QuickBooks Online Comparison: Simple Start vs Essentials vs Plus

QuickBooks Online offers three versions: Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus. The features increase with each version, along with the price. You’ll pay $20 for Simple Start, $35 for Essentials, and $60 for Plus. The best QuickBooks Online option depends on your number of users and whether your business needs accounts payable, inventory, or budgeting features.

When to Use QuickBooks Online Simple Start

QuickBooks Online Simple Start is best for solopreneurs who pay all of their bills online and only sell services (no products). In addition, Simple Start only includes a single user and one accountant. While it does not have all of the features that Essentials and Plus have, Simple Start allows you to track income and expenses, manage accounts receivable, and pay employees. Save up to 50% on QuickBooks Online Simple Start now.

QuickBooks Online Simple Start Pricing

QuickBooks Online Simple Start is $20 per month, which is $240 per year. You can save money on a paid QuickBooks subscription by paying for the year upfront instead of monthly. In addition, you could qualify for up to 50% off the first three months of your paid QuickBooks subscription.

QuickBooks Online Simple Start Features

You can manage all of your income and expenses with QuickBooks Online Simple Start. QuickBooks Online Simple Start allows you to invoice customers, connect your bank and credit card accounts, track sales tax, and run basic financial statements. Generate Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports in just a few minutes with QuickBooks Online Simple Start.

When to Use QuickBooks Online Essentials

QuickBooks Online Essentials is best for small businesses that not only need to track income and expenses and manage accounts receivable, but that also need to track the money owed to suppliers (accounts payable). Essentials is also ideal if you need to give other people access to your data. With Online Essentials, you can give up to three users access to your data, as well as two accountant users. Save up to 50% on QuickBooks Online Essentials now.

When to Use QuickBooks Online Plus

QuickBooks Online Plus is ideal for a business that sells products and services. Unlike Simple Start and Essentials, you can track inventory costs and quantities, create purchase orders, and issue 1099s to contractors with Plus.

Another feature that Plus has is the ability to create a budget for income and expenses. This tool helps match actuals to projected income and expenses. Save up to 50% on QuickBooks Online Plus now.

QuickBooks Online Versions Comparison Chart

Feature	Simple Start	Essentials	Plus
Monthly cost	$20	$35	$60
Track your income and expenses	✔	✔	✔
Manage accounts receivable (invoice customers and receive payments)	✔	✔	✔
Invite your accountant to access your data	✔	✔	✔
Download your bank and credit card transactions	✔	✔	✔
Add payroll service	✔	✔	✔
Add online payments service	✔	✔	✔
Print checks instead of manually writing them	✔	✔	✔
Manage accounts payable (schedule & pay vendor bills)	✕	✔	✔
# Users included with monthly subscription	1	3	5
#Reports you can run in just a few clicks	20+	40+	65+
Create purchase orders to place orders with suppliers	✕	✕	✔
Track inventory using FIFO method	✕	✕	✔
Prepare & issue 1099s to contractors	✕	✕	✔
Track billable hours by customer	✕	✕	✔
Create & manage budgets	✕	✕	✔
Track profitability for multiple locations	✕	✕	✔
Get started	Simple Start	Essentials	Plus

QuickBooks Online Comparison Simple Start

When doing a QuickBooks Online (QBO) comparison, QuickBooks Simple Start is the most affordable, but it does not offer the additional features that Online Essentials and Plus offer. Simple Start is generally right for a business that is currently tracking income and expenses using one or more manual options like the “shoebox” method or Excel spreadsheets.

QuickBooks Online Simple Start Pricing & Features

QuickBooks Online Simple Start costs $20 per month, which is $240 annually. While it does include fewer features than Essentials and Plus, you can manage your accounts receivable, give your accountant or tax professional access to your data, and run over 20 reports to help you determine the overall health of your business. Simple Start is very easy to set up and, when compared to Essentials and Plus, the simplest to use.

What’s Missing in QBO Simple Start

If you need to track inventory cost and quantities, hire 1099 contractors, or manage accounts payable, QBO Simple Start will not work for you; you will need to go with one of the other two QuickBooks online versions: Essentials or Plus.

