Xero vs QuickBooks – Which Is Better For Your Business?

Our research suggests that QuickBooks is better all-around than Xero, with a more advanced feature package, stronger support tools, and standout scanning capabilities. However, while QuickBooks steals our top spot, Xero is slightly more affordable and both providers meet eye-to-eye when it comes to bookkeeping, account receivable, and reporting tools, making choosing between the two tricky.

Both solutions performed very well in our testing, with QuickBooks earning an overall score of 4.7 out of 5 from our accounting experts, compared to Xero's 4.5 out of 5. These are the two highest scores our research team gave any accounting solutions.

So, to help you land on a winner, we'll be pitting Xero vs QuickBooks throughout this article, with an easy-to-follow breakdown of each of their pricing plans, benefits and key features. But, before we start, be sure to check the latest accounting software deals and discounts in our deals table, below:

In this guide:

• Xero vs QuickBooks: At a Glance
• Xero vs QuickBooks: Top Features Comparison
• Xero vs QuickBooks: Pricing
• Xero vs QuickBooks: Ease of Use
• Xero vs QuickBooks: Customer Service & Support
• More about QuickBooks Online
• More about Xero
• Xero vs QuickBooks: The Verdict

Xero vs QuickBooks: At a Glance

QuickBooks and Xero are both solutions with great tools for core accounting needs like bookkeeping, account receivable tracking, and payroll functionality at an additional cost.

However, QuickBooks offers a more seamless experience for two big reasons. First, QuickBooks has phone support while Xero does not, so QuickBooks users can solve their problems that much faster. Second, QuickBooks offers some features that Xero doesn't have, like document scanning. That said, Xero has a lower price point, starting at $13 per month, compared to QuickBooks' $30 per month starting cost, and Xero offers more integrations than QuickBooks as well.

Xero vs QuickBooks: Top Features Comparison

QuickBooks and Xero both offer a lot of features, including all the core abilities that make these two options the best small business accounting software around.

Here's our comparison of the core features provided by Xero and QuickBooks.

Invoicing and Payments

We consider both QuickBooks and Xero to be among the best invoicing software for small business., with both services earning a 5/5 point score overall in our research's bookkeeping category.

QuickBooks supports six custom invoice templates, and lets you track the status of the invoice with read receipts. If needed, you can easily send customers reminders, and can match any payments received with the correct invoice for efficient bookkeeping.

You can add your logo to your invoice templates, and change the color to fit your business's branding. And while the Advanced tier of QuickBooks offers 24/7 support through live chat, phone lines, and email, their other tiers only offer a live chat option.

Xero also lets you send quotes and estimates that can quickly pull up data on contacts, inventory, and pricing. You can set alerts to ensure no invoice slips through the cracks. Additional automation abilities let you select inventory items from a preset list, quickly duplicate a previous invoice, or set up automatic invoices for repeat orders. Plus, read receipts let you know when customers have seen an invoice and if it’s been paid. Xero's only customer support options are an email system and a knowledge base.

It's worth noting that QuickBooks uses a first-party payment processor, which means that the money goes through QuickBooks, while Xero uses third-party processors, like PayPal or Stripe. Neither of these is better than the other, but it pays to be aware of the differences.

Inventory Tracking

Xero offers inventory tools across all its plans, marking a step up from QuickBooks, which offers inventory tracking with its Plus and Advanced plans, but not with Simple Start, QuickBooks' entry level plan.

With QuickBooks, you can track individual products and the value of your goods, and receive notifications when inventory is low. Managers can easily generate purchase orders when needed, and can manage vendor information from a single location. Inventory data can be imported with Excel and synced with Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and more.

Xero's inventory features allow business managers to do much of the same data logging as QuickBooks: You can track the profits of each product line, spotting the most popular or profitable items. The data can then be used to inform decisions like what to stock and how to change pricing. Stock levels and the value of your goods can be automatically tracked, photos can be uploaded for each item, and supplier contracts can be added for extra documentation. Items can be bulk-imported with a CSV file, and inventory data is fully integrated with other accounting categories, including quoting, invoicing, and ordering.

