Mint.com to Join the Intuit Family
As many of you have already seen today, Intuit announced our intention to acquire Mint.com. This big news is especially exciting because Intuit and Mint.com share a common goal: help consumers do more with their money with innovative, easy-to-use online services. Also read what Mint.com CEO Aaron Patzer has to say about the announcement on the Mintlife Blog.
By joining with Intuit, Mint.com quickly gains access to resources to scale, accelerating the time it takes for both companies to achieve our shared vision: to help consumers better understand and do more with their money. Both companies share a passion for providing easy to use solutions for personal finance. The deal will align Mint.com with the trusted Quicken brand established by Intuit over the past 25 years.
Intuit will gain another fast-growing consumer brand, a highly successful SaaS product and technology proven to serve the needs of a broad range of consumers.
We know you have a lot of questions. Once the deal closes, we will be able to answer many of them, but we do want to share with you what we can today.
Intuit will continue to offer easy-to-use Quicken desktop software, online services and popular mobile products as well. We understand it’s important to you to be able to continue using the products you know and trust. After 25 years, Quicken remains the leader in personal finance and a brand millions of consumers trust to help them manage their money.
When we do close the transaction towards the end of the year, we’ll share more with you about the exciting future of both Mint.com and Quicken.
Tags: Mint.com, personal finance advice | Categories: Announcement |
Brian,
Did you get your problem solved by support? If not, let me know and I can help you get in touch with someone that can provide more support.
Thanks,
Chelsea
I also did not realize that there were so many disappointed Quicken users – I am a new user to Quicken, and so far so good. I must admit however, that I did try Quicken Customer Support and was very disappointed. The help desk actually did more harm than good – hopefully this is not a long term problem and someone will wake up and understand that bad new and disappointment travels much quicker than good news – also, silent customers disappear, so appreciate the ones tht offer comments
My hope is that with this announcement, it will become possible to download transactions from cards that currently don’t have agreements with Intuit – like Diners Club. It still amazes me that I can download my transactions into Mint.com and other such sites, even Quicken.com – yet the developers of Quicken desktop products haven’t figured out how to do this without needing a huge payment from the financial institution.
Or maybe a web version of Quicken is on its way?
I used to live with a Quicken Support Engineer. I’ve used Quicken, I’ve used QuickBooks, and I’d love to see double-entry accounting available for households of several roommates without having to buy an expensive business-management product. (If you look at the ‘household’ as a company which has, as its charter, “do not waste money, get money only from the people who are part of the company, have no product, and only offer room (and possibly board) for those who are part of it”, you’ll see that expensive financial management software can’t be purchased for this environment. Quicken doesn’t handle it all that well, and QuickBooks pretty much requires knowledge in how accounting works; a “Quicken for Roommates” would be very useful, as would a “mint for roommates”.)
Originally, Quicken phone support was top-notch, and also provided a lot of jobs in Tucson, AZ. This also happens to be where some (but by no means all) of Intuit is located; they have another division in Mountain View that actually does software development.
Since then, Intuit management has made the very questionable decision to reduce their customer service experience (regardless of the metrics that the management uses) to that of every other company by outsourcing the call-center functionality to India. I’ve heard from several Support Engineers how much they hate the Indian tech support queue, and how the Indian call-center reps appear to be trained to take any problem that they can’t solve and push it onto someone else — *even those problems they’re supposed to be able to solve* — and thus not get the negative statistic strike against them personally and their call center in general. If Intuit were truly a “customer-centric” company, they’d fire their Indian tech support provider and bring it all back to the US. I doubt they will, however. Even though one of the things that my roommate complained about, again and again, was that the customers were so frustrated trying to understand English through excessively thick Indian accents that they’d often just hang up, get frustrated, and require a call from the customer retention team to actually get their tech issue resolved.
As I’m sure you are aware, this is *NOT* an elegant solution. It is certainly not customer-focused, and by no means is customer-centric: it is company-centric, bottom-line focused, and customer-ignoring.
At least I know someone I can talk with when I really need Quicken help, who speaks English with a native accent, and I can type to him when it’s otherwise inconvenient to talk and expect a sane, rational, useful answer out of him… instead of the idiocy and sheer “White Elephant”-ness of having to put up with an idiotic Indian CSR. The hit that Intuit took in customer satisfaction is never going to be fully erased, and the only reason I’m at all partial to Intuit is that they employ two friends of mine and I know where to get useful tech support — OUTSIDE THE NORMAL CUSTOMER SERVICE PROCESS.
Its internal structures are based on “Six Sigma”, and in order to effect any change in the company — regardless of whether you can back it up in numbers — is to be a “Six Sigma Black Belt”. This means that nobody who works a customer support position could ever get enough money together to get such a certification, that most “black belts” who work with the company were brought in from the outside and have much more thought of “build the impossible process” than “support the customer and the employee”. (”Impossible Process?” Getting it so that only one transaction in a million is an exception, that the business rules placed will handle almost everything? Look up Gödel’s Theorems of Incompleteness, and read the book “Gödel, Escher, Bach”. NO ordered system can have rules for everything, because each rule is an exclusion: a transaction involves value, value is converted to money, the money is changed to the correct units for the account, the account is debited or credited as appropriate, the sums of all debits and the sums of all credits must be equal… each rule provides a way to exclude having to consider what happens if you don’t follow that rule. If you want to understand what happens when the rules aren’t made, look up “anarchy”. If you want to understand what happens when rules *are* made and followed blindly, look up “US Justice System”, section “criticisms”, subsection “Criminal”, subsubsection “Al Capone”… who wouldn’t have been able to get so rich without performing any act which was specifically outlawed [he was eventually jailed for tax evasion, not liquor production or distribution or anything else you'd expect a mob boss to be jailed for], had Prohibition not come into effect and he ended up as the head of a company which just happened to also be the middleman to supply most of the speakeasies in the era. Other people did his illegal work for him, and he could not be held accountable for it.)
I’ve used Quicken desktop software since 2002. I switched to the Mac last year and have been waiting for the Mac version. In the meantime I kept running PC Quicken via emulation on the Mac. When I heard about the Mint acquisition, I gave Mint a try and ran it parallel to my desktop version for a few days. I love Mint except for one thing – the pending transactions. I have since abandoned Mint and moved to Quicken online. It’s not as pretty as Mint but it’s way better than the PC version for my needs. If Mint ever gets pending transaction, I’ll switch back to Mint in a skinny minute.
As a long time Quicken desktop user, I am very curious as to what Mint will bring for future enhancements. Annual Quicken upgrades bring minimal new features that make postponing upgrades for 3-4 years more feasible. Hopefully, Quicken product quality will not decline. For example, I tried using Quicken Home Inventory but it was so bad both in functionality and support that I quickly scrapped it. My experience plus many of the comments posted below, lead me to have doubts about the quality of future Quicken products.
??? Why??? Why did you buy mint.com? They don’t really offer much more than the Quicken.com site (and neither is as useful as non-cloud financial software). Why not pour that money into (FINALLY!) getting the new Quicken for Mac and iPhone completed? Stop wasting time and money outside of your current, ignored, customers.
I have tried Mint out of curiosity but find it to be hampered by the inability to link to most investment or financial institutions. I also find the interface to be cumbersome and confusing. Quicken Desktop has always been an impressive piece of software except that it has become muddied by new features that are useless and complicated. The biggest fault with Quicken or any Intuit product is the Customer Support. People who can’t help you that want to change fees and sell you some additional products while speaking broken English, VERY frustrating. I think this is a way to control a no cost competitor by purchasing them. End users are bound to lose in the process.
I’m not excited about this news for the opposite reason as most on here. I have tried Mint.com for a while and found it lacking in many features that I needed. Quicken Online filled the gap and gave me exactly what I wanted. Hopefully QO will not be changed too much by this news.
Skeptical,
We’re not talking out of both sides of our mouths – we are telling you what we do know this early – that Mint.com will not change and will remain free. The plan for an acquisition was just announced and until it goes through, we are operating as two separate companies.
Mint’s leadership has assured it’s customers that the product you’ve come to know and love won’t change – you can read more on their blog as well: http://www.mint.com/blog/
When we know more, so will you.
Thanks,
Chelsea
Don, Bryan, and Tom:
Specific details like the exact location of where Mint.com will be located haven’t been decided since we just announced plans to acquire the company last week. After the acquisition goes through, those decisions will be made by our new Personal Finance Group leader, Aaron Patzer.
Aaron has said himself that Mint.com will remain free, and won’t change. With that said, I hope you can get excited about the opportunities this merger will provide both companies. Aaron and his team plan to help Quicken improve, so we’re really excited to have them join the Intuit family.
- Chelsea
Great for Mint!! Glad they are rewarded $$$ for the excellent site!
Sorry to hear it is with Quicken, as Quicken is expensive for what it offers and I go out-of-my-way to avoid Quicken. Hopefully, there will not be noticeable changes in Mint, and Mint continues to provide an outstanding website!
