QuickBooks cost
QuickBooks pricing: what it actually costs.
checked October 2026What Intuit charges for QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks cost is two bills. The software: Intuit lists QuickBooks Online from $38 a month for Simple Start to $340 for Advanced, plus a $0 Free tier (checked October 2026); payroll is extra. The help you pay a specialist is separate — ours is a fixed fee, quoted after a free, view-only review, never by the hour.
Looking for what our work costs instead? QBSpecialist's fixed-fee pricing.
Last reviewed October 2026 by a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
What this page is based on: Intuit’s own US pricing page, payroll pricing and Desktop stop-sell article (checked October 2026), and our published floors
- Fixed scope, fixed fee
- Quoted after a free review
- No hourly meter
Start here
What are you actually pricing?
Most confusion about QuickBooks cost comes from pricing two different things as if they were one. Sort which one you mean first — the answer routes you straight to the number that matters.
Start here
What are you pricing?
FIXING A DRIFTED FILE
A one-time cleanup fee
A file that won't reconcile or is months behind is scoped as a fixed cleanup — priced by the tangle, not the hour.
What a cleanup costsKEEPING BOOKS CURRENT
A recurring monthly fee
Ongoing bookkeeping is a flat monthly cost to keep the file reconciled and reports current after any cleanup.
What monthly bookkeeping costsADVICE / A SET OF HANDS
A scoped consultant engagement
Setup, a second opinion, or a specific fix is scoped to the task — worth it only when there's real work.
What a consultant costs
Read this as text
- Fixing a drifted file: a one-time cleanup fee, scoped by how tangled the history is.
- Keeping books current: a recurring monthly bookkeeping fee.
- Advice or a specific fix: a scoped consultant engagement.
- Want the full picture in one place? Our transparent pricing page lays out every engagement and its fixed-scope range.
QuickBooks software cost vs. professional help — two separate numbers
The software cost and the help cost are two different bills to two different companies. Your QuickBooks subscription is billed by Intuit, priced by product and plan; the work of fixing or running your books is billed by a specialist, priced by scope. Confusing the two is why a search for "QuickBooks cost" returns numbers that can't both be right.
What Intuit charges for QuickBooks Online
Here is the software side exactly as Intuit displayed it on its US pricing page on October 24, 2026 (checked October 2026). Intuit changes its prices and offers often, so treat this as a dated snapshot and confirm on Intuit's page before you buy. The yearly column is our arithmetic — the regular monthly price times twelve — not an Intuit figure.
| Regular price a month | Twelve months at that price | Intro offer shown | Users | Accountant access | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Free | $0 | $0 | No credit card required | 1 | None |
| Simple Start | $38 | $456 | $19/mo for 3 months | 1 | 2 accountants |
| Essentials | $85 | $1,020 | $42.50/mo for 3 months | 3 | 2 accountants |
| Plus | $140 | $1,680 | $70/mo for 3 months | 5 | 2 accountants |
| Advanced | $340 | $4,080 | $170/mo for 3 months | 25 | 3 accountants |
Intuit's page adds a 30-day free trial on the paid plans, no annual contract and cancel-anytime terms. QuickBooks Free has no mobile app or third-party integrations, and no accountant access — so a bookkeeper or ProAdvisor cannot be invited into it as an accountant user. Three costs the table leaves out:
- Payroll is a separate add-on. Intuit's payroll pricing page sells it bundled with an Online plan: Workforce Payroll with Essentials was listed at $125 a month plus $6.50 per employee, and Workforce Premium with Plus at $203 plus $10 per employee, with half off the base fee for three months (checked October 2026).
- QuickBooks Desktop is priced differently. Enterprise is sold by edition — Gold, Platinum and Diamond — and by user count, from 1 to 10 users up to 30 (40 for Diamond), on Intuit's Enterprise pricing page. New subscriptions to Desktop Pro Plus and Premier Plus ended after September 30, 2024; existing subscribers can keep renewing, and Enterprise is not affected (Intuit's stop-sell article, updated October 2026).
