QuickBooks Self Employed Alternative That Tracks Payouts, Not Just Taxes
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In short
QuickBooks Self-Employed is no longer sold to new customers. Intuit replaced it with QuickBooks Solopreneur at $20 a month in February 2024, and existing QBSE subscribers were migrated across while keeping their legacy pricing. If you are shopping for an alternative, the honest split is by what you are actually trying to fix: Solopreneur or Keeper if the problem is Schedule C and quarterly taxes, Hurdlr or Everlance if it is mileage, FreshBooks at $23 a month if it is client invoicing, Wave if you want double-entry books without a monthly bill, and an income tracker such as Earnly at $12 a month if the problem is not knowing what each platform deducted before it paid you.
Last updated August 2026
The honest read
QuickBooks Solopreneur, the product QuickBooks Self-Employed grew into, is a genuinely strong tool for the job it was built for: taxes. It sorts business expenses into Schedule C categories, estimates quarterly taxes, tracks mileage, and hands everything to TurboTax at filing time. If your biggest money problem is tax season, it is a sensible pick at $20 per month as published in August 2026, and you should probably keep it. Worth knowing if you are searching for the old product: QuickBooks Self-Employed is no longer sold to new customers, and existing subscribers were moved onto Solopreneur, so the tool you are comparing against today is Solopreneur under a new name. The gap shows up if you earn from creator platforms. QuickBooks treats a Twitch payout like any other bank deposit. There is no per-platform view of gross to fees to take-home, no payout calendar telling you when YouTube or Etsy pays, and no next-month forecast. You see that money arrived, not what the platform kept or what is still pending. Earnly starts where the bank feed stops: every payout from every platform on one board, showing what you actually keep after fees, without becoming your bank or your accountant. Plans run $12 to $32 per month, less than QuickBooks, for the creator-specific view it does not offer. Earnly is an informational analytics tool, not tax software, so many creators run it alongside QuickBooks: one for the IRS, one for the income.
Published prices
QuickBooks Self-Employed alternatives compared on price and job
US list prices as published in August 2026. These products are not substitutes for each other, which is the main thing to understand before comparing prices. Pick the row that matches the question you keep failing to answer.
| Tool | Price | The job it actually does | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Solopreneur | $20/mo | Schedule C categories, quarterly estimates, TurboTax handoff | The direct replacement for QBSE |
| QuickBooks Online | From $38/mo Simple Start | Full double-entry books your CPA already knows | Overkill for a sole trader with no employees |
| Keeper | $20/mo tracking, filing $199 to $399/yr | Expense tracking with tax filing attached | Filing is priced separately from tracking |
| Hurdlr | $9.99/mo Premium, $200/yr Pro | Mileage and expense capture with gig-work DNA | No per-platform fee breakdown or payout calendar |
| Everlance | Basic no-cost, Starter $8.99/mo, Professional $99.99/yr | Mileage tracking above all else | Strongest of this group on mileage specifically. Professional bundles 1099 filing. |
| FreshBooks | From $23/mo Lite | Invoicing, estimates and retainers for client work | Extra team member costs about $11/mo |
| Wave | No-cost Starter, Pro $19/mo | Double-entry books without a subscription | Support and features are thinner than paid rivals |
| Earnly | From $12/mo Solo | Gross, fees and take-home per platform payout | Not accounting or tax software, and does not file |
We have deliberately left Xero out of the price column. Published figures for it disagree materially between sources, and we would rather omit a number than publish one we cannot stand behind.
Published prices
What happened to QuickBooks Self-Employed, and what it costs now
This is the detail most articles about QBSE alternatives get wrong, because they were written before the change and never updated. Here is the actual state of play as of August 2026.
| Product | Status | Price | Who it applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Self-Employed | Closed to new customers since February 2024 | Legacy $15 base, $25 Tax Bundle, $35 Live Tax Bundle | Existing subscribers only, who keep their price |
| QuickBooks Solopreneur | The current product for sole traders | $20/mo | Anyone signing up new today |
| QuickBooks Online Simple Start | Current, the step up | $38/mo | Sole traders who need real double-entry books |
If you are reading a comparison that still presents QuickBooks Self-Employed as something you can sign up for, it predates February 2024 and everything else on the page is likely out of date too. Check the publication date before trusting the rest.
