Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks – Price and Features Comparison

QuickBooks has better features, better pricing, and better customer support than Zoho Books, making it the better overall accounting software.

Zoho Books does still score points in the battle of Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks, though, and there’s a reason why both were deemed by our experts as the best accounting software services for self-employed people. In particular it stands out for great accounts receivable features, which make it the best inexpensive choice for client billing.

Our team of researchers has tested and rated each and every feature and price point to determine how Zoho Books and QuickBooks compare. Read on to explore our findings and figure out which option is best for your business.

In this guide:

• Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: Head-to-Head
• Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: Pricing Plans
• Best for Features: QuickBooks
• Best for Help & Support: QuickBooks
• Best for Software Attributes: QuickBooks
• Is Zoho Books or QuickBooks Better for Small Businesses?
• Alternatives to Zoho Books & QuickBooks?
• Verdict & Next Steps
• Our Methodology
• Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: FAQs

Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: Battle of the Accounting Software

Our researchers found QuickBooks to be best for small businesses due to its depth of features and strong support, while Zoho Books is the better software for professional service firms, as it has great yet inexpensive tools for invoicing, project accounting, and tracking outstanding payments.

QuickBooks beats Zoho Books across all feature categories, as QuickBooks has better financial reporting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and advanced features, as well as software functionality. The services are tied for bookkeeping functionality, as both earned 5/5 stars from our research team.

In some cases, QuickBooks offers features on lower plans than Zoho: QuickBooks allows custom reports across all plans, while Zoho doesn’t introduce them until its Premium plan. However, all paid Zoho plans let users to send up to 5,000 invoices annually to unlimited clients and include a range of payment processing integrations for easier billing.

To learn more, check out our full guide to Zoho Books.

To learn more, check out our full guide to QuickBooks.

Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: Pricing Plans

QuickBooks offers five plans in total, but as its self-employed plan ($15 per month) only supports single, self-employed users, we’ll be comparing the plans best suited to US businesses. To make the differences between Zoho and Quickbooks’ four most useful plans easier to understand, we will highlight the differences between each comparable plan in turn.

QuickBooks Simple Start vs. Zoho Free

QuickBooks Simple Start’s $30 per month charge means it costs more than Zoho Free, which is free. Both plans support 1 user and unlimited clients and estimates, but while Simple Start offers unlimited invoicing, Free caps invoices at 1,000 per year, a barrier for those with many clients. Simple Start offers cash flow projections but no accounts payable features, while Free has a supplier database and expense tracking that Simple Start lacks.

QuickBooks Essentials vs. Zoho Standard

Zoho’s pricing again undercuts QuickBooks, with Zoho Standard’s $15 per month fee beating QuickBooks Essentials’ $30 per month cost. Standard raises the invoice limit to 5,000 per year, and supports 3 users. Essentials offers more value than Standard, as it also supports 3 users and adds the accounts payable features Simple Start was missing, as well as time tracking. Standard adds no core functionality beyond a billing process, which Essentials also includes.

QuickBooks Plus vs. Zoho Professional

Zoho Professional costs just $40 per month, in contrast to QuickBooks Plus’s $80 per month charge. Both plans add inventory management, support for 5 users, and some project accounting tools, though only Plus adds employee labor cost calculations. Plus also beats Professional in budget and forecasting, as it includes budget management and ability to set up multiple budgets.

QuickBooks Advanced vs. Zoho Premium

QuickBooks Advanced raises the user cap to 25 and costs $200 per month, a big jump from Zoho Premium’s 10 users and $60 per month subscription. Premium catches up in some categories, adding better budgeting tools and a big 25,000 invoice cap. Still, it can’t quite match Advanced’s features, even though Advanced adds no core functionality that QuickBooks Plus didn’t have, as Premium still lacks cash flow projection and employee labor calculation.

All of QuickBooks’ accounting plans can add the QuickBooks Payroll add-on, which starts at $45 per month, plus $4 per employee per month.

Here’s a comparison table, complete with QuickBooks’ 50% off deal for the first three months factored into the pricing.

Zoho Books vs QuickBooks: Which has the best free plan?

Zoho Books has a permanent free plan, but QuickBooks only offers a 30-day free trial. Zoho’s free plan is impressive, too: It handles most bookkeeping and financial reporting needs, as well as unlimited clients and estimates. But it caps invoices at 1,000 per year, which will be a problem for some businesses, and will likely lead to an upgrade to a paid plan.

We’ve rounded up the best free accounting software, although they all come with a drawback or three.

The QuickBooks Online interface makes it easy to adjust your account settings. Image source: QuickBooks

Best for Business Features: QuickBooks

QuickBooks offers more comprehensive features than Zoho, although funtionality can vary by plan. Here’s which tools each service will give you.

Bookkeeping

QuickBooks and Zoho both earned 5/5 stars for bookkeeping, and they deliver the goods. All their plans offer the ability to manually add transactions, as well as bank statement importation, automatic bank reconciliation, and fixed asset recording (although Zoho records assets through creating journal entries, which is a bit of a workaround). Retailers beware: Inventory management is only available through QuickBooks Plus or Zoho Professional and higher.

