QuickBooks Online has four pricing tiers. The right one depends on how many users you need, whether you track inventory, and how detailed your reporting needs to be. Prices do change, so verify with Intuit for the most current numbers, but here is roughly what to expect.

Simple Start runs about $35 per month. You get one user, basic income and expense tracking, invoicing, receipt capture, and mileage tracking. This works for solopreneurs and freelancers who just need to track money in and money out. The biggest limitation is one user. If you want your bookkeeper to have their own login, you need to step up to the next plan.

Essentials runs about $65 per month. You get three users, bill management, and time tracking. This is where most service-based small businesses land. Three user seats mean you, your bookkeeper, and one other team member can each have access. Bill management lets you track what you owe vendors rather than just recording expenses after the fact.

Plus runs about $99 per month. You get five users, inventory tracking, project profitability, budgets, and class or location tracking. If you sell physical products, run a restaurant, or need to see profitability by job or project, this is typically the tier you need. Contractors and retailers tend to end up here for the inventory and job-level features.

Advanced runs about $235 per month. You get up to 25 users, custom user roles, batch invoicing, and enhanced analytics. Most small businesses don’t need this. It is built for companies with bigger teams and more complex reporting.

Intuit regularly discounts new subscriptions, often 50% off for the first three months. That introductory pricing makes it easy to underestimate your real ongoing cost, so budget around the full monthly rate from the start.

One thing that catches people off guard is that payroll is not included in any plan. QuickBooks Payroll is a separate add-on starting around $50 per month plus per-employee fees. Same goes for QuickBooks Payments if you want to accept credit cards through invoices. These extras add up, so factor them into your total cost.

Most Wisconsin small businesses that work with Rock Steady Bookkeeping end up on either Essentials or Plus. Simple Start becomes too limited the moment someone else needs access to your books, and Advanced is more than most businesses under a few million in revenue will ever use.

The subscription cost is just the starting point though. What really matters is whether QuickBooks is configured correctly for your business. A Plus subscription with the right chart of accounts, proper classes, and clean categories gives you financial reports you can actually use to make decisions. The same subscription with default settings gives you numbers you can’t trust. If you are picking a plan or starting fresh, QuickBooks Online setup and training makes a real difference in whether the software actually works for you long term.