Today I’m writing with some big news: this fall we are switching to a new pricing model. This new model will coincide with the release of Banktivity 8 for Mac, iPhone and iPad. We call this new model a “subscription that doesn’t suck” because, while you will be asked to pay annually, if you choose to cancel: the app continues to work and provide value, and we never hold your data hostage. For the rest of this blog post I dive into why we are changing pricing models, and I cover some of the details of our new subscription.
One important note before I dive into the details: over the coming weeks I plan to release a couple more blog posts covering the new features coming to Banktivity 8 for macOS, iOS and iPadOS. It’s been a long road to get here, and I’m excited to finally be sharing what we’ve been working so diligently on!
Why change pricing models?
There are two main reasons for switching to our subscription model. First, we want to work on things that make you, our customer, happy. Second, a lot has changed since we first started offering connected services. What used to be cheap, or even free, has now become quite costly.
Happy customers
We hear a lot from our customers, and that’s great. We hear that you want enhancements to existing features to make the application easier to use, faster releases of bug fixes, new features and OS compatibility updates, and you want all of our applications to work together. We want all of those too and our new subscription model helps us get there.
More updates, more frequently
Going years between big releases isn’t really good for customers or us. We want to release features as they are ready, not accumulate a bunch so that we can then declare a big new release and charge for it. With subscription we can just release features as they are implemented – this is a win for everyone.
One purchase, all of our apps
If you go out and buy all of our apps today, you will be faced with two required purchases (Mac and iPad), one free download (iPhone), and one optional subscription for Direct Access — which works across all devices. In addition to this being confusing, it never feels good to have to buy so much to go “all in” on personal finance software. We want customers to manage their finances at their convenience and we’ve developed three great apps (Banktivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad) to help them do that. But it’s confusing to have to buy two different apps and one subscription and understand how it all works. With our subscription you pay and get access to (and support for) all of our apps, including all upgrades with new features, enhancements, and fixes.
Online services
Back in the old days, there were many online services that were free and we were able to piggy back on these. For example, Yahoo’s stock quote service used to be free, disk space was often free and so on. But times have changed. Yahoo doesn’t even have a stock quote API for developers anymore. Really, across the board there has been an increasing monetization of data. Additionally, services which we’ve maintained for years, like our cloud sync server, are more expensive to operate now because of increased security threats. When it comes to managing financial data, you don’t want a company that has a “set and forget” mentality. We take security and privacy seriously, even if it demands more resources from us. By switching to our subscription model we can ensure that our customers are paying for — and receiving — active support and security for our online services.
What happens if I cancel?
We understand that some customers might wince at the sound of subscriptions. We get that! Many companies today take a very unpalatable stance on data access. For example, if you subscribe to Adobe’s Creative Suite and you stop paying their subscription, you can’t even open your existing Photoshop files. Hitting closer to home, if you subscribe to YNAB, but decide to not pay your subscription, you can’t access your budget or data. We think this is an odious practice: they are effectively holding your data hostage – ransom payment required!
Our approach is fundamentally different than many of the subscriptions out there. With our subscription, we don’t hold your data hostage. If you decide to cancel (hey we get it, it happens, no hard feelings!) you can continue to use Banktivity in basic mode. That is you can still add accounts and transactions, manage your budget, create and edit reports and so on. Other premium features, mostly the ones that connect to our online services, will stop working. This means with a cancelled/expired subscription, Direct Access, stock quote download and such will stop working. Similarly, our technical support will only be available to people with active subscriptions. However, our online support articles will remain available to everyone.
Common Questions
How much does it cost?
Our customers span a broad range when it comes to where they are on their financial journey. Some of our younger customers have only recently gotten to the point in their lives where they have finances to track at all, and may just be beginning to build an emergency fund — while some customers are managing millions of dollars across a diverse array of accounts and currencies. Given our customers’ diversity, we knew a one-size-fits-all pricing wouldn’t work for our subscription.
We will be offering three different pricing tiers to better accommodate our customers’ needs.
Our lowest priced tier is called Bronze and will cost $49.99 USD a year (that’s a little more than $4 a month). It includes everything you need to get started with managing your finances including Direct Access connectivity, cloud sync, budgeting and more.
The next tier up is Silver and includes everything in Bronze plus support for tracking investments, mortgages and loans, real estate and more. Silver also includes support for downloading stock quotes and home prices (US homes only). Our Silver tier is $69.99 USD a year (or less than $6 a month).
Gold is our premium tier. It includes everything in Bronze and Silver plus support for setting up and tracking accounts in different currencies and check printing. The gold tier also allows you to download currency exchange rates. The gold tier is $99.99 USD a year (or a little over $8 a month).
Compared to what some of our competitors offer, we think our new subscription is a great value.
Is there a free trial?
Yes! You can try the new Banktivity 8 apps for free for 30 days. After 30 days, your credit card will be billed based on the selected tier (bronze, silver or gold). During your trial you can switch tiers as much as you’d like to help you decide which is the right feature set for your financial tracking needs.
What happens if I’m a paying Direct Access subscriber and I want to move to Banktivity 8?
We allow customers to convert their remaining Direct Access time to the new system. This way our customers that want to move to our new subscription don’t have to leave unused time on our old system.
Can I subscribe through Apple’s App Store?