As one of millions of long time Quicken desktop users, with many years of data available, I’m sure (?) this product will be kept alive and growing for years to come.
I can easily see Quicken Online being morphed into, and data conversion provided, to Mint which is clearly superior in many ways.
If there is someway to carefully evolve the Quicken Desktop interface to use the Mint interface, that would likely be an improvement.
One man’s opinion….
Chelsea,
In many of your posts, you say something like “Mint is joining us at Intuit”.
I sincerely hope that is simply meant as a paper organization statement and not a physical move statement – in that most of these type acquisitions result in the bought out company employees “offered jobs at the main company” and those who don’t want to move or join simply leave and go elsewhere – and all the talent and creativity with them.
This is regardless of who is at the top, who also disappear soon after the acquisition and money is paid out.
I know Mint is located in Mountain View, CA but don’t know where the Quicken team is located.
And I know, this is probably “details to be announced after acquisition is finalized”.
Thanks for listening.
Purely disappointed.
Mint WAS my better option. Intuit will ruin it.
As said before, I can’t help but congratulate Mint.com. Its nice that their hard work has been valued so high. They deserve it. I just wish it was by another company other than Intuit.
I’m normally optimistic, but this software company simply evokes disgust. As a mac user, I know I’m at the bottom of their priorities. I also know how many promises Intuit can break without thinking twice. And now this is the company that will be an umbrella to Mint.com. Sad day.
As for Quicken for Mac 2010… I will only believe it when I see it. Intuit lost my trust long time ago.
Of course, I will watch the developments of this merger. My expectations are low…. so, I guess it should be pretty easy to impress, right?..
While Mint may remain free, Intuit obviously won’t push a product that competes against its own core business.
Mint will get pressured into holding back features that they would have created for their users as an independent company, so that they don’t encroach on Quicken’s territory.
This is BAD NEWS for customers. Time to start looking for something which is open source, and can never be sold away for personal profit.
I’m very sorry to hear about this acquisition. I was a Quicken user from the DOS days but stopped using the product last year after it became… well unusable. I was tired of paying to “upgrade” to new versions that offered minimal improvements with the penalty of poorer reliability. At one point my database file became so corrupt it would not open. I nice young man in India asked that I send it to them who for a fee would try to fix it. No thanks!
Chelsea and Scott talk out of both sides of thier mouths. Out of one side they say it is too early to know what plans there are for Mint.com. Then out of the other side they say they will not change it and it will remain free. So which is right?
A company does not purchase another company because they are bored and have nothing else to do. They certainly have plans for Mint.com. Chelsea and Scott may not be privy to those plans but rest assured a purchase isn’t made without plans. So why would Intuit buy a fast growing competitior? Much like Mocrosoft does to their competitiors, to marginalize them if not to just put them out of business. Initut has a sort of monopoly on this market, not because they are the best (they used to be) but because there was limited competition. Now that they have bought thier competition their is even less motivation for Intuit to improve their products.
As for hiring the CEO of Mint.com, what better way to control thier one-time competitor. Much like Obama hiried Clinton, it sure did quiet her down. Keep your friends close and your enimies closer. When it coems time to skinny down the on-line staff, who do you think will get the axe first? Intuit or Mint employees?
Chelsea and Scott are saying what they have to say and I don’t blame them, they have a job to do. But I’m certainly skpetical and don’t trust Inituit. In the end only time will tell. I will stick with Mint.com and see what happens. If they turn into Quicken I’m afraid there are few other choices to turn to.
For those that are fearful of their data being on-line, I got news for them. Like it or not it is already there.
Heaven knows I’ve had my problems during the nearly 20 years I’ve used Quicken. (Ah, for the simplicity of the DOS versions!). And the changes that seem to be merely for the sake of change are annoying.
But neither Mint nor Quicken onLine give me the reports I need at tax time, nor the financial information reports when I download stock prices. Nor the ability to format special reports that is available with my Desktop Quicken. Nor the full search features. Not to mention, I have seven years of data in my current Quicken file and can find anything I need in back data, and maybe 15 years of investment records.
Mint, for some reason thinks that you don’t need to enter checks you’ve written that haven’t yet cleared, in order to know what your bank balance is. I can’t imagine what they’re thinking of when they say you’ll know instantly everything you need to know about your money. They also don’t permit you to account for cash spending you might want to aggregate, such as gasoline or meals at places that don’t take credit cards. They suggest splitting ATM transactions for such recording, but this doesn’t work unless the cash spent is less than any given ATM withdrawal.
Quicken has offered online service via Quicken.com for years, for those who want to access their accounts while away from home. I frankly can’t see the need for the online versions, except that they are free. However, you gets what you pay for…they are very limited compared to the desktop Quicken.
Sure sorry to hear this. Have tried to use Quicken several times and always overwhelmed because of its complication. Love Mint, have been a user for several years. Accesses ll of my financial institutions. If Intuit “improves” Mint it too will most likely become useless.
Will they fix it to synch with Quicken. I am getting tired of carrying my windows mobile phone in my bag, just so I can use Pocket Quicken.
Wow…my comment must have been right on the mark in criticizing you. Now that my comment is nowhere to be seen.
It’s too early to know our plans, the acquisition is still in-process. Thanks.
Chelsea
Will this deal finally show some love to Canada?
Tom,
No, the announcement that we plan to acquire Mint has not impacted the Quicken 2010 release. It’s coming later this fall, please stay tuned. We’ve take a bit more time because customers gave us some great ideas for improvement.
Thanks for weighing in,
Chelsea
Quicken release 2010 for PCs. When is this going to be released. Usually it is in Aug or Sept. Has the acquisition of Mint stopped this in any way??
I didn’t realize so many folks disliked Quicken. It does all I need, check books, stocks IRA accounts etc.
tom
I hope you guys don’t mess up mint with your bureaucracy.Also fix your relation with Mac users.
Greg asked a question that I also need answered.
Quicken versions 2007 and 2009 DO NOT deal with Canadian banks or dollars.
Will the merger of Quicken and Mint.com provided a program that can be used in Canada? I am also on a Mac so can it be used on my system?
I want it if it can do the job.
Thor,
I appreciate where you’re coming from, but we follow industry standards for security (same ones that banks nationwide do) and have put customer data safety first for more than 25 years. An increasing amount of Americans are using online banking every day – and right now you cannot even transact (that is, move money in and out) of Quicken Online or Mint.
A spreadsheet takes a lot of manual upkeep – for some people that’s the preferred way to go.
Chelsea
Hi Eric,
We’ve said it so many times, but I’ll say it again: We’re not planning changing Mint.com. We’re hoping their team can really help us improve our products, in fact, their leadership is taking over our Personal Finance Group and will be focusing on how we can get better as soon as the acquisition goes through.
Thanks a bunch,
Chelsea
Please, I don’t need or want anymore features to Quicken which I have used for 16 years and for the last six years each upgrade brings on more and more un-needed stuff. Keep it simple and just charge a moderate yearly fee to keep you in business rather than force an upgrade every year or so..
Thanks
I use both. However, Mint does not connect to one of my major financial institutions, so it is limited in its usefulness.
Mint’s UI is better. Its investments page is outstanding and provides a quick visual snapshot. It Intuit incorporates Mint’s look and feel and the investments capability it will be a winner.
I’ve used Quicken desktop (PC)for years and have generally been very happy with it. I tried out mint a few months ago, and for me it would never replace Q, but I love love love the graphics and the look. If the posts are true that mint will stay the same and free,but if at the same time that the mint look and feel could inflitrate Q, then that seems the best of both worlds. I choose to be optimistic until I see otherwise.
Hello. I’m sure you have heard this already, but please do not change Mint.com. Being honest, I went to sign up with Mint in the first place because the Quicken Online product paled in comparison. Just another vote for maintaining Mint.Com as the excellent service it is currently.
If you could combine Mint’s ability to add your assets to get a complete picture, and Quicken’s ability to see what bills are coming up, you would have a fantastic program. Mint also seems better able to grab info from your accounts than Quicken does. I use both and it is inconvenient and exhausting!
I don’t really care if mint remains free or not; I just don’t want it to become Quicken. Quicken online is one of the worst products I’ve ever used from Quicken, and that’s saying something after the terrible run of products Quicken has produced (or should I say not produced) for the Mac over the last 10 years. I finally have gotten all of my family members off of Quicken and onto Mint, and now it’s like Jack Nicholson in the shining, “I’m baaaaack!”
Please don’t screw up Mint. Quicken software has become the gold standard for unusable bloatware. Don’t make the mistake of killing what you have bought. Leave the color green, leave their employees in their current location, and motivate them to keep innovating. I doubt any of that will happen, but at least I can wish.
Why would ANYONE put their financial data online? That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard of. Once your data is out there it will be exposed at some point in time, there can never be a 100% guarantee it won’t.
A simple spreedsheet is all one needs.
