QuickBooks Online Plan Comparisons 2024

QuickBooks Online offers a range of plans tailored to meet diverse business needs, including Essentials, Advanced, Simple Start, and Plus. Pricing for these plans varies from $30 to $200 per month, with each plan designed to provide different levels of features and user access to accommodate businesses of varying sizes and complexities.

For self-employed individuals, QuickBooks also offers a separate product called QuickBooks Self-Employed, which starts at just $20 per month. This plan is specifically designed for freelancers and independent contractors, providing essential tools for managing their finances.

In this article, we will help you determine which QuickBooks version best suits your needs by providing a comprehensive comparison of the available QuickBooks Online plans. You’ll gain insights into the features offered, pricing structures, and the unique benefits of each option to make an informed decision for your financial management.

QuickBooks Solopreneur vs. Simple Start

The Solopreneur plan, previously known as the Self-Employed plan, is priced at $10 per month for the first three months, then $20 per month. It’s designed for freelancers and independent contractors who file a Schedule C IRS form as sole proprietors. This plan offers essential features like tracking income and expenses, organizing receipts through photos, estimating quarterly taxes, sending invoices, accepting payments, generating basic reports, and tracking mileage via the mobile app.

The QuickBooks Simple Start plan costs $17.50 per month for the first three months, then increases to $35 per month. This plan supports one user and is ideal for small businesses, including sole proprietorships, LLCs, or simple partnerships. While it doesn’t have extensive features suited for larger businesses, it centralizes your accounting data, making it easier to manage. Key features include recording fixed assets, creating a supplier database, generating purchase orders, and tracking client payments.

With Simple Start, you can create unlimited invoices and estimates, track expenses, manage up to 1,099 contractors, integrate live bank feeds, and access various third-party integrations. Although reporting tools are somewhat limited, they still provide essential insights. Additionally, vehicle tracking is available, which is helpful for invoicing fuel and driving time for specific jobs.

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Solopreneur vs. Simple Start Features

The QuickBooks Solopreneur plan enables users to manage both personal and business finances in one place by tracking income, and expenses, and categorizing transactions. It streamlines transaction management by automating the categorization process, which becomes more accurate over time. Key features include invoicing, basic reporting, mileage tracking, and payment processing through platforms like PayPal, Venmo, credit cards, and ACH transfers. It integrates with TurboTax, making Schedule C tax filings easier for freelancers and sole proprietors. However, the plan is limited to a single user, so businesses that grow beyond this will need to upgrade to a more advanced QuickBooks plan.

Users can link bank accounts and credit cards to automatically categorize transactions, helping separate personal and business expenses. The system’s machine learning improves categorization accuracy over time. The plan also includes automatic mileage tracking via a mobile app, ensuring accurate records for tax deductions related to business travel.

Though it doesn’t file taxes directly, the plan integrates with tax tools to simplify tax preparation, especially for Schedule C filers. It also offers access to QuickBooks Live Assisted Tax for expert support during tax season. With real-time cash flow monitoring through simple reports and dashboards, the Solopreneur plan allows users to set and track financial goals while providing insights and suggestions to help achieve them.

QuickBooks Online Simple Start is an ideal solution for small businesses and entrepreneurs who need a straightforward, secure accounting platform to manage their finances. It offers essential tools for invoicing, tracking expenses, and income, generating reports, and securely storing financial data.

A key feature of this plan is its Easy Setup, which helps users get started quickly. Its intuitive dashboard provides a clear view of financial information at a glance, and users can generate customizable reports to meet their specific needs.

With QuickBooks Simple Start, users can connect their bank and credit card accounts to automatically categorize income and expenses, simplifying transaction management. The plan supports invoicing with payment tracking and multiple payment methods, making it easy to follow up on outstanding payments. Additional features include sales tax management and mileage tracking for tax deductions. Users can also generate essential financial reports like profit and loss statements and balance sheets.

This plan is particularly useful for businesses that manage 1099 contractors and need basic project-tracking tools. Users can invite up to two accountants to review and adjust their QuickBooks data, ensuring accurate financial management.

Simple Start is designed for businesses that need more comprehensive tools than the Solopreneur plan, which is limited to sole proprietors filing a Schedule C. Solopreneur is better suited for one-person operations, whereas Simple Start can support growing businesses with more complex bookkeeping needs.