Here are some of the features that are not included in a QBO Simple Start subscription:

• Manage and pay bills from vendors
• Give anyone (other than your accountant) access to your data
• Create purchase orders
• Track inventory
• Prepare and issue 1099s
• Track billable hours by customer
• Create and manage budgets
• Track profitability for multiple locations

QuickBooks Online Simple Start Reviews

Customers who use QuickBooks Online Simple Start like how affordable the plan is ($20 per month) for the features that are included, such as accounts receivable, connect bank and credit card accounts, and the ability to use the mobile app to perform certain transactions. Visit our customer QuickBooks Online reviews page to see individual reviews.

Where to Get QBO Simple Start

If you have never used a computerized program to manage your bookkeeping or if you are tired of using complicated Excel spreadsheets to keep track of everything, give QuickBooks Online Simple Start a try. If you’re still not sure whether QuickBooks Online Simple Start is right for you, why not take advantage of their free, 30-day trial and see if it makes managing your books easier?

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QuickBooks Online Comparison Essentials

One advantage QuickBooks Essentials has over QuickBooks Simple Start is the ability to manage all aspects of accounts payable, including entering bills and paying bills, and run an A/P Aging report to stay on top of bill due dates. Essentials is generally right for a business that may currently be using a combination of manual processes like Excel spreadsheets and Word documents to manage their bookkeeping.

QuickBooks Online Essentials Pricing & Features

Essentials is a bit pricier at $35 per month, which comes to $180 more a year than Simple Start. However, with the heftier price tag, you get more users (three users and two accountants versus one user and one accountant with Simple Start.)

In addition, you can manage all of your bills and get 40 pre-built reports, which is twice the number of reports that are included in Simple Start! QuickBooks Online Essentials is right for a business that has heavy accounts payable and needs to give other users access to their data.

What’s Missing in QBO Essentials

If you need to hire 1099 contractors, sell products, or need to give more than three users access to your data, QBO Essentials will not work for you; you will need to go with QBO Plus.

Listed below are some of the features that are not included in QuickBooks Online Essentials:

• Track inventory
• Prepare and issue 1099s
• Track billable hours by customer
• Create and manage budgets
• Track profitability for multiple locations

QuickBooks Online Essentials Reviews

Customers who use QuickBooks Online Essentials like the ability to give more than one user access to their data. In addition, they like the ability to take a picture of a receipt with the app and automatically sync the information with their QuickBooks. Having access to view reports using the mobile app is another popular feature. Visit our customer reviews page to see individual reviews.

Where to Get QBO Essentials

QBO Essentials makes it easier to organize payments to vendors by reminding you when bills are due and allowing you to pay vendors directly from QuickBooks. Sign up for a free 30-day trial of QuickBooks Online Essentials to see how easy it is to keep track of your business finances.

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QuickBooks Online Comparison Plus

One of the key differences that make QBO Plus stand apart from Simple Start and Essentials is it allows you to track inventory quantities and cost. Neither Simple Start nor Essentials has this capability. QBO Plus is ideal for a business that sells products and needs to keep track of every aspect of purchasing and receiving products into inventory, as well as the sale of those products to customers.

QuickBooks Online Plus Pricing & Features

At $60 per month, QBO Plus is the top tier of all three pricing plans. It’s triple the cost of Simple Start ($20 per month) and almost double the cost of Essentials ($35 per month). For the extra money, you get the ability to track all inventory costs and quantities, more users (five plus two accountants), and three times the reports that come with Simple Start (more than 65).

What’s Missing in QBO Plus

QBO Plus ideally has everything that most product and service-based businesses need to manage their books. However, if I had to pick one thing that all three QuickBooks online versions are missing, it would be the functionality that a manufacturing business might need, such as the ability to create a bill of materials.

If you are a manufacturing business, QuickBooks Premier Manufacturing is going to be your best bet. Our QuickBooks Desktop Product comparison is a great resource to learn more about the cost and features of the desktop product line.

