What is QuickBooks?

QuickBooks Online is Intuit's cloud accounting software for small businesses, covering invoicing, bank-transaction import, bookkeeping, reports and payments. It runs in a web browser, and Intuit's AI features (Intuit Assist and Intuit Intelligence) are built into it for US customers.

Who it's for

Intuit's plan pages scale from a single user (Simple Start) to up to 25 users (Advanced), so it suits sole proprietors through growing small and mid-sized businesses. Some AI features are U.S.-only, and Intuit says feature availability varies by product and plan.

Pros & cons

Strengths

Intuit lists four paid plans with user counts of 1 (Simple Start), 3 (Essentials), 5 (Plus) and 25 (Advanced), plus 2 or 3 included accountant seats, and says there is no contract and you can cancel anytime.
The pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 a month with no credit card required, and a 30-day free trial for the paid plans.
Intuit says Intuit Assist can turn forwarded emails, uploaded photos or scanned QR codes into estimate, invoice, bill or expense drafts for the user to review and send, and can draft invoice reminders based on client history.
Intuit's July 2025 release names AI agents for payments, accounting, finance and customer tasks (for example invoice tracking and reminders, categorization and reconciliation help, forecasting and KPI analysis, lead sourcing), and says the customer stays in control.
Intuit says Intuit Intelligence answers questions using real-time company data across accounting, payments and payroll, and can perform multi-step tasks and custom automations set up through chat.
Intuit documents a QuickBooks connector for Claude (US customers) that can run reports, import transactions, and create, send and delete invoices and estimates, with deletes requiring the user's confirmation.

Limitations

The listed prices of $38, $85, $140 and $340 a month are shown with a 50% discount for the first 3 months for new customers only; after that the then-current monthly price is billed, and the pages show no annual billing option.
Intuit Intelligence chat has monthly usage limits that reset each billing cycle; extra prompts are a $10 a month add-on that Intuit says does not give unlimited prompts, and some chat features on the pricing page are marked beta or limited capacity.
AI features are tiered: the pricing page lists Payments, Accounting and Business Tax AI from Essentials, Sales Tax and Customer AI from Plus, and Project Management and Finance AI on Advanced, and the July 2025 release says the Payments Agent is not available in Advanced. Intuit Assist invoice reminders are also not available in Advanced.
Payroll (QuickBooks Workforce), QuickBooks Payments, bill payments and 1099 e-filing carry separate fees; the discount and trial cover only the monthly base price, and the subscription page lists no price for payroll fees or extra users.
Intuit's pages disagree on the Free plan: the main pricing page and its trial version list it (1 user, 2 invoices a month, top 3 reports, 1 bank, no mobile app or third-party integrations), but the subscription-levels page and the discount page list only the trial. Intuit says Intuit Assist is offered at no additional cost to certain users and may be discontinued or repriced.

Plans and pricing

QuickBooks Free: $0. 1 user, no accountant access, 2 invoices a month, top 3 reports, 1 bank connection, chat support; no mobile app or third-party integrations. No AI features are listed. Not shown on every Intuit page.
Simple Start: $38 a month ($19 a month for the first 3 months for new customers). 1 user plus 2 accountants; invoicing, 20+ reports, bank import, automated bookkeeping; expense categorization and a beta task-learning feature are listed.
Essentials: $85 a month ($42.50 a month for the first 3 months for new customers). 3 users plus 2 accountants and time-tracking-only access; adds audit log, recurring transactions, multi-currency, 40+ reports; Accounting, Payments and Business Tax AI listed.
Plus: $140 a month ($70 a month for the first 3 months for new customers). 5 users plus 2 accountants and reports-only access; adds inventory, budgeting, project profitability, 40 classes and locations, 65+ reports; Sales Tax AI and Customer AI listed.
Advanced: $340 a month ($170 a month for the first 3 months for new customers). 25 users plus 3 accountants; adds custom permissions, workflow automation, Excel sync, batch invoices, unlimited classes and locations, priority support; Project Management AI and Finance AI listed.

Prices were read from Intuit's pricing, subscription-levels and discount pages (US, billed monthly in USD); the promo fine print on the pricing page could not be read, and the Intuit page text showed Essentials as '$4250', read here as $42.50. The Free plan appears on the pricing page but not on the subscription or discount pages. Confirm on the live pricing page.

Details checked October 2026 against the vendor's own pages. Prices and limits change, so confirm before you buy. Official pricing page ↗

Sources

This profile was compiled from these public pages. We have not run hands-on tests.

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QuickBooks — at a glance

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