Expense Tracking

QuickBooks and Xero both offer great expense tracking tools, earning them each a 5/5 accounts payable score from our research. There's one difference, though: All of QuickBooks' plans let you track your expenses and sort each one into the correct tax categories, but Xero restricts expensing to its Established plan, with none of these tools on its Early and Growing plans.

With QuickBooks, you can even take photos of your physical receipts, which the software automatically matches to existing expenses. Transactions can be imported from bank accounts, credit cards, or third-party services like PayPal and Square.

Xero's raft of expensing abilities allows you to scan receipts to record and track expense claims, slotting each expense into the best category for a report. The Established plan also supports a multi-currency function, which converts 160 different foreign currencies into your business's local currency.

Time Tracking

Xero's time tracking app.

Xero has more cost-effective time tracking than QuickBooks. This is because QuickBooks offers an add-on specifically for time tracking, starting at $20 per month (plus $8 per user), while Xero bundles time tracking with its main service.

The QuickBooks add-on is called QuickBooks Time. It's feature-heavy and available in two plans:

• Premium, for $20 per month plus $8 per user per month
• Elite, for $40 per month plus $10 per user per month

Premium includes scheduling for jobs and shifts, real-time reporting, custom alerts, and time-off management. Elite offers all of Premium's features, plus a project activity feed for better control, project estimates that can be easily compared with actuals, geofencing, and support for timesheet signatures. The base fee for both plans is half off for the first three months.

Compared to QuickBooks, Xero's time tracking features are easy to use. You can simply download the free Xero Projects app on iOS and Android, using it to record time and costs, as well as seamlessly and automatically feed the data into invoices and reports.

Overall, the cheaper cost of Xero's time tracking abilities is likely to make it the more appealing option, even if QuickBooks includes more features. Some businesses may rely on those features, however, particularly if they opt for top-down oversight that requires greater control.

Payroll Processing

QuickBooks and Xero both offer payroll as a separate cost. QuickBooks offers employee payroll software as a separate tier of plans:

• Payroll Core is $45 per month, plus $5 per employee per month
• Payroll Premium is $75 per month, plus $8 per employee per month
• Payroll Elite is $125 per month, plus $10 per employee per month

Core offers the basics, while Premium adds same-day direct deposit, role-based access, and auto time tracking. Elite also adds tax penalty protection, and a dedicated pro to help set up and troubleshoot.

See our full guide to QuickBooks Payroll pricing for more

Like QuickBooks, Xero does not bundle payroll services with its core plan. Unlike QuickBooks, however, it has teamed up with a third-party payroll software, Gusto. Get both, and you'll be able to use single sign-on and get the first three months of Gusto free. Afterwards, you have two plan choices:

• Simple, for $40 per month, plus $6 per employee per month
• Plus, for $80 per month, plus $12 per employee per month (this includes time management tools and next-day direct deposit, rather than four-day or two-day)

Tax Tools

Both QuickBooks and Xero offer tax preparation features, and that feature is just one reason why our researchers gave both services a perfect 5/5 for financial reporting.

All QuickBooks plans can let businesses track sales tax and manage 1099 contractors, with the exception of the Self-Employed plan, which instead helps freelancers estimate their quarterly taxes. In addition, all plans offer tax deduction maximization tools, making it easy to let an accountant see the books, and allowing all users to export documents, group income or expenses by tax category, and automatically sort each new expense into the right tax category.

Like QuickBooks, Xero has a function to automatically calculate sales taxes for each invoice, as well as state or city taxes. A tax default can be set for any purchase, and Xero offers an integration with Avalara TrustFile in order to help you file your returns. Xero's software also lets you map your accounts to different categories of tax form, keeping everything organized.

Integration with Other Software and Apps

Both services have plenty to offer, but in the end, Xero has more integrations than QuickBooks.

Xero Integrations

Xero offers far more third-party integrations and extensions than QuickBooks. The Xero App Marketplace has over 800 apps and keeps adding more, covering categories including CRM, invoicing, inventory, time tracking, ecommerce, and more. Xero also offers ten in-house apps that can help you access its features on your mobile device.

Quickbooks Integrations

QuickBooks is no slouch, either. It has its own App Store for getting integrations with payments services like PayPal and Square, or time tracking integrations with Google Calendar and QuickBooks Time.

