Intuit changed the prices of QuickBooks Essentials, Plus, and Advanced for renewals from a date in its notice, and left Simple Start and QuickBooks Free unchanged. Today Essentials is $85 a month for 3 users, and Plus is $140 a month for 5 users. Switching pays when another tool does everything you use QuickBooks for at a lower bill, and a year of that difference is worth more to you than the work of moving: your hours, a month of running both, and your accountant’s time. If you’re on Simple Start, the change doesn’t touch you.
Which plans changed, and does it affect you?
Intuit’s notice names Essentials, Plus, and Advanced, for renewals from the date it gives. QuickBooks Free and Simple Start stayed where they were. If you joined recently, Intuit says your price holds for your first six months, and the updated price starts with your seventh invoice.
So the question only arises if you’re on Essentials or above. If you’re on one of those because of a single feature, like a second login or time on invoices, it’s also worth asking whether you still need it.
What would the same team pay elsewhere?
Here’s what each tool costs for one, three, and five users, billed monthly at today’s list prices, with extra people priced in where a vendor sells them as an add-on. It’s the bill for that many logins, so treat it as a starting point:
| Tool | Total for 1 user | Total for 3 users | Total for 5 users |
|---|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Online | Free Free plan | $85 a month Essentials | $140 a month Plus |
| Xero | $27 a month Early | $27 a month Early | $27 a month Early |
| FreshBooks | $23 a month Lite | $45 a month Lite + 2 team members | $67 a month Lite + 4 team members |
| Wave | Free Free plan | $19 a month Pro | $19 a month Pro |
| Zoho Books | Free Free plan | $20 a month Zoho Books Standard | $26 a month Zoho Books Standard + 2 users |
| Square Invoices | Free Free plan | Not priced: no user count stated | Not priced: no user count stated |
FreshBooks: each person beyond a plan’s included users is a team member at $11 a month, included in the figure.
Zoho Books: each person beyond a plan’s included users is a user at $3 a month, or $2.50 billed yearly, included in the figure.
Square Invoices doesn’t state how many people its plans cover, so this table prices it for one person only.
Read the rows with your own needs in mind, because a cheaper row is only a saving if it does the job:
- Xero charges no per-user fee, so its price doesn’t move with your team; but its row is Early, which caps invoices and bills each month. A busy team pays for Growing, at $59 a month.
- Zoho Books covers three on Standard, at $20 a month. At five the table adds two extra users to Standard, at $3 per user a month, or $2.50 billed annually; if you bill time or track projects, compare Professional instead, at $50 a month, which includes five users.
- Wave has one paid plan, Pro, at $19 a month, with no user cap. It’s the right comparison only if you don’t use QuickBooks’ projects, inventory, or time tracking.
- FreshBooks adds a team member for each person past the first, at add-on, $11 a month per user. Its row is Lite, which stops at 5 clients, archived ones included, so count your clients before you read that row as your bill.
- Square is free for one person and not priced above that, because its pages don’t say how many people a plan covers. It’s invoicing and payments, not bookkeeping, so it isn’t a replacement for QuickBooks on its own.
When does switching pay?
Work it out on a year, with your own numbers:
- The saving. Your QuickBooks plan’s monthly price, less the plan you’d move to, times twelve.
- Your hours. Setting up the new chart of accounts, importing customers, items, and opening balances, connecting the bank, and rebuilding any rules. Put a value on your time.
- The overlap. A month of paying for both while you run the first month-end in the new tool.
- Your accountant. Ask whether they work in the new tool, and whether the first year-end there will cost more.
If the saving is bigger than the other three put together, switching pays inside the year. If it’s close, stay; the switch has risks a spreadsheet doesn’t show.
Say you run a three-person catering company’s office: you, a partner who quotes events, and an office manager who invoices and pays suppliers. You’re on Essentials at $85 a month, you use time on invoices for staffing charges, and you send about thirty invoices a month.
Wave Pro would cost less, and you could type staff hours onto its invoices as quantities, but it has no staff time tracking to record those hours and carry them onto invoices, which is how you use Essentials, so it’s out. Xero would need Growing at $59 a month for thirty invoices a month, and it includes project time tracking only on Established. On Zoho Books, billing timesheets is on Professional, at $50 a month, which covers all three of you. That’s the real comparison: Essentials against Zoho Books Professional, twelve months of the difference against a week of setup, a month of overlap, and your accountant’s view. If your accountant already works in Zoho, it’s an easy call; if they don’t, it may not be.
When to stay
- You’re on Simple Start. Its price didn’t change.
- You joined in the last six months. Your price holds until your seventh invoice; decide then.
- Your accountant works in QuickBooks and charges more for anything else. That cost can erase the saving.
- You use a feature the cheaper tool lacks. Staff time tracked and carried onto invoices, project profitability, inventory, or budgets are reasons to stay or to choose the alternative with care. Typing hours onto an invoice yourself works on Wave too.
If you do switch
Where it’s practical, pick the start of a quarter or your financial year; if you can’t wait that long, start on the first of a month and agree the cut-off with your accountant. Export your customer list, item list, open invoices, and the reports your accountant wants (a profit and loss and a balance sheet at the switch date) before you cancel. Then run one month in the new tool alongside QuickBooks, reconcile it, and cancel only once the first month-end balances. After you cancel, QuickBooks keeps your data read-only for a year, so you can look things up while the new books settle.
Our view
Don’t switch for the price change alone; first check whether you still need Essentials. If a second login is the only reason you’re on it, a tool that doesn’t charge by the login can be worth the move. If you use time on invoices, projects, or inventory, compare only with tools that have them, and switch at a clean period start. What this view gives up is a quick saving for owners who’d adapt easily, in exchange for not trading a known system for an unknown one over a small difference.
Your next step
Find your QuickBooks plan and price in your account’s billing page this week. Write down the features you used last month. Then price the plan that has those features on one other tool in the table above, and run the four-line sum. If the saving clears the switch with room to spare, plan the move for the next quarter start.