- Card processing through QuickBooks Payments is charged per transaction at Intuit's published rates, not as a subscription — how those fees should be recorded is in our merchant fees explainer.
Our side of the ledger is the other bill: we're an independent practice that works inside the file you already own. We don't resell the subscription, mark it up, or take a cut of it. You keep your own Intuit account, and everything below is the cost of the human work — nothing else.
What drives the cost of QuickBooks help
What sets the number
Read this as text
Three cost drivers — months of drift, the number of accounts and feeds, and how much history was patched over — feed into one fixed-scope quote from the published $1,500 floor. Illustrative diagram, not a measured price.
Three things set almost every number: how far back the books have drifted, how many accounts and connected feeds are involved, and how much the history was patched over before you called. The calendar barely matters — a tangle decides the price, not the age of the file.
Drift is the biggest lever. One recent month off on one account is minutes of work; a year of unreconciled statements across several accounts, with cleared transactions edited inside closed periods, is a structured rebuild. Connected bank and credit-card feeds multiply the surface area, and every prior "adjustment" someone posted to force a balance is a knot we have to untie before the real number appears. That's why we quote after seeing the file, not before.
Why we quote a fixed scope, never by the hour
We price a fixed scope for a fixed fee because hourly billing charges you for how tangled the file is and leaves the total open-ended — the opposite of what you want when you're already unsure what's wrong. A fixed scope puts the number in front of you before any work begins, and it doesn't move because a month took longer than we thought.
An hourly meter also creates the wrong incentive: the slower and more painstaking the work, the bigger the bill, so there's no reward for efficiency and no ceiling for you. A fixed fee flips that — we absorb the risk of a file being messier than it looked, and you get certainty. If the review under-read the scope, we come back and tell you before doing anything extra; nothing is added to the total in silence.
Two pricing models
Read this as text
On the left, an hourly meter has no ceiling and rises with how tangled the file is. On the right, a fixed scope is a single capped figure, shown as $1,500, agreed before work starts. An illustrative comparison of the two pricing models.
The decision
Hourly vs. fixed-scope: how the models compare
The pricing model matters as much as the price. Here's the honest side-by-side of paying by the hour versus paying for an agreed scope — including where hourly is genuinely simpler.
| Hourly | Fixed scope | |
|---|---|---|
| Number known before work starts | ||
| Total can move as the file surprises you | ||
| Who carries the risk of a messy file | You | Us |
| Rewards fast, efficient work | ||
| Simple for a tiny, obvious task | It depends | |
| Changes require your approval first | It depends | |
| Verdict | Open-ended | Certainty up front |
What a QuickBooks cleanup costs
A cleanup is a one-time fixed fee, from $1,500, set by how many months have drifted and how many accounts are involved. You pay it once to bring a file that won't reconcile — or that's been ignored for months — back to a state you can trust and hand to a preparer.
A single account off for one recent period sits at the small end; several accounts drifting across a year, with edited cleared history and forced adjustments to unwind, is a larger scope. We don't invent a figure before the review, because the file decides it. For a full breakdown of what moves the number, see what a QuickBooks cleanup costs, or size your file as a light, standard or complex cleanup with the cleanup cost calculator before you ever talk to us.
What monthly bookkeeping costs
Monthly bookkeeping is a flat recurring fee, from $400/mo, priced by how much moves through your books each month — transaction volume, the number of accounts and feeds, and whether payroll or sales tax are in the picture. Unlike a cleanup, you pay it each month to keep the file reconciled and the reports current.
Many owners run the two together: a one-time cleanup to fix the past, then monthly bookkeeping so it never drifts again. Because the fee is flat and agreed up front, there's no per-transaction meter and no month-end surprise. The detail lives on what monthly bookkeeping costs.
