Summary:
Quicken has no concept of multiple family users, so the only way to give your spouse or kids access is to hand over your password; Know Your Dosh gives every family member their own secure login with its own permissions, plus multi-currency tracking Quicken doesn’t offer at any price.
• Family Collaboration: Know Your Dosh provides individual secure logins for each family member, while Quicken requires sharing passwords for family access
• Multi-User Design: Purpose-built for families with customisable permissions vs. 40-year-old individual software with sharing workarounds
• Financial Education: Children can safely access age-appropriate financial information and learn money management through real family data
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Know Your Dosh | Quicken |
|---|---|---|
| Family access | Individual secure logins per member | Shared password only |
| Permission controls | Customisable per family member | None (single-user design) |
| Multi-currency support | 150+ currencies with live conversion | Minimal (USD/CAD) |
| Countries supported | Every country | US and Canada only |
| Free tier | Yes, Starter plan | None |
| Pricing | Free, or £4.99 to £14.99/month | $35 to $107/year |
| Investment analysis | Lighter; net worth and household wealth focus | Deep, built for individual portfolios |
| Built for | Families managing wealth together | One person managing their own finances |
Built for one person, not a family
Quicken has been around since 1983. Back then, “managing money” meant one person with a chequebook and a filing cabinet. The software still carries that assumption: single user, single view, single password.
A modern household doesn’t look like that. Two working parents, a teenager saving for university, grandparents chipping in for school fees: everyone needs some level of access, and Quicken has no way to give it to them except one way.
The “share your password” problem
Here’s how family access works in Quicken: you give people your password.
Your teenager wants to check their college fund? Share your password. Your partner needs to log an expense while you’re out? Share your password. Want grandparents involved in planning? Same answer.
That’s not a feature, it’s a workaround, and it’s the kind of security shortcut most people wouldn’t accept anywhere else in their financial life. Know Your Dosh gives each family member their own login with permissions you control: partners see and edit as equals, kids get an age-appropriate view, and nobody’s sharing a password to check a balance.
What Quicken actually does well
To be fair to Quicken, it earned its reputation. If you’re a single investor with a complex portfolio, its investment analysis is genuinely deep. Tax software integration is smooth. Its business tracking tools hold up if you’re running a small business alongside personal finances. Forty years of development means it handles edge cases a newer product might miss.
None of that is what a family coordinating shared finances actually needs. Families need shared visibility into one set of goals, not one person’s individual investment dashboard that everyone else has to ask to see.
What running family finances through single-user software actually costs you
One person becomes the bottleneck. Every budget conversation needs that person and their laptop in the room. Decisions wait on whoever “owns” the Quicken account to pull the numbers.
Kids stay in the dark. They can’t see progress on a college fund or understand a family goal they’re not shown, so they miss out on the financial education that comes from watching money move.
Password sharing is a real risk, not a theoretical one. When accessing your own financial information means asking for someone else’s login, families quietly choose convenience over security, and that trade-off can be expensive if it goes wrong.
A quick look at how this plays out
Emergency abroad: your child calls from university needing money fast. In Quicken, one person checks the account and decides alone. In Know Your Dosh, both parents can log in separately, see the same numbers in real time, and coordinate the transfer while keeping their kid in the loop.
Teaching a first job: your teenager starts earning and wants to understand where the money goes. In Quicken, you show them your screen occasionally. In Know Your Dosh, they get their own login scoped to what’s appropriate for their age, and they can actually track their own progress.
Saving for something together: a family holiday, a house deposit, whatever it is. In Quicken, one person tracks it and reports back. In Know Your Dosh, everyone watches the same number grow.
The multi-currency gap
Quicken supports USD and, loosely, CAD. If your family has a property in one country, a pension in another, or a kid studying abroad paying tuition in a different currency, Quicken simply doesn’t convert or consolidate that for you. Know Your Dosh tracks 150+ currencies with live conversion, which matters even for families who are mostly domestic but have one or two accounts that aren’t.
The decision that actually matters
Quicken’s investment analysis is genuinely deep, and if you’re a single investor managing a complex portfolio in the US or Canada, forty years of development shows in the details it gets right. But it was built for one person, full stop: family access means handing over your password, there’s no multi-currency support beyond USD and CAD, and it doesn’t exist outside North America at all. Know Your Dosh starts from the opposite assumption: every family member gets their own secure login with permissions you control, multi-currency tracking covers 150+ currencies, and it works in every country, included from the free tier up.
Choose Quicken if: you’re a single user, not a family, managing your own portfolio in the US or Canada, and don’t need to share access or track more than one currency.
Choose Know Your Dosh if: you’re managing money as a family, need more than one person to have their own secure login, hold assets in more than one currency or live outside North America, and want to start free.
Know Your Dosh can keep your family’s full financial picture, net worth and budget, in one place, permission-based the right way from the start, at no cost to begin. Sign up for free to get started, or download our free app, with paid plans that scale with your financial complexity. Built for families managing money together, not just individuals managing spend.
FCA-registered and trusted by families in over 100 countries tracking over £200 million in assets.
FAQ
Is Know Your Dosh a good alternative to Quicken for families?
Yes, if what you need is shared access across family members. Know Your Dosh is built around multiple logins and permissions from the ground up. If you’re a single individual investor with no need to share access, Quicken’s investment tools are still strong.
Can my whole family use one Quicken account safely?
Not without sharing your password, which is the only way Quicken supports multi-person access today. There’s no separate login or permission system for other family members.
Does Quicken work outside the US and Canada?
No. Quicken products are built for the US and Canadian markets only, and Quicken’s UK version was discontinued around 2005. There’s currently no Quicken product for the UK, Europe, Australia, or anywhere else outside North America.
Is there a free alternative to Quicken?
Know Your Dosh has a free Starter plan with no time limit, so you can try shared family tracking before paying anything. Quicken has no free tier at any level.
Which is better for tracking investments, Quicken or Know Your Dosh?
Quicken, if you’re an individual investor with a complex portfolio. Its investment analysis is more detailed. Know Your Dosh focuses on household net worth and shared visibility rather than deep portfolio analytics.
Can my teenager have their own login to see the family finances?
In Know Your Dosh, yes: each family member gets their own secure login with permissions scoped to what’s appropriate for them. Quicken has no equivalent; access means sharing the main account password.