Does a $15 Upgrade to the Simple Start Plan Make Sense?

The Simple Start plan is an excellent option for those who manage expenses using debit or credit cards and have straightforward invoicing needs. It’s particularly well-suited for consultants, contractors, or freelancers who need to track expenses in real time, send invoices, receive payments, monitor mileage, and generate simple reports.

This plan makes it easy to stay on top of your finances. It automatically tracks key information needed to file sales tax and prepare income tax returns at the end of the year. Throughout the year, you can run reports to assess how your business is performing.

Some key benefits of the QuickBooks Simple Start plan include:

• Connect Bank and Credit Card Accounts: The Simple Start plan allows you to link your bank and credit card accounts, automatically importing transactions. Using machine learning, the system categorizes transactions based on previous entries and customizable rules, streamlining the bookkeeping process and reducing manual tasks.
• Reconcile Accounts: QuickBooks Simple Start makes it easy to reconcile your bank and credit card accounts, helping you spot discrepancies early and ensuring your financial records are accurate.
• Invoice Customers and Receive Payments: You can send customized invoices and accept payments on the go with the mobile app. Invoices can be emailed to clients instantly, and payments are tracked within the system, making it perfect for freelancers needing fast and efficient invoicing.
• Prepare Basic Accounting Reports: With 20+ reports, the plan provides essential financial reports such as profit and loss statements, accounts receivable summaries, and balance sheets. These reports give you a clear view of your business’s financial health.
• Track Sales Tax: Sales tax is automatically calculated and reported on transactions, simplifying compliance and eliminating the need for manual sales tax tracking.
• Capture Expenses via the App: You can snap and store receipts using the mobile app, keeping all expenses organized for tax purposes. This feature is particularly helpful during audits or when searching for specific transactions.
• Mileage Tracking: The plan includes built-in mileage tracking, allowing you to log trips and categorize them as business or personal. This feature is useful for calculating tax deductions for business-related travel.
• Send Estimates and Progress Invoices: Simple Start enables you to send estimates to clients that can easily be converted into invoices. Progress invoicing allows you to bill for partial work, improving cash flow during longer projects.
• Manage 1099 Contractors: For U.S. users, the plan provides tools to manage independent contractors, including the ability to send and track 1099 forms, ensuring compliance with IRS regulations.

QuickBooks Simple Start vs. Essentials

The QuickBooks Online Simple Start plan is designed to track all the essential information needed for filing sales tax and preparing your income tax returns at year-end. It also provides basic reporting features to monitor your business performance throughout the year.

For more advanced financial management, the QuickBooks Online Essentials plan, priced at $65 per month, is ideal for businesses that handle delayed payments, such as managing credit from suppliers or purchasing goods on credit and recording expenses before payment. This plan includes enhanced invoicing options, allowing you to track additional details like sales representatives or work crews directly on invoices. It also supports tip and gratuity accounting, along with employee time tracking through timesheets.

If your business deals with multiple currencies, QuickBooks Online Essentials is the right choice, as it offers the functionality to manage transactions in various currencies.

QuickBooks Simple Start vs. Essentials Features

The Simple Start plan provides essential features for tracking income, filing sales tax, and preparing year-end tax returns, making it suitable for basic financial management. Online Essentials’ core features financial management tools for businesses. One key aspect is time tracking, which allows employees to record their work hours, making it easier to manage payroll and bill clients for billable hours.

Additionally, Essentials supports the creation and filing of 1099 forms for independent contractors, ensuring compliance with IRS requirements. The plan also includes mileage tracking, enabling users to log business-related miles using GPS on their phones. Moreover, it provides multi-user access, allowing up to three users with customizable roles for enhanced security. These features make QuickBooks Online Essentials a robust tool for businesses that require more comprehensive financial management capabilities.

Does a $30 Upgrade to the Essentials Plan Make Sense?

