QuickBooks Online Pricing in 2026: Every Plan, Users, and Add-On Fees

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QuickBooks Online does not charge per seat in 2026. Simple Start lists at $38/mo for 1 billable user, Essentials at $85/mo for 3, Plus at $140/mo for 5, and Advanced at $340/mo for 25, verified on Intuit's US pricing page in September 2026. The sixth person on Plus is a move to Advanced, not a fee for one more login. A Free plan also exists, for 1 user, 2 invoices a month, and 1 bank connection, with no accountant access.

Toolradar data: the accounting software ranking we publish evaluated 247 tools, updated September 2026. The profiles for this comparison are QuickBooks, Xero, and Zoho Books.

The rates below were read on 24 September 2026 on Intuit's pricing page, the products page, the usage-limits article, and Intuit's August price note. QuickBooks Online is Intuit's cloud ledger for invoices, bills, bank feeds, and the close, sold as one monthly plan for the company rather than a price for each login.

At a glance

Plan	Best for a finance close	USD list, September 2026	New-customer promo	Billable users included
Free	Tracking income and expenses, 2 invoices a month, 1 bank	$0/mo	None	1
Simple Start	One person, invoices, bank feeds, basic statements	$38/mo	$19/mo for 3 months	1
Essentials	Bills and time tracking, still one entity	$85/mo	$42.50/mo for 3 months	3
Plus	Inventory, projects, and class tracking	$140/mo	$70/mo for 3 months	5
Advanced	More than 5 people posting, or a chart past 250 accounts	$340/mo	$170/mo for 3 months	25

A billable user is someone who posts work in the file, so a person who only reads the close should not take a slot. Accountant-firm users, and on the higher plans a reports-only or time-only login, sit outside that count. The promo is half off the base plan for three months, then the list price, and it is not a per-seat discount.

The sticker is an organization price

Five people posting on Plus still share one organization price. Intuit does not sell a sixth login inside Plus. The usage-limits article sets the billable caps at 1, 3, 5, and 25, so the next person who needs to post moves up a plan. Only active or invited users count, so deactivating someone frees a slot, and Intuit does not credit the invoice already paid.

Accountant-firm users are the seats you should not buy as billable. Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus each allow 2 accountant-firm users, and Advanced allows 3. They connect through QuickBooks Online Accountant and do not consume a billable slot. A bookkeeper added as a standard user, instead of as the firm, burns a slot, and on Plus that is what forces the upgrade.

Reports-only and time-only logins are how a larger company stays off Advanced. Plus and Advanced include unlimited reports-only users and unlimited time-tracking-only users, and neither type is billable. A controller who only reads reports should be reports-only on Plus. Essentials includes unlimited time-tracking-only users and does not offer reports-only, and Simple Start offers neither, so a view-only partner cannot stay on the entry plan.

What each plan adds, besides the headcount

Simple Start and Essentials have no classes, so a departmental profit and loss is not available on either plan. Intuit's Simple Start page describes invoices, connected bank and card accounts, sales tax, and basic statements, with 1 custom field and a chart capped at 250. Essentials adds bills and time tracking, raises custom fields to 4, and still stops at 250 accounts.

Plus is the operating file, and Advanced is the cap lift. Plus adds inventory, project profitability, and 40 combined classes and locations. Custom fields stay at 4, and the chart stays at that same account cap. A sixth standard user, a 41st class or location, or account 251 no longer fits, and Intuit does not sell a one-off for any of the three.

Advanced makes classes, locations, and the chart unlimited, allows 12 custom fields, and includes the largest billable cap in the table, which is what you buy once Plus is too small. The August note also puts Bill Pay Elite into Advanced, plus construction and professional-services tools Intuit values at up to $900 a year. That figure is Intuit's stated value, not a credit, and the construction features are for the US edition.

Caps block new records. They do not lock the file

A full counter stops new records, and the books you already posted stay. Intuit's upgrade article says you cannot add another user, class, location, or account once that limit is full, so on Plus the next class waits until you delete or inactivate one of the 40. Inactive accounts drop off the chart cap, which is the cleanup that can delay an Advanced upgrade.

You also cannot move from Plus down to Essentials while classes or extra users are still active. A departmental class list is what keeps a company on Plus after the headcount would have fit on the cheaper plan, because turning classes off is the price of the downgrade.