Thor
This is a good idea. I have tried Q online a few times but kept going back to Q deluxe and downloading. I can see the advantage of Intuit buying the expertise they needed to jump start the web experience.
In order to really use Q online, I needed to adjust some of the numbers coming in for things I knew were going to happen (think accruals). Mint and Q online are good for where you are right now. Mint does seem more robust. It will be interesting to see how this partnership matures.
I think the addition of mint.com’s technology will be an improvement to Quicken. The current Quicken transaction downloading process and reporting features are mediocre at best.
Will the Quicken program still be usable? I mean, can it still connect to my bank as it does now? Or will it eventually stop working, forcing manual updates instead of the automatic updates?
Please don’t construe my lament regarding no Quicken for Linux as negative. If I didn’t like Quicken, I wouldn’t have been so diligent in pursuing a way to use it on my Linux box. I just feel that it’s very short sighted of Intuit to ignore such a large and growing market potential.
Most Linux users I know who continue to use Quicken via Cross Over Office, or Wine, or some virtual machine program would be happy to pay a similar price for a Linux version of the product.
I just hope I can continue to use the convenience of automatic updates with my bank for the future.
Thanks,
Al
mrjlo,
Like we said, Mint.com is staying free. Thanks for stopping by again.
Chelsea
Hi Jeff,
We’re exploring connectivity; lots of our customers have been telling us things they’d like to see on mobile devices.
I don’t have any specifics to share, but when I do, they’ll likely be announced here on the blog.
Thanks for stopping by,
Chelsea
Hey Chelsea,
What forum do you answer the question of when Inuit will have a native iPhone App that syncs like my old pocket PC did?
This is a sad day indeed
I used to be a Quicken customer and after serveral atempts to use it had to give it up. That is when I found wonderful Mint.com. Easy, simple and straight forward.
Currently they say that “it won’t change” that “it will be remain free”. However I fear that Mint.com will change to be a monthly subscription fee based solution. I see Mint being chopped up into subset features and a monthly fee subscription applied to it.
I’ll wait and see, because only time will tell. But the minute a fee based system is introduced and features are separated for subscription levels, I’m gone.
By the way, Mint.com is not free. You are giving them your personal financial data and “trusting” them to analyse it and show you ways you can save and plan better using their partner’s services.
Only time and Intuit’s actions will tell the direction of Mint.com, not your reply.
Hi Ted,
Customer data is our #1 priority, and has been for about 25 years. We used industry-standard encryption and third party verifiers to protect our customers.
You’ve gotta do what works for you though.
- Chelsea
We have been Quicken users for years and I had actually just recently looked at the Mint website. My son had expressed interest inusing the budget service, but could not comfortably recommend the site when they required him to give his user name and password for his online banking account.
In these days of Identity Theft, that’s an unacceptable request from any provider.
First off, I’m from the “Old School”! I had been using Microsoft Money for quite a number of years and when the “cratered”, I migrated to Quicken. I looked at Mint.com and was very interested, but my spouse has this “thingy” about putting any valuable data, ie (passwords, log-in info &etc) online.
With that said, is it possible to incorporate Mint so that I can use the best of both without putting valuable data online? Keep in mind it must pass muster with a “Skeptical Spouse”.
Thanks, Dennis
Pete:
You have our pledge: Mint.com will remain free.
Thanks,
Scott
I LOVE MINT.COM!!! Mostly because it wasn’t Quicken. It has a brilliant interface and is very user friendly, I am also a big supporter of community softare and Open source!
Please, Please keep this service FREE!
I have used Quicken for 20 years or however old it is. While there are some issues, I have not only all of my personal but all of my businesses in Quicken. I could not run my rental business without it (no I don’t use the Rental Quicken – tried it – didn’t like it). Every expense is scheduled, every income is scheduled and it prints ALL of my checks.
I also tried Mint.com but found it too limited and it could never sync with my bank. It will be interesting to see how it integrates with Quicken.
One of the things that I enjoy, and don’t underestimate, about Mint, is that they don’t actually store your account data. They use the same third party that your banks do.
I looked at Quicken Online, but they *do* keep all your personal account info. When I asked about this, I was assured it was “safe on Intuit’s servers”.
I used Quicken for many years, but switched to Mint and haven’t looked back. If Intuit does the usual thing of killing Mint in favor of its own products (like almost all technology mergers do), I’ll be jumping to something else. When I used Quicken I had horrible customer service experiences, and was glad to pick a different company.
Intuit has a lot of work to do to gain trust.
Please don’t mess up Mint! Many of us use Mint because we have had terrible experiences with Quicken, and its lack of true cross-platform compatibility.
I’m thrilled to see this acquisition and I think it’s extremely smart on Intuit’s part. I very much hope that the union helps Intuit develop a powerful, well-integrated, synchronized online/cloud-oriented extension to their already powerful desktop software.
I’m a Mint and Quicken customer, and so I received this notice from both companies. I’ll copy here what I wrote on Mint’s blog:
I spent a lot of time earlier this year deciding between Quicken or Mint. I loved the power of Quicken’s desktop software for organizing records, generating reports, and integrating with tax software. But I was frustrated with their awkward and limited mobile tools. You’ve the choice between 1) Pocket Quicken, which has limited editing capability and can’t connect to bank/credit card/investment accounts to update data; and 2) Quicken Online, which (weirdly) doesn’t communicate/sync with Quicken’s own desktop software at all, meaning that work done to categorize/organize your records at home is lost on the online version. All of this means that the experience of trying to use Quicken on the road (which is where I usually am!) is limited, confusing, and frustrating.
On the other hand, while I loved Mint’s interface for when I was away from home, I found myself craving the powerful tools of Quicken’s Desktop software…
And so I had, sadly, to choose Quicken and — not wanting to deal with updating my info in two places — stopped using my Mint account much at all. But what I _really_ wanted was the best of both worlds, so I wrote to Quicken urging them to follow Mint’s example and move to a cloud-computing model which would let users seamlessly access and edit information their Quicken desktop data on phones and from web browsers.
SO: I really hope that this merger means that such a possibility is in the works! And I eagerly look forward to what you guys come up with together.
Sincerely, Alan
Mary Jo,
Mint works in most browsers, on either Mac or PC platforms. We do offer Quicken 2007 for the Mac, and will release the next Quicken for the Mac in February 2010.
Thanks for stopping by,
Chelsea
Leo,
The acquisition is in it’s earliest stages, very few product change details are known at this point, since Mint and Quicken are still part of two separate companies.
We’re excited to have them on board as soon as we can, and to have them help us improve.
Thanks.
Can anyone tell me if this merger is going to have any affect on quicken being able to handle day trading. I currently have 10 accounts and do about 20 trades a day. I download everyday but my QDF is now greater than 61mb. Very unstable. I have reported this to quicken for years. There is no way to reduce the file size since they are all investment transactions. I can’t even start new each year because an initial download with more than 5000 transactions from my broker cannot be handled by quicken. Schwab and quicken do not allow me to set a start date for download. Is there anything in this announcement that I should take as a solution for active traders?
The email announcement from Quicken was the first I heard of mint.com. I checked it out, and after some research decided it was worth the risk due to the tremendous features mint offers. Wow – home run. Exactly what I had been wanting. (Although my wife wasn’t happy when I told her she was spending above the US average at her favorite clothing store!) I was pleased to see I am below average on Starbuck’s spending, At least I’m minimizing my frivolous expensive coffee purchases.
I after using Quicken for a couple of years, I gave up a couple months ago when it freaked out on me. I spent a little time every once in a while, and my main use was for categorization and trending which it did a marginal job at. Then it completely choked on one of my account downloads and had some error that it would never get past, so I could never download again. I saw some other users complain about it but no solution, and had no more time for it. Big pain in the rear end. Technology is about making my life easier. Anyway, signed up for mint.com and love it. I hope the companies can find synergy without compromising each other’s sweet spots. mint.com UI was fantastic, and web based is the only way to go. I had been wanting a web based solution and mint is perfect. Thank you Quicken for showing me the way to mint.com!
Finally a linux based financial program or have I missed something
PLEASE!!! Make your Quicken/Quicken Mint iMac compatiible or I am a “gone” customer!!!
Contrary to many of the comments I’ve read on this blog, I’m more concerned with Mint than I am with Quicken. I have not been able to update Mint either manually or automatically for more than 50 days. Upon writing to Mint, they don’t seem to be able to resolve the problem either. If that’s a sign of the viability of Mint, than I am deeply concerned.
Hope someone can give me an answer.
Ron
Keeping it free!
I hope Mint will be able to fix the numerous bugs and problems with Quicken, particularly inability to download more than about 10 accounts from an institution, inability to cope with financial insitution access that periodically changes security questions, etc.
I am excited. I love the features and layout of Mint.com and the “what’s left” feature of Quicken Online. Please, keep it free and beautiful!