What a QuickBooks consultant costs
A consultant engagement is scoped to the task, from $1,500 — a setup, a second opinion, a specific fix, or advice on how to run the file. It's the right shape of cost when you don't need an ongoing service or a full cleanup, just a specialist's hands on one defined problem.
Because the work is bounded, so is the fee: we agree what "done" looks like before starting, and that defines the number. If the task turns out to be a symptom of a larger mess, we say so and re-scope with you rather than run a meter. See what a QuickBooks consultant costs.
Every engagement, one place
Where to price each kind of QuickBooks work
Each cost has its own page with the drivers spelled out. Start with the one that matches what you're pricing, or see every engagement together on the pricing page.
- Cleanup costA one-time fixed fee to bring a drifted file back to trustworthy. Priced by the tangle.See the cost
- Bookkeeping costA flat monthly fee to keep the file reconciled and reports current.See the cost
- Consultant costA scoped fee for setup, a second opinion, or one defined fix.See the cost
- Full pricingEvery engagement and its fixed-scope range on one transparent page.See pricing
- Cleanup calculatorSize a cleanup as light, standard or complex, from a few questions about your file.Size your cleanup
- Compare optionsWeighing DIY, QuickBooks Live, or a bookkeeper against a specialist? Compare honestly.Compare
How the number is set
How we arrive at your quote
Your number comes from one place: a free, view-only review of your actual file. We look at how far the books have drifted, which accounts and feeds are involved, and what's been patched over — then quote a fixed scope and fee before anything starts.
Access stays view-only for the review; if you approve a scope, the work uses QuickBooks' accountant access to make and log every correction — never your bank logins. You can screen-share and watch the review happen. Reviewing is genuinely how we quote, not a sales step — it's why every dollar figure on this site is a published floor like From $1,500 rather than a made-up range: a real price needs your file, and we won't pretend otherwise. Ready when you are: get your free review.
The honest part
When paying for help isn't worth it
Sometimes the honest answer is that you shouldn't pay anyone. If your problem is one recent month you can reconcile yourself, a software error with a documented DIY step, or a handful of duplicates you can merge in an afternoon, hiring a specialist is overkill — and we'll tell you so during the review.
We'd rather point you to the free steps and keep your goodwill than sell you a project you don't need. A cleanup earns its fee when the numbers are wrong across months, when a balance won't tie no matter what you try, or when a file has to be rebuilt without throwing away the periods that are already right. If you're weighing whether to do it yourself at all, the honest trade-offs live on our compare pages. The review costs nothing, and "you don't need us" is a real outcome — one we give often.
Why our pricing is different
How our pricing is built to be trusted
Our pricing is fixed, quoted after seeing the file, and never billed by the hour — so you carry no open-ended risk and approve every number before work starts. There are no setup charges, no per-transaction surprises, and no add-ons that appear at the end.
That posture is a method, not a slogan. We save your key reports before touching anything and re-run them after, so we can show — not just claim — that the work did what we quoted. If a scope needs to grow because the file held more than the review revealed, we stop and tell you first; nothing is added silently. The same principle runs through our whole practice, documented in our methodology. Prices you can check, work you can verify, and a specialist who tells you when the answer is no.
How to verify our pricing
You don't have to take the number on faith. Here's what you can check — the quote you receive, the method that stands behind it, and our response commitment.
Who’s responsible for your file
A Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor handles your file from the review through the corrections to the hand-back — the same person throughout, never a rotating pool.
About QBSpecialist
Illustrative example — not a client file.Sample fixed-scope quote
The written scope and fixed fee you receive after the free review — no hourly meter, no surprises.
Our methodology
How we prove the work did what we quoted. Read exactly how.
Read the full methodResponse commitment
A written reply within one business day.
Remote-first, nationwide
Mon–Sat · 8am–6pm CT
We work entirely remote — view-only access for the free review, QuickBooks' accountant access for the work itself, every change visible to you in the audit log, and every quote and change documented in writing.