Yes, you will be able to subscribe through Apple’s ecosystem or buy from us. If you download Banktivity for Mac from our website, then the purchase will be through us. If you sign up through one of our apps downloaded from the App Store, then you’ll be signing up through Apple. You will still get the same great support no matter which channel you choose!
What if I want to stay on Banktivity 6 or Banktivity 7?
You can continue to stay on your current version of Banktivity if it is working for you. Nothing about them is changing now, but they will no longer be developed and support will eventually be phased out.
Will Banktivity 8 work offline?
Yes. While an internet connection is required to purchase and use some of our online services, all non-Internet based features fully work, even if you are offline.
Conclusions
We didn’t arrive at these changes overnight. For years we’ve been thinking about ways to deliver more updates to customers in less time. Further, we need a better way to pay for the online services our customers expect us to develop and maintain, in a world where those services incur continuous ongoing costs. Last, we wanted to do all of this while still offering a tremendous value to customers with the right spirit.
If you are a current Direct Access subscriber we think switching to subscription with Banktivity 8 makes a lot of sense. For as little as $5 more a year you get all three Banktivity apps, the new features coming to Banktivity 8, and access to future features as we continue to improve and enhance Banktivity across Mac, iPhone and iPad.
We love our customers, without you, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Further, we want to be around for many more years to come. So, please accept a heartfelt THANK YOU for your support over the years and we look forward to building the best finance apps for you and your family for many years to come.
I’m looking forward to talking about some of the user-facing features coming in Banktivity 8 for Mac, iPhone and iPad in the coming weeks!
Sincerely,
Ian Gillespie, President
- Continuing Investments in Direct Access - February 26, 2024
- Banktivity 9: The Little Changes - September 8, 2023
- Retiring services for older versions of Banktivity - August 11, 2023
Well having been on this journey with you since 2006, I’m happy Banktivity (formerly iBank) is still going strong and I’m looking forward to the next generation of software. The mobile version could so with a new lick of paint.
I do need multi currency, so I guess it’s gold making this more expensive than most other offerings, but I was paying for direct access anyway. I’m curious as to why multi-currency is more expensive (currency downloads are surely opensource?)
Hi Mark, thanks for being such a long time customer and supporter! I’m looking forward to sharing some of our new features and look 🙂 coming to our new versions. As to your question, we maintain a server to fetch currency exchange rates (so some cost there) and there are significant development and testing costs to make the app support multiple currencies – it adds a non-trivial layer of complexity. So that is why it is in the gold tier. I hope this is helpful.
Hi Ian – thanks for the direct response. I can well believe that, I do like that any report can be shown in the base or alternate currency and it’s trivial to create currency based reports; in my opinion you’re literally the only home finance software that does this right! It’s one of a few features I think you guys nailed making you the best finance app out there (yes even including the grand-daddy of them all on the ‘other’ operating system’.
The other features I love are: the way you post interest to the loan account (rather than the paying account) which makes budgeting and tracking loans easier, and the income/expense reports which show that report over time, and rolled up to higher categories AND includes transfers. It’s easy to create net reports (only net cash going out) as well as gross reports that include contributions to savings/investments.
Your features for B8 I’m sure are locked down, but (in order of preference) here are the things I’d love to see if you’re interested:
1) A way to merge and manage payees/rules. Managing payees is hard, and over time they get out of hand. A merge/edit dialogue with search would be very sweet! Especially if your reports already drill down to the payee level, which is super nice.
2) Ability to type the lower level category when entering a transaction, rather than memorizing the hierarchy,
3) Ability to enter securities either by the name, or symbol (I have a hack where the symbol is in the name to work around this). The reason is the dividends/interest report on my 401(k) and one of my investment accounts only shows by name, whereas the buy/sells show by symbol. For whatever reason, downloads are always wrong, so I prefer to do it manually.
last one…
4) Ability to edit the time-frame of some of the summary screens. Every account has a summary screen, but the timeline is fixed, and also the trend/summary parts summarize different periods of time. Same with the overall summary screen (that huge net-worth summary is month by month – it would be great to change the scale to quarterly or even annually).
Have a great summer – speak in the fall. I’m also up for beta-testing if you’re planning that!
I have used Quicken premier for windows for many years, and I’m legally blind. I have recently purchased a Mac desktop computer and I’m looking for financial software that is VoiceOver compatible. Is your software compatible with voiceover for Mac?
Hi Richard,
We have some VoiceOver support, but there are some areas that are lacking. I would recommend you try out the app and see if it meets your needs before committing.
Hello Ian,..,…
I will give it a try… Looking forward to the results. Thank you for your prompt response!
Rick
Overall I am very happy that by the end of this year we will be running a new version of Banktivity and have the option to use it in other platforms. I am a supporter of App Subscription models as long as they provide ongoing value through services and app development. Looks like silver will do for me and that is not much more than the DA cost. I am still in Mojave and will NOT update to Catalina so I am hoping the new app does not have 10.15 as a requisite.
Will you update to Big Sur? 🙂
Yes… i sat out Catalina on the back of community feedback. I am hoping Big Sur is some for of Apple redemption !! I am OK with Big Sur as the base, I will be there for sure.
Will Big Sur be a requirement? My iMac do not make the cut (by like 3 months) and so I will not be able to update it to Big Sur.