Accounts Payable

QuickBooks and Zoho both offer strong features in this category: They have a supplier database, bill and expense tracking, recurring bills, and multiple currencies, though Zoho restricts most of these tools to a slightly higher plan than QuickBooks. QuickBooks offers bill scanning with Essentials and Plus plans, but Zoho only has it through a paid add-on. As a result, QuickBooks earned a 5/5 score while Zoho just earned a still-good 4.25/5 score.

The Zoho Books dashboard can be modified for your needs. Image source: Zoho Books

Accounts Receivable

Both services did well for receivable tools, as they both track overdue payments, have a client database, support online client payments, can send invoices and estimates, will set up recurring invoices, track invoices, and offer payment reminders.

Advanced Features

Our researchers tracked two advanced feature categories, project accounting and budget/forecasting. QuickBooks and Zoho both offer time-tracking, project-specific expenses, and project profitability tracking, though only on their higher-priced plans. QuickBooks supports employee labor cost calculations while Zoho does not, and neither software allows estimate or quote creation based on project specifications. Both services offer budgeting tools, depending on the plan, though QuickBooks stands out for its cash flow projection on all plans.

Best for Help & Support: QuickBooks

QuickBooks has better support than Zoho Books, although both are high: QuickBooks earned a 4.7/5 score compared to Zoho’s 4.2/5 score.

Zoho’s onboarding process includes articles from its knowledge base and video tutorials, while QuickBooks includes those and adds interface sign-posting to highlight functions when needed. Both services offer live chat, phone, and email support, though QuickBooks restricts phone and email support to its Advanced plan. One key difference? QuickBooks has 24/7 support while Zoho does not.

Best for Software Attributes: QuickBooks

Our research team’s “software attributes” category covers additional functionality. QuickBooks offers more integrations than Zoho: QuickBooks has 75 eCommerce integrations, while Zoho offers 12, and QuickBooks has 106 CRM integrations, while Zoho offers the Zoho CRM as an add-on. Zoho does not have any email marketing integrations, marking a step down from QuickBooks’ 4 integrations (Constant Contact, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and Campaign Monitor). QuickBooks also offer more POS integrations, with Figment, eHopper, Vend, Lightspeed, Clover, Scantrax, and Square, while Zoho just offers Square.

Zoho’s mobile app can handle estimates, invoices, expense management, reports, and KPIs. QuickBooks has 2 mobile apps: QuickBooks Self-employed, for GPS mileage tracking and receipt scanning as well as expense tracking and invoicing, and QuickBooks Small Business, which has the same functions plus cash flow forecasting. QuickBooks is also our pick for the best accounting software for Mac users.

QuickBooks also adds a few non-accounting functionalities Zoho does not have, as QuickBooks’ Payroll add-on handles both employee compensation and employee expense management.

Is Zoho Books or QuickBooks Better for Small Businesses?

Zoho Books and QuickBooks are both great for small businesses, but QuickBook is ultimately a little better thanks its wide range of features, ease of use, and good support options.

Zoho Books is great for tiny businesses. Due to the core accounts receivable features found on Zoho’s inexpensive plans, it’s the cheapest solution for a tiny operation with simple needs. With Zoho Standard, you’ll be able to send 5,000 invoices annually to an unlimited number of clients.

However, QuickBooks offers an unbeatable number of features at fair prices, giving a small business greater breadth and depth of functionality than Zoho Books. And if your business is a nonprofit, QuickBooks for nonprofits is the platform’s dedicated tool, custom-fitted to your needs.

Alternatives to Zoho Books & QuickBooks

Accounting software isn’t limited to QuickBooks and Zoho Books. Our crack team of researchers has ranked all the top options.

QuickBooks is best for small businesses overall, but it’s joined by Xero, a great choice for ecommerce-oriented operations. Wave Financial is another one worth mentioning, for the great range of features in its free software (provided you don’t need your inventory tracked). Our researchers put Wave among the best free accounting software. Read our Wave vs QuickBooks guide to see how the accounting tools weigh up in full.

Freshbooks is their top pick for the best retail accounting software, thanks to a low $15 per month plan and a few key features that are available on all plans: With Freshbooks, all users can track billable hours in order to include them to invoices. Plus, inventory management is available on all tiers as well, something that neither QuickBooks nor Zoho can claim and one that helped it earn a spot in our guide to the best QuickBooks alternatives.

Our Methodology

The Tech.co team researched and tested every top accounting software in order to determine what standout qualities each one has to offer. Our reviews are informed by this evaluation, so here’s a quick window into the process.

Our research team broke all the important accounting software attributes into eight sub-categories. These are:

• Pricing: Plan costs, processing fees, and per-plan feature limits.
• Support: Hours and user support type.
• Software Functionality: Ease of use, integrations, and mobile apps.
• Bookkeeping: Bank statement imports, receipt scanning, inventory management, and more.
• Accounts Payable: Expenses, bill tracking and scanning, recurring bills, and more.
• Accounts Receivable: Client database, invoicing, expensing, reminders, and more.
• Project Accounting: Time-tracking, project management, and more.
• Financial Reporting: Reports, income statements, budgets, and more.

Services with more features available under more price plans earned a higher score, on a 5-star scale. Those subcategory scores were then boiled down into a single 5-star score for each brand name, allowing for an efficient ranking that still highlights the benefits and downsides of each.

Frequently Asked Questions