You are not competitive
I was very interested in switching from Quicken to MoneyDance. In the few months, I have been waiting for my Quicken to expire you changed your pricing and now Quicken is more affordable. Quicken Deluxe will cost me 60 a year. It works seamlessly with my bank. If I switch to money dance I can purchase the program for $65 but can't connect to my bank easily. I can subscribe for the increased price of 9.00 a month - or 108 a year and get the equivalent functionality to Quicken. Kind of a no brainer, I will stick with Quicken.
I am not a huge fan of Quicken but at this price point there are no alternatives.
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1 Posted by dtd on 12 Apr, 2023 02:14 AM
just a user
The pricing structure of Moneydance has indeed gotten more complicated, but you may not be seeing the entire picture.
Purchase price: $65 - not $65/year, $65 period. I personally know people who are still using the 2012 version (so that's $6.50 per year). Admittedly 2017 tends to be where quite a few people are. And yes, of course, most people are at least on 2021.
Buying direct, you do not need to upgrade... as mentioned in the previous paragraph. But if you bought 2023, the upgrade to 2024 is free. Not bad. And if you wait till 2025/2026 or whatever, the upgrade price is $30. And that gets you yet another free upgrade.
Now - as to connecting with your bank. This depends on the bank. OFX downloads are free. Grabbing an OFX/QIF/whatever file from your bank and importing it is free.
But if you need the Moneydance+ connection (because, yes, a lot of banks are abandoning OFX, sigh) - then that is $4/month or $40/year.
So - do the math. $65 with a free upgrade and then $30 for the same whenever you desire.
So - OPTIONAL - your banks don't work for you unless MD+ - $40/year.
Also - MD is more like Quicken Home/Business - but let's stick with Deluxe - $60/year.
Depends on your needs of course, but doing the math - it is competitive - cheaper for some, a bit more for others - but not out of line.
Even at the new pricing.
Support Staff 2 Posted by Maddy on 12 Apr, 2023 09:24 AM
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for contacting Moneydance support.
I understand that having so many different purchasing options can be confusing.
So, in order to simplify one's approach, I would say that the 'standard formula' would be purchasing a one time license at $65.00 from this page. Then after registering Moneydance 2023, using this version subscribe to Moneydance + as outlined here.
You can choose to:
Subscribe Monthly at $4
Subscribe Annually at $40
That being said, generally, when a financial institution supports Direct Connect, we recommend using the OFX service method.
Firstly because it is free, secondly because the downloads are immediate as these do not require the intervention of an aggregator as it happens with Moneydance +, thirdly as you can use ‘Bill Pay’(if required).
So, if your banks support the OFX method, you may not need to subscribe to Moneydance + after all.
More information about using this connection method can be found here.
Please note that you bank/s might require you to enable your accounts for application-based online banking and you can accomplish this by asking your bank to set up your account for direct connections from Quicken. Moneydance uses exactly the same OFX server connection protocol as Quicken.
Calling up your bank and stating precisely the following should get you started:
"Please enable direct connect on my account such that I can connect to your servers directly with Quicken. Also give me the login credentials I need to connect Quicken to this service." Application-based online banking often requires a different login/PIN than the ones that are used for ATM or web-based banking. When you enable your account for access from Moneydance or Quicken, your financial institution should let you know what customer ID/login and PIN to use.
I hope this information is helpful. Please let us know if you have further questions or need more assistance.
--
Maddy, Infinite Kind Support
3 Posted by Brian on 28 Apr, 2023 10:58 PM
Just a newer user of MD, but might I add that Quicken will also raise its prices again as they have in the past. When it was $40 for 3 years, it was a bargain, now it's $60+ EVERY year. Add in all the issues quicken was (IS) having downloading from financial institutions lately, leaving you, the customer, in the dark for over a month unable to download transactions. Moneydance has been a blessing so far for me.
4 Posted by dwg on 28 Apr, 2023 11:20 PM
I'm a fellow user.
Let me provide a bit more relativity on the world stage.
The Personal Finance software of note here is Reckon, it used to be called Quicken because it was/is indeed a localised version of Quicken.
Reckon has been sold by subscription for many years, and it goes up most years. The current cost is $190 per year. There is no Direct Connect, there is no Web Connect or Express Web Connect, there are local share price downloads. You want downloads you download transaction files and import them, you can forget about doing that for investments. The downloads for direct shares are just PDF copies of the various documents, and as for funds next to useless CSV downloads.
Reckon's yearly updates are little more than moving the deck chairs around, while charging your credit card
A new user copy of Moneydance is currently $110 here and that covers 2 versions of the software as we know) and of course if I want to upgrade I get the 50% discount again for two versions.With Moneydance there is no need to upgrade, it is my decision, and upgrades possibly forced by the O/S vendors which neither Moneydance or I can control.