The QuickBooks Essentials plan offers several distinct advantages that the Simple Start plan may not offer:

• Delayed Charges and Credits: Delayed charges and credits are non-posting transactions that do not immediately affect your financial records. They can be applied later when creating invoices. For example, a delayed charge is useful for billing customers for subscription services, allowing you to add the charge when it’s time to invoice. Similarly, delayed credits help deduct prepaid amounts from future invoices, minimizing errors and ensuring accurate accounting of customer deposits.
• Multi-Currency Support: Manage transactions in various currencies, making it ideal for those dealing with international customers or vendors. QuickBooks Essentials automatically calculates exchange rate differences, simplifying the process. However, once you enable multi-currency support, you cannot disable it, and additional columns may appear in your reports. This feature is beneficial for companies that frequently handle foreign transactions but may not be necessary for occasional currency use.
• Custom Fields on Invoices: You can personalize your invoices by adding up to three custom fields, allowing you to include extra information like employee commissions or specific project details. These fields can be either internal or visible to customers, providing flexibility in how you manage and report information.
• Tips and Gratuities Tracking: Helps you record and distribute customer tips to employees
• Enter and Pay Bills: QuickBooks facilitates the management of unpaid bills by allowing you to enter them directly into the system. When you record a bill, it captures both the expense and the amount owed, helping you keep track of outstanding liabilities and manage cash flow effectively. You can review all unpaid bills at any time, ensuring you stay on top of your expenses. Once you settle the bill, you can mark it as paid, maintaining accurate transaction records. This feature is particularly useful for businesses that purchase items or services on credit, enhancing visibility into liabilities and improving cash management.
• Shipping Charges Tracking: Essential plan allows you to monitor shipping fees on invoices.
• Record Time as Billable to a Customer: For businesses that bill clients based on hours worked, QuickBooks allows you to track and mark time as billable. You can record time entries in real time, reducing the risk of missed entries. Billable time can be linked directly to customer invoices, ensuring that all hours worked are accounted for accurately. This functionality applies to individual tasks or employees and can be marked as billable on timesheets or time activity logs. Additionally, reports can help track any unbilled time, ensuring you capture all potential revenue and monitor employee productivity.
• Weekly Timesheet: For businesses with employees working on the same project multiple times each week, QuickBooks offers a weekly timesheet feature. This consolidates individual time entries into a single sheet, simplifying time management for projects. The weekly timesheet is especially useful for labor-intensive jobs and can be applied to both billable customer tasks and internal work, providing a straightforward view for employees to accurately log time without repetitive entries.
• Recurring Transactions: Recurring transactions automate frequent entries, saving time on manual inputs. You can set up recurring bills, invoices, or expenses, which is especially helpful for businesses with regular payments or consistent revenue streams. For example, if you have monthly subscriptions or recurring bills, automating these transactions ensures accuracy and frees up time for other important tasks. You can schedule these transactions to occur automatically or save them as drafts for later use.

QuickBooks Essentials vs. Plus

Among the mid-priced options, QuickBooks Essentials and QuickBooks Plus are particularly popular choices for growing companies. QuickBooks Essentials offers fundamental accounting features suitable for businesses across various industries. However, if you opt for the Plus plan, you’ll gain access to additional functionalities designed specifically for e-commerce businesses, including inventory management and unlimited sales channels.

QuickBooks Essentials accommodates up to three users. It includes expense management, income, and expense tracking, custom invoices and quotes, receipt capturing and organization, and time tracking.

Whereas, QuickBooks Plus costs $99 monthly and supports up to five users. This plan includes all the features of Essentials, along with advanced capabilities such as inventory management and project profitability reporting. Both plans do not include payroll services.

QuickBooks Essentials vs. Plus Features

The Essentials plan offers a midpoint between a simple starter option and a comprehensive enterprise solution. It provides features for capturing receipts, tracking expenses, processing payments, and generating invoices. This plan supports up to three users and includes three sales channels, enhancing the capabilities compared to the basic plan, which is limited to one user and one sales channel.

Everything included in the Essentials plan is also included in the Plus plan, along with other capabilities like inventory control, financial planning, and measuring project profitability. For e-commerce or product-based enterprises in particular, the inventory management tool is helpful since it tracks stock levels, creates purchase orders, and maintains vendor connections.

You can keep an eye on the labor expenditures and other expenses related to each project by using the project profitability function. The financial planning component gives you the ability to efficiently develop and monitor budgets.

The Plus plan also expands sales channels from three to infinite and boosts user access from three to five. Due to its limitless sales channel capacity, it is particularly well-suited for e-commerce companies seeking to grow.

Does a $34 Upgrade to the Plus Plan Make Sense?

