QuickBooks vs Zoho Books Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| QuickBooks | Zoho Books | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $38/mo | $20/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 6 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | ||
| Pricing model | per-seat | flat-rate |
Simple Start
- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Categorizes expenses
- Maximizes tax deductions
- Run general business reports
- Automated bookkeeping
- Invoice and get paid
- Automate bill pay with free ACH
Essentials
- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Cleans up your books
- Gets you paid faster
- Run enhanced reports
- Add employee time to invoices
- Get customer referrals, feedback, and work requests
- Collect leads from a custom form on your website
- Link your calendar and let customers schedule meetings with you directly
Plus
Popular- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Reconciles your books
- Surfaces profit & loss insights
- Finds and fixes anomalies
- Catches discrepancies before filing
- Sources leads and helps with follow-up
- Run comprehensive reports
- Plan budgets
- Track project profitability
- Track and manage inventory
- Track classes and locations (40)
Advanced
- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Auto-creates projects and allocates costs
- Gives tailored financial insights
- Customize dashboards with personalized KPIs and metrics to measure what matters most
- Track performance with unlimited classes, locations, and custom KPIs
- Build custom management-ready reports
- Automate workflows
- Sync data with Excel
- Customize user permissions and access
- Forecast cash flow and profit
- Batch invoices and expenses
- Backup and restore your data
- Get priority support and training
- Track classes and locations (unlimited)
FREE
- Create invoices, quotes, expenses & journals
- Receipt autoscans
- Sales receipts
- Manage vendors
- Mileage tracking
- Accept online payments
- Enable self-service customer portal
- Retention payments
- Automate payment reminders
- Bank reconciliation
- Setup recurring invoices
- W-9 management
- Track 1099 contractors
- Prepare and file 1099s
- P&L, Balance Sheet & 50+ Reports
STANDARD
- Progress invoicing
- Track sales tax and use tax
- E-File 1099-MISC & 1099-NEC
- Connect bank feeds
- Setup recurring expenses
- Enable transaction period locking
- Add custom fields
- Create custom reports
- Create journal templates
- API Access
PROFESSIONAL
- Track sales and purchase orders
- Record multi-currency transactions
- Bill timesheets
- Project profitability
- Manage retainers
- Track inventory
- Create price lists
- Setup sales and purchase approvals
- Customize business workflows
- Collaborate with users (chat, voice, video and screen sharing)
- Create custom user roles
PREMIUM
- Revenue recognition - Basic
- Fixed asset management
- Profit Margin
- Manage budgets
- Cashflow forecasting
- Enable self-service vendor portal
- Set up custom domain
- Create business-specific custom modules
- Add custom button
- Create custom field validation rules
- Embed contextual web pages/apps
- Manage custom functions
ELITE
- Revenue recognition - Advanced
- Dashboard customization
- Advanced Inventory Control
- Manage warehouses
- Composite items
- Track serial numbers
- Batch tracking
- Print shipping label
- Track shipments
- Connect online sales channels (Etsy, eBay, Amazon)
- Integrate Shopify stores (Up to 2)
- Track bin locations
ULTIMATE
- Advanced analytics
- 50+ Pre-built data visualization
- Add and track KPIs for your business
- Analyze along with other data sources (with Zoho Analytics add-on)
- Collaboratively create reports with colleagues
- Embed reports in web sites/applications
- Records/Rows (3 Million)
QuickBooks vs Zoho Books FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Zoho Books is the cheaper option, starting at $20/mo vs $38/mo for QuickBooks.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Zoho Books has a free plan. QuickBooks doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. QuickBooks uses per-seat pricing, while Zoho Books goes with flat-rate. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. QuickBooks: QuickBooks is the incumbent premium play in SMB accounting — they're not trying to be cheap, they're trading on brand trust and accountant familiarity. At $115-275/mo at full price, they're significantly more expensive than alternatives like Wave (free) or Zoho Books, and they know it. Zoho Books: Zoho Books is the aggressive underdog play against QuickBooks and Xero — a free tier that actually works, and paid plans that undercut competitors at nearly every level. They're going after cost-conscious SMBs and bootstrapped businesses who don't want to pay Intuit prices.
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