QuickBooks Online vs Xero
QuickBooks Online or Xero? Here is how they compare on price, free plan, platforms and the jobs each does best, from each vendor's own pages.
| Compared on | Visit | Visit |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Intuit's cloud accounting for US small businesses, from a free tier to plans with AI bookkeeping | Cloud accounting with three US plans, no per-user fees, Gusto payroll and the JAX AI assistant |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $38/mo (Simple Start)QuickBooks Online pricing | $27/mo (Early)Xero pricing |
| What it covers | 1 user plus access for 2 accountants. Promotion: 50% off ($19/month) for the first 3 months. No annual contract; the pricing page shows no annual price. | Per organization, no per-user licence fees; send quotes and 20 invoices, enter 5 bills; auto-reconcile is a $5/month add-on. Promotion: 90% off ($2.70/month) for the first 6 months for new US customers, until 2 November 2026. |
| Free trial | 30-day free trial, shown alongside the 50%-off offer on the pricing page | One month free on any Xero plan |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Web |
| Integrations (vendor's figure) | 800+ integrations | Integrate with 1000+ apps |
| Open source | No | No |
| Made by | Intuit Inc. | Xero Limited |
Choose QuickBooks Online if…
- You want a free plan: Xero does not have one.
- You want a mobile app (iOS and Android).
- The job is US small businesses that want accounting, invoicing and payroll from one vendor.
- The job is sole owners starting on a free plan with a few invoices a month.
Choose Xero if…
- Price matters: its cheapest paid plan is $27/mo against $38/mo.
- The job is small businesses that want several people in the books without per-user fees.
- The job is businesses that work closely with an accountant or bookkeeper.
Still weighing it up?
If neither is quite right, QuickBooks Online and Xero are also compared with their other rivals: QuickBooks Online vs FreshBooks, Xero vs FreshBooks and Wave vs QuickBooks Online.
What QuickBooks Online does
- Bank and credit card feeds that sync transactions and learn how you categorise them
- Invoices that customers pay by card or bank transfer through QuickBooks Payments, with status updates and reminders
- Bill pay by ACH, with 1099 e-filing and approval workflows on Advanced (Bill Pay Elite)
- Receipt photos matched to expenses and mileage tracking in the mobile app
- Intuit Intelligence AI by plan: Accounting AI, Payments AI, Business Tax AI, Sales Tax AI, Customer AI, Finance AI and Project Management AI
- AI Chat for questions about your business (beta, limited capacity) from Simple Start
Watch out for
- Free plan: 1 user, 2 invoices a month unless QuickBooks Payments is enabled, 1 bank connection, no mobile app or third-party integrations
- User caps: 1 on Simple Start, 3 on Essentials, 5 on Plus, 25 on Advanced
- Inventory, budgets and project profitability need Plus ($140/mo); workflow automation and custom permissions need Advanced ($340/mo)
What Xero does
- Bank connections to 21,000+ institutions, with bank reconciliation on every plan
- JAX auto-reconciles transactions when it is highly confident and suggests matches otherwise (Growing and above)
- JAX AI chat answers questions about your financials with charts and tables, researches tax and benchmarks, and drafts invoices from quotes
- Smart Document Capture for bills and receipts on every plan
- Quotes, invoices and online invoice payments, plus free standard ACH bill payments
- Cash flow forecasts of 30, 60 or 180 days, dashboards and scorecards by plan
Watch out for
- Early caps you at 20 invoices and 5 bills, and auto-reconcile costs $5 a month extra
- Multi-currency, projects and expense claims need Established ($97/mo)
- Payroll costs $36 a month plus $6 per person through Gusto
Questions
Is QuickBooks Online or Xero cheaper?
On published entry prices, Xero is cheaper: $38/mo (Simple Start) for QuickBooks Online against $27/mo (Early) for Xero. What each plan includes differs, so compare the limits too.
Do QuickBooks Online and Xero have free plans?
QuickBooks Online does; Xero does not; its trial: one month free on any Xero plan.