Banktivity for Mac will be optimized for Big Sur, but will run on Catalina.
I’m ok with the plan, and will be a “gold” subscriber. I need the multi-currency.
Timeline for release?
Ian, I’ll be very happy to subscribe at Silver level, if support for downloads of Australian Stock Exchange (.AX) prices returns.
It’s been six months, and manually entering prices is getting REALLY old!!!
Hi Al, thanks for the question. At this time we are still using IEX as our stock quote provider and they still don’t support AUX. We have the ability in our system to add additional data sources, but we can’t find a reliable AUX source. I keep pushing IEX to add support for it, but ultimately I don’t have control of that. I wish I had better news.
Thanks for that news, Ian. As I understand the proposed subscription model, to retain what’s currently called ‘Direct Access’ (which is working well) I’m going to have to pay for services that you’re not able to provide. If that’s an accurate reflection of the reality, sadly, that seems to be a subscription model that does, in the real world, suck.
If there was a subscription level that allowed me to pay for the services you can actually deliver, I’d be overjoyed to pony up! But, for the record, being asked to pay for something that you freely admit you can’t deliver is disappointing.
+1 Al. We’re being disregarded here down under and as unpleasant as it will be, I will not be moving to a solution that doesn’t work for us.
I can get stock quotes for all the exchanges I need, including Aus, on the apple stocks app – surely you can do a deal with apple to get access to their data Ian. I’m happy to pay a fair price and happy with a subscription model too. But I’m not happy to pay for a solution that doesn’t work fully and has no commitment to be fixed.
Ditto for me Brad and Al, I can’t fathom offering a service tier and openly admit it does not work for this region (AU). I am now finding it painful to update 30 securities on a daily basis when we live in the 21st Century and the ASX is not the smallest market in the world.
I do hope that by launch time this ASX update is addressed, I love the product and DA works fine for me with my finance suppliers. Even if there is no ASX ‘live update’ I could survive with EOD closes but zero data population is really unacceptable.
Same here. Staying on 7 without ASX support. Ability to import end of day data (why isn’t it there already?) would mitigate the issue somewhat, but ultimately I expect to get equivalent level of service to US customers.
Using different currencies and investment accounts I would be happy to subscribe for the Gold level.
But since this February I have to manually enter all prices for my Swiss and most other european securities and the outlook for improvement to this according to Ian is „not under his control“. Very disappointing, how can you ask money for something you can’t deliver.
I have been using iBank for many years, & love the product. But I have a phobia with subscriptions. You say that maintaining your cloud sync server costs money … but prevent us from using our own (ie DropBox).
Ho Hum!
Hi. DropBox doesn’t offer a real sync solution. It’s just a file stored in a cloud drive. The problem with this is, what if you have two Macs accessing the same file at the same time – they can end up over-writing each others data. We have no control of the logic as to which records are “the truth.” I store my file on iCloud Drive, but I still use Cloud Sync because it is way less likely to result in a corrupted database.
I would be very happy paying for Gold as the online services work for non-US market – ie we have live updating stock prices for London and European exchanges and support for EU Open Banking.
But if there is no Open Banking support, and stocks only update with yesterday’s prices then no thanks – I’ll just carry on using 7.
Have tried online access but this never worked properly in the Netherlands. Happy however with import and offline features. Don’t use investment or mortgages features. Would you consider an upgrade to never versions with customers like me?
Hi Gerrit. I think for your case, where you don’t use any of the connected features, it might make sense for you to just buy the tier you need for your account types (Bronze or Silver) and then not renew. It feels weird to tell people to not renew, but you fit pretty well into this category 🙂
Thanks Ian. Will do that. One feature I am missing. Would like to see when import a file a first row with the names of the columns to import. Now I must each time choose the columns by hand. For the rest it is great for my purposes.
I would be very happy paying for Gold if the online services work for non-US market – ie we have quality live updating stock prices for London and European exchanges and support for EU Open Banking.
But if there is no Open Banking support, stocks only update with yesterday’s prices, and there is no support at all for mutual fund prices – as is the case currently with 7, then no thanks – I’ll just carry on using 7.
I am curious to know whether in your new software and pricing model you will again offer access to European account, compatible with the now “not so new anymore” European regulations…
I am glad it’s a yearly fee. I hate little monthly fees. How many machines will the subscription be good for? I don’t need the current 5 but three would be nice.
Looking forward to V8. Fingers crossed for an app that can update itself, an option to reset the new transaction lables at midnight rather than 24 hours from the last update and Credit Card purchases being categorized as “charge” rather than “withdrawl”
As a long time customer who only relies on stock quotes and currency exchange rates, but cannot take advantage of Direct Access, I find this pricing scheme quite disappointing.
Up until now, Direct Access was the feature that required a subscription. Can you elaborate more on why the currency exchange rates are suddenly the most expensive feature at double the cost of Direct Access? This is a bit hard to understand. I am not sure what the work behind the scenes looks like, but I would have expected that maintaining the Direct Access feature and even the stock quotes is more complex.