Why people look for a QuickBooks Self-Employed alternative
Three reasons come up repeatedly, and they lead to completely different products. The first is that they cannot sign up at all, because QBSE is closed and they landed on an article that did not say so. For those people the answer is usually just Solopreneur at $20 a month, and the search ends there. The second is price, particularly from creators and side-hustlers whose income does not yet justify $20 a month for a tool they open twice a year. Wave with its no-cost Starter tier and Everlance Basic both exist for that, and they are honest answers rather than compromises. The third reason is the interesting one: the tool answers the wrong question. QBSE and Solopreneur are tax products. They categorize expenses, estimate what you owe, and hand a clean Schedule C to TurboTax. If your actual daily problem is that a platform deposited $412 and you have no idea what it deducted to get there from $500, no amount of expense categorization fixes that, because the bank feed only ever sees the net deposit. That is a different category of product and buying a second tax tool will not solve it.
What QuickBooks Solopreneur does well, and where it stops
It is worth being fair about this, because Solopreneur is a good product and plenty of people searching for an alternative should simply keep it. It sorts business expenses into Schedule C categories with a reasonable degree of automation, estimates quarterly taxes so you are not guessing in April, tracks mileage from your phone, separates business from personal spending on a shared account, and passes everything to TurboTax at filing time. For a freelancer whose money arrives as bank transfers from a handful of clients, that covers the whole job at $20 a month. Where it stops is anything that happens before the money reaches your bank. It reads a deposit; it does not read the platform statement behind the deposit. It has no concept of a listing fee, a transaction fee, an Offsite Ads cut or a payment processing charge, because those were deducted on the platform side and never appeared in your bank feed as separate lines. It also has no forward view: no payout calendar telling you when the next deposit is due, and no forecast of next month. Those are not defects, they are just outside the product boundary.
Choosing by the problem rather than the brand
Work through it in this order and you will avoid buying two overlapping subscriptions, which is the usual outcome of shopping this category by brand name. Start with the question you keep failing to answer. If it is what will I owe in April, buy the tax product: Solopreneur at $20 a month, or Keeper at $20 a month for tracking with filing available separately from $199 to $399 a year. If it is how many miles did I drive, buy Hurdlr or Everlance, because neither the tax tools nor the trackers do mileage as well and Everlance in particular is built around it. If it is how do I get clients to pay me, buy FreshBooks at $23 a month, where estimates convert to invoices and late reminders send themselves. If it is what did this platform actually charge me and when does the next payout land, buy an income tracker. And if it is my CPA needs proper books, go to QuickBooks Online at $38 a month rather than stretching a sole-trader tool. Only add a second product once the first genuinely cannot answer something, and check whether the tool touches your money before you switch, since read-only analytics and a business bank account are very different commitments. Our comparisons of Hurdlr alternatives, Found alternatives and Keeper alternatives go deeper on each, and the best income tracker apps roundup covers the tracking category in full.
The gap that shows up when your income comes from platforms
Here is the concrete version of the problem, because it sounds abstract until you see the arithmetic. Say you sold $500 on Etsy in a month. Etsy takes $0.20 per listing, a 6.5% transaction fee, US payment processing of roughly 3% plus $0.25 per order, and if the sale came through Offsite Ads, either 12% or 15% on top. What reaches your bank is a single deposit, already net, with none of that itemized. Your accounting software records the deposit correctly and your books are not wrong, but you cannot answer the question that actually matters, which is whether Offsite Ads is profitable for you or quietly eating the margin on every order it touches. The same shape repeats everywhere. Patreon charges a platform fee, now a flat 10% for creators who joined after August 4, 2025, plus processing. Twitch splits subscription revenue before you see a cent. Gumroad takes 10% plus $0.50 plus processing, and 30% on Discover sales. Amazon takes a referral fee of 5% to 45% by category, most commonly 15%, with a $0.30 per item minimum. Multiply that across several platforms and the difference between gross and take-home is the single biggest number in your business that nobody is showing you.
