Personal finance management becomes a necessity to achieve financial goals and sustain stability in the long run. Two of the most widely used tools in the category are Personal Capital and Quicken. Although both services proclaim themselves to help users manage their money, as it turns out, they differ vastly when it comes to features, cost, and value. Hence, this article takes you through a comprehensive comparison of these two tools Personal Capital vs Quicken to enable you to make the right choice and save you more money.
Getting to Know Personal Capital
Personal Capital is a management system primarily set to track your investments and your net worth. With its features in budgeting tools combined with investment tracking, this means it is highly ideal for those who focus on long-term financial growth.
Core Features of Personal Capital
Investment Tracking: This provides detailed insight into your investment portfolio, including performance and allocation analysis.
Retirement Planning: Allows a retirement planner that tries to project the future of your financial life based on your current assets and contributions.
Budgeting Tools: They are pretty basic but let you track how you’re spending money and from where your income is actually coming.
Free and Paid Accounts: The free account offers budgeting and tracking, while the paid account boasts advisory services on individualized investments.
Benefits of Personal Capital
Comprehensive Investment Analysis: Ideal for diversified portfolios.
Clean Dashboard: Its user-friendly interface renders financial monitoring easy.
Free access to core features: Available free of cost with no upfront fee
Disadvantages of Personal Capital
Limited Budgeting Features: Not as extensive as some competitors, like Quicken.
Tough Charges for Advisory Services: Paid services are expensive, with a yearly fee of 0.89% on assets under management.
Exploring Quicken
Quicken is one of the most ancient applications for personal finance that provides intensive tools for budgeting, tracking bills, and reporting finances. Unlike Personal Capital, Quicken actually tends to focus much more on the standard household expense tracking.
Critical Features of Quicken
In-depth Budgeting Tools: Tracks everyday expenses, where users can set up tailored budgets.
Bill Management: Users can handle their bills straight from the application.
Investment Tracking: Not as thorough as Personal Capital, but still provides enough tools to do basic investment tracking.
Tiered Pricing Plans: Has plans from base to advanced levels to suit a variety of users’ needs.
Benefits of Quicken
Advantages of Using Quicken
Comprehensive Budgeting: The application provides advanced tools on expense tracking and management.
Offline Access: It is capable of working without internet connectivity, which means having access to your data whenever you want.
Diverse Features: Tracks taxes to debt management.
Limitation of Quicken
Subscription Fee: Charges annually, which means a lengthy bill.
Difficulty Interface: Takes the user more time to learn than Personal Capital.
Extremely limited Analysis on investment: The app isn’t strong on investment for a significant number of investors.
Cost Comparing: Personal Capital vs. Quicken
One of the most crucial things to consider with this is cost. Personal Capital is free and provides tremendous value for money with regards to investment tracking and basic budgeting, but its paid advisory service may be very expensive.
Quicken offers a basic plan starting at $41.88 per year, and the advanced would be priced at $83.88 per year. Of course, for the price tag, you’d be paying for that over the many years you’d use such software, so it could get pretty steep in the wallet department if you’re not utilizing many of the features.
Which Saves You More Money?
For Budgeting and Daily Expense Management
If your core interest is tracking your expenditure on a day-to-day basis so that you can come up with an enhanced budget, then Quicken would be a more appropriate choice. With the heavy toolkit, one becomes able to recognize many patterns and cut out unnecessary items that will allow for savings in the near term.
For Long-Term Financial Growth
Investment performance and long-term financial planning options can be used to derive more value from Personal Capital. Portfolio optimization through free investment tracking and retirement planning tools is possible without additional expenses.
General Potential Savings
Whereas Quicken saves money by maximizing the daily chores related to the finances, Personal Capital outperforms the process when it comes to building a wealth in the long run. So, it is reliant on whether saving money in the short run or financial benefits in the long-run scenario of advantage.
Conclusion
Personal Capital and Quicken both have their own unique benefits according to the need of different people for their financial matters. If one wants to track down and cut down the daily budgets and expenses, there is the fullest toolbox in Quicken to save money. Best Investment Tracking Long-term Financial Planning For: Personal Capital is best at investment tracking and long-term financial planning. Comparing the features of each service to maximize your savings toward a personal financial objective.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Can I use Personal Capital and Quicken together?
Many users utilize both in tandem with one another to leverage investment tools provided by Personal Capital in tandem with a budgeting version of Quicken.
2. Is Personal Capital free?
The core feature of Personal Capital like its investment tracking service and budgeting service is free of cost. Its advisory services, though are not free.
3. Does Quicken has mobile app accessibility?
Yes. Quicken offers a mobile app to access your data on go.
4. Is either program safer?
Both Personal Capital and Quicken have advanced encryption in place to protect user data. Personal Capital also employs two-factor authentication for added security.
5. What are some alternatives to the use of these tools?
Some other alternatives include Mint for budget and YNAB for expense management.