Hi Philipp, I’m happy to elaborate on why currency support is in the Gold tier. Supporting multiple currencies is one of the features that sounds easy, but when you get down to the details, it really adds quite the complexity into the code. Over the years there have been numerous times when we’ve talked about features we want to add, they sound quite doable and then we start discussing how it will work with people who have accounts in different currencies and we are like, “OK, yeah, this feature is going to be a bit more complex to make sure it plays nice across currencies.” You take this and combine it with the fact that it is actually only a small portion of our customers that have accounts in multiple currencies and we end up putting in lots of resources for a feature only the minority will use. So it made the most sense for this “premium feature” if you will, to be in the Gold tier. I hope this makes sense.
Thanks for the honest reply Ian. I would consider staying with Banktivity if you offer a cheaper tier that excludes Direct Access. Judging from many comments here and on Reddit this is how many users feel, especially UK/AU based.
Thank you Ian, this is helpful. I am also someone using multiple currencies and will be at the gold level because of it. I also appreciate the honest answer here.
Good news, I’m in!
But. Does, or will, Direct Access work for UK banks?
Hi Michael. I don’t have any new news on this front. This article is still relevant. Sorry, I don’t have better news to report!
My sincere apologies for missing your reply. .
That’s not the news we were hoping for but I understand the issues involved. When UK moved to Open Banking I started entering my transactions manually, perhaps I should try downloading lists from my various accounts – would this still be supported in Banktivity 8?
I am also a UK user, and this is very disappointing news. It looks as if there is no prospect of Direct Access working again (closed by Open Banking!) and no incentive to upgrade to version 8 since it doesn’t seem to do anything that version 7 can’t.
I would consider moving my accounts to a UK bank that does support direct access so I can continue using Banktivity. There seem to be some institutions that do. Do you have such a list (white list rather than black list)?
This seems like a good and fair thing. I am sad, though, that the currency support is only in the Gold model, as I don’t need any of the features of Silver. The currency support (even if I don’t have bank accounts or many transactions in other currencies) was always a reason for me to use Banktivity.
I’ll most likely stay with my already paid in full Banktivity 7 product. I find that bundling stock quotes into the Silver model to be ridiculous…and personally, the price point for all three tiers is out of line from what other personal financial software companies charge.
I like Banktivity a lot, the mobile sync is reliable and have considered it a good Quicken Mac replacement…but I just feel that $70 a year is above and beyond what others are charging.
For example, I get everything Silver has to offer with Quicken Mac Deluxe…at about half the annual subscription price.
Would have been nice to hear the new features with this announcement. To process this info fully.
Hi, we thought about covering the new features in this post, but it started to feel like too big a blog post. Ultimately, this is a big announcement that deserves its own post. I did NOT want to do a post about features and then say, “Oh yeah, and we are moving to subscription.”
I’ve never really tracked my investments, mortgages and loans in Banktivity, but I always saw it as a “some day I’ll get around to that” item, knowing the option was always there. Now it seems I need to make a choice one way or another. My problem is I never quite understood how to get started with tracking my investments. I’m a total layperson and whatever tutorial I might have found at one time assumed I have knowledge that I don’t. Is there an explain-it-like-I’m-five tutorial anywhere?
Finally! I will gladly support you with a subscription, but I will also be watching to make sure you hold up to your end of the bargain :-). You’ve explained all the shortcomings of the current model, so no need for me to repeat the problems here – looking forward to more regular and frequent updates!
Ian — Interesting. I’m generally supportive of the move and, in particular, make DA part of the app subscription service. Including the total bundler is really for users (and hopefully IGG Support too).
If we buy through Apple’s AppStore, will there be any way to have Family Sharing? The use case is simply having our finances on my wife’s and my laptops. Same household, same accounts — it would be great if that were easy.
Hi Travis, thanks for the questions and comments. The new subscription is tied to your Banktivity ID. So the way to share data between house member is to share your Banktivity ID (same way it works now if you want to sync within a household). So you will only need to buy once through the App Store, then use a shared Banktivity ID and you’ll be good to go. I hope this helps clarify!
The new version of the software to be subscribed to tempts me but there is one problem which is caused me to not use the software for the last ten months or so.
The problem is
the automatic download because several of my financial institutions
require two factor authentication and will not except what the program
tries to do automatically so I have to do it all by hand. This is a pain
but it’s not impossible. It isn’t possible though it’s for my wife to do
it and as my increasing Parkinson’s disease difficulty with keyboarding
makes it harder and harder for me to accomplish these things I’m trying
to turn over more of it to her. So my question is have you done
anything to get the program working better with banks like USAA and
KeyBank? I was a very early user of the program (from back when Ian was a grad student) and happy with it for many years but have
found it inadequate recently because of its inability to get data and my
inability at the keyboard. I’ve been using Dragon naturally speaking
extensively now; so I had to move some of my work to windows in order to
get good dictation. But I don’t see any easy way to do that with the
financial programs
Can you give me any reassuring advice or simply admit my case is too
hard (because banks won’t cooperate etc.) so we wish each other well as we part?
David Kolb
Hi David, as you probably know we use a third party provider for our Direct Access service (Yodlee). They have very little control over which banks will ask for a MFA (one time password) on each update or request or at less frequently intervals. I have some banks the require a onetime password every time I refresh my accounts. I have found Banktivity works best for me if I go to Preferences and turn off auto-importing of bank transactions. Then I only get prompted for the onetime password only why I manually tell Banktivity to refresh. We continue to invest in Direct Access and we hope that overtime we can improve it, but please note, the bank’s ultimately decide how much they want to integrate with Yodlee. I hope this info is helpful.
