7 Best QuickBooks Self-Employed Alternatives

Wave has a free plan (Starter) and a paid version (Pro) that costs $16 per month when billed monthly or $170 per year when billed annually. Both plans include basic accounting tools, like income and expense tracking and invoicing, but you’ll get additional features in the paid plan, including bank feeds, unlimited users, and free unlimited receipt scanning.

Add-ons available:

• Wave Receipts: $8 per month or $72 per year (Starter only; included in Pro)
• Wave Payroll: $40 for tax service states or $20 for self-service states, plus an additional $6 per month per active employee or independent contractor (Starter and Pro)
• Wave Advisor: $149 per month for bookkeeping support (Starter and Pro)
• Accounting and payroll coaching: $379 per coaching session and email support (Starter and Pro)

Wave Starter is the best free option for freelancers who are still new to accounting software. It has more features than QuickBooks Self-Employed, like creating and sending invoices without having to manually input all the information, uploading bank transactions from a CSV file, and processing payments. We recommend Wave for freelancers who don’t need complex features like creating custom tags and generating custom reports.

Unfortunately, the free plan doesn’t allow you to connect your bank and credit card accounts, which can be a problem if you process multiple transactions daily. If this is something you want, we recommend upgrading to the Pro plan for just $16 per month.

QuickBooks Solopreneur costs $20 monthly or $120 for the first year if you sign up for the annual contract. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial or purchase right away and get 50% off for three months.

QuickBooks Self-Employed provides basic invoicing, but Solopreneur takes this further by offering customizable invoice templates. Solopreneur uses the same new invoicing feature as all the other QuickBooks plans, where you can see the actual view of your invoice as you complete the fields. This way, you can easily customize your invoices without repeatedly clicking the preview button. That said, if you want more professional-looking invoices but don’t need to necessarily transition to double-entry accounting, Solopreneur is a great option.

In addition to enhanced invoicing, Solopreneur also allows you to categorize transactions, accept partial payments from customers, and set up recurring invoices. It also lets you set up payment reminders and create project estimates—which are significant upgrades from Self-Employed.

However, just like Self-Employed, Solopreneur isn’t a double-entry accounting and therefore can’t generate balance sheets or financial statements. If your business is growing and needs to track assets and liabilities, then you may consider upgrading to Wave.

QuickBooks Online Simple Start costs $35 per month for one user. If you buy now, you can get 50% off for three months and a free one-on-one session with a ProAdvisor to set up your account. Otherwise, you can try QuickBooks Online Simple Start for 30 days free.

If you outgrow Simple Start, you can upgrade to any of the higher plans:

• Essentials: $65 per month for up to three users
• Plus: $99 per month for up to five users
• Advanced: $235 per month for up to 25 users

We selected QuickBooks Online Simple Start as the best scalable alternative to QuickBooks Self-Employed because you can upgrade to more powerful versions as your business grows. With the ability to scale all the way to the Advanced plan with 25 users, it’s unlikely your business will ever outgrow QuickBooks.

Simple Start is a major upgrade from Self-Employed and provides balance sheets or financial statements for tracking business assets and liabilities. Additionally, Simple Start is more suitable for tracking sales tax, as it automatically calculates sales tax rates to apply to invoices. It also allows you to set up vendors and record and track expenses, accept partial payments from customers, create and send estimates, and set up recurring payments—all of which aren’t possible in Self-Employed.

However, Simple Start has no free option, which can be an issue for freelancers who are on a tight budget. If you have simple bookkeeping needs, Wave’s free plan might be sufficient.

The plan is only $20 per month for 5,000 invoices, and you can add up to three users plus one accountant. If you need more users, an additional $3 per user monthly will be added to your bill. You can try the platform for free for 14 days.

Zoho Books is scalable and offers a choice of four additional paid options:

• Professional: $50 per month, includes up to five users and unlimited invoices
• Premium: $70 per month, includes up to 10 users and unlimited invoices
• Elite: $150 per month, includes up to 10 users, unlimited invoices, advanced inventory, and cash flow forecasting
• Ultimate: $275 per month, includes up to 15 users, unlimited invoices, advanced inventory, cash flow forecasting, and advanced analytics

Zoho Books Standard is one of the best alternatives to QuickBooks Self-Employed because it offers more features, including a robust mobile app. The app allows you to create and send invoices, accept payments, and view reports on the go. If you wish to access more mobile accounting features, like time tracking and the ability to assign projects to customers, you may consider upgrading to Professional.

Another benefit of Zoho Books Standard is that, unlike QuickBooks Self-Employed, it allows up to three users, with the option to add more for an additional fee. It is limited to 5,000 invoices, but this should be more than sufficient for most freelancers. However, if you work with many clients and consistently exceed that volume, you may consider Wave for unlimited free invoicing and accounting.

Patriot Premium costs $30 monthly for unlimited users, and a 60-day free trial is available. It offers all the basic and intermediate features that self-employed individuals will need.

Patriot offers basic payroll for $17 a month (fixed fee) plus $4 per employee. If you want assistance in filing payroll taxes, you can get the full-service payroll at a fixed fee of $37 a month plus $4 per employee.

To learn more about its payroll offerings, read our in-depth Patriot Payroll review.

We chose Patriot as a QuickBooks Self-Employed alternative because it is affordable and has all the features needed for basic bookkeeping—plus it features a direct integration to Patriot Payroll (charged separately). If you need to process employee wages, Patriot’s solutions create a seamless payroll processing experience, especially for business owners with no payroll experience.

What’s more, its prices are at least half of what QuickBooks Online Payroll charges, making it the better alternative for affordable payroll integration. Patriot is easy to use for freelancers wanting to do-it-yourself (DIY) their bookkeeping and also has features that QuickBooks Self-Employed lacks, including accounts receivable (A/R) and accounts payable (A/P) tracking, bank reconciliation, and recurring invoices.

A huge drawback is the lack of a mobile app, which can be a problem for most modern freelancers and business owners. If you often work on the go, you may consider QuickBooks Online’s or Zoho Books’ mobile accounting app.

ZipBooks Sophisticated is $35 per month for unlimited users, and a 30-day free trial is available. It comes with all of ZipBooks’ features, such as recurring invoices, customizable chart of accounts, and time tracking.

You can get free access to the software if you subscribe to an assisted bookkeeping plan, such as Simple Bookkeeping ($125 per month) or Multi-classifications Bookkeeping ($145 a month) plan. The provider also offers vendor and 1099 preparation services starting at $175 monthly.

We chose ZipBooks Sophisticated as this highest plan is still priced affordably at $35 a month. If you want to outsource bookkeeping, ZipBooks offers monthly bookkeeping assistance that comes with a ZipBooks Plan. This means that you don’t have to pay for the software subscription if you decide to let ZipBooks handle your books.

However, just like Self-Employed, ZipBooks also isn’t that great in terms of invoicing, so we recommend Solopreneur or Simple Start if you want professional-looking invoices.

Quicken Business & Personal is $3.99 per month for one user. There is no free trial, but you can try it risk-free with the provider’s 30-day money-back guarantee.

We chose Quicken Business & Personal for individuals managing rental properties because it has rental management features, such as custom tools for tracking rent and occupancy rates, sending reminders, and generating real-time reports for income, expenses, property values, and market projections.

Quicken can also be used to manage retirement 401(k) plans and track home values. We recommend Quicken as the best QuickBooks Self-Employed alternative for landlords because QuickBooks Self-Employed lacks basic rental management features.