Still, if your business relies heavily on other software services, Xero is a better bet then QuickBooks for making them all work together and ensuring everything is easily accessible.

Reporting and Dashboards

Customizing a report within the QuickBooks accounting software.

Both QuickBooks and Xero offer great reporting tools, with more aesthetic differences than practical ones: For example, QuickBooks has a vertical sidebar for categories, while Xero has a horizontal one. Both services earned 5/5 ratings for bookkeeping and financial reporting from our research team.

QuickBooks offers a main dashboard that can be customized with a series of tile-like graphs or lists, which lets you see real-time KPIs at a glance. A bar graph of invoices can tell you which ones have been paid, have been deposited, or remain unpaid; a pie chart of expenses can break down travel, rent, and meal costs over the past month; bank accounts and sales can be tracked, while profits can be matched against losses.

Meanwhile, a vertical sidebar can take you to more in-depth dashboards dedicated to topics including Workers, Taxes, and Reports. QuickBooks also offers a number of tailored reports, including QuickBooks reports for nonprofits, which let organizations track their donations and finances with one tool.

Xero's main dashboard doesn't use tiles, but it can be customized to display the most relevant stats, such as your business bank account balance across the past few days, a bar chart of total cashflow from the past week, or a chart of invoices currently owed. More specific categories – Business, Accounting, Payroll, Projects, and more – have their own dashboards, accessible with a horizontal sidebar. You can click any data to see a full, detailed breakdown, complete with historical context, and you can set up data tracking to automatically generate specific reports.

Cash Flow Statements

Both Xero and QuickBooks offer ways to track cash inflows, cash outflows, and total cash in hand. QuickBooks also offers a QuickBooks Cash account, which offers banking within QuickBooks, with 1% APY interest. Managers can forecast monthly and quarterly cash flow estimates as well. QuickBooks' cash flow reports offer greater flexibility than Xero's: You can create reports with both the direct and indirect methods, rather than just direct.

Xero's financial reporting features start with its interactive reports and budgets, updated in real time throughout the week. You can set specific KPIs, and can jump to detailed transactions when you need more info. Reports can be customized with different columns, formulas, text blocks, or drag-and-drop accounts.

Security Features

If you're a manager, QuickBooks lets you set the permission level for each user, making sure sensitive data stays need-to-know. Managers can also download a local copy of their data to a hard drive. QuickBooks also has an Always-On Activity Log feature, which tracks every login and every financial transaction to create an unbeatable paper trail. Size helps when it comes to the resources needed to boost security: Cybersecurity company Upguard has graded Xero a solid B, but it gives QuickBooks' parent company Intuit an A.

Xero's security measures keep your data encrypted and stored in multiple locations online, keeping it safe yet backed up. All plans support two-step authentication for all users, and the company guarantees it'll keep your data private.

Mileage tracking with Xero's mobile app.

Xero vs QuickBooks: Pricing

Xero offers three price plans with differing levels of features. Xero's pricing starts at $13 per month and reaches $70 per month.

QuickBooks, meanwhile, offers five different plans: QuickBooks pricing plans range between $15 and $200 per month.

Overall, Xero tends to be cheaper. Granted, this doesn't mean Xero is the most cost-effective option for your business needs. Here's how each accounting software vendor breaks down their services, so you can see how they compare.

QuickBooks Pricing

The QuickBooks Simple Start plan costs $30 per month and supports one user, making it best for very tiny businesses or for a single freelancer. Additional users cost an extra $5 per month per user. Features include expense tracking, contact management, and unlimited invoices and estimates. Reporting abilities are limited, though a raft of third-party integrations are available (many cost a little extra, but some are free). The plan includes a mobile app as well.

The Essentials plan costs $60 per month, and supports three users. It includes everything in Simple Start, plus bill management tools and a time tracking ability for adding up billable hours.

The Plus plan costs $90 per month, and supports five users. It offers the same features as the Simple Start plan, plus project profitability tracking and inventory tracking. It also includes a hub to view all projects, making the correct labor costs, payroll, and expenses for each easy to manage.