I think the pricing model is reasonable. I would subscribe.
However Direct Access even here in the US is less and less useful. I can’t use it with many financial companies any longer because they require types of 2FA that DA can’t support. I’d pay more if you could solve this.
Hi, Ian, I’ve been an enthusiastic iBank/Banktivity user for over 8 years and understand that subscription-based pricing models are “the way of the world” in IT. Your company needs to cover its costs and support its development efforts. What concerns me is that I use all of Apple’s platforms and apart from the Mac, find the iPad app minimally useful and the iPhone app only slightly better. And, while budgeting and banking functionality is very good, Banktivity’s investment tracking and analysis capabilities are minimalist compared to Personal Capital, which I also use.
I’d like to be able to use all of MacOS Banktivity’s functionality on my iPad Pro – should be possible, now that Apple is transitioning to ARM processors, as used on iPhone and iPad – and reasonable subset of them of my iPhone. If Banktivity 8 will support doing so, I’m fine with paying a reasonable subscription fee – I already pay for Direct Access. If, however, the iPad and iPhone versions continue to be a shadow of the MacOS version, it’s hard for me to justify continuing to use Banktivity, or pay for an upgrade.
Personal Capital offers great functionality for investors. I get that many users probably don’t have or wish that they had substantial investment portfolios and assets. Fortunately, my wife and I do and we began using Personal Capital three years ago because it has robust reporting, graphing and related capabilities. I hope Banktivity will incorporate these, and more full-functioning releases for Apple’s other platforms. If not, I have a good alternative.
Thanks and I wish your company and its products well, and hope I can continue to use them.
what will the functionality of the iOS versions be compared to the Mac version?
My understanding is that the iOS versions are quite limited.
thanks
I guess you’ll find out when everyone else finds out…
truth!
thanks
?
I have a hunch that we’ll see an iPad (and iPhone) version that’s much more like the macOS version. Here’s hoping.
There are so many things missing from the iPad & iOS versions compared to the macOS versions, I stopped using them over a year ago. I’m looking forward to a change.
totally agree so here’s hoping!
Ian – couple of items … first, I do think that Banktivity 7 is the best Mac OS home finance management tool so I hope in version 8 you don’t mess with the excellent interface. However, you do need to decide if you truly want to support UK/non-US customers – Direct Access simply doesn’t work here. I spent hours with your support team trying to get DA working with my UK accounts and, eventually, gave up. Frankly, I only have a few 10s of transactions each week so its no hardship to enter them manually. Secondly, you need to either get serious about the functionality and interoperability of the iPad and iPhone apps or get out of this businesses. There are multiple examples of discrepancies between the iPad, iPhone and Mac OS applications e.g investments failing to synchronise, pending transactions not synchronised. My plea – make sure you build on the excellent Mac OS application and get serious about your non-US customers.
Peter, you’ve said it much better than I could have. These are the exact same points that I and many other UK customers would like addressing.
Ian – we just need to know where we stand?
I would have been happy with the subscription model but, like many others, the lack of UK bank support kills a subscription model for me I’m afraid
Ian has replied to other posts since the question of Direct Access support for UK banks was raise but won’t address or comment on our concerns. So I guess we’ll take that as a no support for UK banks…
I replied to your very first comment Michael. If you scroll up you should see it.
I plan on sticking with IGG as always. It’s my go-to for finances! The subscription
model and fees seem reasonable to me. I look forward to seeing what’s been updated!
I would just like to add my progressing disappointment with Direct Download. It used to work flawlessly but now it’s hit or miss and I currently have a help ticket out. I feel that downloading transactions from the 2nd largest credit union in the U.S. shouldn’t be a problem.
I think the subscription model is a fair and equitable way to offer quality software, and as a Banktivity user who has invested a lot of time and effort getting my finances into Banktivity, I’m pleased that you are figuring out how to stay in business for many years to come.
My only concern as a user of a relatively old Mac is that you not require an upgrade to Big Sur to use Banktivity 8. Catalina is the last upgrade that will support my Mac, and I’m not quite ready to upgrade to a new laptop this year. Thanks!
Hi Kim, Banktivity 8 for Mac will be optimized for Big Sur, but will still run on Catalina.
Ian,
My objective is to buy a new Pro laptop (Apple silicone) with Big Sur when the right model becomes available….. Will B8 run on Mojave ?? I would rather avoid an OS upgrade on my current system if possible.
I am in the same situation. Glad to see if will still work on Catina. Thanks Ian!
To be honest, I’m on the fence about switching to a subscription service. I switched from YNAB to Banktivity for this reason, as I did not want my personal finance software to be subscription-based, and I loved the power features Banktivity offered. However, in the year I’ve been a Banktivity user, I’ve seen very little meaningful updates be released. I’ve even sent a list of feature suggestions I had made as a recent YNAB switcher, and never received a response.
I sincerely hope that the current update model will change once Banktivity is released in that we will get frequent feature releases.
What is the timing on the release for Banktivity 8? I am currently about a week into my trial of version 7. I’d like to avoid paying for a Banktivity 7 license only to have version 8 released just a few weeks later.
We don’t have an exact date to announce, but more in the order of months vs weeks.
