Hello everyone. I just wanted to take this opportunity to let you all know Banktivity 9.5 is now available for macOS, iOS and iPadOS. Some of the major new features include:
- Automatically assign a category to investment income on import
- Import from Apple Credit Card (iPhone app only)
- Deleted transactions from imports aren’t resurrected anymore
- Reinvested dividends amount now appear gray and italics
- Plaid connections now available by default
For a full complete list of everything that changed check out our release notes and our previous blog post.
Monthly Subscriptions Now Available
I’m also excited to announce that we are now offering a monthly subscription plan! This option is perfect for customers who aren’t ready to commit to a full year of Banktivity but still want to enjoy all the app’s features. The free trial is also available for monthly subscribers.
As of now, our monthly subscription prices are as follows: Bronze – $6.99, Silver – $8.99, and Gold – $10.99 (USD). Yes, you’ll save more if you subscribe annually, but the monthly option gives you flexibility.
Along with this change, we’re also discontinuing the “subscribe once and use forever” model. If you’ve previously taken advantage of this offer, nothing will change for you, but it will no longer be available for new customers. The reasoning is straightforward: allowing users to subscribe for a month and then continue using the app in “basic mode” indefinitely doesn’t make sense. While some may argue that an annual subscription should unlock this, it’s difficult to apply the same logic to customers who subscribe on a monthly basis for years. Ultimately, we wanted to introduce less confusion, not more.
If you decide to stop subscribing, your data will remain on your device in read-only mode. You’ll still be able to export it. If you need full access for a short time to make adjustments, simply subscribe for a month to unlock all functionality again.
We transitioned to a subscription model several years ago, and I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to all our customers who continue to support us. Every day, our team is dedicated to making Banktivity better. In addition to our frequent releases, we’re also working behind the scenes to refactor our code and improve our development processes to avoid technical debt in the future – this is crucial if we are to not just survive, but thrive for another 20 years!
Thank you again for your continued support!
- Banktivity 9.5 and Monthly Subscriptions - October 18, 2024
- Coming soon: Banktivity 9.5 - July 19, 2024
- Continuing Investments in Direct Access - February 26, 2024
You’ve got a great product, but you’ve messed us around too many times with the pricing. I was recently forced to upgrade my subscription just so I could edit certain transactions in a new home loan account. Yes, the features available at each subscription level are laid out on your pricing page, but the whole model just feels dirty to me.
I want to give you my money but you’re not making it easy for me to understand what I’ll get in exchange, or if the goalposts will be moved again in the future, so I’m done. Good luck out there.
Thank you so much for your honest feedback and for being a Banktivity user. I’m truly sorry to hear that our pricing structure has left you feeling this way; that’s certainly not our intention. We work hard to create a fair balance between different subscription tiers, aiming to provide flexible options so users can choose the features they need.
I understand that changing tiers to access specific features can feel frustrating, especially if it impacts your budget or expectations. We do our best to clearly communicate the features in each plan, but I hear you on the importance of making this as straightforward as possible and keeping things consistent. If there’s ever any confusion, we’re here to help clarify, and we’d be happy to discuss your options to make sure Banktivity continues to be a tool that meets your needs.
Thank you again for sharing your perspective; it helps us improve. And if you decide to give Banktivity another shot, know we’re here to make it a positive experience for you.
your inability to support phone calls is a big handicap to those who are marginally computer literate.
Hi Banktivity & Ian, thanks for v9.5. Just a short note to ask when you think you will be doing a refresh on the look and feel of the application? It’s looking a bit outdated? and when you look at some of the other banking apps in the App Store they look very fresh and new!! Look forward to hearing from you thanks.
Hi… long time user here. The 9.5 update is great except for the red text for withdrawals. I am color blind red/green and the red text messes with my eyes and makes it hard to see amounts. I suggest an option to change font colors or at least turn the red off for withdrawals. I had to downgrade to 9.2.12 so I wouldn’t get a headache.
We are looking into improving this now.
Please explain this sentence… “In addition to our frequent releases, we’re also working behind the scenes to refactor our code and improve our development processes to avoid technical debt in the future – this is crucial if we are to not just survive, but thrive for another 20 years!”
What does refactor our code mean?
What is technical debt?
IGG is a small company with an impressive record, but survival in your type of business is very difficult. It is of concern to me when you mention survival in a public message.
Hi, thanks for the follow-up questions. I’ll do my best to answer them.
Refactoring. Refactoring is the process of restructuring existing code to make it cleaner, more efficient, and easier to understand – all without changing what the code actually does. Imagine it like reorganizing a closet: everything in it stays the same, but you make it neater so it’s easier to find things and add new items in the future. By refactoring, developers can improve the code’s readability, reduce redundancy, and simplify complex parts. This helps ensure that future updates are easier to implement and reduces the chances of bugs popping up from hard-to-follow code.
Technical Debt. Technical debt can occur when software code becomes outdated as technology advances. Over the years, programming languages, frameworks, and development tools improve, offering new ways to make code faster, more secure, and easier to maintain. However, older parts of an application that were written with now-obsolete technologies can hold the software back, making it harder to add new features or take advantage of modern improvements.
