How Much Does QuickBooks Cost for UK Businesses?

QuickBooks’ pricing starts at just £10 per month (just £1 per month for the first six months) – making it a small business-friendly accounting software.

QuickBooks occupies a middle ground when it comes to pricing. While its £10 starting price is lower than most competitors, the £123 Advanced plan drives up its overall price.

That said, QuickBooks is a worthy expense for businesses that want access to QuickBooks’s excellent financial planning and reporting tools, and use its payroll add-on to simplify their admin.

We’ll go over how much each QuickBooks plan costs, what’s included in it, and what type of business it’s for. We’ll also break down how much add-on products cost, and help you decide whether QuickBooks is worth it for your business.

QuickBooks Pricing Plans

QuickBooks has five pricing tiers. Its Sole Trader and Simple Start plans are suitable for sole traders and micro businesses, while the Essentials to Advanced plans are suitable for small to medium businesses.

Sole Trader: £10/month

• Who’s it for? Registered sole traders or single property landlords not registered for VAT.
• What’s it for? Submitting self-assessments and managing income and expenses.

QuickBooks Sole trader plan is currently available for just £1 per month for your first six months. After that, it costs £10 per month.

As the name suggests, this plan at the self-employed who work alone, rather than as part of a business, hence the one-user limit. With the Sole Trader plan, you’ll be able to:

• Prepare your self-assessment tax return
• Estimate your income tax
• Log expenses (you can connect with your bank)
• Send quotes and invoices
• Create cash flow projections and improve your cash flow
• Calculate and submit CIS

All in all, QuickBooks’ Sole Trader offers a decent set of features for a relatively low price. However, it doesn’t feature any tools for managing VAT, so VAT-registered businesses will need to upgrade to at least the £16 Simple Start plan.

Simple Start: £16/month

• Who’s it for? Sole traders or micro businesses that are VAT-registered.
• What’s it for? Managing income, expenses, and VAT tax on a small scale.

The QuickBooks Simple Start plan costs £1.60 per month for your first six months, then £16 per month.

The main difference between this plan and the Sole Trader plan is that it has tools for managing VAT. These include:

• VAT submissions to HMRC
• VAT error checker
• VAT deadline reminders

Users also get access to a free onboarding session and can opt-in for QuickBooks’ payroll software add-on, both features not available on the Sole Trader plan.

For more multi-currency selling, more advanced expenses management, and the ability to track employee hours, you’ll need to upgrade to the Essentials plan

Essentials: £38/month

• Who’s it for? Small businesses with increasing sales and expenses that work with suppliers and have a growing number of employees.
• What’s it for? Managing income, expenses, VAT, and employee hours on a moderate scale.

The Essentials plan costs £3.80 for your first 6 months, then £38 per month.

The main difference between this plan and Simple Start is that you get access to more advanced bill management and employee work hours tracking. Here’s a summary:

• Three account users (up from one)
• “Bill” management or advanced expenses management: set up recurring expenses, see upcoming bills, pay multiple suppliers at once, and import bills from suppliers
• Trade in 145+ currencies and get automatic exchange rates
• Track employee work hours and turn them into invoices

The added features of the Essentials plan make it suitable for small businesses that are coming into their own and developing a growing portfolio of trading partners, both locally and abroad.

Plus: £56/month

• Who’s it for? Growing small businesses that manage their own stock.
• What’s it for? Managing stock, income, expenses, VAT, and employee hours on a growing scale.

The Plus plan costs £5.60 for the first six months, then £56 per month.

The main difference between the Plus plan and the Essentials plan is that the Plus plan allows businesses to keep track of their personal inventory and use budgeting tools. Here’s a more detailed summary:

• Track stock/inventory levels and their cost, get sales data and manage vendors
• Track the cost of labour, payroll and expenses for projects and see profitability
• Set budgets and get income and expenses predictions
• Classify data by department (or other segment), and location (e.g., region)

Advanced: £123/month

• Who’s it for? Small to medium businesses with large client portfolios
• What’s it for? Managing stock, income, expenses, VAT, and employee hours, and financial planning

The Advanced plan is QuickBooks’s most expensive plan. It costs £12.30 per month for the first six months, then £123 per month. Since most accounting providers don’t go past the £60 per month mark, QuickBooks’s Advanced plan can be considered a pricey option.

The main difference between this plan and the ones that come before it is that it gives you access to far more advanced reporting and analytics tools, and lets you set up user permissions and automation. Here’s a full summary:

• Create custom reports with custom dashboards, charts, and tags, to get insights into spending and performance
• Integrate with Excel to create custom spreadsheets with accounting data
• Create custom user permissions
• Automate tasks like invoice and reminder sends, or payment notifications
• Create batch invoices

The extra features on the Advanced plan are designed for small businesses verging on medium, that are dealing with a large client portfolio and are focused on growth.

QuickBooks Payroll Add-on

QuickBooks offers a payroll software add-on, available on all its accounting plans, except Sole Trader. There are three payroll software plans – the £5 per month Payroll Core, the £10 per month Payroll Premium, and the £15 per month Payroll Elite.

Here’s a quick breakdown of all plans:

The average cost of payroll software is £16 to £32 per month for a small business, so QuickBooks’ payroll software offering is very affordable. Its Payroll Premium plan is particularly good value for money, as it offers features usually reserved for more expensive plans, such as benefits management and the option to work with multiple pension providers.

Does QuickBooks Have Hidden Fees?

QuickBooks does not have any hidden fees. It doesn’t charge any set-up fees or fees for ending software plans early.

However, it does offer a few add-on products that could increase your overall monthly costs. These aren’t exactly hidden fees since they’re advertised quite plainly on QuickBooks’ website.

One example is QuickBooks Time, which costs £6-£8 per user per month, plus a £16-£30 per month base fee. It’s an advanced time tracking software for time and attendance tracking and projects.

QuickBooks Alternatives

Here’s a quick overview of QuickBooks alternatives:

Zoho Books

Zoho Books has a free plan and paid plans that range from £0 to £165 per month.

While ZohoBooks’ top plan is one of the most expensive on the market, its mid-tier plans are actually priced similarly to QuickBooks’, costing £20 to £25, compared to £16 to £39. Overall, ZohoBooks was also easier to use than QuickBooks during our testing, making it a better option for small-business owner-managers with limited accounting experience.

QuickBooks

In third place was Xero, costing £16 to £65 per month.

That said, if you don’t count QuickBooks’ cheapest and most expensive plans, Xero and QuickBooks have almost identical pricing. Both Xero’s Ignite plan and QuickBooks Simple Start plan cost £16, while the Xero Grow plan and QuickBooks Essentials plan cost £37 and £38, respectively.

Xero is a great alternative for businesses looking for powerful financial planning tools and reporting, since Xero allows for a very high level of detail when creating quotes and expenses.

If you’d like to find out more about each QuickBooks alternative, head over to our full review.