Add-ons the plan price leaves out

Bill Pay Basic can be included, and Bill Pay Elite is a second subscription until Advanced. Intuit's price note says Bill Pay Elite is $45/mo as an add-on on Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus, and included on Advanced with no extra subscription. The firm FAQ records the standalone Elite price falling from $90/mo to $45/mo for new and renewing subscriptions on 8 June 2026, and it calls the Advanced bundle up to $540 a year. That bundle figure is Intuit's math, not a check you receive.

Standard ACH on Bill Pay is $0 per transaction. Intuit also says monthly transactions are unlimited, while eligibility, credit approval, and payment-amount limits still apply. Bill Pay is not offered in US territories or outside the US, so a company paying from a territory or from abroad cannot use this line. The firm FAQ's own split, for a client on Essentials, puts the ledger and Elite together at $130/mo when one party pays both.

Inventory on the two lower plans is a $40/mo add-on. The same price note says native inventory, including item receipts and a moving-average cost, is in Plus and Advanced, and available as that add-on on Simple Start and Essentials. A product company that buys the entry plan and then adds inventory pays an extra line every month. Moving to Plus for inventory also buys the class cap and two more billable users, so compare that upgrade with the add-on.

Payroll is QuickBooks Workforce, and the half-off promo does not touch the per-person fee. The products page lists Workforce Payroll at $50/mo ($25/mo for three months) and Workforce Premium at $88/mo plus $13 per employee per month (promo $44/mo on the base). Workforce Elite is $134/mo plus $17 per employee per month (promo $67/mo on the base). Intuit's discount page says the half-off window applies to the Workforce and Time base, not to monthly per-employee costs, so that per-person line stays full price during the promo. The payroll invoice is separate from the ledger even before the first employee is added.

The half-off ledger promo and the 30-day trial are different checkouts. The discount page says the 50% offer requires a purchase, and a free trial is not eligible, so a month of clicking around does not end on the intro rate. Intuit's 2026 offer terms say the two cannot be combined, the discount lasts three months and then bills the then-current monthly price, and it excludes Workforce per-employee fees, per-contractor fees, state tax filing fees, and other add-ons.

Cancel from Account & Settings, because cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period and there is no pro-rated refund. Guided setup on the products page is one 60-minute session for new customers inside the first 30 days. It does not include data migration, so a desktop file is a separate project.

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What a year costs if you take the promo

Do not annualize the three discounted months. Half off for three months and nine months at list is the first-year bill for a new buyer who chooses Buy Now, and the list year is 12 times the monthly sticker. Both columns are our multiplication of the September 2026 list. They are not an Intuit annual contract, and they exclude sales tax and every add-on above.

Plan	List year	First year with 50% off for 3 months
Simple Start	$456	$399
Essentials	$1,020	$892.50
Plus	$1,680	$1,470
Advanced	$4,080	$3,570

The August 2026 increase is already the sticker on the website. Essentials, Plus, and Advanced changed for renewals on or after 1 August 2026, and the public prices updated on 3 August, while Simple Start, QuickBooks Free, Lite, and Ledger were left unchanged. The firm FAQ does not print the pre-August dollar amounts, so that page will not show the size of the jump. New subscribers keep the signup price for six invoices, and the new rate lands on the seventh, which means a late-September buyer is quoted the post-August list and the renewal after the promo is the list column.

QuickBooks Free has no subscription, and it is not a fifth Online plan with the users removed. The firm FAQ describes it as income-and-expense tracking for a new business, and it names Lite as a self-employed plan with tax support, without a USD price. Intuit Enterprise Suite is a custom contract, and the Online price change does not apply to it. Neither belongs in a budget built from the four Online stickers.

Five people, priced against ledgers that do publish a seat rule

Plus is one organization price for up to five billable users, and the rivals meter users differently, or not at all. Figures in the table are a year at the published monthly list, or the published annual price where the vendor offers one. Promos are excluded on purpose, because Xero's intro ends within days of this writing and Intuit's intro lasts three months.

