Just Use Xero After the QuickBooks Price Hike

QuickBooks Simple Start is now $38/month. That’s up 52% since 2020, when you were paying $25. Intuit didn’t add meaningful features for freelancers during that run — they just repriced. If you’re a one-person operation who needs real double-entry books, bank feeds, and an accountant-ready P&L, you’re now paying Intuit’s escalating subscription tax for the privilege of one user and one sales channel.

Stop. Just use Xero Early at $25/month.

Why Xero Early Is the Pick

Xero Early does exactly what a freelancer moving off QuickBooks needs: double-entry bookkeeping, automatic bank feeds, full balance sheet, and a clean accountant handoff — all for $13/month less than where Simple Start landed.

The bank feeds matter immediately. Connect your business checking and credit card, and Xero pulls transactions automatically. From there, reconciliation is a matter of matching and confirming — Xero learns your patterns and suggests matches. Getting your books current takes an afternoon, not a week of CSV imports.

The unlimited-users policy is the structural win that doesn’t get enough attention. QuickBooks charges $5–$10 per additional seat above the base user limit on every tier. With Xero Early, you hand your accountant login credentials at zero additional cost. No “add a user” upsell. No per-seat invoice at the end of the month. If you work with a bookkeeper and an accountant simultaneously, both are in for the same $25/month you’re already paying.

Here’s what you get on Xero Early:

• Full double-entry accounting engine with balance sheet and P&L
• Automatic bank feeds and reconciliation on all plans
• Unlimited users (accountant, bookkeeper, business partner — all free)
• 1,000+ app integrations including Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, and Gusto
• 30-day free trial, no credit card required
• 20 invoices and 5 bills per month (the one real limit — details below)

The invoice cap is the honest limitation to name upfront. If you send 20 or fewer invoices per month — which covers most freelancers billing 5–15 clients — Xero Early holds. If you’re running a busier practice and sending 25, 30, or 40 invoices monthly, you need Xero Growing at $55/month. That tier removes all volume caps. The decision rule is simple: count your average monthly invoices. Under 20, Early is fine. Over 20, budget for Growing.

What Xero Early does not do: multi-currency invoicing (that’s Established at $90/month), built-in payroll, or inventory management. For most freelancers, none of those matter. You’re billing in one currency, you don’t have employees, and you don’t carry stock.

Why Not Wave?

Wave Pro at $19/month is the credible price-floor alternative — $6/month cheaper than Xero Early, with real double-entry bookkeeping and unlimited invoicing. If you’re US- or Canada-based and your revenue is tight, it deserves a look.

Here’s where it breaks down for most freelancers making the QuickBooks switch.

Bank feeds moved behind the Pro paywall on June 1, 2026. Wave Starter is still free, but Starter users now have to download bank statements and upload or manually enter transactions. That’s the manual-bookkeeping experience you were trying to escape. At $19/month, Wave Pro restores bank feeds — but you’re now comparing $19 to $25, and the gap is $6, not free.

Geographic limits are a hard wall. Wave serves US and Canadian businesses only, in USD or CAD. No multi-currency. If you have a single client billing in GBP, EUR, or AUD, Wave cannot handle it cleanly. Xero Early handles single-currency by default and moves to multi-currency at the Established tier when you actually need it.

The support situation is documented and serious. Wave’s Trustpilot score reflects a pattern of payment holds and frozen accounts — not isolated incidents but a recurring theme in recent reviews, with the most common complaint being money moved through Wave getting held without notice or timely resolution. The bookkeeping engine itself works. The moment money flows through Wave’s payment rails is where freelancers have run into real harm. If you’re not using Wave Payments, this risk is lower — but it’s worth knowing before you make it your daily financial driver.

The case for Wave Pro over Xero: you’re US-based, you always invoice in USD, you have simple books, and $6/month matters to your budget. In that scenario, Wave Pro is not a wrong answer. It’s a narrower tool for a narrower situation.

Why Not the Rest

QuickBooks Online — This is the tool you’re leaving. Simple Start at $38/month gives you one user, one sales channel, and an Intuit price trajectory that shows no signs of stabilizing. Essentials (three users) jumped to $85/month in the same August 2026 pricing update. The product is not bad; the value equation has deteriorated to the point where the switch is worth the migration effort.

QuickBooks Solopreneur — At $20/month, this looks like the budget QuickBooks option, but it is not a QuickBooks replacement. You cannot generate a balance sheet in Solopreneur. There are no accounts payable or accounts receivable aging reports. It’s built for Schedule C tax filers who want to categorize income and expenses and estimate quarterly taxes — not for freelancers who need real books. If your accountant asks for a balance sheet at year-end, Solopreneur cannot produce one. Do not move to Solopreneur thinking you’re getting a cheaper version of Simple Start. You’re getting a fundamentally different product.

Zoho Books — Zoho Books has a genuinely compelling free tier: businesses under $50k annual revenue get double-entry bookkeeping, bank reconciliation, up to 1,000 invoices per year, and one user plus one accountant access, all at no cost. If you’re early-stage and under that revenue threshold, it’s worth knowing exists. The reasons it doesn’t displace Xero for most freelancers making this switch: the learning curve is steeper, and the US accountant ecosystem is thinner. Xero has strong adoption among US-based bookkeepers and CPAs — your accountant has almost certainly worked in it before. With Zoho Books, there’s a real chance you’re handing your accountant a tool they’ve never touched, and you’re paying for that friction in onboarding time.

When to Revisit

Xero Early at $25/month holds for most freelancers indefinitely. Two scenarios where you should reassess:

If your invoice volume exceeds 20 per month consistently, move to Xero Growing at $55/month. Don’t try to game the Early cap — it creates reconciliation headaches and forces manual workarounds that defeat the purpose of using accounting software.

If your revenue clears $200k+ and you’re adding a team, evaluating contractors, or needing project-level profitability reporting, Xero Established at $90/month adds multi-currency, project tracking, and advanced analytics. At that revenue level, the additional $35/month above Growing is not the constraint.

The migration from QuickBooks to Xero is a one-afternoon job for most freelancers. Export your QuickBooks data, import it into Xero, connect your bank feeds, and invite your accountant. Xero has a dedicated QuickBooks migration guide and the import handles your chart of accounts and transaction history. You will not start from zero.