QuickBooks Online Plus Reviews

Customers who use QuickBooks Online Plus like how easy it is to track quantities and cost for products when they are purchased from suppliers and sold to customers. They also like how easy it is to run reports in just a few minutes so they can stay on top of how their business is doing. You can check our customer reviews page for more details.

Where to Get QBO Plus

QBO Plus makes tracking the purchase and sale of products a piece of cake! Hiring 1099 contractors and tracking their payments is another great reason to give QBO Plus a shot. Try QuickBooks Online Plus for just $30 per month for the first three months.

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QuickBooks Simple Start vs QuickBooks Essentials

QuickBooks Essentials is going to be the better choice for most small businesses because of the services offered, including the ability to manage accounts payable. The three primary differences between QBO Simple Start versus QBO Essentials are the ability to schedule and pay vendor bills, the number of users included with the subscription, and the number of reports that are included.

QuickBooks Simple Start vs QuickBooks Essentials at a Glance

Feature	Simple Start	Essentials
Manage accounts payable (schedule & pay vendor bills)	✕	✔
Number of users included with monthly subscription	1	3
Number of reports you can run in just a few clicks	20+	40+

When it comes to comparing QuickBooks Simple Start to Essentials, here is some additional information on the three key differences:

1. Manage & Pay Vendor Bills

Unlike Simple Start, you can manage your entire accounts payable process with Essentials. This includes, but is not limited to, creating and managing vendor information such as remit to address, due dates, and contact information. You can also enter bills from vendors, and QuickBooks will remind you when a bill is coming due. Finally, you can write checks directly from QuickBooks to pay bills.

2. Give Access to Multiple Users

All three versions of QuickBooks Online allow you to provide access to your accountant on top of your user access. With Essentials, you can give two additional users access to your data. You can also specify which areas of QuickBooks these users have access to. For example, if your bookkeeper is only responsible for invoicing customers, you can give him/her access to just invoicing customers and nothing else. Learn more about the different kinds of QuickBooks user accounts.

3. Number of Pre-built Reports

When you sign up for QuickBooks Online Essentials, you get access to more than 40 pre-built reports. This is more than double the reports that come with the Simple Start version. The Company Snapshot, Customer Balance Detail, and Profit and Loss Detail are just a few of the additional reports available in Online Plus.

Below is a brief description of three additional reports available in QuickBooks Online Plus:

• Company Snapshot – The Company Snapshot report provides an overview of the money coming in and going out of your business, along with the ability to compare your business to others in your industry.
• Scorecard – With the Scorecard, you can compare your performance in net profit margin, sales growth, and cash flow with other businesses in your industry.
• Profit and Loss Detail – The Profit and Loss Detail report shows year-to-date transactions instead of just totals like the Profit and Loss Summary report.

QuickBooks Essentials vs QuickBooks Plus at a Glance

Feature	Essentials	Plus
Number of users included with monthly subscription	3	5
Number of reports you can run in just a few clicks	40+	65+
Create purchase orders to place orders with suppliers	✕	✔
Track inventory using FIFO method	✕	✔
Prepare & issue 1099s to contractors	✕	✔
Track billable hours by customer	✕	✔
Create & manage budgets	✕	✔
Track profitability for multiple locations	✕	✔

1. Number of Users Who Can Access Data – QuickBooks Online Essentials comes with five user access and up to two accountant user access.

2. Number of Pre-built Reports – With QuickBooks Online Plus, you get access to more than 65 pre-built reports. That’s 25 more reports than what you get with Essentials!

3. Profit and Loss by Class – This report shows revenue and expenses categorized by department or location.

4. Transaction Detail by Account – This report lists individual transactions subtotaled by each account on your chart of accounts.

5. Create Purchase Orders – QuickBooks Online Plus allows you to create purchase orders and email them to your suppliers to place your product orders.

6. Track Inventory – If you need to track inventory of the products that you sell, Plus allows you to track your inventory using the FIFO method.

7. Print and Prepare 1099s – If you hire contractors who need a 1099, you can manage this process using QuickBooks Online Plus.

8. Track Billable Hours by Customer – There is a time tracking feature in QuickBooks Plus that allows you to track billable hours back to your customers.