Five people in the file	How users are billed	Year at the published rate
QuickBooks Online Plus	5 billable users included. User 6 requires Advanced	$1,680 at list, or $1,470 in a promo first year
QuickBooks Online Advanced	25 billable users included	$4,080 at list
Xero Growing	No per-user fee. Early's 20-invoice and 5-bill caps are gone	$660
Xero Established	Same unlimited users, plus multi-currency and projects	$1,080
Zoho Books Professional, paid monthly	5 users included. User 6 is an add-on	$600
Zoho Books Professional, billed annually	Same 5 users	$480
FreshBooks Plus	Plan price, before team-member fees	$516
Wave Pro, paid monthly	Per business, not per owner	$228
Wave Pro, billed annually	Per business	$190

Xero removes the seat fee, and the intro rate expires within days. The US pricing page lists Early at $25/mo, Growing at $55/mo, and Established at $90/mo, taxes extra. New US customers get 90% off the base plan for six months through 30 September 2026, shown as $2.50, $5.50, and $9, and the discount skips add-ons. Xero says prices rise on 1 October 2026 and does not print the new rates. Early allows 20 invoices and 5 bills, so a busy close should not start there.

Xero's US small-business page says every plan includes unlimited general users at no extra cost, so a sixth poster does not change the Xero invoice. Payroll, powered by Gusto, is $36/mo plus $6 per employee or contractor. The Xero review covers the product, and the missing seat fee is the point on this page.

Zoho Books sells the extra person, and QuickBooks sells the next plan. The US pricing page lists Standard at $20/mo or $15/mo billed annually (3 users), Professional at $50/mo or $40/mo billed annually (5 users), and Premium at $70/mo or $60/mo billed annually (10 users). Elite is $150/mo or $120/mo billed annually, and Ultimate is $275/mo or $240/mo billed annually. An extra user is $3/mo, or $2.50/mo billed annually, which is the line QuickBooks will not sell inside Plus.

The free plan lasts while financial-year revenue stays at or under $50,000, with 1 user and 1 accountant and 1,000 invoices a year, and Professional allows 10,000 invoices a year. A sixth Zoho user stays on Professional by paying for one more user, and a sixth QuickBooks user on Plus does not.

FreshBooks meters clients and team logins, a different bill from an organization price. Lite is $23/mo for 5 billable clients, Plus is $43/mo for 50, and Premium is $70/mo with unlimited clients, and Select prints no monthly USD list. Active and archived clients both count, so archiving a client does not free the slot.

Team members are $11/mo each on Lite, Plus, and Premium, so each extra login is its own line. Advanced Payments is $20/mo and included on Select, and payroll is $40/mo plus $6 per person. Lite shows a $1/mo first year, and Plus shows 80% off for three months with a stated saving of $103.20, so year one is not the list. Accountant access is on the Plus card and absent from the Lite card, and the FreshBooks review walks that client cap.

Wave Starter has no subscription price, and Pro is $19/mo or $190/year per business. Pro adds bank import, receipt capture, and late reminders, so the bank feed requires Pro. US payroll is a $40 monthly base plus $6 per active employee and $6 per contractor paid. Admin, editor, and viewer access require Pro, so a free ledger will not hold a team. See free accounting software before treating Starter as the five-person file.

Who should pay for which plan

Match the plan to the cap you will hit this year, not the login count on the payroll. Simple Start fits one poster and a short chart, Essentials fits bills and time without departments, and Plus fits inventory, projects, or classes while the posting team stays inside the included cap, with reports-only users left off that count. The step from Plus to Advanced is $200 more per month on the September list, $2,400 over a year, our multiplication. Bill Pay Elite inside Advanced offsets a slice of that jump only if you would have paid the $45 add-on anyway.

A forecast is not itself an Advanced reason: the August release puts KPI dashboards on Essentials and Plus, with an inquiry cap Intuit does not print, so a dashboard does not force the top plan. Planning tools live on the FP&A software list, and receipt coding that is not a ledger problem is the expense tools list.

Leave when the accountant will switch and the headcount will not stay inside a cap. Xero Growing is the lower organization price once several people post, Zoho Professional is the lower bill when the sixth user should be a line item, and Wave is the lower bill when the subscription should stay at Pro or at no subscription. The wider set is accounting software, and if the job is invoices only, start with invoicing tools. Cleanup of a file you already have is bookkeeping software, bank feeds from the operating account are Mercury vs Relay, and vendor payments that should not sit in Bill Pay are the BILL review.