I; like many users am really afraid for Mint in this merger. I too used Quicken for many years until I got so frustrated and annoyed about the flickering, the sheerly terrible UI and the sheer un-responsiveness of the application that it literally forced me to consider ANYTHING BUT.
I was REALLY happy when I found Mint; because I foudn something that mostly worked for me. YES; It’s a bitch that the investment side of things still doesn’t quite work that well; but it could keep track of the my purchases very nicely; keep graphs; connect to people and do so in an efficient, simple way.
If the merger implies that Intuit will complete Mint in such a way that the important features show up in it and completeness is added (such as budgeting and etc), then this is def. a welcomed change. If however the plan is to have Mint as a “cheap” version of Quicken where Quicken is the preferred product; I’ll be jumping ship yet again.
The financial part isn’t my personal worry. I wouldn’t mind paying a *reasonable fee* for my financing software; but *IF* I pay for it; it better damn be good and good doesn’t define Quicken anymore for me; I’m sorry.
Honestly; Quicken needs a total UI re-write from scratch. It’s FUGLY, It’s super damn slow; irresponsive and just a sheer pain in the ass to work with. I don’t mean this in a negative way. I mean this in a constructive way. Make it better like Mint and I’ll return. Keep shipping the same bullcrap and I’ll be more than happy to deter people from it.
I think that Intuit already agrees that the web is the way of the future. The company just needs to pay attention to the user experience/interface.
Robert…also, here’s the QOL license agreement:
https://www.quickenonline.intuit.com/quickenweb/locale/en_US/help/license.html
Robert:
If, and when, the deal closes, we’ll become one. Right now, we’re two separate companies.
Here’s the Intuit privacy policy: http://about.intuit.com/privacy/
Currently, the license agreement at Mint.com doesn’t hold them responsible if something leads to the disclosure of your passwords. And most financial instutions aren’t going to look favorable upon you giving you password to a third party. What is Intuit position on this?
I have used Quicken for a while now and it does a not bad job with the Canadian banks for downloads. When I was on Mint I was unable to find Canadian banks for downloading, is that going to change ?
What’s a Mint.com? Does the merger mean Quicken will spend more time on their retirement module?? (Maybe Mint already has been staying current.) I’ve been waiting for changes/enhancements to the Retirement Panner for years. Have stooped buying new versions of Q until I hear of some improvements??
Ron, the Retiree
Anne:
Our new Mac product is being released in February. I hope you’ll reconsider.
As for the future of migration from Quicken to Mint.com, there isn’t much I can say there. The deal isn’t closed yet and anything would be speculation.
Thanks,
Scott
Too late for a Mac release, I needed it 2 years ago! I have an old PC that I use when I absolutely must go online to update the downloads. What a pain Quicken has been about Macs.
Will Quicken and Quickbook transfer data seamlessly to Mint.com or will they be standalone, so that I would have to maintain my ancient PC even longer???
Thanks – Anne
Wow – stunned to see the negativity here. On behalf of the non-axe grinders who don’t post let me say: I’ve used Quicken forever. Never had any major problems. When you get a lot of functionality and when you interact across a lot of systems, things are going to need tweaks. Considered Mint but decided I wasn’t comfortable with my own percieved security issues. Gotta say this a brilliant strategic move by Intuit. Good luck.
PS I don’t work for any financial services company. So there. . .
I am not at all happy about Mint and Intuit partnering together. I quit using Quicken a long time ago as I found it to be a royal pain. It looks like I will be looking for another system as I do not trust Intuit or Quicken.
“And you’ll get the same level of great service you have come to expect from Quicken. ”
We can only pray that this is not true. “Great service” and “Intuit” are not two phenomena that have intersected in MY universe.
I say this as someone who has used Quicken/Win for 15 years and Quicken/Mac for 5. I continue to be a user because of the absence of a viable alternative. I’d have jumped to Mint.com a long time ago if I didn’t have misgivings about storing my personal financial data online and unencrypted with a third party.
I like the way they Scott and Chelsea say the have no PLANS to change the service. To me that means, watch out they may not have plans but somebody else does. It is just a matter of time. I keep reading about how many satisfied customers of intuit there are out there. Beleive me most customers that are not satisfied with customer service you dont hear from, they buy or use the product have a problem try and get help from customer service, find they cant and just quit using the product. I will be willing to bet Mint.com will be the same way before it is over. The simple fact that Scott and Chelsea either ignore or play of the unsatisfied customers rather than them coming to the table with comments from the higher ups in Intuit, to say we understand there is a customer service problem and we a working to correct it. Intuit does not care about customer service they only care they keep selling there products.
I’m solidly in the nervous camp. I’d used Quicken for years, and had become steadily more frustrated as each subsequent release was buggier than the last. (The flickering screen issue that was introduced in 2007? 2008? has been *particularly* maddening for those of us with the misfortune to experience it.)
Along comes Mint with a clean, easy-to-use and eminently functional interface. The transition was painless, and I never looked back. My only complaint was not having a way to pull my old Quicken data in – and frankly, there was no doubt in my mind that the feature was on the Mint drawing board.
So like I said, this announcement makes me nervous. I’m pleased for the Mint folks, as they deserve to be rewarded for the service they built. I just hope that Quicken can adopt the Mint culture that made their service the better of the two.
Hi Chelsea -
Thanks to this announcement, I am now looking at Mint.com. Never heard of them till today when I rec.d the e-mail from Intuit. I am a current user of Quicken On-Line and like it for the most part. It has some shortcomings as all technology products do. I am going to look closer at Mint. As a home-based business owner, my dream would be to have a FREE, web-based finance software that combines both Personal and Small Business Finances under one roof. With so many people having home-based businesses, there may be a market to have both products under a single rooftop. Thanks you and Good Luck with the merger.
Hi — I use both products. I have to say I think Mint has it all over my Quicken. I recommended Turbo Tax to my Dad. He used their on-line preperation service and signup for their gurantee of acuracy. When he went back to Intuit with a letter and issue from the IRS they transfered his call 100 times and gave allot of lip service but no help. Services from Intuit are a black hole…. hope Mint does not become one as well.
Mint.com will remain free.
Having looked through the blog postings, I decided to volunteer a comment. I have been using Quicken desktop for about 13 years. I have had periodic crashes but all have been recoverable from backup without tec sup. I have over 40 accounts of which 21 are online accessed. My qdf is now gets to < 20MB with 2 yrs transactions, which used to be a problem with earlier versions but not since you redesigned the dbase. Mint and Qonline dont meet my needs but I would love to have the functionality of Desktop in a browser base application with secure server data storage. That would get me mobile. Like others, I am not yet ready to to trust my password file and my data files to remote servers and the marketing analysis / hacking risk. I will pay for the privacy and guarantees. I don't buy free. It just aint so!
Is the plan to begin charging for Mint ?
Hi there,
We don’t plan on changing Mint.com.
Chelsea
Thanks Michael. We really appreciate that, and are glad you’re our customer!
Chelsea
Just wanted to let your company know that I have been using Quicken for the last few years and have really enjoyed the software. It’s good to hear your organization is always looking for ways to improve its products. Keep up the good work!
The reason I started using Mint is because Quicken’s tiered feature and pricing strategy drove me towards purchasing the premium editions. The problem was the premium editions were cumbersome products both difficult to learn and felt like a chore to use. Granted, Mint’s feature were less comprehensive that Quicken, but as a whole they did a much better job at serving the needs of their targeted audience.
Mint’s key selling point was their ability to automatically aggregate and secure all my raw transactional data in one place. I no longer had to worry about my banks’ time line for making the data available. Mint’s weak points are a.) the web interface for adding transaction details are rather spartan, and b.) debit or credits are not automatically linked across accounts. The ideal solution would be a Mint and Quicken solution that combined their individual strengths.
What would get me excited is a streamlined version of Quicken on my desktop that could tap into Mint’s back end. In this scenario Mint’s cloud architecture performs three primary functions: archive raw transactional data, backup my quicken modified databases, and extend transaction recording and reporting functionality for users on the go.
I would be willing to pay around $5 per month for the service. The desktop software would be a free download for subscribers. You would charge incremental fees for add-ons such as online bill pay, portfolio management, asset tracking, etc. The final result would be a higher marginal contributions from each customer along with the steady cash inherent in a subscription business model.
Congratulations on this exciting announcement. I look forward to seeing the innovation solutions that result.
I chose Quicken Online over Mint for the fact that Mint.com did not pass along the multi-factor authentication ‘captcha’ security field from my Credit Union’s website and was completely unuseable. I’m really worried that I’m basically going to be in the doghouse if Quicken Online gets scrapped as I rely heavily on it.
Karen:
You may have missed it but our new Mac product will be released in February.
Thanks,
Scott
Gregory:
We only selectively respond because we can’t respond to everyone. Responding here is not our full-time job.
We also can’t respond to some questions. That might be hard for you to understand but it’s the truth.
This post was about the announcement of our intention to acquire Mint.com. It’s not a post asking current Quicken customers what they like or don’t like about our products. We have our live community to do that…so I encourage you to expend your energy there to help us correct what you perceive to be shortcomings.