9. Create and Manage Budgets – QuickBooks Online Plus allows you to create monthly, quarterly, or annual budgets so that you can estimate future income and expenses.

10. Track Profitability for Multiple Locations – If you have multiple store locations, you can track sales, expenses, and overall profitability for each location in QuickBooks Online Plus.

Since accounts payable is an essential part of bookkeeping, we do not recommend QBO Simple Start, which is why we chose not to do a feature comparison chart to QBO Plus. We recommend that you go with QBO Essentials or Plus.

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Alternatives to QuickBooks Online

If you’re looking for an alternative to QuickBooks, we’ve got three great recommendations for you: Xero, FreshBooks, and Wave Accounting. Xero is our #1 recommended alternative to QuickBooks, FreshBooks is ideal if you need to streamline your customer billing and payment process, and Wave Accounting is a full featured accounting software that you can for free—no strings.

Our recommended alternatives to QuickBooks Online are:

Xero

Xero is the best alternative software to QuickBooks Online. Similar to QuickBooks Online, it has three subscription levels that run between $9 and $60 per month. When it comes to features, Xero includes the same features found in QuickBooks Online. However, they do not offer live telephone support, so you will have to email the support team and wait for a response. QuickBooks provides unlimited telephone and chat support.

Check out our Xero versus QuickBooks comparison to see how Xero stacks up against QuickBooks when it comes to price, features, and customer reviews.

FreshBooks

If you need to automate your accounts receivable process, FreshBooks does a great job by allowing you to schedule invoices so that they go out automatically via email. You can create custom, professional invoices, send invoices via email, accept online payments, and run a detailed A/R Aging report all from within FreshBooks! FreshBooks has three pricing plans between $15 and $50 per month.

Be sure to check out our FreshBooks versus QuickBooks comparison to see how FreshBooks stacks up against QuickBooks Online.

Wave

Strapped for cash and don’t have money in the budget for accounting software? If so, then Wave is ideal for you. Wave is a full accounting software program that goes beyond performing basic bookkeeping tasks. The best part is that Wave is absolutely FREE. Wave allows you to give access to an unlimited number of users and you can manage more than one business within the same account, free of charge.

Read our Wave versus QuickBooks Online comparison to see how Wave stacks up against QuickBooks Online.

Frequently Asked Questions About QuickBooks Online

We have included a list of frequently asked questions about QuickBooks Online. If you don’t see your question, head over to our Fit Small Business Forum and post your question. We respond daily to questions posted in our forum by small business owners like you!

The most frequently asked questions about QuickBooks Online are:

How Much Is QuickBooks Online a Month?

QuickBooks Online has three pricing plans: Simple Start is $20 per month, Essentials is $35 per month, and Plus is $60 per month. As a Fit Small Business reader, you may qualify to save up to 50% off a paid subscription.

Is There an Online Version of QuickBooks?

Yes, you can choose from three pricing plans that cost between $20 and $60 per month. QuickBooks Online can manage all of your income and business expenses like QuickBooks desktop.

Does QuickBooks Online Have Payroll?

You can turn on the payroll feature in QuickBooks Online whenever you are ready to use it. The starting cost is $39 per month plus $4 per employee per month. QuickBooks payroll will automatically calculate paychecks, allow you to pay with check or direct deposit, and file and pay taxes electronically.

Can I Use Both QuickBooks Online & QuickBooks Desktop?

Unfortunately, you cannot use both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. The QuickBooks Online product is a cloud-based software and the desktop software must be installed on a computer. There is no way to use them both to manage your business bookkeeping because they are on two completely different platforms.

Bottom Line

By now, you have probably learned everything that you ever wanted to know about QuickBooks Online. Now it’s time for you to choose a QuickBooks Online plan. To get up and running quickly, check out our free QuickBooks Course. We designed it for small business owners who are brand new to QuickBooks.

Sign up for a free trial of QuickBooks Online or get up to 50% off for the first three months so you can get your business set up on QuickBooks today. The most popular version of QBO is Essentials; however, if you need to track inventory quantities and cost, or want to try out the budgeting tool, go with QBO Plus.

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