# Simple Balance vs. Quicken Simplifi: prices and bank connections

> Quicken Simplifi is $6.99 a month, billed yearly, and connects to your bank. Simple Balance has a free plan, imports a CSV file, and is open source.

From Simple Balance: https://smpl.money/compare/quicken-simplifi/. Checked 2026-10-29.

Quicken Simplifi and Simple Balance are both budget apps. Quicken Simplifi costs $6.99 a month, billed once a year, with no free plan or trial. Simple Balance is free for three accounts in use at once, with ads, or $3 a month or $30 a year for Premium, and it's open source, so you can also run your own copy for free. Quicken Simplifi connects to your bank. Simple Balance has no bank connection today, so you import a CSV file you download from your bank.

Prices and features change. Every fact about the other app links to the page it came from, and this page is checked again every three months.

## Feature comparison

| Feature | Simple Balance | Quicken Simplifi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Hosted for you, and what it costs | Free, or $3 a month or $30 a year for Premium | $6.99 a month, billed once a year. There's no monthly plan. ([source](https://www.quicken.com/products/simplifi/), [source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions)) |
| A free plan, hosted for you | Yes, with every feature, for three accounts in use at once and with ads | No, and no free trial. A 30-day money-back guarantee ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions)) |
| Run your own copy | Yes, free, on a server you look after, with no plan, no account limit and no ads | No |
| How your transactions get in | You download a CSV file from your bank and import it, or type entries in. There's no bank connection today. | By connecting to your bank, which brings transactions in automatically ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/5687989-how-does-quicken-simplifi-connect-to-my-bank)) |
| Files it imports | CSV | CSV, in the web app ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/4413430-how-to-manually-import-transactions)) |
| How budgets work | A budget for each category or group, which can carry what's left into the next month | A spending plan: your monthly income, minus bills and subscriptions ([source](https://www.quicken.com/products/simplifi/)) |
| Sharing with a partner | No. Each person who signs up has their own books. | One other person in each space ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions)) |
| Open source | Yes, under the AGPL-3.0 license | No |
| AI assistants | An MCP server an assistant can sign in to, to read, to propose entries for you to approve, or to make changes as you allow | Quicken AI Chat, an assistant inside the app ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/13343650-using-quicken-ai-chat)) |
| Where you use it | A web browser, on a computer or a phone. There's no app-store app. | The web, and phone apps for iPhone and Android ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions)) |

## When Quicken Simplifi is the better choice

- You want transactions to arrive from your bank on their own. Simplifi connects to your bank, and Simple Balance doesn't today. ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/5687989-how-does-quicken-simplifi-connect-to-my-bank))
- You share your money with one other person. Simplifi shares each space with one, and Simple Balance gives each person separate books. ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions))
- You want phone apps from the App Store or Google Play. ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions))

## When Simple Balance is the better choice

- You'd rather pay less, or nothing. Simple Balance's free plan has every feature, and Simplifi has no free plan or trial. ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions))
- You want to read the code or run your own copy. Simple Balance is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license, and free to run yourself with no limit and no ads.
- You want to connect an AI assistant of your own through MCP. Simplifi's assistant is one built into its app. ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/13343650-using-quicken-ai-chat))
- You keep money in more than one currency. Each account keeps its own, and nothing is converted at an exchange rate.
- You'd rather check each transaction before it counts. Everything you import waits on Staged until you commit it.

## Moving from Quicken Simplifi

Simplifi exports transactions as a CSV file from its web app, for one account or for several at once, from the menu on Transactions. ([source](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3404263-how-to-export-transactions-from-quicken-simplifi))

Simple Balance puts every row of a file into the one account you choose, so a file that holds more than one account needs splitting into one file per account first. Its amounts have to be plain numbers, without a currency sign, and a row that can't be read waits on Staged for you to fix rather than counting.

Your bank's own CSV files work as well, and they're what the import is built for. Budgets don't come across either way: set them up again on Budgets, and the bills that repeat on Recurring.

[Importing a statement, step by step](https://smpl.money/docs/importing-a-statement/)

## Sources

1. [Quicken Simplifi](https://www.quicken.com/products/simplifi/)
2. [Quicken Simplifi subscription questions, Simplifi Help](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3363727-quicken-simplifi-subscription-questions)
3. [How does Quicken Simplifi connect to my bank?, Simplifi Help](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/5687989-how-does-quicken-simplifi-connect-to-my-bank)
4. [How to manually import transactions, Simplifi Help](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/4413430-how-to-manually-import-transactions)
5. [Using Quicken AI Chat, Simplifi Help](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/13343650-using-quicken-ai-chat)
6. [How to export transactions, Simplifi Help](https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3404263-how-to-export-transactions-from-quicken-simplifi)

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