QuickBooks Online Simple Start Pricing 2026: QuickBooks Simple Start Price, Simple Start vs Essentials and QBO Simple Start Cost
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In short
QuickBooks Online Simple Start costs $38 a month at list price in the US, which is $456 a year. New customers can take 50% off for the first three months ($19 a month) or a 30-day trial, not both, so year one costs $399 with the discount. Simple Start includes 1 user plus 2 accountant seats and connects 1 sales channel. Its price did not change in Intuit's August 2026 increase, which raised Essentials to $85, Plus to $140 and Advanced to $340. Prices were read from quickbooks.intuit.com/pricing on September 25, 2026.
The honest read
Simple Start is the one QuickBooks Online plan whose price held still in 2026, which makes it the easiest number on the ladder to get right and the easiest plan to outgrow without noticing. The limit that matters is not the $38. It is the single user and, for anyone selling online, the single connected sales channel. A solo consultant can run on Simple Start for years. A seller on Shopify and Etsy, or a creator paid by YouTube, Patreon and brand deals, hits the channel limit in the first week, and the next tier costs $47 a month more. This page gives the real monthly and yearly cost, exactly what $38 buys and leaves out, the Simple Start vs Essentials decision in dollars, and the cheaper ways to cover the gap.
Published prices
QuickBooks Online Simple Start pricing 2026, next to every other plan
US list prices from quickbooks.intuit.com/pricing, read on September 25, 2026. Prices are per company per month before sales tax. The discount column is the 50% off for three months that Intuit offers new customers as an alternative to the 30-day trial.
| Plan | List price a month | First 3 months with discount | Year one with discount | Every year after | Users | Connected sales channels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Free | $0 | n/a | $0 | $0 | 1, no accountant access | No third-party integrations |
| Simple Start | $38 | $19 | $399 | $456 | 1 plus 2 accountants | 1 |
| Essentials | $85 | $42.50 | $892.50 | $1,020 | 3 plus 2 accountants | 3 |
| Plus | $140 | $70 | $1,470 | $1,680 | 5 plus 2 accountants | All |
| Advanced | $340 | $170 | $3,570 | $4,080 | 25 plus 3 accountants | All |
Year one with the discount is three discounted months plus nine at list. If you take the 30-day trial instead, the first twelve months of Simple Start cost $418 (one month at no charge, then eleven at $38), so the discount is the better deal by $19. Payroll is a separate QuickBooks subscription and is not in any of these figures.
Published prices
QuickBooks Simple Start vs Essentials: what the extra $47 a month buys
From the plan cards and the feature comparison grid on Intuit's pricing page. The gap between the two tiers is $47 a month, or $564 a year at list price.
| Feature | Simple Start ($38) | Essentials ($85) | Plus ($140) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Users | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Accountant seats | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Connected sales channels | 1 | 3 | All |
| Custom fields | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Invoicing, estimates, bank feeds, sales tax tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Receipt capture and mileage tracking (mobile app) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| General reports, including profit and loss | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Enhanced reports, time entry, employee time on invoices | No | Yes | Yes |
| Inventory, budgets, project profitability, class tracking | No | No | Yes |
Intuit's current Simple Start card also lists bill pay with ACH, charged at $0.50 per standard ACH transaction over the monthly allotment. Many older comparisons say bills start at Essentials; that was true of earlier versions of the plan grid.
Published prices
Simple Start against the other entry-level plans a solo business considers
Entry prices billed monthly in USD, from each vendor's US pricing page as recorded in our fact sheet in August and September 2026. The column that decides most comparisons is the cap on the right.
| Plan | Price a month | The cap that usually forces an upgrade |
|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Simple Start | $38 | 1 connected sales channel, 1 user |
| QuickBooks Solopreneur | $20 | Built for Schedule C sole proprietors, not a full ledger |
| Zoho Books Standard | $20 ($15 billed yearly) | Etsy, eBay and Amazon connectors are Elite only, $150 |
| Xero Early | $25, $27 from October 1, 2026 | 20 invoices a month |
| FreshBooks Lite | $23 | 5 billable clients |
| Wave Pro | $19 | Built for service businesses and invoicing, not multi-channel selling |
Cheaper entry plans exist, but each has a cap that bites a different kind of business. For a solo service business the Xero invoice cap or the FreshBooks client cap usually lands first. For an online seller, the channel connectors are the question, and that is where Simple Start's single slot and Zoho's $150 Elite gate both matter.
