How much does accounting software cost?

What does accounting software cost a month?

Each vendor’s own pricing page listed these prices on October 30, 2026. They are US list prices, billed monthly, before promotions and before tax. Products are in no particular order. QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks and Wave were also running discounts for the first few months. The prices here are what you pay once a discount ends.

Entry plans run from $19 a month (Wave Pro) to $65 (Digits Essentials), and three of the seven, Wave, Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online, also have a free plan.

For QuickBooks Online’s plan limits and how its prices changed in August 2026, see QuickBooks Online pricing in 2026. A monthly price doesn’t tell you much on its own. What you pay depends on how many people log in and whether you run payroll. It also depends on how your customers pay you. The next sections add it up for three example businesses.

What does a one-person business pay over three years?

A one-person service business with no employees or inventory pays $570 to $2,340 for three years of accounting software, at US list prices on October 30, 2026, paying the cheapest way each vendor offers.

Here’s the business. You send about 10 invoices a month to more than five clients. You enter about 8 bills a month and pay them later. You have one bank account and one card, and you want their transactions to come in on their own. Your accountant looks at the books at tax time. Revenue is over $50,000 a year. No employees, no inventory.

For each product we picked the cheapest plan on its own pricing page that fits. Prices are held at the October 30, 2026 list for all 36 months. In the price history further down, eight of ten plans did not stay put.

The gap comes from what each vendor puts on its lowest plan. Change the counts and the answer changes. With 5 or fewer bills, Xero Early fits at $27 a month, $972 over three years. If you pay each bill as it comes in, FreshBooks Plus fits at $43 ($38.70 billed yearly), and Zoho Books Standard at $20 ($15 billed yearly).

The free and entry plans stop short in other ways. FreshBooks Lite, at $23, bills up to 5 clients and doesn’t list accountant access. Zoho’s Free plan stops at $50,000 of revenue a year. QuickBooks Online’s Free plan has no accountant access, allows 2 invoices a month and connects 1 bank account.

Puzzle isn’t in the table because its pricing page lists no bills on any plan. If you pay bills as they come in, Starter is $900 to $1,080 over three years. It has one seat, and Puzzle’s page doesn’t say whether your accountant needs one.

Are card and bank fees part of the cost?

They are, and in the one-person example they are the biggest part of the bill. Say that business collects $5,000 a month on five $1,000 invoices. Each processor’s own page listed these rates on October 30, 2026.

At Stripe’s standard card rate, that comes to $5,274 in card fees over three years, more than any plan above. By bank, it is $900.

Paying by bank instead of card saves $4,374, more than the $1,770 between the cheapest and the most expensive software above. A cap on bank fees matters most on big invoices: on a $1,000 invoice, 1% is $10, and 0.8% capped at $5 is $5. Software that passes Stripe’s standard rate through costs the same as Stripe used directly.

What does a five-person team with payroll pay?

A service business with five employees on payroll and four logins pays $2,574 to $8,100 over three years for accounting software and payroll, at US list prices on October 30, 2026, paying the cheapest way each vendor offers.

The five employees are paid twice a month in one state. Four people need logins: the owner, an office manager and two team leads. An outside accountant does the taxes. No inventory.

Digits doesn’t run payroll; it connects to a payroll provider. So the table pairs Digits and Puzzle with Gusto’s Simple plan. Gusto alone for this team is $2,844 over three years. Puzzle also sells its own payroll, shown on its own row. On Xero, Wave, Zoho Books and Digits, payroll costs more each month than the software.

Puzzle’s page says Core is for businesses with up to $10,000 a month in expenses. A five-person payroll is likely above that, so the table uses Complete. Under that line, Core with Gusto comes to $5,436 over three years billed monthly, or $5,004 with Core billed yearly.

Watch the login count. With three logins, this business fits QuickBooks Online Essentials ($85) with Workforce Payroll added ($85), which is $170 a month. The fourth login forces Plus, which comes to $225 a month. That is $55 more a month, or $1,980 over three years. On Xero the fourth login costs nothing, and on FreshBooks it costs $11 a month.

One thing to check on Zoho Books: its pricing page says the Free plan includes an accountant but doesn’t say whether your accountant takes one of a paid plan’s seats. If it does, add one more user at $3 a month.

What if you sell products and run a second company?

A product business that tracks stock, plus a small second company that owns its building, pays $1,980 to $5,868 over three years for both, at US list prices on October 30, 2026, on the three products whose pricing pages list inventory.

The third business sells physical goods and tracks its stock. Three people log in. The owner also has a second company that owns the building, with one login and a handful of transactions a month. The same accountant handles both. To keep the math simple, there’s no payroll here; add the payroll figures above if you have staff.

