Forbidden Finance · Comparison
Forbidden Finance vs Quicken Simplifi
Quicken Simplifi is a subscription-only web and mobile app from Quicken Inc. (the 1984 personal-finance brand, spun out of Intuit in 2016), built around a "Spending Plan" that projects what is left to spend after income, bills, and goals. There is no free tier.
Quicken Simplifi is best for: Budget-priced US/Canada users who want solid tracking with investments included.
Facts about Quicken Simplifi were checked against their published pages in August 2026; every cell links its source. Spot something out of date? Tell us at support@403fin.io and we'll fix it.
At a glance
| Dimension | Forbidden Finance | Quicken Simplifi |
|---|---|---|
| The basics | ||
| Price | Free tier forever; paid plans $4.99–$14.99/mo. No free trial — 30-day money-back guarantee on web purchases. | No free tier, no trial. $3.99/mo promo billed annually (regular $6.99/mo billed annually); 30-day money-back guarantee.↗ |
| Business model | Subscriptions only. No ads, no data sales, no cross-sells. | Paid subscription; no in-product ads. CCPA disclosure acknowledges "sale"-classified sharing of IP/hashed email to ad partners and personal info to card/bank partners (opt-out available).↗ |
| Security & privacy | ||
| Data selling & ads | We never sell user data, share it with advertisers, or build behavioral profiles for third parties. | Discloses CCPA-defined "sale": IP address + hashed email to advertising partners, and personal information to credit-card and bank partners for offers — with an opt-out.↗ |
| Bank credentials & tokens | Bank credentials never touch our servers (entered with regulated aggregators); sensitive tokens encrypted with AES-256-GCM before storage. | 256-bit encryption in transit; one-way read-only connections; credentials encrypted and stored by the aggregation partner.↗ |
| Encryption inside the database | Sensitive financial fields are sealed under encryption keys unique to each account before they reach the database; keys live in a separate key service. Amounts are aggregated in memory after decryption, so financial values never need to sit readable in the database. | Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗ |
| Database-level isolation | PostgreSQL row-level security enforces per-account isolation inside the database engine itself. | Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗ |
| Deletion & export | Self-serve: 30-day recovery window, then permanent deletion and destruction of the account’s encryption keys. Full data export on every tier. | Full dataset deletion via support request or CCPA route; CSV export is web-only and drops splits, tags, and notes.↗ |
| Sign-in security | Passkeys, authenticator-app (TOTP) MFA, biometric unlock, session management. | Quicken ID "Secure Login" — codes by email or phone. Authenticator-app TOTP / passkeys: not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗ |
| Security testing & audits | Built by a founder with a professional penetration-testing background; an independent, human-led penetration test is scheduled ahead of full launch. Not yet SOC 2 certified — we say so plainly. | Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08) — no certification, audit, penetration test, or bug-bounty program named.↗ |
| Features | ||
| Bank sync | US & Canada via regulated aggregators (daily + updates when your bank reports changes); UK/EU via bring-your-own open-banking connections; CSV & JSON import. | Multiple aggregators (Plaid, Finicity, Intuit connections) across 14,000+ institutions; nightly refresh; CSV import.↗ |
| Receipt capture | Photograph a receipt or forward it by email (Starter and up). The merchant, total, currency and line items are read for you, checked against the receipt’s own arithmetic, and confirmed by you before anything is saved. 75 / 200 / 400 receipts per renewal month by tier. | Photos, scans and PDFs attach to transactions, including camera capture on mobile; no extraction documented in Simplifi.↗ |
| Budget methods | All 8 methods: 50/30/20, Pay Yourself First, Zero-Based, Envelope, Kakeibo, FIRE, Values-Based, Custom. | One model — the Spending Plan (income minus bills, planned spend, goals); no named methods like zero-based or envelope.↗ |
| Investment tracking | Brokerage connections with holdings, activity & cost basis (Pro+); per-lot detail and tax-lot CSV export (Premium). | Holdings, cost basis, market value, and portfolio performance included; holdings editable only in manual accounts. No per-lot/tax-lot detail documented.↗ |
| Multi-currency | Your home currency is always included, plus 1 more on Free, 3 on Starter, 10 on Pro and unlimited on Premium, with exchange-rate conversion. Spending abroad is never capped: any plan can record a transaction in any supported currency. | One currency at a time (USD or CAD); mixing them "may cause balance discrepancies."↗ |
| Partner / household | 1 partner (Pro) or up to 5 users (Premium). You choose exactly which accounts to share; partners work in a shared budget while each also keeps a private budget; connection slots can be lent. | Share with one additional person at no extra cost; full all-or-nothing access to the shared space.↗ |
| Platforms | Web (installable PWA), iOS, Android. Android direct download available today; app-store listings Coming Soon. | Web, iOS, Android; no desktop app (Quicken Classic is a separate product).↗ |
| Open source / self-host | Proprietary, not self-hostable. The exit stays open: full data export on every tier. | Proprietary, no self-host.↗ |
Security, side by side
We compare only what Quicken Simplifi publicly documents. "Not publicly documented" means exactly that — it is not an accusation, and plenty of solid engineering never makes it to a marketing page. Here's what each side is willing to put in writing.