QuickBooks Online Plus is obviously a better option compared to QuickBooks Online Essentials — but only for small businesses with complex accounting requirements or those aiming for growth. The Plus plan offers additional features, such as inventory tracking, project profitability analysis, and advanced reporting capabilities. The plan supports up to 250 charts of accounts and allows for a maximum of 40 classes and locations.

Furthermore, Plus supports more users and sales channels, allowing for up to five users and unlimited sales channels, while Essentials is limited to three users and three sales channels.  In fact, the Online Plus plan provides a comprehensive suite of features tailored for businesses with more complex needs:

• Class Tracking: You can categorize income and expenses by class or location, making it ideal for businesses with multiple locations or departments. This feature helps you track profit and loss (P&L) across different segments, offering insights into which areas of your business are the most profitable.
• Purchase Orders: This plan enables you to create purchase orders (POs) and link them to bills, checks, cash, and credit card transactions. You can save POs as PDFs for easy printing or emailing to vendors, set up recurring POs for regular orders, and customize forms with your company’s logo and details.
• Inventory Tracking: The Plus plan allows for automatic inventory level tracking, adjusting quantities based on sales and purchases, which is especially beneficial for product-based businesses.
• Time Tracking and 1099s: Employees and contractors can log their hours directly in QuickBooks, and you can easily prepare and print 1099 forms for subcontractors, simplifying payment management and tax compliance.
• Reporting: Access to over 65 reports, including detailed P&L, sales, and purchasing reports by class or location, provides a clear picture of your business performance.
• Budgeting & Planning: You can create budgets to forecast future income and expenses, aiding in planning for various financial scenarios.

QuickBooks Plus vs. Advanced

Online Plus and Online Advanced both are powerful solutions designed to streamline financial management for businesses of varying sizes. Both versions offer essential features such as income and expense tracking, cash flow management, invoicing, and project profitability analysis, but they cater to different business requirements.

QuickBooks Online Plus is well-suited for small to medium-sized businesses and accommodates up to five users. It provides the fundamental tools needed to efficiently manage finances.

The Online Advanced plan, available for $235, is designed for medium to large businesses. This plan supports up to 25 users and offers enhanced functionalities, making it ideal for companies anticipating rapid growth. It features advanced inventory management and detailed reporting capabilities to meet the needs of more complex operations.

QuickBooks Plus vs. Advanced Features

QuickBooks Online Plus is ideal for small teams. This capacity meets the needs of businesses with limited staff who require access to accounting software without the complexities and costs associated with larger plans. And while this plan allows businesses to manage stock levels and monitor inventory costs effectively, making it perfect for those with straightforward inventory management needs. It also offers project-specific profit and loss reporting, which helps businesses assess the profitability of individual projects. This insight is vital for service-based companies or those juggling multiple business and personal expenses. Detailed reporting capabilities further enhance this process, aiding in bill management.

But on the other hand, QuickBooks Online Advanced is designed for medium to large businesses, supporting up to 25 users and offering better collaboration among vast teams at no additional cost. It features customizable user permissions, enhancing data security and control.

A standout benefit of QuickBooks Online Advanced is its ability to create unlimited custom fields and generate comprehensive reporting options, essential for businesses that require detailed financial insights. Additionally, users receive personalized support from a dedicated customer success manager (CSM).

QuickBooks Online Advanced also includes $3,000 worth of free training resources, such as tutorials, webinars, and expert-led sessions, ensuring users can maximize the software’s capabilities. These features make it a robust solution for growing businesses with complex accounting needs.

Does a $136 Upgrade to the Advanced Plan Make Sense?

The primary differentiating line between QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced revolves around their intended business size and feature offerings. QuickBooks Online Plus is designed for small to medium-sized businesses, providing essential inventory management tools. In contrast, QuickBooks Online Advanced targets medium to large-sized businesses, delivering enhanced reporting and more sophisticated inventory management capabilities.

For a growing business, QuickBooks Online Advanced is the superior option, as it accommodates up to 25 users. The Online Advanced plan eliminates restrictions on the number of locations, charts, and classes of accounts, making it well-suited for businesses with expanding teams. Additionally, it includes expense management and batch invoicing features, which are perfect for managing a high volume of invoices and expenses on a daily basis. And offers an unlimited chart of accounts and an unlimited number of classes and locations.

