QuickBooks Online pricing and plan limits

QuickBooks Online has a free plan for one person who invoices rarely, then four paid plans with one price for the business and a set number of users: Simple Start at $38 a month for 1 user, Essentials at $85 a month for 3 users, and Plus at $140 a month for 5 users. Billing is monthly only. New customers choose half off for the first three months or a 30-day free trial, not both, and the number of people who need a login is what moves you up.

Which plan should a one to five person business pick?

Count the people who need to log in, not the people on payroll. Accountants don’t count: every paid plan includes 2 accountants, and Advanced includes 3 accountants.

• Just you, a few invoices a month: QuickBooks Free. It’s not a trial and needs no card, but it’s capped hard: 2 invoices a month, estimates at 1 per month, 1 bank account, no accountant access, and no mobile app. Turning on QuickBooks Payments lifts the invoice limit if you qualify. That’s the standard plan: Intuit is also testing a beta “AI Edition” of QuickBooks Free with different features, and which version you get when you sign up may depend on what Intuit shows you.
• Just you, invoicing every week: Simple Start at $38 a month. It has everything a one-person business needs on the money side: invoices, estimates, recurring invoices, receipt capture, bank feeds, and paying your suppliers’ bills by standard ACH. That bill pay is free, per Intuit’s help center; Intuit’s notice adds that limits may apply to the number and amount of payments, and the Simple Start plan card mentions a per-payment fee past a monthly allotment it doesn’t size. Because Intuit’s pages describe it differently, don’t choose a plan on it.
• Two or three people: Essentials at $85 a month, for 3 users. It also adds entering time, so hours can go straight onto an invoice.
• Four or five people: Plus at $140 a month, for 5 users. It adds inventory, budgets, and project profitability, which matter if you sell stock or run fixed-price projects.

Advanced, at $340 a month for 25 users, adds workflow automation and is built for a company with a finance person. A business of one to five isn’t who it’s for.

Say you run a three-person video production studio: two partners who quote and invoice, and an editor who logs hours against each project. Simple Start stops at one login, so you’re on Essentials at $85 a month, and its time entry is the feature you’d have paid for anyway.

On Essentials, the discount saves three months at half price, $127.50; the trial saves one month at full price, $85, and puts the first bill a month later. If a fourth person is likely within the year, price Plus now at $140 a month, because that’s the bill the day they start.

What moves you up a plan?

People, almost always. QuickBooks prices by plan, and each plan has a user limit, so the moment one more person needs a login, the whole bill moves to the next plan. Plan for that day before it arrives: if a hire is coming, know which plan it puts you on. QuickBooks Simple Start or Essentials: what makes you move up? works through the first of those steps.

Features move you second. Entering time is the reason to choose Essentials even alone, if you bill by the hour. Inventory, budgets, and project profitability are the reasons for Plus. Workflow automation is the reason for Advanced, and few businesses this size need it.

Skip QuickBooks Online if

• You send more than a few invoices a month and want to pay nothing. QuickBooks Free stops at 2 invoices a month unless you qualify for and enable QuickBooks Payments. Wave’s Starter plan keeps invoices with no cap; when free invoicing is enough compares the free plans, and Wave or QuickBooks for a very small business: cost and limits compared sets these two side by side.
• You’re two or three people and every dollar counts. On QuickBooks a second login means a bigger plan. Xero says it has no per-user license fees; see Xero pricing.
• You want the lowest paid bill. For one person, the lowest paid bill in this guide is Wave (Pro) at $19 a month; which tool fits a 1 to 5 person business weighs it against what you give up.
• You want to pay yearly to save. There’s no yearly price to save with.

Plans and prices

One price per plan, for the whole business. The user limit is the number to watch, not a price per seat.

Costs that are easy to miss

• The discount ends after three months, and it replaces the trial. New customers choose half off the first three months or a 30-day free trial. On Simple Start the discount is worth $57 and the trial $38, which also puts your first bill a month later. If you’re unsure QuickBooks is the tool, the trial gives you 30 days to find out before you pay anything; if you’re sure, the discount is the cheaper path.
• Taking payments costs a percentage of every invoice. QuickBooks Payments charges per transaction, and in a busy month the fees can pass the plan price. What invoicing costs once customers pay by card works it out at your volume.
• Payroll is extra. It’s an optional add-on chosen at checkout and isn’t in any plan price on this page.
• The free plan has no mobile app or integrations. If your bank-to-phone routine or another app matters, that’s a reason to pay from the start.
• Prices can change. Every figure on this page carries the date it was checked. If QuickBooks raises them, after a QuickBooks price increase shows when switching pays.

The rates are QuickBooks Payments’ own, the same on every plan. An invoice paid by card online pays the first rate in the table.

Does QuickBooks Online work in Spanish?

Partly. You can set a customer’s invoice language to Spanish, and QuickBooks translates the invoice when it sends it; your own text, like item names and the email message, stays as you wrote it.

Our view

QuickBooks Online is a solid choice for a business that wants full books from the first paid plan, with bank feeds, bill pay, and two accountant seats on Simple Start, and is willing to pay for a plan per stage of growth rather than per person. Our position: start on Simple Start if you’re alone and invoice every week, take the discount if you’ve already decided, and move to Essentials only when a second person truly needs to log in. What you give up is cost control at the small end: the free plan is too tight for regular invoicing, there’s no yearly price, and the step from one user to two is a whole plan. If you’re two or three people on a tight budget, compare it with a tool that doesn’t charge by the login before you commit.

Your next step

Count the logins you’ll need this year, including the hire you’re planning, and pick the plan that covers them. Then decide discount or trial: the discount if you’re certain, the trial if you’re comparing. On the day you start, connect your bank and import last month’s invoices so the first month-end is a real one. See QuickBooks Online’s plans.