QuickBooks Online review (2026): pricing, features and who it's for

What your field software sends over

The reason to keep your books here is not the accounting features. It is that your dispatch software already connects to QuickBooks and not to much else. Jobber connects to QuickBooks Online only. There is no Desktop option. Housecall Pro works with both. Most of the smaller field tools land in the same place.

What that buys you is one less round of typing. A job you close on your phone in a crawlspace turns into an invoice. That invoice shows up in your books. The payment lands against it. Nobody retypes a number. Pick accounting software that sits off that path and you need a middleman app, or a weekly chore of matching things up by hand.

If your field software connects here on its own, follow it. That costs you less than fighting it, and we would let it outweigh any feature comparison. Our Jobber and Housecall Pro reviews cover those tools on their own terms.

Owners describe that pull as a trap as often as a convenience. One who runs six companies through it says he is stuck, because the software he uses to run the business does not talk to anything else, and he would "switch in a heatbeat" if he could. We still say follow the connection. Go in knowing the same connection is what makes leaving expensive later, and that the price you sign up at is not the price you keep.

Five tiers, and the money between them

Solopreneur is $20 a month, or $240 a year. It is built around one person. Simple Start is $38 a month, or $456 a year. Those are the regular prices as of August 2026. Intuit runs discounts for new signups often. So the first-year price you get quoted may sit well below what you renew at. Price the renewal before you sign.

The steps between tiers are uneven. Solopreneur to Simple Start is $18 more a month, or $216 a year. Simple Start to Essentials is $37 more a month, or $444 a year. That step lets you pay bills inside QuickBooks, so a shop still settling supply-house invoices by hand has something to weigh. Essentials to Plus is $40 more a month, or $480 a year. Plus to Advanced is $160 more a month, or $1,920 a year. That puts the top tier at more than seven times the price of Simple Start.

Two other things ride on your tier. Logins come bundled into each plan instead of billed per head, so more office staff pushes you up the ladder. Support changes too. Chat and callback run Monday to Saturday on every tier below the top. Round-the-clock help belongs to Advanced. If your books get touched on a Sunday, know that going in.

Owners have watched that first-year figure move. One of them, eight years in, posted the email that took their plan to $140 a month, up from the $80 or $90 they started at. Whatever number you are quoted, treat it as the low point.

Owner reports on support are poor across the tiers. The complaint is not hold times. It is that the answer never arrives. One owner had an automatic payment come out of a bank account and the advisor could not say what triggered it, which left a week's wait for the refund. Another says Intuit's departments do not talk to each other, and their advice matches ours: keep what you ask of QuickBooks simple and it works fine.

Card and bank payments are billed on their own, per transaction, on top of the monthly price. That charge grows with your revenue, not with your plan. On trade volume it is usually the bigger number.

The week to week work it takes off you

Bank and card feeds pull your transactions in on their own. They learn the rules you set. So sorting a week of fuel, parts and supply-house charges becomes clicking confirm instead of typing. You can photograph receipts on your phone and track mileage there too. That suits a trade where paperwork shows up as a glovebox full of curled thermal slips.

One warning about that, from the people who clean up the wreckage. The feed suggests a match and the suggestion looks right, same amount, close date, and it can still be pointing at the wrong thing. A bookkeeper who fixes other people's QuickBooks files describes owners confirming blindly for months and ending up with a balance sheet that was "just fiction at that point". Clicking confirm does not make it correct. If you keep your own books, have somebody who knows the software check a month of matches before you trust the habit.

You get a profit and loss report, which shows what you made and what you spent. You get a balance sheet, which shows what you own and what you owe. Dozens more come out of the box. Building your own custom report is an Advanced feature. So treat custom reporting as a $275 a month decision, not a cheap add-on.

Paying bills inside the software starts at Essentials. On Simple Start you can record a bill you have already paid. You cannot pay it from inside QuickBooks.

Day to day it is fine to work in, with one warning. The screen is busy. The reports take practice before they give back what you thought you asked for. Budget an hour with a bookkeeper before you decide it cannot do what you need.

Your tax gets worked out, not filed

QuickBooks works out your sales tax by address. For a shop crossing city and county lines, that saves an afternoon. It applies the right rate. It tracks what you owe. Then it hands the return back to you. Filing it is your job.

1099s work the same way. A 1099 is the form you send each subcontractor at year end showing what you paid them. QuickBooks tracks those payments all year, so January does not open with a shoebox. Then filing costs extra, billed per form. If you run ten subcontractors, get that per-form figure before you treat 1099 season as handled.

We flag this because automatic-sounding tax features invite you to assume filing is included. It is not. What the subscription buys you is accurate numbers and a tidy trail. A bookkeeper or an accountant still closes the loop.

Who is buying more tier than they need

Plus at $115 is where we would look hardest at your own bill. Shops that end up there often have field software already carrying the job-level detail. Jobber sends timesheets over. ServiceTitan sends expenses and journal entries. Invoices arrive with their line items intact. If the detail you are paying Plus for already lives in your dispatch system, you are buying it twice. Paying $1,380 a year when Essentials at $900 covers what you use wastes $480 a year.

Here is a blunt test. Name the one thing you do in QuickBooks each month that needs your current tier. If nothing comes to mind, you are on the wrong plan. Month to month terms make the fix free.

Advanced at $275 has two arguments that hold up: round-the-clock support, and the custom report builder. Neither counts if you never use it. $3,300 a year should be a choice you make on purpose.

Solopreneur at $20 is a fair floor for a one-person shop. But the step up to Simple Start is only $18 a month. Anyone planning to hire, or already invoicing out of a field tool, should start there instead.

Where we would land

For a one to three truck shop, we would start at Simple Start for $38. Move to Essentials at $75 the month that paying bills inside the software starts saving office hours. That is a $456 versus $900 a year decision.

Take the trial or take the discount, but know which one you picked. Thirty days free suits someone still deciding. The discount suits someone who has decided. The trial only earns its keep if you spend it checking that your field software's sync behaves the way its documentation says.

Two readers should look at something else. Say your field software connects on its own to a different accounting product. If you have no other reason to move, you are paying for a default you do not use. And if you want your returns filed rather than worked out, you need an accountant no matter which tier you pick.

Two things owners say are worth carrying into the decision. The first is that this software rewards knowing it. An owner running nine companies on it says it is fine if you know how to use it, and that most people never find the time to learn. An hour with a bookkeeper who works in it daily is the cheapest money you will spend here. The second is to keep your use of it narrow. The shops that get along with QuickBooks are the ones asking it to hold the books while their field software handles the jobs. The ones who end up furious are usually asking it to be everything.

What owners actually say