What Forbidden Finance puts in writing
- Data selling & ads: We never sell user data, share it with advertisers, or build behavioral profiles for third parties.
- Bank credentials & tokens: Bank credentials never touch our servers (entered with regulated aggregators); sensitive tokens encrypted with AES-256-GCM before storage.
- Encryption inside the database: Sensitive financial fields are sealed under encryption keys unique to each account before they reach the database; keys live in a separate key service. Amounts are aggregated in memory after decryption, so financial values never need to sit readable in the database.
- Database-level isolation: PostgreSQL row-level security enforces per-account isolation inside the database engine itself.
- Deletion & export: Self-serve: 30-day recovery window, then permanent deletion and destruction of the account’s encryption keys. Full data export on every tier.
- Sign-in security: Passkeys, authenticator-app (TOTP) MFA, biometric unlock, session management.
- Security testing & audits: Built by a founder with a professional penetration-testing background; an independent, human-led penetration test is scheduled ahead of full launch. Not yet SOC 2 certified — we say so plainly.
The full story, including what we're NOT certified for, is on the Security & Privacy page.
What Quicken Simplifi documents
- Data selling & ads: "You may direct Quicken to not sell your personal information as defined above." Opting out of marketing offers "will prevent marketing-related sharing."↗
- Bank credentials & tokens: 256-bit encryption in transit; one-way read-only connections; credentials encrypted and stored by the aggregation partner.↗
- Encryption inside the database: Encryption at rest for stored Simplifi data, per-user keys, and any SOC 2 / third-party certification are all not publicly documented.↗
- Database-level isolation: Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗
- Deletion & export: After a subscription lapses, "your data remains stored on the servers but you won’t be able to access it unless you renew."↗
- Sign-in security: Quicken ID "Secure Login" — codes by email or phone. Authenticator-app TOTP / passkeys: not publicly documented (as of 2026-08).↗
- Security testing & audits: Not publicly documented (as of 2026-08) — no certification, audit, penetration test, or bug-bounty program named.↗
Where Quicken Simplifi is a better fit
An honest comparison cuts both ways. If these match what you need,Quicken Simplifi is a fine choice — we'd rather you pick the right tool than churn out of the wrong one.
- Price-first shoppers with US/CAD-only needs: at the $3.99/mo promo (billed annually), Simplifi undercuts our Starter tier while including investment tracking that we gate to Pro.
- Very broad institution coverage: over 14,000 institutions across several aggregators reduces the odds your bank is unsupported.
- Forward-looking cash flow and retirement projections ship in the base subscription.
- Household sharing with one person costs nothing extra (we gate partner sharing to Pro).
- Connected investment accounts refresh with market values and a performance view (TWR/IRR) in the base price.
Trade-offs to know about Quicken Simplifi
- No free tier — unusable without paying
- One currency at a time (USD or CAD); mixing causes balance discrepancies
- CSV export drops splits, tags, and notes; data persists on servers after you lapse
- No certification, audit, pen test, or bug bounty publicly documented
Why pick Forbidden Finance over Quicken Simplifi
Shipped today
- A free-forever tier — Simplifi cannot be used without paying.
- Honest exit: full export on every tier and deletion with key destruction, versus an export that drops splits/tags/notes and data that persists after your subscription lapses.
- Real multi-currency with conversion; Simplifi is one currency at a time.
- All 8 budget methods versus the single Spending Plan model.
- Documented security posture: per-account database encryption, RLS, passkeys, and a scheduled independent pentest — Simplifi documents none of the equivalents.
- 30-day money-back guarantee on web purchases instead of a trial that auto-converts.
On the way
- Flexible budget periods — pick your own start date and frequency, or alternate phases: run a 6-month budget, or three high-income months followed by three lean ones, the way contractor income actually works Coming Soon
- AI-powered insights (privacy-gated, on open models) Coming Soon
- Dedicated FIRE planning tools Coming Soon
- Debt payoff tools Coming Soon
Unshipped features stay labeled until they're real — that's the same honesty rule the rest of this page runs on.
Switching from Quicken Simplifi?
Export your data from Quicken Simplifi, then bring it in with Forbidden Finance's CSV & JSON import — available on every tier, including Free, so you can test-drive with your real data before paying anything. The help docs walk through imports step by step.
Common questions
Simplifi is $3.99/month promotional or $6.99/month regular, billed annually, with no free tier — you can’t use it without paying. Forbidden Finance has a free-forever tier; its paid ladder runs $4.99 to $14.99/month billed monthly with no annual contract. Both offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
No — one currency at a time, USD or CAD, and Quicken warns that mixing them may cause balance discrepancies. Forbidden Finance supports multiple currencies simultaneously with exchange-rate conversion.
Quicken’s docs state your data stays on their servers but becomes inaccessible unless you renew; removing it requires a support request or a CCPA deletion. Forbidden Finance keeps your data viewable within your tier’s window on downgrade to Free, and deletion is self-serve with a 30-day recovery window followed by permanent deletion and key destruction.
Quicken’s California privacy disclosure acknowledges two CCPA-defined "sale" categories: sharing IP address and hashed email with advertising partners, and sharing personal information with credit-card and bank partners for offers — both with an opt-out. Forbidden Finance shares nothing with advertising or card partners, on any tier.
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