by Intuit Inc.Small business accounting software
Cloud accounting in five tiers, from a limited free plan to Advanced, with payments, payroll and bill pay from the same vendor.
Full small business books with payments, payroll and bill pay from one vendor, and a plan ladder from a free tier to 25 users.
QuickBooks Online covers invoicing, bills, bank feeds and reports, and Intuit sells card and bank payments, bill pay and payroll that work inside it, so a small business can run its money from one account. Accountants are invited free on every paid plan. Essentials ($85 a month) gives 3 users, multicurrency, recurring transactions and an audit log; Plus adds inventory, projects, budgets and class tracking. Intuit’s Trust Center lists SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Small business accounting software: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | QuickBooks Online | Zoho Books | Xero | Wave |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Built-in reachFull small business books with payments, payroll and bill pay from one vendor, and a plan ladder from a free tier to 25 users. | Worth the priceBills, multi-currency, inventory, projects and custom roles on a $50 plan with 5 users, backed by SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001. | Worth the priceAccounting priced per business, not per user, with inventory, purchase orders and bank feeds on every plan. | Worth the priceInvoices, bills and bookkeeping for free, and bank imports, users and reminders for $19 a month per business. |
| Overall score | 7.5 | 8.2Best | 7.1 | 6.7 |
| Free option | Free plan | Free plan | 30-day free trial | Free plan |
| Card to start | No card needed | –Not measured | Card required | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $38/mo | $20/mo | $27/mo | $19/mo |
| Pricing model | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Per company per month, in plan tiers; no extra seats sold | Per organization per month, in plan tiers; extra users $3/mo each | Per organization per month; no per-user license fees | Per business per month or year |
| Free option | Free plan (1 user, 2 invoices/mo, 1 bank connection); 30-day trial of paid plans | Free plan under $50K yearly revenue (1 user + 1 accountant, no bills or bank feeds); 14-day trial | No free plan; one month free with billing details taken at sign-up | Free Starter plan (unlimited invoices and bills, no bank import) |
| Reference scenario (3 users, monthly) | $85/mo on Essentials, computed | $50/mo on Professional, computed | $59/mo on Growing, computed | $19/mo on Pro, computed |
| Users per plan | 1 / 1 / 3 / 5 / 25 (Free to Advanced); 2 or 3 accountants free on paid plans | 1 + accountant / 3 / 5 / 10 / 10 / 15; extra users $3/mo ($2.50 yearly) | No per-user fees on any plan | Admins, editors and viewers on Pro; payroll manager and tax pro on all plans |
| Multi-currency | Essentials ($85) and up | Professional ($50) and up | Established ($97) | Foreign currency invoices and bills |
| Inventory and projects | Plus ($140) and up | Stock tracking and project profitability on Professional ($50) | Inventory in every plan (Inventory Plus $39/mo); projects on Established | Not listed |
| Card / bank payment fees | 2.99% / 1% (QuickBooks Payments) | 2.9% + 30¢ / ACH 0.8% capped at $5 (Zoho Payments) | 2.9% + 30¢ / ACH debit 1% capped at $9 (Stripe, managed by Xero) | 2.9% + $0.60 (first 10 a month at 2.9% + $0 on Pro) / 1%, $1 minimum |
| Payroll | Workforce Payroll bundles, e.g. with Essentials $125/mo + $6.50 per employee | Zoho Payroll from $39/mo + $6 per employee | Xero Payroll, powered by Gusto: $36/mo + $6 per employee or contractor | $40/mo + $6 per employee and per contractor paid |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 on the Intuit Trust Center | SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001 for Zoho cloud services | SOC 2 Type II report on request; ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | Not stated; Level 1 PCI DSS |
| Custom roles / audit log | Custom roles on Advanced; audit log from Essentials | Custom roles on Professional; activity log on every plan | Fixed user roles; History and notes audit trail | Fixed roles that cannot be customized; no audit log described |
| Data export | Export data tool (reports and lists to Excel); read-only access 1 year after cancelling | Reports to CSV, XLS, XLSX or PDF; API on every plan | Any report exported to Excel or PDF; API | Data Export: journal entries and transactions, bills, customers, vendors (XLS or CSV) |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, QuickBooks Online is a full accounting suite with payments, payroll and bill pay from Intuit and a clear plan ladder. Users are tied to tiers, and inventory and projects start on Plus. | From its public pages, Zoho Books puts the broadest set of bookkeeping and control features at $50 a month, with SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 behind it. Bills start on Professional, and the free plan is limited to businesses under $50K revenue. | From its public pages, Xero is full small business accounting priced per organization with no per-user fees, with inventory and purchase orders on every plan. Most businesses that pay bills start on Growing, and currencies and projects need Established. | From its public pages, Wave is the lowest-cost way here to keep small business books: free invoices and bills, and bank imports and users for $19 a month. It lists fewer bookkeeping and security features than the larger suites. |
Evidence: QuickBooks Online: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Zoho Books: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Xero: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Wave: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from QuickBooks Online's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read Intuit's US pricing page with its plan cards and FAQ, the QuickBooks "Subscription Levels" page, the payroll pricing page, help articles on multicurrency, purchase orders, user roles, QuickBooks Payments fees, multi-factor authentication, data export and what happens after cancelling, the Intuit Trust Center and the QuickBooks Online developer docs on Oct 16, 2026; we did not sign up, start the trial or call the API for this review. quickbooks.intuit.com did not respond to our server, so we read it through a web fetch service and compared the pricing page with its Internet Archive copy of Oct 13, 2026; the list prices match.
