Most owners choose accounting software the way they choose a bank — whichever name they recognise. That is how a solo consultant with nine invoices a month ends up on a $115/month plan built for a company with inventory and a warehouse.
The five platforms below cover almost every US small business. What separates them is not features — they all invoice, track expenses and reconcile bank feeds — but how they charge for users, payroll and payments, and whether your accountant can work in them.
$0
Cheapest real option
$15–$40
Typical entry tier / month
+$50
Payroll add-on / month
5
Platforms compared
On the prices below: approximate US list pricing checked against vendor pricing pages in August 2026. This category raises prices regularly — QuickBooks has done so several times in recent years — and introductory discounts of 50% for the first few months are common. Confirm current pricing before you subscribe, and note that the discount expires while the subscription does not.
Five Platforms, Side by Side
| Platform | Entry price | Extra users | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wave | Free tier | Included | Solo, low volume, $0 budget |
| Zoho Books | Free under ~$50K revenue | By plan | Value, existing Zoho users |
| FreshBooks | ~$19–$23/mo | ~$11 each | Service businesses, invoicing |
| Xero | ~$20–$25/mo | Unlimited, included | Teams, growing businesses |
| QuickBooks Online | ~$38/mo Simple Start | Capped by tier | US default, accountant support |
Two things stand out in that table. The value gap is enormous — free to several hundred dollars a month for the top QuickBooks tier. And the per-user rule matters as much as the headline price: Xero includes unlimited users on every plan, FreshBooks bills roughly $11 per extra person, and QuickBooks caps users by tier. Count everyone who needs access — you, a partner, a bookkeeper, your CPA — before comparing.
The Free Tiers That Actually Work
Wave — free, indefinitely, no trial
Unlimited invoicing, expense tracking, bank connections and proper double-entry bookkeeping with financial reports. Wave makes its money on payment processing and payroll rather than subscriptions, so the accounting itself stays free. It is the right answer for a solo operator under roughly 20 invoices a month.
Where Wave runs out: no inventory, thin project tracking, limited reporting depth, and a smaller integration list than the paid platforms. Some accountants will not work in it. It scales to the ceiling of a one-person business and stops there.
Zoho Books — free under about $50K revenue
A full accounting product rather than a stripped invoicing app, free while your annual revenue is below the threshold, then priced competitively above it. Strongest if you already use other Zoho apps, since the CRM, inventory and expense tools connect natively. Setup is more involved than Wave or FreshBooks.
Both free tiers charge separately for payroll and card processing. That is the business model, not a hidden trap — but budget for it. More zero-cost tools are in the free startup toolkit.
When You Outgrow Free
QuickBooks Online — the safe default
Simple Start sits around $38 a month, with Essentials, Plus and Advanced tiers above it running from roughly $75 to several hundred. It is expensive and it keeps getting more so. It is also what your accountant already uses, what every bookkeeper is trained on, and what has the deepest integration ecosystem in the US. Plus is the tier to look at if you carry inventory.
Xero — cheaper, and unlimited users on every plan
Entry plans start in the low twenties with no per-seat charge at any tier, which is the whole argument: three people needing access costs the same as one. Strong on bank reconciliation, multi-currency and inventory. The trade-off in the US is accountant familiarity — adoption is growing but still behind QuickBooks, so check your CPA can work in it before committing.
FreshBooks — built around invoicing
Around $19–$23 a month, plus roughly $11 for each additional team member. Designed for people who bill clients rather than manage inventory: time tracking, project profitability, retainers, automatic late-payment reminders. Consistently the easiest of the five for someone with no accounting background. Weak fit for product businesses.
What Isn't in the Plan Price
Every platform advertises the subscription and sells the rest separately. These are the add-ons that turn a $20 plan into a $90 one:
| Add-on | Typical cost | When it hits |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll | ~$50/mo + ~$6.50 per employee | First hire |
| Extra users | $0–$11 each | Bookkeeper or partner joins |
| Card / ACH processing | ~2.9% + 30¢ per card payment | Every online invoice paid |
| Bill pay / AP automation | Higher tier or separate fee | Paying suppliers at volume |
| Second business entity | A second subscription | Any multi-entity owner |
| Outsourced bookkeeping | $200–$300+/mo | When monthly cleanup stops fitting |
Two entities means two subscriptions on every platform here. If you run a holding company plus an operating company, that doubling is the largest hidden cost in the category. Fold whichever of these you will actually trigger into your monthly expense estimate, and if you are about to hire, the employee cost calculator covers the payroll side.
How to Choose in Ten Minutes
Answer four questions in order and the shortlist collapses to one:
- Do you already have an accountant? Ask what they work in and use that. Fighting your CPA's tooling costs more in billable hours than any subscription saves.
- Do you hold inventory? Yes means QuickBooks Plus or Xero. Wave and FreshBooks are not built for it.
- How many people need access? Three or more makes Xero's unlimited-user pricing decisive.
- Are you under 20 transactions a month? Then start free on Wave or Zoho Books and revisit in a year. Paying $38 a month to categorise nine invoices is a choice, not a requirement.
One thing that is not on the list: the feature comparison chart. All five do the core job. The platform you will actually open every week beats the one with more checkboxes.
Four Ways Owners Waste Money Here
- Buying the tier above what they need. Upgrading later takes one click. Downgrading is also easy and nobody ever does it — they just keep paying.
- Signing up during a 50% promotion without checking the full price. The discount runs a few months; the renewal is the real cost. Budget on the renewal number.
- Never connecting the bank feed. Manual entry is why software gets abandoned in month three. Connect the business bank account and the business card on day one and let it categorise.
- Leaving categorisation until tax season. Twelve months of unsorted transactions is a weekend of work and a pile of missed deductions — see the deductions list for what gets lost.