The QuickBooks Advanced plan costs $200 per month, supporting 25 users. This is the enterprise option, with a dedicated account manager, priority customer support, advanced reporting features, online training courses, batch importing, and custom user permissions with role-based access.

Finally, the Self-Employed plan is $15 per month, for one user. It retains many of Simple Start's features (income and expense tracking, receipt management, quarterly tax estimates, invoicing, payments, and basic reports), but gets rid of several others (there's no sales or sales tax tracking, no 1099 contractor management, and no way to create and send estimates). Ironically, we don't recommend this plan to freelancers due to its lack of tools, even though we do recommend QuickBooks as the best accounting software for the self-employed.

On top of all that, don't forget the Payroll plans:

• Core is $45 per month, plus $6 per employee per month
• Payroll Premium is $80 per month, plus $8 per employee per month
• Payroll Elite is $125 per month, plus $10 per employee per month

Xero Pricing

Xero keeps things simpler, with just three plans rather than five. And unlike QuickBooks, Xero's plans all support unlimited users.

The cheapest one is the Early plan, priced at $13 a month. With it, you'll be able to reconcile bank transactions, and use Hubdoc to save and manage bills and receipts. But some actions will be capped: You'll only be able to send 20 invoices and quotes in total, and can only send five bills in total – for any ongoing use of these tools, you'll need a higher-priced plan.

Next up is Xero's Growing plan, at $37 a month. It's for companies that have grown past the Early plan, and need the caps on invoicing, quoting, and bills removed.

The Established Plan is $70 a month. It has all the features of Growing, plus support for multi-currency claims and expense claims, as well as a function for tracking time and costs on a per-project basis.

There's also Xero's integration with Gusto for payroll. We'd recommend one of these:

• Simple plan for $40 per month, plus $6 per employee per month
• Plus plan for $80 per month, plus $12 per employee per month

Free Trials

Both services offer the same trial period: 30 days for free.

That said, both QuickBooks and Xero often offer a special entry deal for your first few months, although these deals can vary. At different times in the last year, QuickBooks plans have been between 50% and 70% off for the first three months. Whatever the current deal, users will need to skip their free trial to qualify.

Similarly, all of Xero's plans are often 50% off for the first three months. This means that Xero Early may be as cheap as $6.50 per month when 50% off, while QuickBooks Simple Start would cost just $9 a month, provided it is offering the same deal.

Neither QuickBooks or Xero offers a permanent free plan, but if that's what you need, we have a guide to the best free accounting software.

Best Value for Money

Does QuickBooks or Xero offer the most value? The less-expensive Xero comes out a little ahead in our research, earning 3.5/5 points to QuickBooks' 3/5 score. But the one that has more value for you might depend on two things: Whether you offer payroll, and the number of users you need to support.

While Xero's $13 Early plan is far cheaper than QuickBooks' $30 Simple Start plan, it's also very limited due to the caps on invoices and billing. A better comparison is the $60 QuickBooks Essentials plan (plus the $45 Core or $80 Premium payroll plans) vs. the $37 Xero Growing plan (paired with the $40 or $80 Gusto plan). Essentials supports just three users, while Growing is unlimited, making it better value for large or growing operations.

We'd recommend checking the total features offered by the QuickBooks Essentials and Xero Growing plans against your business's needs.

Xero vs QuickBooks: Ease of Use

Both accounting softwares are easy to navigate, allowing you to find your required feature from a main dashboard with a sidebar. QuickBooks' sidebar is vertical and on the left, while Xero's is horizontal across the top, both deliver about the same user experience, and user satisfaction is high for both.

The number of users supported for each service is one huge difference: Xero supports unlimited users across all plans, but QuickBooks parcels them out with plans ranging from just one user to 25 in total. This makes Xero the best choice for a large or rapidly expanding operation, although both services can scale up to handle heavy, continual use.

Customization options also vary. Both services will allow you to modify your main dashboard to display the stats that matter most to you, but QuickBooks offers a little more flexibility.

QuickBooks also takes the lead when it comes to custom reports. Both QuickBooks and Xero let you set up automated data tracking and report generation, but QuickBooks has more granular options, making it faster to compare reports against historical data. It also has more templates. You'll still be able to accomplish everything you need with both, but it'll be a little faster with QuickBooks.