Moneydance+ is not supported here because Plaid do not support local institutions, but even if they did it would only be bank downloads.
5 Posted by tgilbert666 on 30 Apr, 2023 12:45 AM
Jumping in ...
For anyone confused by dwg's latest post (as I was initially, let me say that I concur, but, like me, dwg is in Australia, I believe. Hence by "here" he means "in Australia", where Quicken is somewhat localised and rebadged by Reckon. Therefore dwg references AUD prices etc.
My own experience wrt Quicken/Reckon and MD pricing matches with @dwg and I used Reckon since DOS days until migrating to MD 3 or 4 years back where I am generally satisfied with the pricing and licensing model as a significant improvement on Reckon/Quicken.
@dwg - pardon my interjection
6 Posted by dwg on 30 Apr, 2023 01:19 AM
No problem
I now see I left out "here in Australia". Typing was never my strong suite.
I left Reckon after a computer failure in 2012, when I knew it was going to be difficult to get them to reset my license for a new machine. Reckon gave the impression that they believed you were trying to scam them and should therefore buy a new subscription, because you must be going to use the software on two machines.
While arguing with them you are also going to be paying for support and that in those days was $4.95 per minute. I think they just charge a fee for resetting licenses now.
Personally I think Moneydance's licensing model is quite generous.
Support Staff 7 Posted by Ethan on 01 May, 2023 01:15 AM
I would add a few points to the above conversation:
The recent raise in the base price of the program from $50 to $65 was the first price change in over a decade.
We created the optional add-on Moneydance+ service as an additional method for users to connect to their banks. Most banks still offer free manual downloads that can be imported into Moneydance, but we understand many people want a more automated experience. We would love if banks still provided the direct OFX connections that programs like Moneydance can securely access for free, but these have been slowly been shutting down over the last decade, due to decisions made by banks that are out of our control.
Whether a Moneydance license key and the Moneydance+ service is a good value is of course a subjective decision, but I think the above posts clarify that Moneydance is at least comparable to most competitors, and potentially significantly less depending on how if one chooses to use the optional Moneydance+ service and how often one chooses to upgrade. These are also factors that most competitors will force one into, instead of offering them as a choice.
Ethan
Infinite Kind Support
8 Posted by Tokend on 11 May, 2023 06:34 PM
If I may, Andrew, I'll add a couple of points to the excellent information provided above. For myself, personally, one-time purchase and non-expiring functionality vs subscription and expiring functionality were huge. But a couple of other points were vitally important to me, as well.
For one, I wanted my data and my security information on my computer, period. No cloud storage requirement. I haven't yet enrolled in MD+, so I can't speak to its usefulness. But I have been impressed with IK's responsible way of approaching Quicken's near-monopoly with financial institutions, while maintaining local data storage and keeping security as local and secure as possible.
For another, code quality and corporate integrity played a significant part in my switch, back around 2017 or so. At the time, Quicken forums were peppered with complaints of corrupted data bases, corrupted through absolutely no fault of users. Intuit's responses were quite user-unfriendly. Oops, sorry. Restore from backup--woe betide you if you didn't have recent backup. Update to the latest Quicken version--that might fix it, maybe. A patch probably is not in the offing if you are not on the latest version. Re-install Quicken, In any case, de-corrupting your data base and re-entering any transactions made since your last backup was completely on you.
IK's approach to software and communications has been MUCH more to my liking. Local data storage. Stable operation. No functionality expirations. Regular updates. Reasonable upgrade charges. Responsible and open communications between users and developers.
For me, switching to MD has been a huge relief from the many issues I had with Quicken and Intuit. This was after 2+ decades of using Quicken. The importing and conversion of data was not trivial, but was not nearly so difficult as I had feared. I have happily not been looking back ever since. Anyway, just wanted to mention a couple less-tangible benefits that I have found in making the switch. Cheers, and good luck to you, Andrew.
9 Posted by Andrew on 11 May, 2023 08:05 PM
Thank you all for the thoughtful responses. I have tried Money Dance to get a feel for the transition experience. In order to replicate the Quicken functionality, I, unfortunately, have to use MD+ as direct connect option is not available. The connectivity works well. I tried to brink in my accounts by exporting the data from my bank (Digital Federal Credit Union -DCU). The only option is a csv file. For some reason this resulted in double entries of all transactions. Is there a better way to do this or an easy way to dedupe the file?