In a way, this aging code becomes a form of “debt” because we eventually need to spend time updating or replacing it to keep the software performing well. By addressing technical debt, we ensure that the application can remain compatible with new devices, perform efficiently, and stay secure, allowing it to thrive long-term.
Regarding the mention of “survival” – no need for alarm! We’re not facing any immediate issues. My point was to emphasize the importance of continually delivering the best features and ensuring Banktivity stays compatible with new technologies. With a mature app like ours, a lot of effort goes into keeping pace with technological changes so that we’re always ready for updates, like a new Apple operating system. In other words, we’re not just aiming for where things are today, but where they’re headed.
Is there a reason with the new update a data file would no longer automatically open when the program is launched? It is incredibly frustrating and going through the “yes I have a Banktivity file” doesn’t work either as when I try to select my file it is greyed out/not available to select.
We’ve been investigating some people reporting this. What we have been finding is that iCloud seems to be offloading people’s documents and in order to open them again (and get them to automatically re-open), they need to be downloaded again. We have also found this seems to be happening when customer’s disk/hard drive space is limited. We didn’t make any specific changes to how we handle re-opening recently used Banktivity documents.
Yeah that’s not my issue. Hopefully you guys can find a fix and update the program. Something on the last update definitely changed, it immediately started after I installed that.
> Along with this change, we’re also discontinuing the “subscribe once and use forever” model.
I do not use connectivity features at all. Direct Access prevents me from using Banktivity as a check-and-balance against my online accounts, overrides my “hand crafted” transactions (actual vs posted date, payee name case sensitivity, category splits, and so on), does not work for Japanese financial institutions, and with the constant tweaks and breakages is just far more trouble than it is worth. Stock downloads do not include prices for US treasuries or TIPS. I manually update currency exchange with the actual TTB rate my multi-currency account applies rather than the generic midmarket rate. I keep Banktivity on my laptop only, neither need nor want to enter transactions on my phone, and demand control of my own data file, so do not use cloud syncing.
Put simply, I want an offline digital checkbook. Discontinuing the “subscribe once and use forever” model eliminates that option for me.
I stopped upgrading from Banktivity 7 because there have been no relevant “unconnected” features since. Now I’m stuck with 7 because I refuse to pay a hundred bucks a year for a static program. Fortunately, 7 continues to work well on Sequoia.
> While some may argue that an annual subscription should unlock this, it’s difficult to apply the same logic to customers who subscribe on a monthly basis for years.
I’ve been a professional developer on Apple platforms for twenty-seven years. I call BS. It ought to be straightforward to determine whether a subscriber has paid one annual fee or twelve monthly fees and if so allow continued use of the software without connectivity. If that’s not the case, you have your refactoring and technical debt work cut out for you.
Also get off my lawn!
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. What do you think should happen if a customer subscribes to gold one month, silver for 1 month and then bronze for 10 months? Should they get unlocked features of gold, silver or bronze or some combination? What if it is split even: 4 months gold, 4 months silver, 4 months bronze?
We really hope you’ll consider supporting Banktivity and moving to v9 (the most current version at the time of this writing).
> it’s difficult to apply the same logic
First, my apologies. I originally read this as “it’s difficult to implement in code” while now I believe you meant “it’s difficult to settle on a fair and equitable solution”.
> What do you think should happen if a customer subscribes to gold one month, silver for 1 month and then bronze for 10 months? Should they get unlocked features of gold, silver or bronze or some combination? What if it is split even: 4 months gold, 4 months silver, 4 months bronze?
I humbly suggest considering the concept of “credits”. Once a user reaches twelve credits for a level (whether subscribing for one year or twelve consecutive or non-consecutive months), the unconnected features for that level would be unlocked forever.
In your first example, the user would have one gold credit, one silver credit, and ten bronze credits, so no features would be unlocked forever. If the user continues to pay at the bronze level for two more months, the bronze features would be unlocked forever. If the user later paid at the silver level for eleven more months the silver features would be unlocked forever. Likewise, pay at the gold level for eleven more months the gold features would be unlocked forever. Skip paying the two months of bronze and eleven months of silver and just pay eleven more months of gold (or, more cheaply, one year of gold), still get the gold features forever.
Just like in the old “subscription that doesn’t suck”, if a user simply pays for one year at the gold level, the user could continue using all the unconnected features forever. The user would always be able to manually create and edit transactions, create any kind of new accounts, export, and generally have a useful offline digital experience. As a user, this is what I would do (and in fact have been doing with version 7) and it feels fair—I’m getting the features for which I paid, but not getting charged for connectivity I do not use.
While the old system also included upgrades forever, I’d even be okay if minor updates (9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.5) were included but I had to resubscribe for twelve more credits to get a major upgrade (7.0, 8.0, 9.0). I’d do so as long as there were relevant, compelling new features between major versions. Again that feel fairs to me—I’d pay for significant new code.
