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 pricing | Zoho Books pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $38/mo | $20/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 4 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | ||
| Pricing model | per-seat | flat-rate |
Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →
Simple Start
Popular- Intelligent onboarding with expert-guided setup (NEW)
- AI Chat for instant insights (BETA)
- Categorizes expenses
- Maximizes tax deductions (NEW)
- Handles the busywork (BETA)
- Run general business reports
- Automated bookkeeping
- Invoice and get paid
- Automate bill pay with free ACH
Essentials
- Annual books check-in with action plan (NEW)
- Cleans up your books, fast
- Creates invoices in bulk, automatically (BETA)
- Gets you paid faster
- Estimates quarterly payments
- Run enhanced reports
- Add employee time to invoices
- Integrate third-party data into KPIs and dashboards (NEW)
- Collect leads from a custom form on your website
Plus
- Reconciles your books
- Transactions auto-categorized and verified (NEW)
- Surfaces profit & loss insights
- Chat to plan scenarios and save as budgets (BETA)
- Finds and fixes anomalies
- Catch discrepancies pre-filing
- Sources leads and follows up
- Run comprehensive reports
- Plan budgets
- Track project profitability
- Track and manage inventory
- Track classes and locations (40)
Advanced
- Auto-creates projects and allocates costs
- Continuous books quality checks, with quarterly insights (NEW)
- Gives financial insights tailored to your business
- Customize dashboards with personalized KPIs and metrics to measure what matters most
- Track performance with unlimited classes, locations, and custom KPIs
- Free 1099 e-filing and approval workflows with Bill Pay Elite** (NEW)
- Construction financials solution (NEW)
- Advanced project financials (NEW)
- Customize user permissions and access
- Automate workflows
- Sync data with Excel
- Batch invoices and expenses
- Get priority support and training
FREE
- Create invoices, quotes, expenses & journals
- Receipt autoscans (New)
- 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
Popular- 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
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 sits mid-to-premium in small biz accounting — pricier than Wave (free) or newer entrants like Xero's lower tiers, but it trades on being the default choice accountants already know. The jump from Simple Start to Advanced (a nearly 9x spread) shows they're not competing on being cheap, they're betting on lock-in and ecosystem familiarity. Zoho Books: Sitting well under QuickBooks and Xero at every tier, Zoho Books is clearly playing the value card for cost-conscious small businesses and Zoho ecosystem users who want accounting bundled cheaply with CRM, inventory, and other Zoho apps.
Still deciding? See the best QuickBooks alternatives or the best Zoho Books alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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