Thanks,
Scott
Please go back to updating your macintosh Quicken software. THe 2007 product is starting to be flaky.
It’s amazing to me how you guys selectively respond to some people and not others. Especially those that have some very cogent and legitimate comments. Ignoring people doesn’t solve the problem. And the mantra of and “We are excited to have Mint.com join the family”, in answer to most posts, does nothing to address the anger and frustration of the real life experience using Quicken the last few years.
And it isn’t because of the quality of your product. It’s a good one (except the crappy Mac version). The main frustration lies with you guys cutting us off every few years so we have to upgrade.
The only reason you guys are still as strong as you are is because there isn’t a real alternative out there that banks would recognize and support (and don’t tell me Microsoft Money is one). If there were, people would be jumping ship in a heart beat.
Mint.com seemed to be cutting into that so I can only hope they will change you and not the other way around. History says otherwise.
Quicken has been so unreliable at downloading transactions since 2007, at least as far as users that go back more than 10 years, that. I no longer download into Quicken and use it sparingly if at all – its simply useless to me when transaction downloads dont work. What a shame since I go back too many years to count.
Hopefully there is some technology coming over that will replace the unreliable downloading of transactions in the Quicken client with something that works.
I know that any mention of releasing a version of Quicken that is compatible with Linux is received with stony silence, or the standard “We have no plans ….. .”
My question is, will Mint be compatible with Linux?
Using Crossover Office from Code Weavers, I have Quicken Deluxe 2009 running flawlessly on my Ubuntu 9.04 Linux box.
In one of my favorite fantasies, Intuit will finally understand that they are ignoring a substantial market by refusing to make Quicken and TurboTax available for a Linux platform. Dream on.
JohnE:
I am sorry you feel that way but it was a critical update and not spam selling or promoting anything.
We’ve had customers contacting us ever since the announcement and had important information to share with them.
We don’t feel it was “bending the rules” at all. If you read the privacy policy – one of the strictest in the industry – you’ll see it’s right in line with other product announcements we make each year.
That is why we were picked in the Top 10 for companies who protect their customers privacy. You can read about that here:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2009/09/ebay-verizon-top-privacy-survey.html
Thanks,
Scott
I’m offended by the spam you sent out today. You sent the equivalent of a PSA or news release, and you rationalized sending it by saying, “we need to inform you of a critical matter.” Is this really critical? No way.
Then you patronize me by saying, in effect, “Even though you have chosen not to receive promotional e-mails from us, we are going to send one to you anyway by calling it ‘critical’.”
That’s kinda like the famous, “That depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.”
With the email you sent, you are saying, “‘Critical’ is whatever we WANT it to be,” not what it is commonly understood to be.
Even the tag for this silly blog post is, “Announcement.”
But worst of all is the last part of the notice which stated that I “will continue to receive critical notifications.”
I don’t want to receive a mislabeled promotional piece. I’ve already opted out of promotional emails. Stop bending the rules. Thanks.
I am sure it will Dave…and new Mac version is only a few months away – really!
Thanks,
Scott
Maybe Mint.com can help Intuit update Quicken for Mac. It only been about three years or more without one update.
I’m looking at this with guarded optimism. I left Quicken Online and Desktop for Mint and have never once looked back. Mint isn’t perfect, but I can live with it’s minor drawbacks.
Where Mint really seems to need help is in their engineering areas for connectivity and support. Sure Mint could use better reporting and trending, but it’s core and UI is solid.
Hopefully, Intuit will provide more resources to the Mint team and not throw a monkey wrench into the Mint experience.
Lynn:
Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed post.
Until the deal actually closes, and we become one, I cannot answer questions on how Mint.com operates or how they aggregate their data.
Furthermore, until we do join forces, questions about how things on the back end will work in the future are impossible to answer. If and when the acquisition becomes final, we’ll share more with you then.
Thanks,
Scott
I generally try using Mint.com about once a month and I always get the same message. They can’t communicate with my Credit Union but are working on adding it to their list. I find this impossible to understand as I have a Yodlee.com account which works just fine.
I have read in multiple locations that Mint.com uses Yodlee’s database as a backbone structure and is basically just the visual we see on the website.
3 Questions:
1) Is Mint.com a standalone website or are they dependent on Yodlee in some way? h
2) If they are linked somehow, then how can Yodlee access and not Mint?
3) If they are linked, is this going to be changing with Intuit buying Mint?
I have never tried Quicken Online as I have so many problems with Quicken on my laptop that I presumed it would be the same online. Is there a significant difference between the Quicken I install on my laptop and Quicken Online?
Frankly, I am finished with Intuit and Quicken. For years I used Quicken for Windows and have loved and appreciated every minute of it. When I switched to Mac I expected to continue with the same wonderful program. Well, not so. In the past year I have spent countless hours and way too much cash trying to get it to work correctly. I even added Windows XP to my Mac in an attempt to get it to work – which it did, but then stopped. After my recent experience with inaccurate downloads and hundreds of dollars of overdraft fees as a result, I have given up. The customer service has been nonexistent and my pleas for help have gone unheeded. I’m moving on to something, hopefully, that will help me regain order with my finances.
Personally, I am excited about this acquisition. For a few months this year, I maintained both Quicken.com and Mint.com accounts to see which I liked better. Ultimately, I stuck with Quicken because it allowed me to enter cash transactions, gave me a real-time “balance” based on activity i entered that hadn’t cleared, and gave me a nice forward looking view. Mint had nice graphs, but I felt like it looked back more than helped me look forward at time.
Anyway, I’m sure the folks at both companies understand that they have many different user segments: desktop, online Quicken & online Mint. All have different functions and it is a bit irritating to see how little some of the people commenting here understand about the different products and their functions. certainly the online products will be merged at some point, but to think that Quicken desktop would be replaced by an online version is just silly. Come on people, think a little.
Anyway, best of luck and I hope the merge process for the two online versions isn’t too painful. Hopefully you guys can take what is great about both sites to make something even better.
Quicken has been my choice over Mint because I can pay all of my bills, transfer funds, etc. through the desktop app. If these features can be integrated into Mint.com, I will be a happy user.
And I will be even happier even you develop a smooth SYNCING iPhone app (as far as I know, syncing isn’t available yet).
Tubby:
As we’ve been saying all week, Mint.com will not change. The infusion of Mint.com and their innovative staff will continue to drive that product and help make Quicken products even better.
Thanks,
Scott
Venita:
We’re going to do that too! So you’re in luck!
Thanks,
Scott
Look it’s very simple, and the truth about the matter is that the competition was eliminated. Call whatever you want but that’s the crux of it.
You could may be PO’d about it, you may be happy about it, but the bottom line is, what else are you going to use?
Whether they decide to change mint.com or ‘not’ change mint.com is entirely up to how they think they can better serve the clients and the public in general. Bottom line is they are still top dog, and not much you can really do about
Hell the hard truth hurts.
Intuit bought Paytrust (my favorite bill-paying service). I’m still a customer, but Paytrust only outputs in QIF format, which Quicken stopped supporting years ago. Intuit won’t even update Paytrust to be compatible with their own product! Since there was no benefit to using Quicken anymore because it lost the link to Paytrust, I switched to Mint.
Now that Intuit is buying Mint, I hope this doesn’t happen to Mint as well. They had just begun to recognize their potential of recommending the best financial strategies given an analysis of my accounts. I’d hate for them to stop innovating just when they are on the cusp of realizing their promise.
Gregg,
We don’t plan on changing Mint.com. Their team will join ours and help us improve Quicken overall as well. Of course, you must do what works for your personal situation, but we hope you’ll stay on board.
Chelsea
“Rest assured, we’ll continue to offer the easy-to-use Quicken Desktop software you know and trust.”
I’d prefer it if you offered the easy-to-use online software from Mint.com that I know and trust.
So, will Intuit be adopting the Mint business model, where (since the application is free) aggregated data analytics based on customers’ transactions will be sold to third-party corporations for their own marketing use?
The fact that products like quicken online and mint.com represent single points of failure for my financial data in the event your servers get compromised will always keep me away from them, regardless of how their functionality develops (and the functionality is nowhere near that of desktop quicken).
FWIW.
Martin:
This is not a support site. Head over the Quicken Live Community for support.
Thanks,
Scott
I have always loved the idea of Mint almost as much as I hate the idea of giving a 3rd party all of my passwords.
(I don’t care how safe Mint says it it; it ain’t happening for me)
If Quicken can integrate Mint features into the desktop application (so the passwords stay on my PC) THAT would really be something I would pay for!
