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The best accounting software for a small business, priced honestly

14 platforms, priced at your own client count with the add-ons included. 14 publish a price, every one of them.

Build your shortlist 7 questions · about a minute · four honest picks

Every platform

checked 22 Oct 2026 · 1 need checking by hand

Make accounting and invoicing platforms? If yours is missing from this list, ask to be shortlisted. Listings are free and cannot be bought.

Head to head

32 pairs, taken from what people really search

Each one prices both platforms at the same four sizes off their own pages, and says what each does that the other does not.

Questions

What is the best accounting software for a small business?

For a business with an accountant to hand the year to, Xero, QuickBooks Online, Zoho Books and Sage are the field. If invoicing and getting paid is most of it, FreshBooks, Wave, Zoho Invoice, Invoice Ninja and Square Invoices are cheaper and lighter. A sole trader in the UK has FreeAgent, Crunch and Coconut built around the tax return. The quiz asks what the books have to do and where you are based, then compares.

How much does accounting software cost?

From nothing (Wave, Zoho Invoice, Zoho Books, Invoice Ninja, Square Invoices and QuickFile all publish a free tier, and FreeAgent is free with some UK bank accounts) to $15 to $80 a month on the plans a small business buys. Watch the introductory discounts: QuickBooks and FreshBooks lead with half price for three to six months and the full price is what you pay after. Both are quoted here, and the full price is the one compared.

Do I need accounting software or just invoicing?

If you have an accountant and file VAT or sales tax, you need the books: bank feeds, reconciliation, a chart of accounts. If you are a one-person business that invoices a few clients and hands a spreadsheet to someone at year end, an invoicing tool with expenses is enough and costs a third as much.

Do these platforms offer a free trial?

Xero, QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks, FreeAgent, Sage Accounting and Square Invoices give you 30 days, in most cases with no card required. Zoho Books, Bonsai, Kashoo and Crunch give you 14. The rest are demo-led with neither, which is worth knowing before you get attached to one.

Are these affiliate links?

Some of them, and it is marked clearly on every recommendation. It does not change what the quiz returns. Where two platforms score within a few points of each other the cheaper one wins, and several of the platforms recommended here pay nothing at all.

Who is behind this?

Dave Crawford. He builds operations and automation systems for small service businesses, which means he has spent a lot of time inside tools like these with real clients rather than reading their marketing pages. The prices here are checked against each company's own pricing page and rechecked weekly.