Learn more with our how-to guide for QuickBooks Online.

Plug-ins and Extensions

Viewing payroll with QuickBooks software.

As mentioned earlier, neither service offers employee payroll software in its main bundle: QuickBooks charges an additional monthly and per-person fee for a separate in-house plan, while Xero offers a partnership with Gusto, which can be easily integrated with its service.

Both services do offer an app marketplace, for both in-house mobile apps and integrations or extensions offered by third-party services. Xero offers more integrations overall, but both are very comprehensive.

Devices Available

Both services are available on all the most common devices and browsers.

QuickBooks works on Windows PCs, Macs, and major browsers including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. If you have Windows, you'll need to be running Windows 7 or newer, with at least 4GBs of RAM and a processor comparable to the Intel Core i5. If using a Mac, you'll need OS X “Panther” 10.13 or newer.

Xero runs on the major browsers as well: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari are all covered. Xero's mobile apps require the Android 5 operating system or newer if running on Android devices, and iOS 12.0 or newer if running on iPhone. The service hasn't listed specific RAM or processing needs, instead saying that Xero will work on “most devices.”

Supported Languages

QuickBooks supports six different languages: English, Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.

In sharp contrast with QuickBooks' extensive language support, Xero does not offer support for languages other than English. There are some workarounds, like downloading the basic invoice template, manually changing the language, and reuploading it, but there's no easy support for multiple languages. If you have international clients, QuickBooks is better then Xero.

Xero vs QuickBooks: Customer Service & Support

QuickBooks and Xero both have good support and training options, but QuickBooks has phone support while Xero does not, earning it a research score of 4.7 – nearly double Xero's 2.4/5.

Setup and Training Options

QuickBooks has an online portal that users with common problems can check to resolve any issues without involving customer support. It includes articles and videos, grouped by the type of QuickBooks product, and further broken down into categories such as ‘Account Management,' ‘Taxes,' and ‘Sales and Customers,' among others. Video training courses, a blog, and a community forum are also available.

Xero's support and learning portal, Xero Central, offers access to a searchable database categorized by topics like ‘Inventory' or ‘Reporting and Tracking,' among others. Resources include how-tos, explainers, and professional development courses.

Online and Phone Call Support

If you're logged into QuickBooks, you can access live support online: Live chat is available between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. PT on Monday through Friday, and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. PT on Saturday. Phone support is available during the same hours.

Unlike QuickBooks, Xero users do not have any phone support options. However, they do have 24/7 online support. To get it, you'll just need to log in, visit Xero Central, and submit a query. You can then track its progress through a section called “My cases,” which details which specialist is working on it, the current status, and expected response time.

Plus, Xero staffers can call people back to discuss their cases over the phone, giving you that phone support you need, albeit in a roundabout way.

The dashboard of Xero's mobile app.

Wave vs Xero vs QuickBooks

Xero and QuickBooks are two of our best-rated accounting tools, but Wave is undoubtedly the safest bet for businesses watching the bottom line. Unlike Xero and QuickBooks, businesses can get started on Wave for completely free and the software is also available to an unlimited number of users — extending its use even further.

With a research score of 5/5 for software attributes and 5/5 for its accounts receivable features, the complimentary software gives Quickbooks and Xero a run for their money too. However, despite Wave's advantages, its overall offering is pretty basic and support tools leave a lot to be desired, giving it a 4/5 score overall. With this in mind, if you're after feature-rich software and can afford to pay a slight premium, QuickBooks and Xero will be more reliable options.

Our Methodology

We make sure all of our verdicts are researched-backed at Tech.co. Working alongside a team of experts, we put each piece of accounting software through the wringer, seeing how they perform against eight subcategories of research relevant to businesses: software attributes, bookkeeping tools, accounts payable tools, accounts receivable tools, advanced features, pricing factors, financial reporting, and support options.

Then, we award each piece of software a rating out of five for each of these categories to understand how they compare against each other. Aside from helping us to determine which solution is stronger overall, these scores also help us to determine which product is better suited to different types of businesses.

Lots more goes into our decision-making process, however. Read our full research breakdown to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions