QuickBooks Online vs. Xero

Xero doesn't care how many people use it. QuickBooks charges for each one.

That decides this comparison more often than any feature does. A five-person team pays $55 a month on Xero and $140 on QuickBooks Plus, and the gap widens with every hire.

None of that makes QuickBooks the wrong choice. It's the US default, your accountant almost certainly already works in it, and its top tier does things Xero doesn't attempt at any price. Those advantages cost money, though, and you should know exactly how much before you commit to them.

What each one costs

⚠️ Xero has announced a price increase effective October 1, 2026, so check their page if you're reading this later.

Both run aggressive new-customer promotions, and both change the terms often enough that it isn't worth quoting them. Check each vendor's page for what's live, then budget on the regular price above. Promos end and renewals don't.

Xero Early has hard limits: 20 invoices and 5 bills per month. Cross either and you're on Growing. If you send 30 invoices a month, Early isn't a $25 plan for you, it's a $55 plan.

The seat math

This is the part that actually separates them.

Xero doesn't charge per user on any plan. A solo founder and a fifteen-person company pay the same subscription. QuickBooks includes 1 user on Simple Start, 3 on Essentials, 5 on Plus, and 25 on Advanced.

Run it for a five-person team that needs access to the books:

• Xero Growing: $55/month. $660 a year.
• QuickBooks Plus: $140/month. $1,680 a year.

Essentials caps at three users, so a fourth person forces the jump to Plus. That's $55 a month for one seat.

At ten people it gets starker. Xero is still $55. QuickBooks needs Advanced at $340, because Plus tops out at five.

Both include free accountant access on top of your user count, so your bookkeeper isn't eating a seat either way.

Where Xero wins

Price, at every comparable tier. Not marginally. Early undercuts Simple Start by $13, Growing undercuts Essentials by $30, Established undercuts Plus by $50.

Unlimited users. Covered above, and it compounds as you hire.

Cash-flow forecasting on every plan. Xero gives you a 30-day forecast on Early, 60 days on Growing, and 180 days on Established. QuickBooks doesn't forecast cash flow at all until Advanced at $340.

The app ecosystem. Xero's app marketplace is the bigger of the two. If your stack is unusual, that matters more than any feature comparison.

Onboarding. Free setup with a product specialist for your first 90 days, plus Xero Coach calls to connect your banks and set up your dashboard.

Where QuickBooks Online wins

Your accountant already knows it. QuickBooks is the US default, and most bookkeepers trained on it. That's not a feature. It's still why a lot of finance teams pick it. Onboarding a bookkeeper who's used QuickBooks for a decade costs less than the subscription difference.

Depth at the top end. Advanced has no Xero equivalent: 25 users, unlimited classes and locations, and the only cash-flow and profit forecasting QuickBooks offers. Xero's Established plan doesn't try to compete there.

Class and location tracking. Plus gives you 40 classes and locations, Advanced makes them unlimited. If you need to split reporting by department, product line, or site, this is the mechanism.

Inventory on Plus. Included at $140. On Xero, inventory means the Inventory Plus add-on, and it isn't available on Early at all.

Where both fall short

Accounting software tells you what happened. It's built for that, and both of these do it well.

Neither is built to tell you where you're going.

Forecasting is the clearest gap. Xero's best plan gives you a 180-day cash-flow projection off your bank feed. QuickBooks charges $340 a month before it forecasts anything. Neither models scenarios. Neither lets you build a rule and roll it forward. Neither knows what your sales pipeline looks like.

Neither reports subscription metrics. MRR movement, churn by cohort, LTV, expansion revenue — none of it is in either tool. They weren't built for recurring revenue. Your bank feed knows money arrived. It doesn't know whether that was a new customer, an upgrade, or a reactivation.

For a SaaS company, that's the difference between bookkeeping and knowing how the business is doing.

Where Forecast+ fits

Forecast+ is not accounting software and doesn't replace either tool. It connects to QuickBooks Online or Xero, pulls your actual P&L, and builds the forecasting layer neither one has. You still need one of them underneath.

What it adds:

A financial model that updates itself. Runway, burn rate, CAC, expense breakdown by department, and budget-versus-actual, fed by your books rather than a spreadsheet someone maintains by hand.

Revenue split by source. QuickBooks' class tracking is useful, but bank-level data can't tell you which channel, product, or plan drove a number. Forecast+ can.

Scenario planning. Target, base, and worst case, modeled side by side, with rules you define.

Google Sheets integration, so your team can build their own metrics — revenue per employee, whatever your board asks for.

Forecast+ is included free with any paid Baremetrics Metrics plan. The forecasting tools accounting platforms point you toward are usually a separate purchase.

What we won't claim: Forecast+ doesn't do bookkeeping, bank reconciliation, invoicing, sales tax, or payroll. If you're choosing between QuickBooks and Xero, you still need to choose. This is the layer that goes on top of whichever you pick.

Which should you pick

Xero if more than two or three people need access to the books. Also if you want cash-flow forecasting without paying $340 for it, or you're price-sensitive and the feature gap doesn't reach anything you use.

QuickBooks Online if your accountant works in it and switching them costs more than the subscription difference, you need class and location tracking for departmental reporting, or you need Advanced-tier depth that Xero doesn't offer at any price.

Either, honestly, if you're small and simple. At the entry tier you're comparing $25 against $38 for tools that both do the fundamentals well. Pick the interface you prefer and stop researching.

You'll need something else for forecasting and subscription metrics. Either way.