Each line has a cheaper or different path. On QuickBooks Online, Plus for the first company instead of the add-on comes to $178 a month, $6,408 over three years. On Zoho Books, if the second company stays under $50,000 of revenue a year, the Free plan covers it, and the total is $1,800 over three years, billed monthly. On Xero, Early’s 20 invoices and 5 bills are too few for the first company.

Xero’s plans don’t combine organizations into one set of reports, and Xero says that isn’t planned; Syft Analytics, a separate product in Xero’s app store, does it. Xero began phasing out its multi-organization discount on October 1, 2026.

FreshBooks, Wave, Digits and Puzzle are left out because their pricing pages list no inventory tracking. Digits would carry the second company free: it says extra entities cost nothing up to 250 transactions a year, then start at $35 a month. For a business that doesn’t track stock, that saves a second subscription.

What costs extra on top of the plan?

The three examples run into most of the add-ons. They are in one place below, from each vendor’s own pages on October 30, 2026. Xero charges nothing for more users or for your accountant; on QuickBooks Online, more users means the next plan.

Inventory is the other common add-on. QuickBooks Online charges $40 a month for it on Simple Start and Essentials, under Intuit’s January 2026 product update, and includes it on Plus and Advanced. Xero tracks inventory on every plan. Zoho starts it on Professional. Xero’s Early plan also charges $5 a month to reconcile bank lines automatically.

How much have accounting software prices gone up?

The three-year totals assume today’s prices hold. The table below shows the same plans in October 2023 and October 2025, from each vendor’s pricing page as the Internet Archive saved it. The last price is the live page on October 30, 2026 (QuickBooks: October 30, 2026).

Eight of the ten plans cost more in October 2026 than in October 2023. Xero Early rose the most in percentage terms, 80%, from $15 a month to $27.

Xero’s plans have unlimited users, though, so a growing team doesn’t pay more per person. Zoho kept its yearly prices the same for all three years. QuickBooks Online Simple Start didn’t change in August 2026 when Essentials, Plus and Advanced did. Xero’s latest prices took effect on October 1, 2026, for new and existing US subscribers. Two October snapshots miss anything that happened in between.

Digits and Puzzle are left out because their plans were renamed or restructured over the period, so no row compares like with like. Digits’ Core plan was $100 in November 2025 and is $100 today.

Is free accounting software worth it?

It can be, for the right business. Three of the seven vendors here had a free plan on October 30, 2026. Each one is free up to a line, and the line is different for each.

Each line has fine print. QuickBooks Online Free allows unlimited invoices if you turn on QuickBooks Payments, and it has no mobile app or integrations. Wave Starter charges 2.9% + 60¢ on each card payment.

Free works for a one-person business that stays inside a free plan’s limits. It stops working at the first employee, or when you hit a free plan’s own line: no accountant login on QuickBooks Free, no automatic bank import on Wave Starter, $50,000 of revenue on Zoho Books Free. Payment fees apply on every free plan.

On Wave, the fee difference between the two plans is small. For the one-person example, Starter’s card fees are $148 a month and Pro’s are $145. So the $19 for Pro buys the bank import and the auto-categorization, not cheaper payments.

Free plans change, too. In October 2023, Wave’s pricing page listed accounting, invoicing and banking at $0, with receipt scanning as an $8 add-on and no paid plan. Today bank import is on Pro. Check what a free plan includes now, and what you would do if it changed. If you’re still deciding whether you need software at all, start with do I need accounting software?

How do you keep the bill down?

• Count the people who need a login before you pick a plan. On a product with seat caps, one more person can mean the next plan.
• Compare list prices, not the first three months. The promotion ends, and the list price is what you pay for years.
• Pay yearly where it’s offered. Zoho Standard drops from $20 to $15 a month, and Wave Pro from $228 to $190 a year.
• Ask customers to pay by bank. In the one-person example, that saves more than any change of software.
• Ask any vendor what it has changed and when. Five plans in the price history above rose 40% or more in three years.

Price is one test among several. The others, like what your accountant can see and how you get your data out, are in how to choose accounting software. And if you’re weighing software against paying someone, see how much a bookkeeper costs.

Where does Imprest fit?

Each Imprest plan is a flat price, and your accountant’s seat is free on every plan. Starter is for you plus your accountant; Pro and Scaling have no per-seat fee. Payroll runs in a Gusto account you pay Gusto for, and Imprest books each run. Card and bank payments cost only Stripe’s own rate; Imprest adds nothing on top. Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial with no credit card.

On the published plans, bills you enter now and pay later are on Pro, and inventory starts on Pro. You can run each business as its own company under one login, each on its own plan, or, on Scaling, keep several legal entities inside one company for that one plan’s price, each with its own books and one combined set of reports. You turn that on in the company’s Settings. Current prices, and a calculator that compares Imprest with QuickBooks Online and Desktop for your team size, are on the pricing page. The calculator doesn’t show on phones.