so that you can track your spending throughout the month.

YNAB doesn’t have the rich feature set offered by Empower. That’s particularly clear when it comes to investing. For those who don’t want to track investments, however, YNAB is a good option.

So what’s the downside to YNAB? Well, there are two actually. First, it’s one of the most expensive budget apps on the market. It costs $14.99 a month or $109 a year. Second, while many love its budgeting features, that’s about all you get. YNAB hasn’t kept up with the other apps that offer investment tracking, automated net worth tracking, AI integration and a host of other features.

7. PocketSmith–Best for Calendar Budgeting

PocketSmith started as a calendar to plan upcoming income and expenses. Today, it’s a full-fledged budgeting app. You can sync your accounts with PocketSmith. Once synced, you can track your budget and net worth. You can also see your income and spending in a handy calendar view.

One stand-out feature is PocketSmith’s auto-budget tool. It can create a budget for you based on past spending. It also has a cash flow feature that maps income and spending by date range.

While there is a free version of PocketSmith, it requires manual data entry. To get automatic bank fees, you’ll need to pay at least $9.95 a month or $7.50 a month when paid annually.

8. CountAbout–Imports from Quicken or Mint

If you have a lot of data in Quicken (or Mint), CountAbout may be the budgeting tool for you. It has a feature enabling you to import data from Quicken or Mint.

CountAbout enables you to download transactions from your bank and customize both income and expense categories. You can even attach receipt images to expense transactions. You can set up recurring transactions and generate financial reports.

For the features you get, the cost is very reasonable. The basic plan costs just $9.99 a year (not a month). If you want automatic downloading of bank transactions, the cost is $39.99 a year.

Top Quicken Alternatives

Quicken Alternative	Best For	Free Trial (Cost)	Learn More
Empower	Investment Tracking	Free	Visit Empower
Rocket Money	Budgeting	7-day free trial ($4-$12/mo)	Visit Rocket Money
Simplifi	Mobile Budgeting	No free trial ($2/mo)	Visit Simplifi
Tiller	Spreadsheet Budgeting	30-day free trial ($79/yr)	Visit Tiller
Monarch Money	Couple Budgeting	7-day free trial ($8.33/mo)	Visit Monarch
YNAB	Envelope Budgeting	34-day free trial ($9.08 to $14.99/mo)	Visit YNAB
PocketSmith	Calendar Budgeting	Free version ($9.99 – $26.66/mo)	Visit PocketSmith
CountAbout	Importing Quicken Data	45-day free trial ($9.99 – $39.99/yr)	Visit CountAbout

Quicken Alternatives FAQs

Whatever tool you choose, the key is to pick one that works for you. For me, that’s Empower. One or more of the above Quicken alternatives, however, should suit the needs of most looking to better manage their money.