It also offers priority support and access to a dedicated customer success manager, ensuring tailored assistance for users. Here’s a look at other key advantages offered by the Advanced plan:

• Customizable User Access: Unlike lower-tier plans, QuickBooks Online Advanced allows you to assign custom roles with specific access rights. You can control which users can view, create, edit, or delete records across areas like Sales, Expenses, Banking, and Inventory. This granular control enhances security and flexibility, making it ideal for larger teams that need to limit access to sensitive financial information.
• Granular Permissions: The ability to customize user permissions means that you can restrict employees to certain tasks, such as only viewing sales data or creating invoices. This tailored access is especially useful for businesses with a need to control who can access or modify financial data. You can also schedule automatic report deliveries, making it easier to track performance across various divisions or entities.
• Enhanced Backup and Restore Options: QuickBooks Advanced offers a manual backup and restore feature that allows businesses to back up their files before making major changes, like integrating with e-commerce platforms. This feature minimizes the risk of data loss and allows for easy recovery of previous versions if needed.
• Batch Invoicing and Expensing: This feature streamlines the process of handling multiple invoices or expenses at once, saving significant time. It’s particularly useful for businesses invoicing customers for similar services or recording bulk expenses in one go.
• Priority Circle Membership: Advanced users benefit from priority support with access to a dedicated customer success manager, offering faster response times and personalized assistance.
• Spreadsheet Sync with Excel: This feature allows seamless data transfer between QuickBooks and Excel, enabling businesses to consolidate and analyze data across multiple entities. Once processed in Excel, the data can be synced back to QuickBooks, reducing errors and improving consistency.
• Fixed Asset Accounting: Businesses can track fixed assets like vehicles or equipment, with automatic depreciation calculations and detailed reports to simplify asset management.
• Estimated vs. Actual Project Cost Reporting: This feature helps businesses track project profitability by comparing estimated costs and revenues with actual results. It allows for early detection of discrepancies and adjustments to improve project outcomes.

QuickBooks Online Compared with Other Alternatives

When choosing the right accounting software for your business, it’s really important to understand the options available to you. Other than QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks and Xero offer unique features tailored to different needs, making them popular choices among various types of users.

Here’s a brief comparison of QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks, and Xero:

Feature	QuickBooks Online	FreshBooks	Xero
Pricing	$20 to $235 per month, depending on the plan	$19 to $60 monthly; $10/month for extra users	$30 to $65 per month, depending on the plan
Best For	Growing small to large businesses needing inventory management, project tracking, or billable hours	Self-employed individuals, freelancers, and small business owners due to its user-friendly interface	Small and medium-sized businesses with multiple users needing comprehensive accounting software
Key Features	Unlimited invoices, supports up to 25 users, extensive features like class tracking, reporting, and inventory management; over 65 customizable reports	Unlimited invoicing (except “Lite” plan, 5 clients), time tracking, expenses, basic accounting features	Unlimited users on most plans, powerful accounting tools, batch transaction management, multiple integrations; Early plan has a 20-invoice limit
Customer Support	Live chat, phone support, video tutorials, and email	Live chat, email, phone support, online knowledge base	Extensive online support and tutorials; limited direct phone support

All three platforms provide a 30-day free trial, allowing you to explore their features before committing. QuickBooks is often recommended for larger businesses, FreshBooks is ideal for independent contractors, and Xero caters to small to medium-sized businesses that require strong accounting and invoicing capabilities. Each platform serves a specific niche, so the best choice depends on your business size and requirements.

For growing businesses, QuickBooks is typically the most comprehensive option, while FreshBooks offers straightforward solutions for freelancers. Xero is particularly advantageous for teams needing unlimited users and collaborative features.

Conclusion

Choosing the right QuickBooks Online plan is crucial for effectively managing your business finances, as each option is tailored to meet specific needs and varying levels of complexity. The range of plans—Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced—ensures that both small businesses and larger enterprises can find a solution that aligns with their requirements, whether that includes basic accounting, payroll integration, advanced inventory management, or comprehensive reporting.

The addition of QuickBooks Self-Employed offers a specialized tool for freelancers and independent contractors, making it easier to track personal and business finances separately. By understanding the unique features, pricing, and user access of each plan, you can make an informed decision that supports your financial management goals and helps your business thrive in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Frequently Asked Questions