QuickBooks pricing 2026: what each plan costs and which one is best for a small business
QuickBooks Online costs $38 a month for Simple Start, $85 for Essentials, $140 for Plus and $340 for Advanced¹. New customers who pay monthly get half off for the first 3 months¹. That makes the first year $399 on Simple Start and $1,470 on Plus. After the first 3 months you pay the full price, so a full year costs $456 on Simple Start and $1,680 on Plus.
For a small business run by its owner with an accountant, Simple Start is the best first plan. It's the cheapest plan with accountant access, unlimited bank connections and bank rules, which file repeat charges automatically². Move to Essentials when two or three people need their own login, and to Plus when you track inventory or projects.
We build Booke AI, AI bookkeeping software for QuickBooks Online and Xero. Prices below are from Intuit's pages as of November 6, 2026.
QuickBooks Online pricing at a glance
Plan | A month | Months 1-3 | First year |
|---|---|---|---|
Simple Start | $38 | $19 | $399 |
Essentials | $85 | $42.50 | $892.50 |
Plus | $140 | $70 | $1,470 |
Advanced | $340 | $170 | $3,570 |
The first year here is 3 months at the discount and 9 at the full price, paid monthly. Simple Start includes 1 user, Essentials 3, Plus 5 and Advanced 25. Simple Start, Essentials and Plus also include 2 seats for accountants, and Advanced 3¹. The discount is for new QuickBooks Online customers on a monthly plan, and it covers only the plan's base price, not add-ons. The alternative is a 30-day free trial, and Intuit doesn't combine the two¹.
Intuit raised the prices of Essentials, Plus and Advanced for renewals on or after August 1, 2026. Simple Start, Lite and the free plan kept their prices. Existing subscribers pay the new price from their first renewal on or after August 1, and recent subscribers keep their price for the first six months. To see what you pay now, open Subscriptions and billing in your QuickBooks settings³.
Below Simple Start, Intuit sells a $0 plan and Lite, both for one user with no accountant access. Our QuickBooks Free guide shows where a small business outgrows them.
How much is QuickBooks per year?
QuickBooks Simple Start costs $456 a year at the monthly price, or $410.40 if you pay for the year up front⁴. Paid yearly, the first year is $357.05. That's $41.95 less than paying monthly with the 3-month discount. Intuit shows the yearly price on its page for self-employed owners; its main pricing page lists monthly prices only.
On Plus, the bill goes from $70 to $140 in month four. Changing plans also removes any discount on your current plan⁵.
Per user, the bigger plans cost less. When every login is used, Simple Start costs $38 per user a month, Essentials $28.33, Plus $28 and Advanced $13.60. Accountant seats don't count as users¹.
Which QuickBooks plan is best for a small business?
The best QuickBooks plan is the cheapest one that covers who works in your books, how many bank accounts you connect and what you track. For one person in the books with no inventory, projects or customers paying in another currency, that's Simple Start.
If your business | Cheapest plan that covers it |
|---|---|
has one person in the books and an accountant | Simple Start, $38 |
connects 3 or more bank and card accounts | Simple Start, $38 |
has 2 or 3 people who each need a login | Essentials, $85 |
bills customers in another currency or tracks staff time | Essentials, $85 |
tracks inventory, projects or budgets in QuickBooks | Plus, $140 |
needs 6 to 25 users, custom reports or Excel sync | Advanced, $340 |
Simple Start vs Essentials
Essentials adds two more users, multiple currencies and time entry for staff¹. It also includes Intuit's AI tools for cleaning up the books, getting paid and estimating quarterly taxes, a yearly books check-in, more report options and 3 sales channels instead of 1. A sales channel is an online store or marketplace connected to QuickBooks. Pay the extra $47 a month when a second person needs to work in QuickBooks.
Essentials vs Plus
Plus adds inventory tracking, purchase and sales orders, project profitability, budgeting and up to 40 classes and locations, which split your reports by department or store¹. It also includes Intuit expert bookkeeping help. Once you set it up in the Intuit Experts Hub, an Intuit expert reviews and categorizes your bank transactions each month⁶. If a transaction is vague, the expert won't guess. They mark it Uncategorized and send you a question⁶. If your accountant is already in your QuickBooks, the service starts switched off so the work isn't done twice⁶.
Intuit's post on its August release also lists Enhanced inventory as a $40-a-month add-on for Simple Start and Essentials³. Its pricing page shows inventory tracking only on Plus and Advanced¹, so ask Intuit what the add-on covers before you upgrade just for stock. Plus is worth the extra $55 a month when you need profit by project, budgets or classes, or when you want that monthly categorization and have no accountant in the books.
Is QuickBooks Advanced worth it?
Advanced fits a business with more than 5 people in QuickBooks or a finance person who needs custom reports, forecasting and Excel sync¹. It costs $200 a month more than Plus, or $2,400 more over a full year. It adds a third accountant seat. Its expert service adds a monthly check of your books and a quarterly 45-minute call with an Intuit expert⁶.