Where Earnly fits, and where it does not
We should be direct about the boundary rather than claim to replace a tax product. Earnly is not accounting software. It does not track expenses, does not produce a profit and loss statement, does not categorize anything for Schedule C, and does not file a return. It is read-only and never touches your money. What it does is put every payout from 12 platforms on one board showing gross, fees and take-home per source, with a payout calendar of expected pay dates and a next-month figure that is always labeled an estimate, from $12 a month. That is the complement to a tax tool rather than a substitute for one, which is why most people who use it keep Solopreneur or a ledger alongside. If you sell on Shopify or eBay and already run QuickBooks, try the free first-party connectors before adding anything else: our Shopify QuickBooks integration and eBay QuickBooks integration pages cover what each one imports and where it stops. If your income is entirely client invoices paid by bank transfer, you do not need it, and we would rather say so than sell you a subscription you will cancel. One more thing worth knowing while you are reviewing your setup: the US 1099 thresholds changed for 2026. Nonemployee compensation on 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC moved from $600 to $2,000 for payments made on or after January 1, 2026, and 1099-K reverted to the older rule of more than $20,000 and more than 200 transactions, with both conditions required. Income is taxable whether or not a form is issued, and some states set lower thresholds, so fewer forms does not mean less to report.
Side by side
Where the boards differ
| What you get | Earnly | QuickBooks Solopreneur |
|---|---|---|
| Per-platform gross -> fees -> take-home view | Yes | Bank deposits only |
| Payout calendar with expected pay dates | Yes | No |
| Next-month forecast (labeled estimate) | Yes | No |
| 12+ creator platforms in one board | Yes | Bank and card feeds |
| Fee-leakage and below-threshold alerts | Yes | No |
| Schedule C and quarterly tax tools | No | Yes |
| Price | From $12/mo | $20/mo |
Comparison reflects published pricing and feature descriptions as of August 2026; both products change. Pick the tool that fits how you earn. See what the board looks like on the income tracker homepage, or start with the revenue dashboard.
Questions people actually ask
Is QuickBooks Solopreneur the same as QuickBooks Self-Employed?
Not identical, but it is the direct replacement. Intuit closed QuickBooks Self-Employed to new customers in February 2024 and moved existing subscribers to Solopreneur, which is priced at $20 a month. Migrated subscribers generally kept their legacy pricing, so an existing QBSE user may still be paying the old $15, $25 or $35 tier. Anyone signing up new today gets Solopreneur.
What is the cheapest QuickBooks Self-Employed alternative?
Wave has a no-cost Starter tier with a $19 a month Pro plan, and Everlance has a no-cost Basic tier with Starter at $8.99 a month and Professional at $99.99 a year, which Everlance publishes annually only. Hurdlr Premium is $9.99 a month or $100 a year, with Pro at $200 a year and no monthly option. Cheapest is only useful if the tool does the job you need though, and none of those three produces the Schedule C handoff that made QBSE worth paying for in the first place.
Is QuickBooks Self-Employed discontinued?
Effectively yes, under that name. QuickBooks Self-Employed is no longer sold to new customers and existing subscribers were moved onto QuickBooks Solopreneur, so the product you are comparing against today is Solopreneur at $20 a month, as published in August 2026. The tax features carried over; the creator payout gap did too. The full QuickBooks Self Employed pricing breakdown covers the old $15, $25 and $35 tiers and what replaced them.
What is the best QuickBooks Self-Employed alternative for creators?
It depends on which problem is bigger. If it is Schedule C taxes, staying on Solopreneur or moving to another bookkeeping tool makes sense. If it is not knowing what YouTube, Etsy or Twitch actually paid you after fees, a creator income tracker fits better: Earnly covers 12 platforms with per-source fees from $12 a month. Our roundup of the best income tracker apps lays out the field.
Does QuickBooks show platform fees from Twitch or Etsy?
No. QuickBooks reads the bank feed, so a Twitch payout arrives as a plain deposit with no record of the cut taken before it left the platform. You see that money arrived, not what was withheld. The per-platform fee breakdown is the view that closes that gap.
Can I use QuickBooks and Earnly together?
Yes, and it is the common setup. QuickBooks handles Schedule C categories and quarterly estimates for the IRS, while Earnly tracks what each platform paid, what it deducted and when the next payout lands on a payout calendar. Earnly is an informational analytics tool, not tax software, and does not give tax advice.