Having read Ian’s answers to some of the other posts here I am a little concerned about how this will work for me. I need multi-currency support, so I have to pay for Gold. But it seems that for this I will not get Open Banking support, nor live stock prices, nor mutual fund prices (IEX just does not do this in Europe). So I will have to pay top tier – for very little in return.
I really do want to see Banktivity grow and so am more than happy to move to subscription – but only if the subscription gives me full connectivity. That means Open Banking support and a better stock and mutual fund service than that offered by IEX.
Richard,
I concur with your summation, whilst I don’t require Gold (ie currencies) there is little point signing up for a Silver tier when it does not work for the AU market. I really hope this gets addressed before release, if we move to a subscription you expect to get the service you license. Your situation is a classic, you need the top tier and you won’t get for most of what you are paying for (DA and Stocks updates).
I am onboard with subscription but the foundations of those tiers are not up to scratch for Non US customers. You then have to weigh up with the enhancements are worth the switch, at least in the short term.
Hi Ian, I have been a customer at least 7 years after switching from Quicken. I have been very happy with iBank/Banktivity for the most part, but…for the past several years I have been using Banktivity and Quicken side by side every day. I manage not only my own financial accounts but those for a couple of relatives who insist on using Quicken. I’m using the current versions of both.
I applaud your move to a subscription service. Not only do I NOT have a problem with it, I would ask, what took you so long. It makes complete sense to me, and I expect to pay for good products and services.
However, I have to say I’ve been a bit disappointed lately in Banktivity. I find Quicken to be a better value, and it works better in many ways. As a test I have been using my own financial accounts side by side in Banktivity and Quicken for some while. Yes, it’s double the work, but worth it to me to verify my feelings. My list of advantages for Quicken over Banktivity is large, but here are a few of the most important ones:
1. Direct connect services – I have had many issues with this in Banktivity and have opened problem tickets, some of which have never been resolved, and I gave up. The same accounts work flawlessly in Quicken. There are several accounts that have never worked in Banktivity, yet they connect directly in Quicken with no trouble. This has been an ongoing issue for me for several years now.
2. Multiple platforms – I have a Mac, iPad Pro, iPhone Pro (and the same for family members for whom I manage accounts). The iPad version of Banktivity is well, not very good IMO. Why have a completely different interface than the Mac version? When I use Quicken on my Mac and then switch to Quicken Web on my iPad, I get nearly an identical experience. Nothing to relearn or adjust to save the touch interface of course. Not all features are supported in the web interface, but Quicken supports more than Banktivity for iPad. The phone versions are probably about a draw, but I rarely use those, so don’t care.
3. Payee and Category Management – Quicken offers a very nice, robust view for listing, searching, editing and merging these items. I use it very, very often to keep these things under control. They also offer a much more robust and useful set of rules tools for automatic editing of downloaded/imported transactions.
4. Reporting – I just find reports easier to set up and manage, quicker, and more customizable in Quicken. They work the way I would want them to work, whereas in B7 I generally get the results I want, but with more effort. Q interface is more intuitive than B.
Given that I use the new gold level of features, based on current pricing information, I will save about $50/yr with Quicken. I am already letting my Direct Connect subscription expire this month because it doesn’t work for many of the accounts I need (but does in Quicken), and now with my side by side experience with both products on a daily basis, I am kind of sadly switching back to Quicken, at least that’s how I’m feeling today. I’m going to continue using them both for a while yet, and I’ll stay tuned to additional info on B8, but it’s going to take a lot to keep me as a customer. I’m sorry about that because when I started with iBank it was so much better than the competition, at least for me.
I wish you good success with B8, and I hope it will be even better and more successful than all previous versions.
I appreciate your candid feedback on what you think we can do better. I hope we will have the chance to keep you as a customer!
I only wish you could provide some EU users friendly subscription. I can not use any of the direct access nor the automatic stock update functions anyway, but I operate with different currencies on weekly basis. As it seams now, the best option for me is to stay on version 7, as long as it provides Colud Sync.
Ian – can you clarify whether I will require ‘Gold’ to operate my accounts exclusively in UK Pounds but don’t need to operate in multiple currencies or download exchange rates? Also, I agree with others on the ‘Blog’ that if Direct Access does not and will never work outside the US, then I think you need a a lower cost tier that doesn’t include or charge for that feature.
Hi Peter, you only need the Gold tier if you want to track accounts in multiple currencies. So having 20 accounts all in UK Pounds does NOT necessitate having Gold, but 19 in UK Pounds and 1 in Euro would.
Ian – appreciate the clarification ….. that’s good news.
Couple of other items on my ‘Wish List’. Can Tags be altered to ‘persist’ in memorised and scheduled transactions. I would use Tags much more if I didn’t have to remember to enter this data for every new transaction.
Can scheduled transactions be altered to include an option for a one-time payment (like MS Money). I know this may appear counter-intuitive but I often include a credit card payment as a scheduled payment but the value may vary so wildly that it makes no sense to schedule it as a monthly payment.
Finally, I have monthly payments that run for years – like my electricity bills. However, most often, they go up on an annual basis. Please keep the feature that allows me in a budget to alter a planned payment without it retrospectively changing the previous budget amounts.
Where does OFX download fit in within the new model. I didn’t see it mentioned in the subscription tiers, so would that be one feature that remains in the basic (non-subscription) model?