How we priced this

We read Intuit's US pricing page, products page, Simple Start page, usage-limits article, upgrade article, discount page, August price note, and the Firm of the Future FAQ on 24 September 2026. Competitor rates come from Xero's US pricing page, Xero's US small-business page, Zoho Books' US pricing page, FreshBooks' pricing page, and Wave's pricing page plus its US payroll help article. Year totals are 12 times the monthly list, or the vendor's published annual price, and the promo year is three months at half price plus nine at list. Nobody paid for placement. Louis Corneloup, founder of Toolradar and Dupple, edited the piece. Re-check the checkout before you subscribe, because Intuit can change the list without a new blog post.

FAQ

How much does QuickBooks Online cost per plan in 2026?

On Intuit's US pricing page in September 2026, Simple Start lists at $38/mo, Essentials at $85/mo, Plus at $140/mo, and Advanced at $340/mo. New customers can take 50% off for three months, shown as $19, $42.50, $70, and $170, and then the list returns. A list year is $456, $1,020, $1,680, or $4,080, and a promo first year is $399, $892.50, $1,470, or $3,570. Those years exclude sales tax, payroll, and Bill Pay Elite on the lower plans.

Does QuickBooks Online charge per user or per seat?

No. The monthly price is for the organization, with billable caps of 1, 3, 5, and 25, so hiring inside the cap does not change the invoice and hiring past it changes the plan. Accountant-firm users are non-billable, two on the first three plans and three on Advanced, which is why the outside accountant should connect as the firm. Plus and Advanced also include unlimited reports-only and time-tracking-only users, and Intuit publishes no price for one extra billable user inside a plan. The next person past the cap is a higher plan.

What happens when a company on Plus needs a sixth user?

Plus includes 5 billable users, and the sixth billable user requires Advanced, which lists at $200 more per month than Plus. Over a year at the September list prices, that gap is $2,400, before the promo and before add-ons. Reports-only users on Plus do not count toward the five, so a read-only login is not a reason to upgrade. Zoho Books Professional includes 5 users and then sells another user for $3/mo, which is the published alternative if the only problem is headcount.

Is there a free QuickBooks Online plan or a free trial?

QuickBooks Free, described in Intuit's firm FAQ, has no subscription and tracks income and expenses for a new business. The four Online plans above are paid, and a 30-day free trial exists that cannot be combined with the 50% discount for three months, because the discount requires Buy Now and the trial requires the trial option. After either offer, billing continues at the then-current monthly price until you cancel. The firm FAQ names Lite and does not print a USD price.

What do Bill Pay, inventory, and payroll add to the QuickBooks bill?

Bill Pay Elite is $45/mo on Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus, and it is included on Advanced. Intuit's example of Essentials plus that add-on is $130/mo. Inventory is included on Plus and Advanced, and it is a separate monthly add-on on the two lower plans. Workforce Payroll lists at $50/mo, Premium at $88/mo plus $13 per employee, and Elite at $134/mo plus $17 per employee. The three-month half-off promo applies to those Workforce base prices and not to the per-employee fees. Standard Bill Pay ACH is $0 per transaction, subject to approval and payment limits.

Did QuickBooks Online raise prices in August 2026?

Yes, for Essentials, Plus, and Advanced, on renewals from 1 August 2026, with the website updated on 3 August. Simple Start, Free, Lite, and Ledger were excluded. Intuit's firm FAQ does not print the old dollar amounts. Subscribers keep the price from their signup for six invoices, and the new rate shows on the seventh. A purchase in late September is already on the post-August list, so the number after the three-month promo is the sticker in the table on this page.

Is QuickBooks Online cheaper than Xero for a five-person team?

Plus at $1,680 a year includes five billable users and stops at a sixth. Xero Growing is $660 a year at the September US list, with no per-user fee, and Established is $1,080 a year when you need multi-currency. Xero's 90% intro runs through 30 September 2026, and Xero has dated a list increase at 1 October 2026 without printing the new rate, so a quote taken in the last days of September will not be the October invoice. Cheaper depends on whether you need classes, inventory, and an accountant who will not leave the QuickBooks file. The user math alone favors Xero once the posting team will not stay inside five.

Cite this: Finpresso, "QuickBooks Online Pricing in 2026: Every Plan, Users, and Add-On Fees", September 2026.

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