Oh, Noooooooooooo! I’ve used Quicken for many years (DOS, maybe), and do NOT need any upgrades including Mint.com. Please leave us alone who have loved Quicken and dealt with upgrades over the years we probably didn’t need or like. You only make it more complicated and I DON”T NEED COMPLICATED. Sorry for the shout, but I felt the need to get your attention. Please — make mint.com an option so I don’t HAVE to use it! Someone at Quicken once said ‘if you’re not improving, you’re moving backwards,’ or something like that. That’s wrong! If the product is doing what it’s supposed to do, and customers like and are comfortable with it — please, leave it alone!
Best regards to all of you discussing the issue : )
Congrats! I cant wait to get off of my Quicken desktop and access my info from the cloud!
I received the email, and I’m tentatively optimistic. I have been using Quicken since 1994 and I have upgraded with every upgrade.
I had to laugh when I read the email announcement though, “And you’ll get the same level of great service you have come to expect from Quicken. ”
Not sure what kind of service you’re referring to — any time I’ve had a problem, Quicken support has been, hands down, the very worst I have ever experienced.
I HOPE that you keep the Mint team together and let them improve the buggy product we got with 2009 and maybe take some cues from them about how they handle customer service. Mint users seem to be really, really happy with it, and that is something I have yearned for for several years now.
Please get this right!! I so want you to get this right. (And please tell your customer service reps that PayPal does not offer anything but QIF download.)
When are you going to provide the drivers I need within Quicken 2009 so I can print reports from my Brother HL-5040 printer????????
This is exciting news. I use quicken premier right now and had been interested in switching to mint.com recently due to the increased useability and auto access to more accounts, but was turned off by having all my passwords on a website like that. Will the quicken desktop products incorporate mint.com technology in any way to more directly connect to all my accounts?
I have been using Quicken since the old DOS days. For me it has never had a decent budgeting program. I found Mint and liked theirs but couldn’t face the idea of trying to mesh the two systems together. I hope the future will take the best of both. Holding my breath…LOL
Patrick:
Thanks for your note and your honesty.
With that said, we’ve had customers contacting us about the Mint.com acquisition and wanted to communicate with our customers to let them know what it means for them. It’s not a “promotional marketing spam” piece – its simple an announcement.
Some have wondered if the acquisition would affect the products they use. We were simply letting folks know the plan so they have the latest information.
Thanks,
Scott
Sounds like a good business decision on the part of Intuit.
Another one, sure to generate profits, would be to be more proactive in meeting Mac user needs. The slowness of releasing a new version of Quicken for Mac is, no doubt, reflective of who makes up Intuit target audience.
As a long-time Quicken for Mac sufferer, this is the worst news I could imagine. I started using Mint to escape intuit and it’s horribly-designed, poorly-implemented products.
I can only hope that if there is an upcoming battle between Mint’s usability engineers and Intuit’s engineers, that Mint wins.
I’ll continue to use Mint until it starts to look/act like an intuit program. Lots of luck.
You’d better keep Quicken & Quickbooks significantly as they are. I’m TOTALLY dependent on them.
I just received this announcement email in my Inbox with the following justification:
“You are receiving this e-mail because you signed up for Quicken and we need to inform you of a critical matter.”
While this item may be “critical” in your view, it nothing but promotional marketing spam material from mine, and I’m certain, most others who received it.
If I receive another piece of spam like this from Intuit, you will have forced me to put you on my blacklist and then reconsider whether to continue my long and expensive relationship with your company.
It’s is entire up to you as to what you decide to do on this.
Regards,
Patrick Thompson
Looking into that, thanks.
Chelsea
Mint.com will remain free.
Chelsea
I’ve used desktop Quicken since DOS days, and teach it. The bloating is definitely a nuisance, but on the whole it’s main features are needed.
Mint does not allow manual entry of checks written that have not yet cleared, so you actually do not know what your balance is before they clear. Frankly, I don’t see how people feel they have instant knowledge of where they stand.
They also don’t allow for cash spending, and suggest you use split transactions in ATM withdrawals for same. It’s a clumsy work around, since you might end up having to split a cash expenditure (i.e., auto fuel) between two smaller ATM withdrawals.
Also, their reports are very limited and would not help much for tax preparation. I just hope they don’t over simplify Quicken desktop programs.
Just got an email from “donotreply@quickbooks.com” saying I must perform a “required update” to continue accessing my Intuit account – I won’t even consider clicking on any of the links in the email until I know if this is not a plishing email! Anyone know anything about it?
Let it be.
Let it free.
Let Mint.com be free.
Hey Chelsea,
I held off commenting, because at first, this was some very sad news to me. Mint.com is one of the greatest and most useful online applications out there today. I am worried that Intuit will do something detrimental to it. But I’m not here to criticize, because I think this can potentially turn out well. I’m here to offer a solution to what many people perceive as a problem in the future.
If you really want to keep the mint.com customer base, and you want to keep them happy, and even in general to all around enhance Intuit’s reputation (which as you can see from the other comments is less than stellar), and begin thinking outside the box to work with customers to give them products that they will like and at the same time increase intuit’s mindshare, I think what Intuit needs to do, in general, and specifically applicable to the mint acquisition is to hire some form of community manager to help augment the understanding of the customer base, what they want, and why mint was so successful in filling those needs.
Intuit really needs to move beyond the traditional and upgrade its thought and operating process vis-a-vis the customers, if you want to stop situations in which something which should have been a great story like this, turn out the way it did.
I am always glad to help, and as a user of mint and Intuit products alike, I would love to see this and other intuit products turn out for the best. If this sounds like it makes any sense, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks,
Jack
Marilyn,
Windows 2010 is coming out this fall.
Chelsea
DLatimer:
We’re talking to customers who have positive and critical things to say. You might visit some of the other conversations on the blog to see a little more of that.
Thanks for your post.
Scott
Chelsea, Are you looking for cheerleaders? Doubt you’ll improve much when you just talk to people who love everything you do already.
When is Windows 2010 Quicken Delux coming out?
When will I be able to enter a transaction on my iPhone when travelling and sync with my desktop version of Quicken?
DSmith,
It’s awesome that you loved all of these products. We want to continue creating products you love. You sound like you’d be a great candidate for Inner Circle, which I’ve mentioned here several times. As we take steps to improve our products based on customer feedback, ideas like those you’ve just given us are really important.
Please join: http://www.quicken.com/innercircle
Chelsea
Hi there Dan,
Any changes like those you’re asking about haven’t been decided on yet – we just announced our plans to acquire Mint yesterday.
Chelsea
Scott writes:
“How have we abandoned our desktop customers. I’d argue it’s the opposite. As we said today, we are committed long-term to the desktop and offer more than 12,000 links to banking institutions. That’s more than any other provider today.”
You gotta be kidding me. As a long time Quicken for Mac customer who finally gave up on the product (crashy, never got new features, no feature parity with more advanced windows version), and tried to move to the Windows version (yes, a whole VM just for Quicken) and had a horrible time there with updates, lousy financial institution integration, etc. You screwed your customers by charging both end users and institutions to be part of your integration story and you did it per platform.
Your desktop products are why I switched to Mint.com.
I hope Patzer comes in and kicks a lot of butt. Its hopeless otherwise.
$170 million is a lot to throw at a free service, how will you be recouping that?
What about privacy/TOS changes? Any plans on revising these more in favor of the new business model or more in favor of privacy for the user base?
Sincerely,
A concerned INTU stockholder
I love Quicken for Home & Business. I “loved” Pocket Quicken for my Centro. I say “loved” because I upgraded to the Palm Pre and love! it. Can you please give me an online “Home & Busines” that will work with my Pre? Or a Pocket Quicken, or mobile version that will sync with my “Home & Business” on my desktop from my Pre? Please help me and my many friends and the folks on Precentral.net.
Oh, did I forget to say, “I will pay for it?” I am willing to pay more than I might for other software. I would pay for Quicken online “Home & Business” especially if it was accessible with my Pre too.
Since Intuit is buying Mint, will you be making the Mint product available to people outside of the US?
I’m both a Quicken and Mint user. I use them differently and for different purposes. I became endeared to the Mint method of simplicity and straight-forward money management, simple financial reports and money tracking mechanisms. One of the things I like most about Mint is its platform independence as I am a Linux user. I enjoy how it is free, fresh, interactive, and intuitive. I’d love to see some of the UI from Mint make its way into Quicken. Though undoubtedly more robust, it’s also sometimes overcomplicated. Anyway, congratulations on the acquisition, I sincerely hope it serves both entities (and their customers) well.
Good question Michael! Also, if it’s true that Aaron Patzer – CEO and founder of Mint.com – will run the new combined Quicken/Mint business.
Then I truly believe he’s going to bring with him the fresh vision and approach that has made Mint.com a great success.
On the other hand, if Intuit is still in the same hands – today is doomsday for Mint.com!
I totally appreciate Chelsea and Scott for responding to our LEGITIMATE gripes about the failure of Intuit…a once great company!
LONG LIVE MINT.COM!
PS: It’s unfortunate that Mint.com couldn’t afford to buyout Intuit!
PPS: It’s also too bad that Steve Jobs doesn’t buy the whole thing (Intuit & Mint.com)!!!