A variation on the credits methodology suggested above is to count credits at or above the level. So in both your examples the user would have twelve credits at or above the bronze level and would get bronze features forever. I think this is somewhat more difficult to understand and market, but is fairer to users. Once a new user is settled, is it common to switch levels?
An alternative to credits would be to just track how much cash a user has spent. Once a user has spent sixty dollars, unlock bronze forever; eighty, silver; one hundred, gold. As you continue to raise prices, the targets for forever features also go up. Users would still always be able to get forever features by simply subscribing for one year.
As it is now, there is simply no longer a way a user can pay once and use forever.
I am exactly the same type of user as Christopher. I just want a basic manual ledger. I thought I’d found that in Banktivity when I purchased 6 and then 7, which I’ve been using happily on Mojave ever since you switched to subscriptions. Recently I finally went kicking and screaming into the current state of macOS and am forced to confront this subscription issue again.
Here is my proposal for users like Christopher and I… Offer a on-time purchase option/price again for the BASIC version of the latest software, with no online/connected features. That gives unlimited use of that version (and sub-version updates) for as long as it’ll keep running on the OS. You know, the way we all used to purchase software before it became an extortion racquet. Sorry to say, but you’ve become the “Intuit” I left all those years ago.
So, the way I see it, the two options are 1) you release a one-time payment option for the current version, but with no online/connected features, and get a fair chunk of money from users like me once every few years, or 2) stick to the subscription racquet and lose me, and many users like me, as customers forever.
I sincerely hope you consider option 1.
Thanks
I, too, am still on version 7 and I use Banktivity offline as a basic manual ledger. I’d be happy to pay an annual fee (say, $29, whatever) for just the basic model. However, your subscription that doesn’t suck is too complicated to use.
Please, create a basic model and a simple annual subscription. I will upgrade as soon as that happens!
As Tom, Paul, Mario, and Brian have written, I too feel the subscription price is reasonable when used as an online product—I understand cloud servers, bank connections, and quote APIs all cost money. However, for those of us like Zak and me who explicitly want an offline product, the recurring fee does not make sense.
I upgrade my hardware and software every five to seven years, which is inline with Apple’s own lifecycle and support policies. I most recently upgraded at the beginning of the pandemic with a MacBook Air (2020 Intel), iPhone 11, and Banktivity 7—they still run the latest macOS Sequoia 15 and iOS 18.
While iBank and Banktivity have been great products, I argue the offline features are worth the $30 – $50 a year we paid in the pre-subscription days. I can live with $100 every few years to get the latest version as in the Banktivity 8 – 9 model. However, as of Banktivity 9.5, paying $500 – $700 to use an unconnected product over the lifespan of my hardware is infeasible.
I think I’m most upset Ian gave everyone three months warning before switching to a subscription model, but gave no warning whatsoever when eliminating the “subscribe once and use forever” model, giving those of us who upgrade infrequently no chance to be grandfathered in.
I think your pricing is more than reasonable. I have been using Banktivity for years and I was shocked to even hear about the yearly price forever idea. I think changing that is perfectly reasonable, specifically because you are allowing export even without paying.
The price is also extremely reasonable and in light of the modern way that we use apps (direct bank access, cloud sync, free updates, etc.) subscription pricing is what makes sense. I will happily continue paying for and using my Silver tier subscription for the foreseeable future.
Well, I might be in the minority here, but the subscription cost is trivial compared to the amount of money Banktivity saves me in time & stress.
The only thing is that I don’t think the updates are as often as expected, but technical debt and refactoring is a LOT of work resulting in little visible change to the end-user. I should know, I’m currently doing it for my app!
I would like to see the chart colours updated to pop a bit more – it’s all a bit too faded. Some rounded rectangles & shadows wouldn’t go astray either 😉
I concur , the cost of the sub is trivial compared to the benefit it provides to manage my finances and do my taxes.
Like you , i feel enhancements since 9.0 have been modest in relation to my expectations but we are definitely in a better place than pre-sub. I hope we see a V10 with new features in 2025.
Hi, I subscribed in Feb 2024 and now it suddenly seems your “subscribe once, use forever” is removed. I’m upset about this change since I’ve been a long time buyer and supporter of Banktivity since many version before. If I terminate instead of renewing my sub, does it mean I lose all functions permanently?
You should be “grandfathered” in.
I concur with some of the others….while I don’t love having another subscription in my life, this is a subscription that I cannot live without. We are talking about skipping one or two stops at Starbucks a month to cover the cost of a service that is essential to a lot of us. Banktivity keeps getting better and better over time. I have really been impressed with the progress the team has made with the iPad version (which is included in the cost of the subscription). I consider myself to be pretty sophisticated user and I can almost completely function on the iPad version now. Although managing a lot of new transactions isn’t quite as efficient on the iPad as it is on a Mac. However, I pretty much have a replica of my reporting and budgets on my iPad now. I am using my Mac less and less to stay on top of my finances but it’s always there for the monthly deep dives. Having access to multiple platforms is wonderful.
I was running Parallels just to use Quicken and made a break to iBank 4. There have been some frustrations but the Banktivity team has really pushed things forward the past couple of major updates. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to seeing where it goes next.