Simlefi is a mobile-friendly personal finance app designed to organize the chaos of the average person’s finances.
It’s not a budgeting app, exactly, because it doesn’t force users to follow a formal rules-based budgeting program. But it can certainly help you spend and save smarter — and when used consistently and to the full extent of its capabilities.
Supported by Simlefi Quickena leading personal finance and business money management software with over 40 years of financial expertise. But while Simplefi trades on the Quicken name, it’s an entirely separate product that’s historically less complex and spreadsheet-y than the desktop-based “original” Quicken. Simlifi is designed to run on a mobile device, and it also doesn’t integrate with Quicken due to intentional differences in data formatting.
In this way, Simplefy is a new beginning for the makers of Quicken. Just as it can be a fresh start for those whose current money management methods—whatever form they take—are no longer working.
Simplefy has earned industry recognition as PCMag’s Best Personal Finance & Budgeting App (Overall), TechRadar’s Best Affordable Personal Finance App for Everyday Use, and Forbes’ Best Budgeting App for Managing Household Expenses.
Key Features
Everything about Simlife is aligned with one big goal: to help users take control of their financial lives. Its key features provide extensive visibility into personal finances, enabling customized, even personalized tracking, management, and planning, regardless of your income, family size, or lifestyle.
Planning and pricing
Simlefi has a single paid plan that includes all its features and capabilities.
Simlife costs $2.99 per month for the first year when billed annually (50% off)-with a 30-day money-back guarantee. After the first year, the subscription is 5.99 per month, or 5.99 per year. Renew at 71.88.
A stable financial snapshot
Simplefy makes it easy to get a big-picture view of your finances from a single account dashboard. The app securely stores financial accounts held by multiple top data partners with more than 14,000 U.S. institutions, including bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, and installment loans like personal loans and mortgages.
In short. , if it’s a US-based account that directly affects your net worth or cash flow—whether positively or negatively—Simplify can integrate it into your consolidated financial snapshot.
Personalized spending plan and cash flow forecasting
Simlife keeps a real-time status of your monthly income, scheduled or recurring bills, discretionary purchases, and savings contributions. All these factors into a personalized spending plan that shows you what you can safely spend for the rest of the month. This plan works with any budgeting method you prefer—whether it’s zero, envelope style, 50/30/20, or your own custom approach.
What sets Simlefi apart is its predictable cash flow feature. It is the only personal finance app that predicts your account balance up to 12 months. By automatically calculating upcoming deposits and recurring payments, you’ll see potential balance highs and lows weeks or even months in advance, helping you prevent shortfalls and plan big purchases with confidence.
Spend in tracking and bill management tools
Simplefy has a useful set of tools to help users track expenses and manage bills:
- Find and track recurring bills. Simlifi identifies recurring bills and subscriptions, helping you eliminate charges that aren’t serving you well.
- Automated Transaction Classification. Transactions are automatically assigned to categories like “Food” and “Rent” for clear visibility into spending patterns.
- Custom expense watchlists. Create watchlists to monitor purchases and bills by payment, expense category, or custom tag to track more granular spending.
Saving goals
Simplify lets users create unlimited savings goals for any future goal, from building an emergency fund to planning a vacation to buying a home. Goals are fully customizable by goal, dollar amount, monthly contribution, and complete funding history. Your savings goals are integrated directly into your spending plan, and the app shows your progress on a monthly basis, updated after each contribution.
Investment tracking, retirement planning and reports
Simlefi provides time-weighted return (TWR) and internal rate of return (IRR) analytics with professionally rated investment tracking across all investment accounts—from 401(k)s and IRAs to brokerages and crypto. Retirement Planner lets you adjust 15 variables including contributions, tax rates, and investment returns to test different scenarios.
Create unlimited custom reports with your own filters and tags to track spending trends and cash flow. Simplify is the only personal finance app with built-in tax reports that simplify preparation for Schedules A&B and Form 1040 plus integrated credit score monitoring.
Benefits
The key advantages of Simplefy are mostly related to its ease of use and personalization capability. Its design, which is adaptable for mobile and desktop devices alike, is also a huge selling point.
- A comprehensive financial snapshot in one account. Simlife gives users a comprehensive snapshot of their personal finances in one place, visible at a glance. The fact that the app integrates with more than 14,000 US-based banks and credit card issuers is a distinct advantage over money management apps that require manual updates.
- Exposure to future cash flows. Selfie’s predictive cashflows feature is unique in the personal finance app category. Forecasting up to 12 months helps consumers avoid overdrafts, plan for big expenses, and make confident financial decisions based on future cash positions rather than just past expenses.
- Professional grade investment and retirement tools. Simlifi goes beyond basic budgeting with investment analytics (TWR and IRR) and retirement planning capabilities that rival standalone financial planning software, potentially eliminating the need for multiple separate apps or services.
- Built-in tax reporting. As the only personal finance app with dedicated tax reports for A & B and Form 1040, Simplify simplifies tax preparation and helps users identify deductible expenses throughout the year.
- Customizable watchlists. Simlifi’s customizable watchlists help customers quickly dig into potentially problematic expenses — and, if warranted, eliminate them without the help of an expensive bill negotiation service.
- The mobile and desktop apps are practically identical. Simplefy is a mobile-friendly platform that works equally well on small and large screen devices. Its desktop and mobile versions are virtually identical, making for a truly budget-friendly anytime, anywhere experience.
- There is a 30-day money back guarantee. Every new Simplefy signup comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, during which time new users are free to try out the platform. If the app doesn’t meet expectations, simply cancel and ask for a refund.
Disadvantages
Simplify has some significant limitations when measured against other popular budgeting apps, including the lack of a free plan and no built-in banking or brokerage capabilities.
- There is no free plan. Simplefy is a free planning app with no free plans. This compares favorably with other popular money management tools, and is a distinct disadvantage for users who don’t believe they have to pay to track spending and savings in one place.
- No banking or brokerage features. While Simlife excels at tracking and analyzing investments across all your accounts, it’s not a banking app or a brokerage platform. It doesn’t have a built-in checking account, a savings account protected by FDIC insurance, or the ability to buy and sell stocks. Customers who want all-in-one banking, investing, and budgeting will need to use SimleFi, along with separate banking and brokerage accounts.
- Quicken does not integrate with data. Although it’s built by Quicken’s developer and trades Vycly in the name of Better Platform, Simlifi isn’t compatible with the “original” Quicken financial management suite. As a user, you’ll need to choose one or the other – Simplefy can’t read Quicken data, and vice versa.
The last word
The beauty of Simlefi Isn’t this just another budget app? It’s an alternative to the formal budgeting that millions of Americans swear by.
Unlike rigid, professional apps and methods that set strict rules for when and how much you can spend, Simplefy is more of a guide to help you avoid overspacing and staying on track to reach your goals like you’re not working without.
Perhaps that’s why the app ditches the “glass half-full” approach to its sunshine. It’s more cheerleader than drill sergeant.
The first thing that has evolved since it was first launched is the depth of its capabilities. It has evolved from a simple spending tracker into a comprehensive financial management platform with forward-looking cash flow forecasting, professional investment analytics, retirement planning tools, and tax reporting—typically found in much more expensive software or advisor-led platforms. For users who want these capabilities without paying for a full-fledged financial advisor or juggling multiple apps, Simplefy provides exceptional value.
Does this mean Simlefi is guaranteed to work for you? That you will definitely find yourself in a better financial position after a few months of consistent use?
Not necessary. But if you’ve had mixed results with more traditional budgeting tools in the past, or you’re just not a big fan of rules-based budgeting, you owe it to yourself to give this reasonably priced platform a chance.