QuickBooks Online Pricing: How Much Does QuickBooks Online Cost?

QuickBooks pricing plans begin from just $15 per month for the Self Employed tier, running all the way to $150 per month for 25 users on the QuickBooks Advanced plan. That's quite the range – and there's no question QuickBooks Online is a top accounting service, thanks to its ease of use and broad range of features. But which tier is right for your business, and is it worth the cost?

The good news is you can try QuickBooks Free for 30 days to test the functionality for yourself, and get a feel for which features your business will need the most. There are plenty of factors to consider, from the functionality you need to the different strengths of QuickBooks' many plans and additional integrations.

In this article, we'll break down the cost of all of QuickBooks Online's offerings, and shed light on which package might be best for your business. Want to try the best of QuickBooks' add-ons and functions? There are additional fees to factor in – we cover these, too, in our in-depth guide to Quickbooks pricing below.

In this guide:

• QuickBooks Online Pricing Plans
• QuickBooks Additional Fees
• Integrations & Payment Gateways
• Which QuickBooks Online Version Is Right For Me?
• Verdict – Is QuickBooks Online good value?

QuickBooks Online Pricing Plans

QuickBooks Online has five main plans, plus a host of add-ons for an extra monthly charge.

There are no contracts, and all plans are available through a 30-day free trial, which is useful for letting potential customers try it out first. QuickBooks is also currently running a special deal: Opt out of starting with the free trial, and you can get your first three months half price.

Here are the prices and features for each plan.

Simple Start Plan

The QuickBooks Simple Start plan costs $25 per month, and supports one user. As part of a special deal, the first three months will only cost you $12 per month, provided you skip the free trial.

The features included? Unlimited invoices and estimates, expense tracking, contact management, live bank feeds, limited reporting abilities, and access to a suite of third-party integrations, some at no extra charge. It can help a user manage their 1099 contractors, too. You'll also have the option to easily track your vehicle mileage through the service's mobile app, should you need to be reimbursed for your trouble.

This plan is best for small businesses, whether an LLC run by just one individual or a simple partnership. It'll help someone keep their accounting data in one place, although it doesn't offer many bells and whistles that could be useful for a larger operation.

Essentials Plan

The QuickBooks Essentials plan starts at $40 per month, and supports up to three users.

It includes all the features from Simple Start, plus bill management, which lets users track bill status, record payments, create recurring payments, and pay multiple vendors and bills at the same time.

Time tracking is another new feature this plan offers. With it, users can track their billable hours, categorizing them under the correct client and employee, while automatically adding them to invoices. These hours can be added by the manager manually, though the employee in question can also be given permission to add their hours themselves.

The Essentials plan is best for mid-sized businesses that need to manage the complexities of billable hours across a raft of clients.

Plus Plan

The QuickBooks Online Plus plan costs $70 per month, supports five users, and includes several advanced features.

The abilities to track project profitability and track inventory are the big additional benefits to this plan. A project management feature gives users a single location to view all projects, letting them see any given project's labor costs, payroll, and expenses, in order to efficiently track project profitability and generate reports.

Under the Plus plan, products and the cost of goods can also be managed, with automatic notifications signalling when certain inventory is low and needs to be reordered. Product data can be imported from Excel or synced with Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and other platforms.

As these features hint, the Plus plan is best for businesses with an inventory of products, and/or a growing number of ongoing projects that would be tough to manage otherwise.

QuickBooks Advanced

The QuickBooks Advanced plan offers the most features for the highest cost: It's $150 per month, supporting 25 users.

QuickBooks Advanced is best for enterprise businesses, bringing with it impressive perks like a dedicated account manager, priority care customer support, advanced reporting and analytics, custom user permissions, and online training courses available at no extra cost. You'll also get batch importing features, which lets a user edit and send multiple invoices, checks, expenses, or bills, as well as role-based access to ensure each employee sees what's relevant to them.

Self-Employed Plan

Finally, there's the Self-Employed plan. This is available for just $15 per month, and supports one user.

This plan is designed for freelancers who file a Schedule C IRS form to report their income as a sole proprietor. Features include the ability to track income and expenses, photograph and organize receipts, estimate quarterly taxes, send invoices, accept payments, create basic reports, and track miles on the mobile app.

Features that are not included in the self-employed plan, but are available with the Simple Start plan, include sales and sales tax tracking, 1099 contractor management, and the ability to create and send estimates.

See how QuickBooks compares to a key rival in our QuickBooks vs FreshBooks head to head guide

QuickBooks Additional Fees

That's not all, folks: QuickBooks offers a host of useful add-ons for an extra monthly charge. First, there's payroll processing, a function that's hugely useful for a business with more than a few employees, but one that's rarely included in an accounting software service's main offering.

Payroll

QuickBooks Payroll comes with three plans — Core, Premium, and Elite — with each offering more features than the previous one. Here are their prices and features:

• Core – $45 per month, plus $4 per employee per month. This plan does the basics: It automatically runs payroll, files payroll taxes, and offers employee services like health benefits and workers' comp.
• Premium – $75 per month, plus $8 per employee per month. This plan adds role-based access, same-day direct deposit, and automatic time tracking for more granular, yet still automated control over paychecks.
• Elite – $125 per month, plus $10 per employee per month. This plan includes tax penalty protection, and a professional to offer hands-on help with setting up and troubleshooting.

