How much does QuickBooks Online cost?
By Riley Park · Last verified: October 2026
QuickBooks Online costs $38, $85, $140 or $340 a month at US list price for Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced, which include 1, 3, 5 and 25 users and 2, 2, 2 and 3 accountant seats. Essentials, Plus and Advanced went up for renewals on or after August 1, 2026; Simple Start did not change. Below these sit QuickBooks Free ($0) and Lite ($20), each for one user with no accountant access. Verified on Intuit's pricing page, October 4, 2026.
What each plan adds. Simple Start covers general reports, automated bookkeeping, invoicing with online payments, and bill pay with free standard ACH up to Intuit's monthly allotment. Essentials adds enhanced reports, employee time on invoices, and KPI dashboards. Plus adds comprehensive reports, budgets, project profitability, inventory, and class and location tracking (up to 40). Advanced adds unlimited classes and locations, custom user permissions, workflow automation, batch invoices and expenses, Excel sync, priority support, and Bill Pay Elite. Phone support is included from Simple Start up.
Did QuickBooks raise prices in 2026? Yes. Essentials rose from $75 to $85 a month, Plus from $115 to $140, and Advanced from $275 to $340, applied at each subscriber's first renewal on or after August 1, 2026. Simple Start, Lite and Free did not change. Intuit paired the change with added features: Advanced now includes Bill Pay Elite (approval workflows and 1099 e-filing) and construction and professional-services tools, and Essentials and Plus gained KPI dashboards. New subscribers keep their starting price for their first six months, and promotional pricing runs to the end of the promotion before the new price applies.
List price versus promotions. Intuit's pricing page currently offers 50% off the first three months on every paid plan, or a 30-day free trial instead. The figures on this page are list prices, which is what you pay once a promotion ends.
Costs outside the plan price. Payroll is a separate subscription. QuickBooks Payments charges processing fees on customer payments (what QuickBooks charges for card payments). Bill Pay Elite is a $45 a month add-on below Advanced, and enhanced inventory is a $40 a month add-on on Simple Start and Essentials.
How many users does each plan include? Simple Start 1, Essentials 3, Plus 5, Advanced 25. Accountant seats are separate: 2 on Simple Start, Essentials and Plus, and 3 on Advanced.
What is the cheapest QuickBooks plan? QuickBooks Free at $0, with tight monthly caps; see Is QuickBooks free? The cheapest paid plan is Lite at $20 a month for one user, which removes the invoice cap and adds the mobile app. The cheapest plan with accountant access is Simple Start at $38 a month.
How it compares. Entry prices for the paid plans DDR tracks: Wave Pro $19, Zoho Books Standard $20, QuickBooks Lite $20, FreshBooks Lite $23, Xero Early $27, QuickBooks Simple Start $38. DDR reports prices; it does not score them, because fit depends on what you need. The DDR Comparison Matrix puts every plan side by side, and the QuickBooks Online review covers what each tier is worth to which kind of business.