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The 9 closest of 10, each with its real monthly cost at 25 clients and what it does that QuickBooks Online does not. See all 14.
Zoho Books does everything we verified about QuickBooks Online for $65 a month less at 25 clients, $20 against $85. It is a price cut rather than an upgrade: on the two features checked against the vendors’ own pricing pages the two are level. The trade: QuickBooks Online is built for a mature platform with a large ecosystem and Zoho Books is not, so this is a swap with a cost.
It is the dearest ladder in the category once the three-month discount ends ($38 for one user, $140 before you get projects and inventory), and the free plan is a two-invoice-a-month shop window rather than something to run a business on.
It runs $85 a month at 25 clients with the add-ons it forces on you included. 10 of the 10 alternatives to QuickBooks Online cost less than that.
Ranked by how much of what we record for QuickBooks Online each platform also does. Zoho Books is the nearest, and it is $65 a month cheaper at 25 clients. On every feature this site records, the two are level.
$65 a month cheaper$20 at 5
A small US business that wants a real free plan to start on and a ladder it can climb without changing software, up to multi-currency, inventory and a fifteen-user finance team.
Everything this site records for QuickBooks Online is also recorded for these, and they cost less at 25 clients. That is not the same as saying they are better: the last column is what QuickBooks Online is built for that they are not, and for someone who needs that, the saving is not a saving.
| Platform | At 25 clients | You save | What QuickBooks Online does that it does not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Books | $20 | $65 | a mature platform with a large ecosystem |
Prices are the real monthly cost at 25 clients with the add-ons each platform forces on you included, from the same engine the shortlist quiz uses.
$67 a month cheaper$18 at 5
A freelancer or small studio that wants a full invoicing, quoting and time-tracking tool for $14 a month or less, and the option to run it on its own server for nothing.
$85 a month cheaper$0 at 5
A US service business that already takes card payments through Square and wants invoices, estimates and contracts with no monthly fee, paying only when an invoice is paid.
$78.30 a month cheaper$0 at 5
A UK sole trader or small company that wants free, MTD-ready bookkeeping with unlimited users and only pays once the ledger passes 1,000 entries a year.
$65 a month cheaper$20 at 5
A small business that wants double-entry books with bank feeds, sales tax tracking and unlimited users for one flat price, without a per-client or per-invoice meter.
$85 a month cheaper$0 at 5
A freelancer or very small business that wants to invoice, chase payments and log expenses for nothing, and does not mind two users and 500 invoices a year.
$26 a month cheaper$27 at 5
A small business that wants proper double-entry books its accountant will recognise, with unlimited users on one flat price.
$27.37 a month cheaper$57.63 at 5
A VAT-registered UK small business that wants accounting and payroll from one established vendor, with MTD, CIS and an AI assistant on every plan, and an accountant who already knows Sage.
$15 a month cheaper$70 at 5
A freelancer or small service business whose job is getting invoices out and paid, with time tracking and projects attached.
A US business that wants the accounting software its accountant already uses, with a path from one user to a 25-seat finance team.
On this site it is the pick for US sales tax, a mature platform with a large ecosystem and growing into a finance team. If that is you, read the savings above and then ignore them.
The pairs people actually search for, each one priced at the same four sizes off both vendors' own pages.
Zoho Books. It is $65 a month cheaper at the size we compare on and gives up nothing we verify, though you should read why it exists before swapping: no two of these do exactly the same job.
Zoho Books is cheaper and level with QuickBooks Online on every feature we verify. Nothing here is strictly better: each one exists to do a slightly different job.
QuickBooks Online is $85 a month at every size we price, from 5 to 100 clients, read off their own pricing page and re-checked every week.
It is the dearest ladder in the category once the three-month discount ends ($38 for one user, $140 before you get projects and inventory), and the free plan is a two-invoice-a-month shop window rather than something to run a business on.
We compare 10 of them here, every one priced at the same size off its own pricing page, and the whole list of 14 is on the accounting page.
Should yours be on this list? If you make accounting and invoicing platforms and it is not compared here, ask to be shortlisted. Listings are free and cannot be bought.
Two features were checked against each vendor's own pricing page: a price that does not move with clients and a free plan. Those are the ones written above as does and does not. The other 14 are read out of each vendor's own pricing page, so an absence there means we did not find it listed, not that the product lacks it, and those lines say lists and does not list instead. How all of this gets checked.
This page compares everything to QuickBooks Online. The shortlist asks 7 questions about what you need the books to do and where you are based, and gives you four picks priced at your own numbers, which is a better question than “what is like the one I already have”.
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