QuickBooks accounting software review: pros, cons & pricing

Alongside our research team, in January 2025 we completed in-depth analysis and 57 hours of testing of seven top accounting software platforms, and found QuickBooks to be a strong option for small businesses. This was thanks to its sophisticated cash flow projection tools and extensive, customisable reporting. 

QuickBooks also provides a wide range of pricing plans, so whatever your business needs, there should be an option to have you covered. QuickBooks pricing is straightforward and competitive, and to make matters even better, you can currently get 90% off your first six months.

It’s relied upon by small businesses across the UK for its usability and tremendous depth of features, but is it the right option for you? We’ll take you through all QuickBooks’ strengths and weaknesses, based on our in-depth research and user testing, so you can decide for yourself.

QuickBooks

4.5

Visit QuickBooks

• Starting price from: £10 (self-assessment only)
• Free trial: 30 days

• Great bank reconciliation feature
• Predicts your transaction categorisation
• Custom reports and templates tailored to your business’ needs

Summary Part of the American multinational company Intuit Inc., QuickBooks is accounting software specifically designed for SMEs. It currently has 6.5 million subscribers worldwide. We think its intuitive layout combined with detailed features makes it suitable for more advanced business operations. It’s more suited to those working in accountancy rather than small business owners themselves, due to the complexity of the software and steep learning curve.

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How did we test and review QuickBooks?

We take our recommendations seriously here at Startups.

We strive to make sure we’re giving your business the most helpful, relevant, and up-to-date recommendations possible. This is why, at the start of 2025, our dedicated research department carried out a comprehensive evaluation of QuickBooks.

We tested QuickBooks and six other top accounting software platforms undertaking detailed research, analysis, and 57 total hours of actual, hands-on user testing. We evaluated QuickBooks on the six categories we felt were most critical to a small businesses needing accounting software:

• Core accounting capabilities
• Financial planning and visibility tools
• Features that boost your day-to-day efficiency 
• Help and support 
• Pricing 
• Ease of use

We’ll go into detail about how QuickBooks performed in each of those categories below.

What’s it like to use QuickBooks?

What stood out to us when we tested QuickBooks is how well organised the overall layout is. The essential features are logically categorised (which is not always the case amongst competitors), with everything being exactly where it feels like it should be. We also appreciated QuickBooks’ dashboard, especially how it highlights key metrics, like overdue payments.

There are some very nice design touches, like the ability to send payment reminders to clients straight from the “overdue” section. Converting estimates into an invoice was also absolutely seamless.

Everything was intuitively built straight out of the box, but you also have the choice to customise the menus to your liking. The option for tailored navigation was another design element we really appreciated with QuickBooks.

Is QuickBooks easy to use?

Automated workflows really help to reduce manual effort with QuickBooks, but we did find that the learning curve was quite a bit steeper than we had anticipated. In particular, we found tasks such as creating expenses and setting up taxes were very complicated. We spent a significant amount of time trying to do the latter, the process of which could have been much clearer.

We’d also highlight to users that the bank categorisation feature, while powerful, can be easy to make mistakes with. If you do slip up, it can be then quite tricky to undo this if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.  The AI categorisation suggestions are solid, but its still improving.

In our testing we found that the QuickBooks dashboard clearly displayed the key metrics like invoices, expenses and mileage. Source: Startups.co.uk

QuickBooks does involve some rather extensive setup in places, and there’s a fair bit of configuration you need to do to really get the best out of it. It might take you a bit of time to get your head around QuickBooks, but it’s highly functional and intuitive once the rubber hits the road. You do need to regularly use it to get the most out of it.

Expert opinion: Dan Heelan on QuickBooks

The sheer range of features you get access to on the plans (excluding the sole trader, that’s a little restricted) means you have many powerful tools at your disposal. Everything from customisable invoices, to automatic bank feeds, and a great mobile app.

Dan Heelan Accountant and Business Services Director at Heelan Associates Ltd

How much does QuickBooks cost?

We have an entire page dedicated to breaking down how much QuickBooks costs, but essentially, what you need to know is that there are five plans to choose from. These cover a very wide range of costs, starting from £10 + VAT per month, all the way up to £123 + VAT per month.

What you’ll end up paying for QuickBooks is entirely dependent on your specific needs, and what you’re looking to use it for. If you’re self-employed and just need a little extra help to get your VAT sorted for a Self Assessment, you can go for the cheapest plan.