How much QuickBooks Simple Start really costs in a year
The sticker is $38 a month, so a full year at list price is $456. Intuit gives new customers a choice between 50% off for three months and a 30-day trial, and on Simple Start the discount is worth $57 against $38 for the trial month. So the realistic first-year figure is $399, and from month thirteen onward you pay $456 a year.
Simple Start is also the one paid plan Intuit left alone in 2026. Its own August announcement says pricing for QuickBooks Free, Lite, Ledger and Simple Start remains unchanged, while Essentials, Plus and Advanced went up for renewals on or after August 1. That is why any article quoting $38 is still right on Simple Start even when its other numbers are stale.
A few costs sit outside the $38. Payroll is its own subscription. QuickBooks Payments charges processing on invoices your customers pay by card or bank transfer. E-filing 1099s carries a fee. And Bill Pay Elite, which Intuit now bundles into Advanced, is sold as a $45 a month add-on on the lower plans. None of these is forced on you, but count the ones you will actually use before comparing plans.
What you get for $38, and what you do not
Simple Start covers the full bookkeeping loop for one person: bank and card feeds with automatic categorization, invoices and estimates, card and bank payments on invoices, sales tax tracking, receipt capture and GPS mileage in the mobile app, 1099 contractor tracking, and general reports including profit and loss. Two accountant seats are included, so your bookkeeper or CPA works in the file without taking your login.
What it does not include is anything that assumes a second person or a second storefront. There is one user, with no way to buy another seat on this plan. There is one connected sales channel. Custom fields stop at 1. Enhanced reports, time entry and employee time on invoices start at Essentials, and inventory, budgets, project profitability and class tracking start at Plus. Mileage tracking is available only to the master administrator of the account, which rarely matters on a one-user plan but is worth knowing.
The one-sales-channel limit, and why sellers and creators hit it first
Intuit's plan grid lists connected sales channels as 1 on Simple Start, 3 on Essentials and all channels on Plus and Advanced. A sales channel here means a connected storefront or marketplace, such as Shopify, Amazon or eBay, through Intuit's own connectors. On Simple Start you pick one.
That is fine for a consultant who invoices from QuickBooks and nowhere else. It is a real constraint for a seller on Shopify and Etsy, or a creator paid by YouTube, Patreon, Stripe and brand deals, because everything outside the one connected channel reaches QuickBooks only as a bank deposit. A deposit is already net of fees, so the books show what landed, not what each platform grossed and took. The obvious fix is Essentials at $85, which buys two more channel slots and costs $564 more a year.
If what you actually want from the extra slots is to see income per platform, there is a cheaper route. Earnly Solo reads payouts from 3 income sources and shows gross, fees and take-home for each on one board, with a payout calendar and a labeled next-month forecast, for $12 a month billed yearly. Simple Start plus Earnly Solo is $50 a month against $85 for Essentials. We are not a ledger and do not file taxes, so QuickBooks still keeps your books; the point is only that you may not need the bigger QuickBooks plan to see where your money comes from. If you want order-level sales posted into the ledger from three storefronts, Essentials is the honest answer and you should buy it.
QuickBooks Simple Start vs Essentials: which should you buy?
Pick Simple Start if one person does the books, you sell services or sell through a single storefront, and you do not bill clients by the hour. That covers most freelancers, solo consultants and early single-channel sellers.
Pick Essentials if a partner, assistant or bookkeeper needs their own login rather than an accountant seat, if you bill time to clients, or if you need two or three storefronts syncing sales into the ledger. Those are the three triggers, and the $47 a month is fair for any of them. Our QuickBooks Essentials pricing guide covers that tier in full, and QuickBooks Plus pricing covers the next step for anyone holding inventory.
Moving up later costs nothing extra. Intuit lets you upgrade between Simple Start, Essentials and Plus without losing data, so starting on the plan you need today is the cheaper decision almost every time.
Simple Start against QuickBooks Free and QuickBooks Solopreneur
Intuit now sells two products below Simple Start, and neither replaces it for a real business. QuickBooks Free is $0 with 1 user, no accountant access, 1 bank connection and a handful of invoices, estimates and receipts a month, and it excludes the mobile app and third-party integrations. It is a way to try the product, not a way to run books your CPA can work in.
