According to the mailing list provider InfoClutch, QuickBooks Online has claimed 63% of the small business accounting software market. That means users can expect lots of informal support from colleagues and in community forums, and they can also expect that most accounting and tax professiona🐲ls will be familiar with QuickBooks Online when it comes time to seek outside help.

QuickBooks Online co🅺mes in four different plans:

• Simple Start ($35 per month)
• Essentials ($65 per month)
• Plus ($99 per month)
• Advanced ($235 per month)

Higher-priced plans add more capabilities and allow more users. As your business grows, you can upgrade your accounting software alongside it. All packages include expert assistance to help you get set up, free for 30 days. You’ll also get acc﷽ess to an AI tool ౠthat can automate many tasks, such as sending payment reminders.

The mobile ap🔯p is great for scanning receipts. It also aౠllows you to receive payments, send invoices, produce estimates, and more. 

Intuit, a small business accounting and services juggernaut with more than 17,000 employees owns QuickBooks. Its brands include QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mailchimp, and Credit K𝓡arma. It was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Mountain ꦓView, Calif.

Zoho offe💮rs six different accounting software plans, priced from $0 monthly to $240. We focuse♛d on the first four, which Zoho Books calls “Plans to get you started.”

• Free ($0 per month)
• Standard ($20 per month)
• Professional ($50 per month)
• Premium ($70 per month)

The Free plan is aimed at micro-businesses and solopreneurs with invoicing and payment tools, expenses, mile💜age tracking, plus reporting. Standard adds assistance with sales🌞 tax, additional support options, custom reports, and bumps invoices from 1,000 annually to 5,000.

Professional gets 10,000 invoices, more users (up to 5), check 🧜printing, and inventory tracking.

Finally, Premium allows 10 users, 25,000 invoices, and many c🔜ustomizations.

Zoho o👍ffers numerous integrations, from cloud storage services like OneDrive to payme⛦nt processors like Stripe. The mobile app is robust and earns strong ratings in both the Apple and Android stores.

Zoho Books is just one application among Zoho's many office and business software products. Founded in 1996 (in New Jersey), Zoho is today headquartered in Chennai, India.

Xero offers ꧙three monthly subscription plans and a full-service payro🐭ll add-on:

• Early ($15 per month)
• Growing ($47 per month)
• Established ($80 per month)

The payroll add-on is t🧜hrough Gusto, and costs $40 per month, plus $6 per employee. You can try Xero free for 30 🔥days (and Gusto for 90).

The Early plan has some limitations, allowing just 20 invoices (or quotes) per month and five bills. However, these limits may be acceptable for service-based or part🔴-time෴ businesses.

The Growing and Established plans both offer unlimited invoices and bills. Established adds support for expense management, project costing, and multi-currency support. All three plans include Hubdoc, which captures paper bills and receipts. Xero is also avail🍸able on a mobile app.

Xero was founded in 2006 in New Zealand and today has about 4.2 million subscribers worldwide🦹. This accounting software is popular in♍ New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom and is growing rapidly in the United States.

FreshBooks offers🐬 four different membership plans:

• Lite ($19 per month)
• Plus ($33 per month)
• Premium ($60 per month)
• Select, a custom service with custom pricing

Apart from additional functionality, the key difference among plans is the n꧃umber of clients you can serve (invoices and estimates are unlimited to your collection of clients). With Lite, you are capped at five clients. The Plus plan allows up to 50,💟 and Premium is unlimited. All plans accept ACH payments, and there’s an app store with lots of integration options. The mobile app is feature-rich.

True to its roots, FreshBooks makes invoicing easy, with many customization options Generating estimates and proposals (and turning those into invoices) is also a key feature.🍰

Fresh🌱Books was founded in 203 in Toronto, Canada. As of 2025, FreshBooks has over 30 mil🐷lion users.

QuickBooks Solopreneur (another offering from Intuit) was created to help freelancers stay organized each year for ta𝓀x season. QuickBooks Solopreneur’s features include tracking mileage, sorting expenses, organizing receipts, and estimating and filing taxes through TurboTax.

Solopreneur also gives you access to a tax eᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚxp🦂ert to answer questions throughout the year and during tax season.

With the mobile app you can track mileage and capture receipts for business expenses. Most accounting software is not designꦏed to separateﷺ business transactions from personal transactions, but QuickBooks Solopreneur allows marking each transaction as business or personal. This is helpful for freelancers who don’t have a separate bank account for their business activity.

It’s an attractive package for a freelancerไ but pricey compared to $20 monthly plans from Xero or ZoHo books,💙 for examples.