However, if you’re running a slightly more advanced business, and you need multiple users on the account and sophisticated features to help manage an inventory of stock, you’ll be looking at spending a fair bit more.

These are the plans QuickBooks offers, who they’re aimed at, and the standout features that (ideally) justify the price tag for each:

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	Plan	Cost	Best suited for:	Features
Sole Trader	Simple Start	Essentials	Plus	Advanced
£10/month (+ VAT) You can currently get 90% off for the first six months	£16/month (+ VAT) You can currently get 90% off for the first six months	£38/month (+ VAT) You can currently get 90% off for the first six months	£56/month (+ VAT) You can currently get 90% off for the first six months	£123/month (+ VAT) You can currently get 90% off for the first six months
Sole traders not registered for VAT, and single property landlords, and being MTD for Income Tax ready	Sole traders and small business owners who are managing income tax and VAT	Small, growing limited companies	Small businesses that are managing projects and inventories of stock	Businesses that need more sophisticated support like custom permissions and tailored insights
Helps you prepare your self-assessment tax return Receive income tax estimates  Send out invoices	MTD compliant – submit your VAT return directly to HMRC Checks your VAT return for errors Gives you VAT deadline reminders	Bill management Multi-currency support (over 145 currencies) Employee time tracking so you can invoice your clients accurately	Track your products, and see what’s selling the most See the profitability of each of your projects Smart budgeting	Automatic data backup Automate workflows Custom charts and customised dashboards

Is there a free plan?

Unfortunately, QuickBooks doesn’t offer a free plan. Free plans aren’t necessarily the norm amongst accounting software platforms, though, as only one of the providers we evaluated offers a truly free plan: Zoho Books (though Clear Books now offers a free MTD for Income Tax plan). So it would be slightly unfair to penalise QuickBooks for not having one.

However, if you are in the market for a free plan, we’d suggest taking a look at our breakdown of the best free accounting software for your small business. Just keep in mind that if you go for a no-cost option, you might be sacrificing some of the more advanced features that will ultimately make your life easier.

Is QuickBooks worth the money?

We certainly think so, otherwise we wouldn’t have given it second place in our ranking of the best accounting software for small businesses!

QuickBooks might not be the cheapest option out there, and it doesn’t have a free plan like Zoho Books, but we think the depth of the customisability combined with the rich set of core accounting features justifies the price. You’ll also get one of the best mobile accounting apps on the market.

We’d say the Essentials plan (across the five plan options) is the best value for money for small businesses, in regards to cost vs. features. However, only if you’re willing to put the time into learning its complexities.

For example, the bill management feature will be essential for limited companies. While technically there are workarounds for this on the Simple Start plan, it’s certainly not optimal. If you want to be able to see a list of who you owe what to at any time, you’ll need the Essentials plan.

Are there any hidden costs?

One of the benefits of QuickBooks is that there are no hidden charges for extra storage or exit fees.

While not technically a hidden cost, some people can be caught out by the cap on the chart of accounts (this is the amount of categories you can create for expenses and accounting lines). This is capped at 250 on all plan levels, unless you’re on the Advanced plan.

Many users prefer to make various different categories and expense lines for reporting, so this could be quite limiting (unless you’re willing to shell out for the most expensive plan). To avoid this issue, make sure to keep an eye on the amount of categories you are using.

Does payroll functionality cost extra?

Yes, there is an additional charge for adding payroll. There are two different versions of the payroll software:

Core payroll: £5 per month, plus £1.30 per paid employee per month. This is aimed at director-only businesses and smaller businesses who just need to pay a small team either weekly or monthly, and have the ability to generate payslips.

Advanced payroll: £10 per month, plus £1.30 per paid employee per month. This is for slightly more advanced businesses with larger teams that need HR features, an employee portal, and tools like automatic pay runs.

QuickBooks’ key features

One of QuickBooks’ core strengths is its wide range of useful features, so let’s take a deep dive into what it can offer you, and how it will help your business succeed.

The core features: invoicing, quoting and more

• QuickBooks provides some strong support for invoicing, including multi-currency support. It allows you to see when a client has viewed an invoice you’ve sent them, so it’s great for staying on top of your accounting. You can even create your own tailored invoice templates to send out to clients.

Here’s an example of how your invoices will appear on QuickBooks. Source: Startups.co.uk

• The software can sync up with multiple bank accounts (the number will depend on your specific tier, though) and we found that it did this pretty effectively – the reconciliations provided by QuickBooks matched our bank transactions.
• The software can also help you successfully calculate, add, and deduct tax (on all the plans except for Sole Trader), but just be aware that there is a lengthy setup process involved with this. After you’ve set up VAT, you then need to manually assign tax categories to stock for it to properly register on invoices and estimates.