QuickBooks Solopreneur, about $20 a month, is the successor to QuickBooks Self-Employed and is built around a sole proprietor's Schedule C: income, expenses, mileage and estimated quarterly taxes. It is not a double-entry ledger with a balance sheet. If you only need tax-time totals and nobody else touches your books, it is the cheaper choice; our QuickBooks Self-Employed and Solopreneur pricing page covers it. Once you have an accountant, a business bank account to reconcile, or plans to hire, Simple Start is the entry point.
How to pay less for QuickBooks Simple Start
1. Take the three-month discount, not the trial. It saves $57 against $38 for the trial month, and you can still cancel in the discounted months.
2. Ask your accountant before you sign up. Firms in Intuit's accountant program can bill client subscriptions through the firm, often below retail list price. One email can beat the public promotion.
3. Do not upgrade for a view you can get elsewhere. If the only reason to move to Essentials is seeing income by platform, a multi-platform income tracker does it for a fraction of the $47 difference.
4. Stop keying supplier bills by hand. On a one-user plan your own time is the real cost. If paper and PDF invoices from vendors eat an evening a month, you can pull the line items out of PDF invoices automatically and keep QuickBooks for the books.
Side by side
Where the boards differ
| What you get | Earnly | QuickBooks Online Simple Start |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid price | From $12 a month, billed yearly | $38 a month, $19 for the first three months |
| Double-entry books, bank reconciliation, invoicing | No | Yes |
| Gross, fees and take-home per platform payout | Yes | No |
| Income sources or sales channels covered | 3 on Solo, 10 on Creator, unlimited on Studio | 1 connected sales channel |
| Payout calendar across creator and seller platforms | Yes | No |
| Receipt capture and mileage tracking | No | Yes |
| Next-month income forecast, labeled as an estimate | Creator plan and up | No |
| Native US payroll | No | Separate add-on subscription |
Comparison reflects published pricing and feature descriptions at the time of our last check; 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
How much is QuickBooks Simple Start per month?
QuickBooks Online Simple Start is $38 a month at list price, which is $456 a year. New customers can take 50% off for the first three months, $19 a month, or a 30-day trial instead. With the discount, the first year costs $399. Payroll and payment processing are billed separately on top of the plan price.
Did QuickBooks Simple Start go up in 2026?
No. Intuit's August 2026 price change raised Essentials to $85, Plus to $140 and Advanced to $340 for renewals on or after August 1, and said pricing for QuickBooks Free, Lite, Ledger and Simple Start remains unchanged. Simple Start stays at $38 a month.
What is the difference between QuickBooks Simple Start and Essentials?
Essentials adds two users (3 against 1), enhanced reports, time entry with employee time on invoices, and three connected sales channels instead of one. It costs $85 a month against $38, a $47 difference or $564 a year. Both include invoicing, bank feeds, sales tax tracking, receipt capture and 2 accountant seats.
How many users does QuickBooks Simple Start allow?
Simple Start includes 1 user plus access for 2 accountants or accounting firms. You cannot buy an extra seat on Simple Start; a second regular user means moving to Essentials at $85 a month, which includes 3 users. Accountant seats do not count toward the user limit on any plan.
Is QuickBooks Simple Start good for online sellers?
It works for a seller on one storefront, because Simple Start connects 1 sales channel. A seller on two or three channels either upgrades to Essentials, which connects 3, or records the other channels as bank deposits. If the goal is only to see income per platform, an income tracker covers that for less than the upgrade.
Does QuickBooks Simple Start include payroll?
No. Payroll is a separate QuickBooks subscription you add to any plan. Simple Start does track 1099 contractors and lets you prepare 1099s, with additional fees for e-filing. If you run W-2 employees, budget for payroll on top of the $38 plan price.
Is QuickBooks Simple Start worth $38 a month?
It is worth it for a one-person business that needs real double-entry books an accountant can work in, with bank feeds, invoicing and sales tax. It is poor value if you only need Schedule C totals, where QuickBooks Solopreneur is cheaper, or if you already need a second user or several sales channels.
Is there a cheaper alternative to QuickBooks Simple Start?
Yes. Zoho Books Standard is $20 a month with 3 users, Wave Pro is $19 for a solo service business, FreshBooks Lite is $23 with a 5-client cap, and Xero Early is $25, rising to $27 on October 1, 2026, with a 20-invoice monthly cap. QuickBooks keeps the edge on payroll, free marketplace connectors and accountant familiarity.