What a small candle business would pay
Take a small online candle business in September 2026. It had a checking account, a savings account and a business card, 2 invoices, 6 regular vendors and an accountant with access to its QuickBooks. The owner keeps the books alone.
Simple Start is the cheapest plan that covers all of it, from bank connections for all three accounts to a seat for the accountant. Its first year costs $399 paid monthly, or $357.05 paid yearly. Essentials would add logins nobody uses. Plus adds inventory tracking, which matters only if the business keeps its candle stock in QuickBooks.
Someone still has to sort the bank transactions every month. That September the business had 26 bank and card transactions. On Simple Start, bank rules can file the 9 from known vendors, like shipping and ad charges. A rule categorizes every charge that matches it, though, so the supply rule would also categorize a supply order charged twice as two ordinary purchases². The other 17 need a person. Seven have to be checked against a statement, a payment report, an open invoice or the other account. Ten need the owner's answer, from a $2,200 IRS payment to that double charge.
On Plus, the Intuit expert service starts switched off here, because the accountant is already in the books. The owner or the accountant can turn it on in the Intuit Experts Hub⁶.
Where Booke fits
Booke takes the sorting of bank transactions off your plate. It works inside QuickBooks Online, with the bank accounts you've already connected to QuickBooks. Every day it goes through the new transactions, categorizes them and matches them to invoices and receipts. It records the ones it's sure about and asks you about the rest. Booke automates up to 80% of the manual bank-feed work for $129 a month per business. See how Booke works for business owners.
Other QuickBooks costs
QuickBooks payroll pricing
Intuit now sells payroll as QuickBooks Workforce. Workforce Payroll costs $50 a month plus $7 per employee. Premium costs $88 plus $13 per employee, and Elite $134 plus $17⁷. New customers get half off the base price for 3 months. With 3 employees, Workforce Payroll is $71 a month at the full price.
QuickBooks Time pricing
QuickBooks Time is Intuit's app for tracking your team's hours, and it requires QuickBooks Online. Time Premium costs $20 a month plus $10 per user, and Time Elite $40 plus $12 per user, with half off the base price for 3 months. Workforce Premium and Elite payroll include time tracking⁸.
QuickBooks Payments fees
QuickBooks Payments has no setup fee; you pay per payment: 2.99% when a customer pays an invoice by card, PayPal or Venmo, 1% by bank transfer (ACH), 2.5% in person and 3.5% for a card number typed in⁹. A $1,200 invoice paid by card costs $35.88 in fees, or $12 paid by bank transfer.
Bookkeeping help
Simple Start and Essentials include no monthly bookkeeping service. Plus and Advanced include the Intuit expert service above. If you want someone to do the books for you, entry plans at six major US bookkeeping services, Intuit's own among them, cost $199 to $469 a month (October 2026); our outsourced bookkeeping guide compares them.
QuickBooks Desktop pricing
Intuit's Desktop page now offers QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, and its Desktop Pro page leads there¹⁰. Enterprise Gold and Platinum are yearly subscriptions starting at $2,210 and $2,717 a year. Diamond starts at $5,363 a year, paid monthly¹¹. For a small business with a few users, QuickBooks Online costs less.
FAQ
Can you buy QuickBooks as a one-time purchase?
No. QuickBooks Online is a subscription you pay monthly or, on some plans, yearly⁴. QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise is a subscription too¹¹.
What's the cheapest way to get QuickBooks?
The free plan costs $0 for one user, with 2 invoices a month and 1 bank connection¹. The cheapest plan with accountant access is Simple Start: $357.05 for the first year when you pay yearly⁴.
Can I switch QuickBooks plans later?
Yes. Intuit says you can switch plans or cancel at any time, and you can upgrade between Simple Start, Essentials and Plus¹. Changing plans removes any discount on your current plan⁵.
Sources
Intuit, QuickBooks Online pricing, retrieved November 6, 2026.
Intuit, Set up bank rules to categorize online banking transactions in QuickBooks Online, updated September 11, 2026.
Intuit, QuickBooks Online August pricing changes and product updates, June 26, 2026.
Intuit, Accounting software for self-employed business, retrieved November 6, 2026.
Intuit, Upgrade or change your subscription, updated October 21, 2026.
Intuit, Get expert bookkeeping help in QuickBooks Online, updated August 24, 2026.
Intuit, QuickBooks payroll pricing, retrieved November 6, 2026.
Intuit, QuickBooks Time pricing, retrieved November 6, 2026.
Intuit, QuickBooks Payments rates, rates as of September 18, 2026.
Intuit, QuickBooks Desktop solutions, retrieved November 6, 2026.
Intuit, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise pricing, retrieved November 6, 2026.