Financial planning: tools for long-term sustainability

• QuickBooks allows you to track upcoming monthly bills and expenses, as well as offering detailed cash flow projection tools that factor in both incoming and outgoing revenue.

QuickBooks’ cash flow projection tools can help you plan your finances. Source: Startups.co.uk

• All plans allow you to create custom reports – you can modify an existing report or even create these from scratch. If you want to set budgets for specific customers, just keep in mind that you’ll need to be on either the Plus or Advanced plan, as this capability is not available on the cheaper tiers.

Equipped for efficiency: the day-to-day running of your business

• QuickBooks has its own marketplace of third-party integrations to help you improve your efficiency, and impressively, it has over 750 applications to choose from.
• QuickBooks is also pretty reliable when it comes to detecting errors and ensuring everything’s accurate. When you’re creating clients, duplicate entries and invoice numbers will be flagged. It also automatically flags mismatched balances.

Is there a mobile app?

QuickBooks does have a mobile app for both iOS and Android, and there are two different versions. There’s the QuickBooks Accounting App, which at the time of writing, is easily one of the best accounting mobile apps for functionality.

You can use it to perform functions on the move like:

• Creating and sending invoices
• Managing your expenses and cash flow
• Tracking mileage (a standout feature for a mobile app)

If you’re a Self-Employed QuickBooks customer, you’ll be able to access the QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE) app. The app assists with completing your Self-Assessment.

What’s QuickBooks’ help and support like?

When talking about the range of help and support options available, QuickBooks has an impressive offering. QuickBooks provides support to its customers via:

• Phone: 8am to 7pm from Monday to Friday
• Live chat: human assistance from 8am to 10pm from Monday to Friday, and from 8am to 6pm on weekends
• Chatbot: 24/7
• A user forum
• A knowledge centre
• Video tutorials and webinars are available as learning resources

The only thing missing from QuickBooks’ admirable selection of support options is email assistance. Aside from that, consider us impressed, and the addition of a 24/7 chatbot could be particularly important for newer businesses, who might need support outside normal business hours.

However we will highlight that QuickBooks’ knowledge centre was a little inconsistent. We were sometimes given articles that weren’t helpful to our queries, and some of our users were given resources that failed to load properly.

Who is QuickBooks best for?

Based on our extensive experience of testing the software, we think QuickBooks would be best suited to business owners who will have the time to spend learning the software (or the money to invest in training), mostly because it will take dedication to truly master QuickBooks and get the most out of the depth of its features.

You can use QuickBooks to create custom reports. Source: Startups.co.uk

If you’re a time poor business owner or sole trader, this isn’t a beginner-friendly software that will do all the heavy lifting for you. You might be better off taking a look at a competitor like FreshBooks if you want software that will hold your hand.

Some specific use cases for business owners considering QuickBooks would be:

• If you operate bank accounts in multiple currencies, but also don’t want to have to pay for extras that you might not use (competitors often bundle this in to more advanced plans)
• You’ll need your accounting software to painlessly plug into other apps (its one of the market leaders when it comes to this)
• You want software that will be able to scale with alongside your business
• If you’re often on the move, and you need a first class mobile experience

Expert opinion: Dan Heelan on QuickBooks

If you’re new to book-keeping for your business, QuickBooks can be difficult to learn and sometimes a little overwhelming. It’s a detailed piece of kit that takes some time to get used to, but if you can master it, it’s an amazing tool. There are arguably more user friendly options, such as Xero, but QuickBooks is absolutely a solid choice for most small businesses.

Dan Heelan Accountant and Business Services Director at Heelan Associates Ltd

In summary

QuickBooks can be a powerful accounting tool for your small business, especially if you’re in the market for advanced insights into your finances and you want customisable software to reduce your manual effort.

It might not be the standout choice for beginners or those who’ve never had to automate a workflow before, but you still might appreciate the range of tools and reasonable pricing if you’re self-employed. In fact, we ranked QuickBooks as one of the best accounting software platforms for self-employed people.

If we were going to give QuickBooks one key piece of feedback, it would be to provide an improved, more detailed onboarding experience. If there was a helping hand to tailor the platform to users’ needs and help overcome any initial stumbling blocks, it would open up the benefits of QuickBooks to all users, not just those who already have accounting software experience.