The pricing page is clear on the ladder: Free, then Simple Start $38, Essentials $85, Plus $140 and Advanced $340 a month, with 1, 3, 5 and 25 users, and 50% off for 3 months shown on every paid plan. The page says no annual contract and cancel anytime. Help articles fill in where features start: multicurrency on Essentials and up, purchase orders on Plus and Advanced, custom roles on Advanced.
A few points need a question to Intuit. Bill pay lists free ACH up to a monthly allotment that "may vary", with no allotment per plan. The Subscription Levels page describes bill payments on Essentials "via Bill.com", while the pricing page lists bill pay on Simple Start. The Trust Center shows its certificates without naming the products they cover; an Intuit support answer says the SOC 2 report covers QuickBooks Online. The pricing page does not say whether the 30-day trial needs a card.
Card (2.99%) and bank (1%) payment rates, payroll bundles and bill pay with free ACH up to an allotment are all priced on Intuit’s own pages.
vs FreshBooks: Xero sells payroll through Gusto and card payments through Stripe; FreshBooks and Wave also sell their own payroll.
Free connects 1 bank account and tracks income and expenses for 1 user, with no card needed; invoices are limited to two a month unless QuickBooks Payments is turned on.
Compared: Wave’s free Starter plan allows unlimited invoices and bills but imports bank transactions only on Pro.
The multicurrency help article covers Essentials, Plus and Advanced; Simple Start does not have it.
vs Zoho Books: Xero puts multiple currencies on Established ($97); Zoho Books on Professional ($50).
Advanced supports 25 users plus 3 accountants, custom user roles, automated workflows, batch invoices and Excel sync, bought online.
After a paid subscription ends, the data stays read-only for one year and can be exported to Excel or QuickBooks Desktop.
vs FreshBooks: FreshBooks’ terms say content stops appearing shortly after the account is terminated.
Simple Start allows 1 user, Essentials 3, Plus 5 and Advanced 25; the pages sell no extra seats, so a fourth user means Plus at $140 a month.
Workaround: View-only, time-tracking and some other roles are non-billable and do not count toward the limit.
Inventory tracking, project profitability, purchase orders, budgets and class and location tracking are listed on Plus ($140 a month) and up.
Workaround: You can upgrade between Simple Start, Essentials and Plus when you need them.
Bill pay includes free standard ACH up to a monthly allotment that "may vary", then $0.50 per payment; the pages do not state the allotment for each plan.
The pricing page shows a 30-day trial and 50% off for 3 months; the full terms, and whether the trial needs a card, are not in the page text we read.
Workaround: Check the offer terms at checkout before choosing the trial or the discount.
QuickBooks Online bills per company per month in tiers; users come with the tier. For our scenario, 3 users with invoices, bills and bank feeds, Simple Start allows only 1 user, so the cheapest fit is Essentials at $85 a month at list price (computed), or $42.50 a month for the first 3 months with the 50% offer shown. Plus ($140) adds inventory, projects, budgets and class tracking and allows 5 users; Advanced ($340) allows 25. On top: QuickBooks Payments at 2.99% for cards and 1% for bank payments, bill pay ACH beyond the allotment at $0.50 each, and payroll, sold as Workforce bundles (with Essentials $125 a month plus $6.50 per employee at list price).
The Export data tool exports reports and lists as Excel files in one .zip; estimates, purchase orders, attachments and the chart of accounts are exported from their own screens. After a paid subscription is cancelled, the data stays read-only for one year and can be exported to Excel or QuickBooks Desktop; after a trial, export within 90 days. The QuickBooks Online Accounting API is documented for developers.
From its public pages, QuickBooks Online is a full accounting suite with payments, payroll and bill pay from Intuit and a clear plan ladder. Users are tied to tiers, and inventory and projects start on Plus.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per company per month, in plan tiers; no extra seats sold |
| Free option | Free plan (1 user, 2 invoices/mo, 1 bank connection); 30-day trial of paid plans |
| Reference scenario (3 users, monthly) | $85/mo on Essentials, computed |
| Users per plan | 1 / 1 / 3 / 5 / 25 (Free to Advanced); 2 or 3 accountants free on paid plans |
| Multi-currency | Essentials ($85) and up |
| Inventory and projects | Plus ($140) and up |
| Card / bank payment fees | 2.99% / 1% (QuickBooks Payments) |
| Payroll | Workforce Payroll bundles, e.g. with Essentials $125/mo + $6.50 per employee |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 on the Intuit Trust Center |
| Custom roles / audit log | Custom roles on Advanced; audit log from Essentials |
| Data export | Export data tool (reports and lists to Excel); read-only access 1 year after cancelling |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for QuickBooks Online yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for QuickBooks Online yet.
QuickBooks Online lists 5 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Simple Start (1 user), costs $38/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: quickbooks.intuit.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, payments, payroll, security, help center and developer pages of three accounting suites on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What 3 users with invoices, bills and bank feeds cost, where multi-currency, inventory and roles sit, and who should pick which.