Still on the fence
10 Posted by dtd on 11 May, 2023 08:18 PM
just a user - you may well get an answer here, but I'd suggest creating a new topic under Online Banking with a title mentioning csv - that would likely get the users who are knowledgeable about csv and importing to notice and respond.
11 Posted by cncb on 26 Jun, 2023 07:45 PM
I went to try Moneydance+ again after taking a break for a few months and see that it has now doubled in price ($2 => $4 per month)! Moneydance does not seem like such a value anymore compared to Quicken.
12 Posted by dtd on 26 Jun, 2023 08:13 PM
just a user - you are not incorrect, but you ran into the "first price increase in a decade bit" (yes, I know MD+ hasn't been around for a decade yet, but the 10 year price increase was in general.)
However, you are incorrect that the post purchase MD+ price moved from $2 => $4 month. I interpret that as >$4/month, and it is exactly $4/month, or $40 per year... which is (based on yearly payments) less than double. (Oh, you meant => as an arrow, not math, sorry)
And you are right, it's not "such a value" anymore, but depending on your situation, and given Quicken's subscription only, and MD upgrade optional, but with a good upgrade policy, it may still be significantly better than Quicken (who also raises their prices more often than once a decade).
MD beats Quicken hands down (even with a price increase) for my personal needs. Yes, the value is not as good as it was. Price increases never are, for the user.
13 Posted by Brian on 26 Jun, 2023 09:09 PM
Well, Quicken was $60 this year, who knows what they'll raise it to next?
I, too, grew tired of Quicken's issue with connection to my bank that went on unresolved for over a month at a time. I've now been using moneydance side by side with Quicken for going on 4-5 months now and will continue until my Quicken subscription expires next March. Sure, Moneydance may not be as "intuitive" as Quicken or as "pleasing" to some, but it is working for me so far. It's been, and still is, a bit of a learning curve, but I am getting more and more used to it.
Back to your point, $40/year is still better than $60 and Quicken will just keep raising it year after year and provide no real improvements.
14 Posted by dtd on 26 Jun, 2023 09:39 PM
just a user - smile - thanks for the support on my assertion.
But, I try to be totally clear - Moneydance is now a one off purchase of $65. Not $65/year, but you can upgrade free for one year (which makes it $32.50/year), then you can "wait as long as you want" - and when you want to upgrade again, it's $30... AND that gives you the one year upgrade again. Even if you want to upgrade every year - it starts at $32.50/year for two years, and then $15/year after that (till MD eventually ups the price again). I think that beats Quicken still quite a bit... (and i was paying for the Home and Business version which is $100-$120 per year.)
Now sure, MD+ is a new story... totally optional, but some really want it, some really can't have it (out of North America). $40/year for that, if you really want it for automatic downloads - so I guess basically that subscription is more than MD, but Plaid is who makes that money, MD basically just passes it on to them. MD didn't want to do that - but OFX abandonment made it necessary. Still, MD did make it optional.
Still, even added together, it seems to still be a value at this point. And a better product, imo.
15 Posted by cncb on 27 Jun, 2023 02:58 PM
I am not saying Quicken is a better product since I have not used it, but if you require Moneydance+, Quicken is now a better deal. $60 vs $72.50 per year (if you want to keep up with program improvements).
I am just disappointed that they increased the price of Moneydance+ by so much, but I will get over it eventually :).
16 Posted by dwg on 28 Jun, 2023 12:09 AM
Unfortunately MD+ pricing is driven by Plaid. On the Moneydance side they are going for cost recovery, rather profiteering.
I've always felt that the Moneydance licensing and upgrade conditions were very generous, perhaps too much so.
Personally with what I have see of Plaid outside of the U.S. I do not think they will be a viable long term provider of aggregation service for Moneydance. they are much too limited for software as broadly used as Moneydance, and show no great intent about expanding their coverage much.
17 Posted by TomG on 08 Aug, 2023 02:37 AM
cncb - Money dance is NOT $65/year , it is $65 one time cost. with the second year free upgrade, that's $32.50/year. With MD+ it works out like this:
Year 1 - $32.50 + $40.00 = $72.50
Year 2 - $32.50 + $40.00 = $72.50
Now, assuming no updates to MD:
Year 3 - $40.00 for MD+
Year 4 - $40.00 for MD+
Year 5 - $40.00 for MD+
etc.
I switched to Moneydance and Moneydance+ because my bank or investment firm discontinued OFX.
The company that was the developer of the software that I was using for Mac (not Quicken), refused to add any new functionality, I was not able to get daily downloads. It took a while to get things cleaned up after importing a 7 year QIF file into Moneydance, but in the long run, I feel it was worth it. Support response has been great.
System closed this discussion on 07 Nov, 2023 02:40 AM.