I left quicken online for Mint and now this?!?
While I appreciate the reassurances from the PR folk, I still have my reservations. Well, I guess I have no choice but to wait and see how this turns out.
Please explain a business model where Aaron Patzer will run a division offering two versions of the SAME product?
This is truly sad news for me. I’ve been using Quicken Online (QO) for about nine months now. Quicken has literally NO customer service. I’ve used their “REPORT ERROR” email interface numerous times and NEVER received a response. I’ve requested a callback and NEVER gotten a callback. All support requests were black-holed so I quit asking for support. My experience with QO has made me reconsider using TuboTax which I have been happy with for well over a decade. But Intuit’s total disregard for QO customer service has me looking for an alternative to TurboTax. Unfortunately, my bank does not have a Mint interface so I have been stuck with Quicken. Within the past month I have been talking to the president of my bank (our small community bank) to see if they could establish a relationship with Mint. I told her about my frustrations with QO. As a person who lives by good, personalized customer service, she totally understands my issue. Now my only hope is that Mint will bring solid, responsive customer service to whatever product survives. With both Mint and Quicken owned by Intuit, I see little hope of that happening. Oh well.
Kent:
I love talking to folks here. We build products for you so it makes sense to hear your feedback unfiltered.
With that said, most of you have great feedback. Others have gripes and we can listen. The more transparency, the better.
Thanks,
Scott
I realize that this comment section is a PR team’s worst nightmare (I’ve been there) but it is all valuable feedback. I hope you guys send it on up to the powers that be.
Every company wants customers like mint.com has cultivated. Chances are if a company buys those customers (Quicken) they don’t know how to cultivate those customers as evidenced by many of the comments below. Hopefully much of the mint.com team stays intact and can spread some of their corporate culture to Quicken. Unfortunately, the opposite scenario is more likely and Quicken will infect mint.com. I’ll give Quicken the benefit of the doubt, however, and remind them that there will be a lot of mint.com customers scrutinizing your every move.
Mickey:
Aaron Patzer – current CEO of Mint.com – will run the new division. I like the odds that Mint.com & Quicken will only get better under his leadership.
Thanks,
Scott
Hi William.
Thanks for your comments.
We have millions of customers (40MM to be exact) who talk everyday about the great experience they have. Those that don’t have a great experience, we want to work harder to make sure they do.
Thanks,
Scott
Davis:
We’re proud that Intuit and Mint will become one.
We both bring a ton of customers and look forward to working together. Mint.com currently has 1.5 Million customers and Quicken Online has 1.4 Million. Together, we hope to continue the innovation that both have brought to the table.
Mint.com will stay as-is and Aaron Patzer – the man who founded and made Mint.com what it is today – will run the new combined business.
Thanks,
Scott
Erik:
How have we abandoned our desktop customers. I’d argue it’s the opposite. As we said today, we are committed long-term to the desktop and offer more than 12,000 links to banking institutions. That’s more than any other provider today.
While we don’t know the exact future for the products – as the deal won’t close until later in the year – I can’t comment on that now. But rest assured we ARE committed to the desktop and the new business, under Aaron will as well.
Thanks,
Scott
Chuck:
Thanks for your post.
Trust is, of course, earned. We hope that you’ll give the newly joined MInt.com/Intuit team a chance. We look forward to working hard to earn that trust once the deal is final and we become one company.
Also, Aaron Patzer – CEO and founder of Mint.com – will run the new combined Quicken/Mint business. He’s going to bring with him the fresh vision and approach that has made Mint.com a great success.
Thanks again for posting and we appreciate your comments.
Regards,
Scott
I concur with many other comments in this thread in that I’ve had a couple of years of largley positive experience with Mint.com following several years of increasingly negative experience with Intuit/Quicken. The facts are that 1) past experience does not suggest that Intuit values positive customer sentiment over positioning themselves as the only or the least bad choice; and 2) the title is “Intuit acquires Mint.com” and not visa-versa. Soothing noises from Intuit spokespersons therefore will not allay distrust.
Since it looks like you have abandoned your desktop software (talking to a customer service representative who thought it was rude I was suggesting you support more financial institutions)… will I be able to import all my old history into this new online service? And along the same lines, will I be able to back up my financial history to some sort of open format (excel, csv, etc?)
This news is a kick to the crotch. It’s no wonder Intuit did this. They saw the writing on the wall for them with the increasing popularity of Mint and the number of Quicken users jumping ship to switch to Mint. I wonder how long it will take for Intuit to completely screw up Mint.
Have used Quicken for many years with very few bugs…and when one popped up Quicken was there to fix it. only once did I have to call tech support, maybe twice and they fixed the problem. I tried other financial software and found Quicken simply met my needs because I took the time to understand
Quicken and learned how to use It.
Oh, did I forget to say, “I will pay for it?” I am willing to pay more than I might for other software. I would pay for Quicken online “Home & Business” especially if it was accessible with my Pre too.
Intuit, the thing about using online/viral/word of mouth marketing (like this blog) is that you actually have to have a brand/product line that people like, otherwise it becomes a platform for detractors.
I love Quicken for Home & Business. I “loved” Pocket Quicken for my Centro. I say “loved” because I upgraded to the Palm Pre and love! it. Can you please give me an online “Home & Busines” that will work with my Pre? Or a Pocket Quicken, or mobile version that will sync with my “Home & Business” on my desktop from my Pre? Please help me and my many friends and the folks on Precentral.net.
Do Intuit stockholders have a say here? We tried the Mint product and it seems pretty useless. Says it can save money but offers me more credit cards. We have all the credit cards we need. How can more of them save me money.
Maybe Mint can teach Inuit a few things… like what their customers actually want.
More than likely, though, Mint will be turn to crap, like everything Intuit touches.
Intuit doesn’t plan to change Mint.com…YET… wait it’ll happen they’ll get their hands on it and destroy it. Mint.com is an example of entrepreneurship, ingenuity, forward thinking, and innovation all characteristics Quicken has not held since the 90’s. It’s a shame but the good news is there are always new and better alternatives out there and more are coming! You don’t have to tolerate this as a consumer!! Intuit I hope you’re realizing how many people out there truly dislike your company
Lee, Enrique, binford2k, commander flatus:
We don’t plan on changing Mint.com, in fact, Aaron Patzer will join us in-house to help us continually offer better consumer personal finance products.
- Chelsea
Please. Please. Don’t destroy mint. It’s fantastic just the way it is- even if you end up charging for it, please don’t just assimilate it into quicken.
I used to admire Intuit’s software, back in the early 90’s – but it seems like no development has taken place since then, they never even moved to the client/server model which came and went 20 years ago, we are always having problems with locked files and 1980’s era multi-user support. Their Mac version is a study in pathological GUI design, which would be funny if I hadn’t paid for it. The development teams from the two companies could not be more different, the Intuit developers will, like the apes in 2001, stare uncomprehendingly at the smooth monolith that is the Mint technology. I fully expect the Mint service to be eventually rendered unusable, it would be suicide for Intuit to not do so as they are losing customers daily to this stellar service.
This is a sad day. I don’t expect to be a Mint user much longer.
Yay! Another product for Intuit to wank up.
Too bad. Intuit has not improved one company it has acquired. PayTrust has gone nowhere and I expect Mint to stagnate too.
Time to move on, probably to Yodlee
I really like Mint and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Mint stays a great tool. But my past horrible experiences with Intuit customer service, buggy software, forced upgrades, planned obsolescence have me greatly concerned.
This is the Quicken Blog – are you talking about QuickBooks exclusively? If so you can visit them online.
@Chelsea@2:27pm
How about some interoperability between the Mac and Windows versions of QuickBooks ?
We don’t have plans to change Mint.com and their leader will be in-house here helping us improve and make even more customers happy!
- Chelsea
It’s too early to share plans since we just announced the plan to acquire them today. We’re excited and we think it’s the best for the company and our customers.
- Chelsea, Quicken
STwebb,
Because of your hilarious comment, I actually am having a better day now
Aaron Patzer will be overseeing our Personal Finance Group, which includes online, mobile and desktop consumer personal finance products. We think that this change will really help us improve Quicken as well. Last thing, we’re excited to offer consumers great money solutions, online, in desktop software, and using mobile. Glad you like the iPhone app – it’ll still be available.
I didn’t mention Mac support because this post is about our upcoming acquisition. If you’ve got questions about Mac, I can answer those as well.
Best,
Chelsea
Saturday was the first day I had ever heard about Mint.com. I enrolled immediately and then spent the entire weekend telling everyone I know what a fantastic product it is! I can understand why Quicken made the move.
We have also been loyal Paytrust users for 10+ years. (bill presentment/payment) Unfortunately, since Quicken acquired Paytrust, there has been little investment. Will the same happen to Mint? On the other hand, the combination of Mint and Paytrust could create a very compelling solution with the right makeover of Paytrust by the Mint team. Is there anything you can share about your plans?