The plans can be upgraded at any time, so if you're in doubt, start with Core and see if it works for your payroll needs.

QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping

Paying for software doesn't fully keep your accounting on track: You'll still need to know how to use QuickBooks properly in order to get the most out of it. The QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping service solves this issue by connecting businesses with a live, certified expert to keep their books in order. The expert will categorize transactions, reconcile accounts, create reports including an income statement and balance sheet, and close the books every month.

The custom price varies depending on the size of your business, but should be somewhere between $200 and $600 per month.

QuickBooks Setup Fee

Worried about setting up your QuickBooks account? For just $50, QuicksBooks Live Bookkeeping will set you up with an expert for one session.

Setting up the software involves plenty of one-time tasks that you'll want to get right the first time, like connecting your bank account and setting up a series of automated processes and templates. Through Live Bookkeeping, you'll get a single one-on-one session that can clear up any questions and start your accounting software subscription off on the right foot.

QuickBooks Capital

Also available from the service is a lending program called QuickBooks Capital. Those with QuickBooks Online accounts are potentially eligible, though they'll still need to qualify on the strength of their accounting history.

Tax Forms & Support

QuickBooks sells tax forms directly to its users for a small extra cost. They also sell some as kits, which come with the correct envelopes too. Here's how much each one costs:

• W-2 kits – Starting at $26.99 for 10
• 1099 kits – Starting at $58.99 for 10
• W-3 – 10 for $17.99
• 1096 – 10 for $17.99

Starting in April 2020, QuickBooks Online has stopped allowing users to file their sales taxes online through the service. You'll now need to do this manually, and update your QuickBooks account with the information afterwards.

Some Payroll plans include printed forms at no additional cost. The Premium and Elite plans also support automatic filings for state new hire paperwork.

Checks

QuickBooks also sells physical checks. You can buy:

• Standard checks – Starting at $56.99 for 50
• Business Wallet Checks – Starting at $43.99 for 50
• Manual Business Checks – Starting at $58.99 for 300
• Secure Plus Personal Checks – Starting at $39.99 for 120
• Secure Plus Voucher Checks – Starting at $66.99 for 50
• Secure Premier Voucher Checks – Starting at $72.99 for 50

Are they worth getting? Well, they're far pricier than many other vendors selling similar checks, so likely not.

However, the “Secure” brand of checks offer in-depth fraud protection measures that may justify the price, provided you anticipate security risks at your business.

Integrations & Payment Gateways

Any sized business has paperwork, even just a single freelancer. But with the right accounting software, sending out invoices and filing tax information can be a simple and streamlined process. QuickBooks makes this process even easier thanks to a huge range of integrations and plug-ins you can use, with familiar names such as PayPal, Shopify and MailChimp all present and accounted for.

QuickBooks Online Integrations

QuickBooks' range of over 650 integrations will help you connect your account to useful third-party apps and services. Perhaps you've already used some, like Google's G Suite or Microsoft's 365, or perhaps you just need to be able to accomplish something that QuickBooks doesn't support. Whatever the case, the right integration will make your business operations even more streamlined.

Here's a quick, non-exhaustive list of the most popular QuickBooks Online integrations:

• PayPal
• Square
• Shopify
• TSheets
• Fathom
• Gusto
• MailChimp
• Housecall Pro

Some integrations are free, although most will bring with them an additional monthly subscription fee.

QuickBooks Online Payment Gateways

QuickBooks also offers connections to a variety of online payment processing services. PayPal and Square are included, as our integrations section above touches on, while Stripe and Authorize.Net are two more potential payment services.

In total, QuickBooks Online support around 25 payment  processors. If you'd prefer to keep it in-house, there's QuickBooks Payments, which supports a variety of payment mediums, each with a different transaction fee:

• 1% charge for ACH transfers, up to a maximum of $10
• 2.4% + $0.25 for swiped cards
• 2.9% + $0.25 for invoices
• 3.4% + $0.25 for keyed-in cards

Supported credit cards include Mastercard, Visa, American Express, Discover, and Apple Pay.

Which QuickBooks Online Version Is Right For Me?

Your business size and structure will determine which QuickBooks Online plan is best. If you're a single freelancer, you won't need to manage any other employees, and you won't need to track many sales (if any) – so the Self-Employed Plan is best for you.

If you're a small business, you might want the Simple Start Plan, which allows you to create and manage invoices, estimates, bills, and sales taxes.

Once your business is large enough to require more automation and more employees, the Essentials Plan may make sense, as it allows for recurring payments in addition to time tracking. The Plus Plan includes inventory tracking, making it a must for an operation that sells more than a few products.

Finally, there's the QuickBooks Advanced plan. This option is best for large businesses that could benefit from the extra support features, like a dedicated manager or virtual training classes.