- All 50 states
- Remote-first
- View-only review
Questions about QuickBooks cost
How much does QuickBooks cost?
Two separate numbers. The software: on Intuit's US pricing page (checked October 2026), QuickBooks Online Simple Start was $38 a month, Essentials $85, Plus $140 and Advanced $340, each shown at half price for the first three months, with a Free tier at $0. Payroll is extra. Professional help — a cleanup, monthly bookkeeping or a consultant — is a separate bill to a firm like ours, quoted from your file: cleanups from $1,500, monthly bookkeeping from $400/mo. Mixing the two is why the numbers you find online disagree.
How much is QuickBooks a year?
At the regular monthly prices on Intuit's US pricing page (checked October 2026), twelve months of QuickBooks Online is $456 for Simple Start, $1,020 for Essentials, $1,680 for Plus and $4,080 for Advanced, before sales tax. If you qualify for Intuit's three-month half-price offer, the first year is $57, $127.50, $210 or $510 lower. Payroll, card-processing fees and any outside help come on top.
Is there a free version of QuickBooks?
Yes. Intuit's US pricing page (checked October 2026) lists QuickBooks Free at $0 a month with no credit card required, for one user — without accountant access, the mobile app or third-party integrations, so you cannot invite a bookkeeper or accountant into it as an accountant user. The paid plans come with a 30-day free trial and no annual contract. The free thing on our side is the review: a view-only look at your file that ends in a plain verdict, including 'you don't need us.'
Do you charge by the hour or a fixed price?
A fixed scope with a fixed fee, quoted after a free view-only review — never by the hour. An hourly meter makes the mess your risk and leaves the total open-ended. With a fixed scope you approve the number before work starts, and it doesn't move because a month ran long.
Why won't you give me a price before seeing my file?
Because an honest number needs the file. The cost is set by how many months have drifted, how many accounts are involved, and how tangled the history is — none of which shows in a description. We review the file view-only, free, and quote a figure that holds, rather than invent one that changes the moment we open it.
Is the free review really free?
Yes. It's a view-only look at your file that ends in a plain verdict: a fix you can do yourself, a scoped engagement with a fixed fee, or nothing worth paying for. No charge, no obligation — and if you don't need us, we say so.
How much does a cleanup cost versus monthly bookkeeping?
A cleanup is a one-time fixed fee that brings a drifted file back to trustworthy; monthly bookkeeping is a flat recurring fee that keeps it that way. Many owners do the cleanup first, then move to monthly. Cleanups start at $1,500, monthly bookkeeping at $400/mo, and both are quoted after the review.
Do I still pay Intuit for the QuickBooks software?
Yes. Your QuickBooks subscription is billed by Intuit and is separate from what you pay us. We're an independent practice working inside the file you already own — we don't resell the software, mark it up, or take a cut of the subscription.
Can I get an estimate before the review?
For a cleanup, yes — the cleanup cost calculator turns a few questions about your file into a scope band: light, standard or complex. It sizes the job rather than pricing it, because a dollar figure would mean assuming a rate per transaction we don't publish. It also can't see edited history or accounts that never reconciled. Published cleanup pricing starts at $1,500; the real figure comes from the review.
What if the review shows I don't need to pay for help?
Then we tell you, and you pay nothing. If the problem is one recent month you could reconcile yourself, or a software error with a documented DIY fix, we point you to the free steps instead of quoting a project. 'You don't need us' is a real outcome of the review.
Are there ongoing or hidden fees?
No. A cleanup is a one-time fixed fee for an agreed scope; monthly bookkeeping is a flat recurring fee agreed up front. No setup charges, no per-transaction surprises, no add-ons at the end. If the file holds more than the review showed, we tell you first and you approve the new scope before anything is added.
Not sure how bad it is?
Talk to a QuickBooks specialist.
Describe the file and a specialist will tell you what it needs — including when the answer is that you don't need us.