Xero vs QuickBooks Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Xero pricing | QuickBooks pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $25/mo | $38/mo |
| Number of plans | 3 | 4 |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | |
| Pricing model | flat-rate | per-seat |
Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →
Early
- Send quotes and 20 invoices†
- Accept online invoice payments^
- 5 bills
- Reconcile bank transactions
- Smart Document Capture
- View real-time reports
- W-9 + 1099 management
- Sales tax
- Visualize performance with basic graphs
- 30 day cash flow forecast
- Make online bill payments (Domestic - Free ACH)
- Make online bill payments (Cross Border)
Growing
- Send invoices and quotes
- Accept online invoice payments^
- Automate bill entry and track bills
- Reconcile bank transactions
- Smart Document Capture
- View real-time reports
- W-9 + 1099 management
- Sales tax
- Visualize performance with graphs
- 60 day cash flow forecast
- Make online bill payments (Domestic - Free ACH)
- Make online bill payments (Cross Border)
- Customize performance dashboards
- Tailored financial health scorecards
- Budget with smart suggestions
- Auto-reconcile transactions
Established
Popular- Send invoices and quotes
- Accept online invoice payments^
- Automate bill entry and track bills
- Reconcile bank transactions
- Smart Document Capture
- View real-time reports
- W-9 + 1099 management
- Sales tax
- Visualize performance with graphs
- 180 day cash flow forecast
- Make online bill payments (Domestic - Free ACH)
- Make online bill payments (Cross Border)
- Customize performance dashboards
- Tailored financial health scorecards
- Analyze KPIs and ratios
- Use multiple currencies
- Track time and costs for projects
- Employee expense and mileage claims
- Benchmark against the industry
- Make online bill payments (International)
- Budget with smart suggestions
- Auto-reconcile transactions
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
Xero vs QuickBooks FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Xero starts lower at $25/mo, compared to $38/mo for QuickBooks.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Neither has a free plan. But QuickBooks offers a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. Xero uses flat-rate pricing, while QuickBooks goes with per-seat. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Xero: Xero sits mid-market against QuickBooks and FreshBooks — not the cheapest accounting tool out there, but positioned as more approachable than enterprise ERP-lite platforms, targeting small businesses that'll eventually outgrow spreadsheets but aren't ready for NetSuite. 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.
Still deciding? See the best Xero alternatives or the best QuickBooks alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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