Hi Jeff, Direct Connect (via OFX) is an online service available for across all tiers, like Direct Access. Direct Connect takes a significant amount of our resources as we have to maintain bank connection info and even though OFX is a “standard” we’ve learned over the years that many different banks have these little quirks we have to troubleshoot to make sure they keep working. Sometimes banks make bigger changes, like Citi recently, where we worked with them to make sure Banktivity could connect with their new system. I hope this helps clarify.
Fantastic news, Ian. The lack of any news here was starting to make me sweat! ?
As a long-time user (started with iBank v3) I’m looking forward to these updates & will be happy to beta test if required (I’m also a iOS Developer in my spare time).
I have a lot of small wish-list items, much of which has been already mentioned here, but one thing I’d like in Account view is the ability to have the top 3rd show the summary, with the ledger below. Seems it would be the perfect layout for an account, rather than one or the other.
I’m also hopeful that we’ll see some convergence between the iOS & macOS versions so the mobile versions are more powerful and ‘feel’ like their macOS counterpart.
Good luck over the coming weeks and I look forward to the upcoming blog posts! Cheers from Australia.
In response to your article; “A subscription that doesn’t suck”. I have been an iBank/Banktivity customer for a while now and I don’t have any problem with a subscription model, if in fact the services you are subscribing to work consistently. Unfortunately, as I do a majority of my banking with Santander Bank, I have been without Direct Access for close to a year, all the while paying the fee. There needs to be some accountability for non-performance issues. “…..we’ve learned over the years that many different banks have these little quirks we have to troubleshoot to make sure they keep working.” can not be an excuse for long term problems.
Hi Ian,
I’ve been a iBank/Banktivity user since 2011. I’m not adverse to the subscription model but would really need to see some upgrades to the report writing capabilities to make it worth my while.
However, I do have some questions. I run an older Mac that is on High Sierra that cannot be upgraded. I’m waiting to upgrade my Mac but am waiting to see the new ARM based Macs.
My question is two fold. 1) what MacOS will the new Version need and 2) is it being readied for the ARM based Macs?
Thanks and best of luck with the upgrade!
Banktivity 8 for Mac will support Apple Silicon (ARM) Macs natively. It will be optimized for Big Sur, but will run on Catalina.
Haha! Wish I saw this before I just signed up for a year of Direct Access for ver 7. Oh well. Still worth it. Fantastic app. Looking forward to ver 8!
Glad you like the app! You’ll be able to transfer your Direct Access time to new v8 system.
Hi, Love Banktivity – started with iBank 4. Looking forward to using this on iPad. – One thing – my eyesight is deteriorating and whilst Apple offers some accessibility features – what would really help is an in-app option to increase font size on everything. Hope you can help.
Hi Ian,
I’m a relatively new Banktivity customer. I began using the Mac app in January. I worked with support to fix the Discover OFX capability in February then the newer Banktivity release broke it again. My confidence in Banktivity is not high at all. I have a support ticket open since February asking a question. The Discover OFX issue has not been fixed since May (with multiple support interactions).
I’m going to be honest here and say that I have been minimally impressed with Banktivity. The support has been lackluster, and the product has suffered since I bought in. I would love to use the iPad app but it does not have all the Mac functionality.. Unless the product has substantially improved I see no reason to subscribe to a inferior service than other financial companies offer.
Did I read correctly that check printing will only be supported at the highest level?
I have supported you since v3 and am OK paying more– within limits. You deserve to make a profit and to recoup increasing expenses. Moving to a subscription makes your revenue stream more consistent.
I hope we can agree that downloading stock quotes and Direct Connect (or Open Banking in Europe) are foundational and inseparable features of any personal financial software. If so, I do not understand how you can sell a Bronze tier that does not include both. It is crippleware.
It is as if the TurboTax Deluxe 2014 Schedule D fiasco never occurred.
I cannot use Direct Access so this “Subscription that doesn’t suck” is in fact a 3-fold price increase for the same features I have right now. Assuming $35 upgrade fees every 18 months vs $105 for the same period of the new Silver tier.
Ian – I have been a long customer of Banktivity and iBank and am excited for v8 to come out. I have two questions.
Do you have a beta program?
I have experienced several issues with Direct Access in the past. Have these been resolved? Did you switch to a different vendor for this service?
Thanks,
Chris
This is the EXACT reason i left Quicken for Banktivity and now you are acting just like them. So basically I have purchased the Mac program and the iPad program, pay a for direct connect and now I get to start paying a new subscription. So it appears to me that I am initially being double charged and to keep the connectivity I have to keep paying. I will see what materializes going forward and decide whether or not I will stay. By the way, something that would really improve customer service is to extend your online chat hours to accommodate customers across the US and not only be available when most people are at work.
Hi Robert, I appreciate your honest opinions. I hope we will be able to make a good case for you to move to our subscription when we talk about the new features coming in v8.
I appreciate the transparency and advance notice, however like others I’m disappointed that multi-currency is a Gold feature. Trying to pay off debt in multiple currencies just got a lot more expensive even if you don’t use all the other frills.