I bet if Chelsea’s avatar could change based on comments…she’d look pretty PO’d by now!
But on the bright side, maybe Intuit will allow Mint to take over completely, while Intuit provides financial support only!
PS: Notice she didn’t make much mention of Mac support (except for another pushed out date for Quicken for Mac)!!!
I too have given up on Quicken…but I love Mint for my iPhone!
Add me to the list of disappointed users. Over the years, Intuit has produced software that is bloated, below expectations, buggy, if it even exists (see Quicken for the Mac, the main reason I started using Mint). I get that it’s a good thing for the Mint folks, and congrats to them, but I suspect you’ll see plenty of user churn if you change anything about Mint (hint: integration with Intuit products is NOT on my wishlist).
I just spent the last year moving away from Quicken to Mint because I couldn’t stand how buggy the product had become. I was a Quicken user since 93 and upgraded every year until I discovered mint.
I’m happy for the Mint guys but I’m really concerned that it will become as buggy and useless as Quicken became for me. I appreciate your responses that suggest otherwise.
I am very disappointed with this switch. I use Quicken on Mac and PC and they have truly terrible customer support, The couple of times I contacted them, I got a rep whose accent was so thick, I could hardly understand him. (and I usually don’t have a problem with accents) Both times, the reps were obviously following a script and had no real ability to troubleshoot the software or help the customer with anything but a canned answer. Even Intuit’s online support system is convoluted…the word Byzantine comes to mind, and difficult to follow. In contrast…Mint: easy to set up, troubleshoot, and use…Support system is easy to navigate and use. Maybe if Mint infiltrates and “infects” Intuit with their superior approach we will be happier with Inyuit…but I am waiting to see what happens! Skeptically yours, Helen
Saddest. Day. Ever.
Please don’t let Intuit ruin Mint. I beg of you…
As for Intuit’s usability studies…if you’ve used their products over the years (most notoriously Quicken for the Mac) you will see how seriously they take those. Whatever you do, don’t let them ruin the design philosophy of Mint.com and put it on par with the rest of their products.
Like many others, I am not happy with this new marriage. I only hope that the Marketing engine at Intuit does not get its meat hooks on what is working at Mint.com.
I have been a user of Quicken since 1993 and overall like the product. However with the last 6 versions of the desktop product very little has changed for the better. I.e. budgeting sucks, reports are difficult and not interactive, no online reconciliation, loan tracking, qif format no more, etc.
Mint.com has in two years done more with their product than Intuit has done in 10 with Quicken. Hopefully this will breathe a little innovation into the Quicken team and perhaps finally launch a Mac & Win product worthy of the price of purchase.
Sorry you feel like that Dan – we’re not planning on changing Mint.com. We feel the combination of the two services will help us create better services to help people with their money.
Chelsea, Quicken
Hi Mike,
We’re not planning on changing Mint.com.
Thanks, Chelsea
after years of frustration with mac quicken, i made just made a tentative switch to mint. I don’t welcome this news at all, and am deeply skeptical it will make mint a better service. intuit sucks. way to go on the big cash out to the man
Hi Guys,
I too am taken aback by this news.
I had once been a loyal Quicken user. However, Intuit seemed to move their business model at some point from a model of developing great financial management software to a model of using their installed base of software to shove advertising and services down our throats. Once they became a vehicle for SPAM I looked for alternatives.
Mint.com was my alternative. Although they essentiall are ad supported, they seem to have understood when suggestions turn into SPAM. I can’t say as I have much hope for the future. If Intuit was willing to bastardize a *purchased* piece of software to push their SPAM, imagine what they’ll do with a ‘free’ peice of software. Time to look for the next alternative.
We’re excited to move from competitors to compliments and think it’s the best way to provide consumers with innovation, money solutions and the security they’ve come to trust with Quicken.
Chelsea
JH:
Mint.com won’t change – we’re excited to invite them into the family and think they’ll really help us fast-forward on helping customers better, faster.
Chelsea
I’m very disappointed.
I love mint because it is focused and easy to use. I fear that Mint will suffer the same fate as Intuit’s other products like quicken and Quickbooks. ie they will become bloated, confusing and cumbersome to use. Mint’s greatness is that it focused purely on tracking spending. I fear that will be lost as it tries to become all things to all people.
Very enthusiastic user of Mint.com here. In fact, I migrated from Quicken Online to Mint.com. The Mint.com team clearly know their customer, develop features the customer needs, and can speak to their customer through marketing and user interaction (in the product sense). A team that can do that is a rare and valuable thing. Don’t break it! But integrating it with bill payment would be great.
And Gee, just 7 Months after Intuit was sending threatening letters about Mint’s growth.
I’m disapointed by this news. Intuit having changed file formats from qif that breaks all compatibilty between Mac and Windows versions of their quicken software. Not being able to meet the release schedule of a mac quicken replacement doesn’t build confidence. First it was going to be out 2008, then 2009, now Feb 2010. What’s the only pain in a switch to mac from windows? That’s quicken.
Add to that, quicken charges banks to have data feed into quicken. That’s the main reason for the switch from their qif standard of years past.
I use mint as a quicken replacement and fear it will now be neglicted like they have done before.
Thanks Christopher,
Great feedback. We will have a new Mac offering out in February.
Chelsea
I am really happy to see this happen (finger’s crossed)!
I’ve been using both Quicken Online and Mint for over a year now, since my options on a Mac have been limited, and have had a love/hate relationship with both.
I am really excited and hopeful for the next generation of online financial solutions!
Thanks Nicholas, for weighing in.
i hope the “It’s Free” remains.. and we don’t need to pay outragious pricing for support..
Chelsea, I hope that the company you represent(Intuit) keeps honorable to the staements you have made:
A. Its not going to change
B. It will remain Free
Thanks for the great compliments.
We’ll keep both services going, and they’ll meet different customer needs.
Thanks again Jamie,
Chelsea
Congratulations on the acquisition! As a user of both Mint and Quicken Online, I hope both services will be able to benefit from features from the other. I’m looking forward to the future.
I hope there’s no plan to discontinue Quicken Online and replace it with Mint? I’d love to see Mint get bill forecasting like Quicken Online, and for Quicken Online to get more robust budgeting.
Chris,
We don’t plan on changing Mint.com. We’re excited about the progress we can make together on both Quicken and Mint.
Chelsea
Well, I guess Mint.com had a good run while it lasted. I fully expect Intuit to drive it into the ground within a year of the deal closing.
Thanks Eric,
That’s great feedback. We’re excited too.
Chelsea
I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve been a loyal quicken desktop user for a decade and Mint user since it came out. I share the concerns about intuit changing mint – I love intuit’s products as well, but use Mint as well primarily because of what it offers that quicken does not.
That being said, you find a way to integrate the two together somehow and you’ve got a loyal customer for life.
Willie,
We don’t plan on changing Mint. We are excited to work together toward finding better money solutions for customers. The Mint team will join us here at Intuit, and together, we think we’ll be better.
Chelsea
Please don’t screw up Mint like you did Quicken for Mac. (Neglect, etc.)
HI Jayesh,
It’s a bummer you feel that way because the entire Quicken team and all of us here at Intuit are really excited to have Mint.com on board. The service will remain free, and their leaders will join us to continue providing money solutions for customers. Now, even more customers will have an option for managing their finances that works for them.
Chelsea
Mint will remain free.
Thanks.
As much as I loved Mint.com as my potential life-time financial manager, I dislike the Intuit/Quicken business model. I used to have the paid Quicken personal version but was ticked off when later I found out that they want me to keep paying for a newer version every 3-4 years whether I want it or not! When I didn’t, the software just quit working with any new data, thus rendering it useless (Even Microsoft doesn’t do that
)… and so I moved to Mint.com! But much to my chagrin today, here they are again 
As Nick said, glad that Mint was able to cash out their hard-work and ingenuity in developing a great product, I just wish it was with someone other than Intuit. Definitely a death warrant on Mint.com and I will certainly now be looking for alternatives before Intuit takes over and tries to mint money off of this site (pun intended:)).
Please keep Mint free!
Hi Nick,
We are excited to have Mint.com join the family, and have no plans to change the service. If you love it, we’re really happy that we can offer even more customers a solution that meets their needs.
- Chelsea
I’m terribly conflicted at this news. I love Mint and think it’s a fantastic service, attitude, website, UI, all of it.
I hate Intuit and their repeated, consistent broken promises to the Mac community with a virulent passion. No amount of carefully-edited PR soundbites can overcome the fact that we do not have a cross-platform of Quicken with feature parity. PERIOD.
Mint may have just cashed out, as they deserve to, but with Intuit they have just been issued a death warrant.
Thanks so much Brian,
We’re excited to have Mint.com join the Intuit family.
- Chelsea, Quicken
Congratulations to both Intuit and Mint!
I am a loyal Mint.com user (since they won TechCrunch40) and looking forward to see what’s next.
Great job and good luck!