Copilot vs Simplifi: Which Budgeting App Is Worth Paying For

Copilot Money costs $95 a year ($7.92 a month billed annually) or $13 a month, and runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web. Quicken Simplifi costs $3.99 a month billed annually for a first year, $47.88, then $6.99 a month, $83.88, and runs on the web plus iOS and Android. Buy Copilot if every device you own is Apple and you want the best automatic categorization on the market. Buy Simplifi if you need Android, a forward-looking spending plan, or simply the cheaper bill.

These two get compared constantly and the comparison is usually reduced to a price. That misses what you are actually choosing between. Copilot is a design-led app that leans on machine learning to tag transactions and track investments, and it lives inside Apple's ecosystem by choice. Simplifi is Quicken's cheap, cross-platform answer to Mint, built around a projected cash flow that tells you what is safe to spend between now and payday. Same category, different bet.

Prices and terms below were read on September 22, 2026 from copilot.money and quicken.com, and the import behaviour from the Quicken Simplifi help center and Copilot's own help articles. Where a number comes from a promotion with an end date, we say so.

How much does Copilot Money cost compared with Simplifi?

Copilot is $95 a year, shown as $7.92 a month billed annually, or $13 a month if you pay monthly. Simplifi is $3.99 a month billed annually as a promotional first year, which is $47.88, then $6.99 a month, $83.88, at the regular rate. Quicken's promotional pricing is for new memberships bought directly from Quicken by October 22, 2026, 11:59 PT. Over five years the gap narrows more than the headline suggests.

The five year numbers assume both companies hold current prices, which neither has promised. Simplifi's regular rate of $83.88 is the honest one to plan around, because the $47.88 applies to a first year only. On that basis Copilot costs about $18 a year more, not the $47 the promo suggests.

Can Copilot Money or Simplifi import my Quicken data?

Neither one reads a Quicken file or a QIF export. Simplifi's help center is explicit that CSV is the only file format it accepts for transaction imports, with Date, Payee and Amount as the minimum columns and dates formatted M/D/YY. Copilot's help center documents CSV export but no QIF or Quicken import path. Quicken itself confirms Simplifi does not work with Quicken Classic data files.

That matters more than people expect on the day they switch. If you have run Quicken for eight years, the app you are buying will start you at whatever your banks hand over on connection, and everything before that stays locked in a file you are about to stop paying for. The fix is to get the history out while the Quicken license is still live: Quicken for Windows exports QIF from File, then Export, then QIF file, one account at a time. From there a QIF to CSV converter gives you the columns Simplifi's importer wants, and the business or rental accounts can go to QuickBooks as a QBO file instead of being retyped.

Quicken for Mac has no QIF export at all, which catches Copilot's natural audience. Mac users either open the file on a Windows copy of Quicken once, or export CSV from Quicken for Mac and accept the thinner column set.

How far back does each app pull my transactions?

Copilot's help center says a linked account typically backfills one to two years, with Capital One limited to about three months, no investment backfill and no historic balances for manual accounts. Simplifi's connection history is similarly bounded by what each institution exposes. Neither will rebuild a decade.

If you need the older years and Quicken is already gone, the data still exists in the PDF statements your bank keeps online. Pulling five years of those and turning the PDFs into a spreadsheet gives you a CSV in the shape Simplifi's importer accepts, which is the only practical way to backfill a budgeting app past its connection limit.

Which devices do Copilot and Simplifi run on?

Copilot runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web, and does not list an Android app. Simplifi runs on the web plus iOS and Android. For a household where one person carries a Pixel or a Galaxy, that single line settles the decision before any feature comparison starts, and it is the most common reason people who wanted Copilot end up on Simplifi.

Does Copilot Money or Simplifi track investments better?

Copilot. Its investment view covers holdings and performance in more depth, and investment tracking is one of the things people cite when justifying the higher price. Simplifi shows investment accounts and balances but is built around spending rather than portfolios. Neither replaces a brokerage statement, and neither reconstructs cost basis from a Quicken history it cannot import.

Which one handles a side business?

Neither well. Both are personal finance apps, so business income and expenses get tagged with categories rather than posted to a chart of accounts, and neither produces a Schedule C or a profit and loss statement your accountant will accept. If a side business is genuinely part of the picture, the usual setup is a budgeting app for the household and QuickBooks for the business, with the business accounts moved across from Quicken separately.

What do the trials actually give you?

Copilot offers a test drive before signup, then a trial period, with the App Store listing showing one month. Billing runs through Apple for App Store signups and Stripe for web and Mac website purchases, and Copilot grants a full refund if you cancel within one month and email within five days. Simplifi carries Quicken's 30 day money back guarantee. Both want a payment method up front.

Can you share Copilot or Simplifi with a partner?

Copilot supports shared household access, so two people see the same accounts under one subscription. Simplifi does not offer shared accounts, so a couple who both want their own login pay twice. At $83.88 each that is $167.76 a year, which quietly makes Copilot the cheaper option for a two-person household.

Does Simplifi include a credit score and Copilot does not?

Yes. Credit score monitoring is part of Simplifi and is not part of Copilot. It is a real difference but a small one to pay for, since the score shown is the same kind of educational score several card issuers already give away. Treat it as a tiebreaker, not a reason to choose.

Which should you buy?

Buy Copilot if your phone, tablet and laptop are all Apple, you hold investments you want tracked properly, you share money with a partner, and a polished interface is worth about $18 a year over Simplifi's regular rate. Buy Simplifi if anyone in the household is on Android, if you want a projected spending plan rather than a ledger, if credit monitoring is useful to you, or if the first year at $47.88 is what makes the switch happen.

Whichever you pick, do the export before you cancel Quicken. The apps are not interchangeable with Quicken and neither will take your history, so the QIF files you pull this week are the only version of your records that survives. Our notes on Quicken alternatives cover where the rest of the field sits, and our Simplifi review goes deeper on what Quicken actually ships.

Related reading: Copilot Money vs Quicken, Quicken Simplifi vs Quicken Classic, Monarch vs Simplifi, YNAB vs Simplifi, personal finance software for Mac, and QIF to CSV converter.