Hi Ian, thanks for the update. The news is bittersweet to a non-US user like myself. Great to hear about the new version but see a problem with the Gold tier for myself. The key feature for me is multi-currency support. I don’t use direct access (like to but not practical for non-US user) and other investment functions (again non-US user). So the choice for me is to cough up a fair bit of change for multi currency support or to subscribe on bronze tier and just treat the accounts as dumb accounts (labelling the accounts in the currency and using as pure number cruncher / recorder). Frankly, having used your product for a while and paid the money to do so, the latter does not make sense to me. So it does seem time is up for me as far as Banktivity goes. A last gasp effort though: can I subscribe to Gold tier and get v8 with currency support but then terminate? I do not need the exchange rates to be updated frequently; just for the functionality (don’t need to know my net worth on a daily basis 🙂 haha). Will the multi currency accounts still function with respect to the last exchange rates in the system or will the non-USD accounts then malfunction? I hope you can see that I am trying to stay with yourselves and fingers crossed there will be some middle ground to work on. Thanks.
If you subscribed to Gold, but then did not renew, all of the multiple currency features would work, except for the downloading of the exchange rates. You could continue to update the exchange rates “by hand” even.
Will cloud sync between Mac in iPhone still work in this case?
Great to hear. Thanks Ian; glad to stay with IGG and hope future plans could be refined with us non-US users in mind too. Happy to pay for subscription but hope the features justify the cost. Fingers crossed the multi-currency support becomes easier (and more cost effective to implement) and I can migrate back to the subscription plan.
Ian,
I was hoping you could clarify a query on the tiers.
I have no need for multiple currencies but I do manage 30 securities in the ASX. I am painfully aware that, at this time, ASX prices are not being downloaded.
To that end, assuming nothing changes do I need the Silver tier to manage the 30 securities or can I go to the Bronze tier since downloads for ASX are not available. I am wondering if Silver is needed to manage securities or if it is just about the downloading of securities and home prices information.
I agree with other comments that the long window between updates was beginning to make me nervous. I’m onboard with subscription pricing and understand why it makes sense. Looking forward to the updates! Keep up the great work!
Generally speaking, I abhor subscriptions. As you so eloquently said … it’s often as if they are holding your data hostage. I recently had an app on my phone that I use multiple times a day announce their move to a subscription … I use no cloud services, no syncing, just a stand-alone app on my phone and now I’ll have to pay for the pleasure to keep using it after I already “bought it”?! Argh! Everyone is jumping on the subscription bandwagon … I’m convinced one day people will no longer get married but “subscribe to one another”!
With that out of my system, I’m in. I’ve been on this train since iBank 3. I was a beta-tester for iBank 4 and have been using 5 for years. Because of the age of my Mac, I was unable to upgrade to 6 or 7 — until now! This month I got a new Mac and the first order of business was Banktivity 7.
I’ve watched the evolution of this product and while there have been feature changes I’ve not necessarily liked, overall the trend has always been positive. I’ll put up with the 10% of things that are “satisfactory” for the 90% I absolutely love.
And don’t get me started on the customer service… Any issue with your finances is a “major issue” and IGG has always been when I needed them. I can’t say enough good things.
All of that said, the reality is this product has always been a tremendous value. I’ve never needed the Direct Access subscription because most of my accounts support OFX so I’ve reaped all the benefits of connectivity without actually having to pay for any of it. Lucky me! Stock quote were free through Yahoo … well … until they weren’t. After upgrading to version 7 I’m now getting stock quote again for “free” … well … at least I’m not the one paying for it (sorry Ian).
Sure, I was initially repulsed by the idea of a subscription. And my initial reaction to the pricing was that it was a little steep (I guess I’ll need Silver because of my mortgage and 401k investments). But when I think about all the “value” I’ve received over the years … I have to concede a price increase was long overdue.
I think Mario said it best in an early comment: “I am a supporter of App Subscription models as long as they provide ongoing value through services and app development.”
Given IGG’s track record of outstanding service and value, I have no reason to think that would change.
I do require multi currency, (albeit only in a small way), but I do NOT require Direct Access. I figure that means that if I’m to have a future with Banktivity software across both mobile & desktop apps, then it will have to be the Gold tier – but unfortunately that starts to look VERY pricey for my relatively modest needs.
I’m curious to know if the new subscription model will require that banktivity documents be “in the cloud’. As of now, I use stand alone because I’m not in the least comfortable putting my financial information online. Also, I’ve paid for direct access through Feb of 2021, so how would that work?
Hi Donna, your data will stay remain on your local machine. It will only live in the cloud (encrypted) if you use our cloud sync. We have a way for customers that have existing Direct Access time to convert it to the new system.
Ok, Thanks Ian.
Ian, I am so excited to read this. After wading through a few Mac apps and Quicken via Crossover, B7 was a win for me.
I am more than happy to pay for V8-Bronze because:
-I use Direct Access and it seems like I’m getting new software for the price of the annual DA
-Not having to wait for new versions to get features in, corrected, or updated.
-Hoping the new iOS/iPad apps will get dark mode
-I use the minimal feature set and it works extremely well for my family’s needs
Bring it on Ian. I’m ready!
When will details be forthcoming? I’d like to know if a family’s document can be accessed by more than 1 iPhone if setup properly?
Yes, you can access the same data from multiple devices by sharing a Banktivity ID. This also means you only need one subscription (since each subscription is tied to a single Banktivity ID).
Yes, this is possible with Banktivity 7 even.