Paid accounting vs free accounting. But you need more than accounting.
$38/mo
Businesses with payroll, inventory, or complex tax situations
$19/mo
Simple businesses who want free accounting
$279 once
Service businesses who need operations AND accounting (Nexa + Wave = $279 total)
QuickBooks ($38/mo) and Wave ($19/mo) are both established tools with real user bases, and for most people the honest answer is that either will do the job — the difference shows up in fit, not quality. Over three years the running totals are roughly $1,532 for QuickBooks and $766 for Wave, because subscription pricing compounds. Read the section below on which one suits your work; the cost table further down shows where the bill actually differs.
Nexa is $279 once, about $23 a month over its first year. Its Drain Guard reads your expenses (from a linked bank, an imported statement, or ones you type in), finds the charges that repeat, and adds them up by the month. Keep or Cut then walks you through them one at a time. Cancel $23 a month of charges you'd forgotten about and Nexa has paid for itself inside the first year.
It depends on what you find and what you cancel, so we don't promise a number. In our demo data, Drain Guard finds 5 subscriptions adding up to $110.13 a month. That is sample data, not a customer's.
| Feature | QuickBooks | Wave | Nexa |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $20–$340/mo (typically $38) | $0–$19/mo (typically $19) | $279 once + Wave free = $279 total |
| Accounting | Full double-entry, payroll, inventory | Basic double-entry, invoicing, receipts | Invoicing only — pair with accounting tool |
| Operations | No (not built for it) | No | Yes — CRM, scheduling, jobs, invoicing |
If you are choosing between these two, this is the part that matters. Both are established products and neither is a mistake — the question is which fits how you actually work. We have left ourselves out of this section entirely.
Headline prices rarely survive contact with a real invoice. These are the parts of the bill that move: where the ladder starts and ends, what an extra seat adds, and what comes off the top of money you take through the tool. A dash means we do not have that figure recorded — not that the fee is zero.
| QuickBooks | Wave | |
|---|---|---|
| How it is priced | Monthly subscription | Monthly subscription |
| Entry price | $20/mo | $0/mo |
| Top published tier | $340/mo | $19/mo |
| Plan people typically land on | $38/mo | $19/mo |
| Per extra user | No per-user add-on; users are set by plan (Simple Start 1, Essentials 3, Plus 5, Advanced 25). More users means upgrading the plan | — |
| Payment processing | QuickBooks Payments: 2.99% cards/digital wallets on invoices; 2.5% card reader/Tap to Pay; 3.5% keyed; ACH 1% ($1 min). Rates as of 09/18/2026 | 2.9% + $0.60 per card, 3.4% + $0.60 Amex (Pro: first 10 card transactions/mo at 2.9% + $0); ACH rate not stated on pricing page (unverified) |
| Free tier | No | Yes, but reduced over time |
| Three-year total | $1,368 | $684 |
| Five-year total, with increases | $2,280 | $1,140 |
Simple Start ($38) — the cheapest QuickBooks Online plan with full invoicing/estimates for a one-person business; a second user forces Essentials ($85)
Pro — adds bank-transaction import, receipt capture and payment reminders a working small business needs; Starter is free but manual
Pricing checked . Vendors change prices without notice — check the vendor before deciding.
Both of these are real products that a lot of businesses run on happily. If a comparison page only tells you what is wrong with the tools it is comparing, it is selling you something. Here is the honest case for each.
QuickBooks charges more ($38/mo against $19/mo) and tends to offer more depth for its target market. Wave at $19/mo is the accessible option, though it still reaches $228/year. Recurring pricing compounds, so the multi-year figure is the one that decides it.
There is a third shape to consider, and we should say plainly that it is ours: Nexa is a one-time purchase at $279 covering scheduling, invoicing, CRM, time tracking and job management. It suits people who want to stop paying monthly and can do without staffed support and a large integration ecosystem. If those matter to you, one of the two tools above is the better answer, and we would rather you bought the right thing.
Stop using accounting software for operations. Nexa + Wave = complete solution for $279.
For reference, since we are one of the three options named on this page: Nexa is $279 once, with no monthly fee and no per-seat charge. Whether that beats a subscription depends entirely on how long you would keep paying one.
This section is deliberately one-sided: it collects what operators complain about, which is only useful once you have read what each tool does well above. These are opinions from our own research notes — 223 assessments across 9 business categories — not audited findings or review-site ratings. We show the trade beside each one because most of these are conditional: a complaint about progress billing is decisive for an iron worker and irrelevant to a hair stylist. Where a complaint cites a price, it is the price that operator was quoted at the time.
$55/month and zero scheduling capability. You still need another app for bookings.
No crop-based COGS — you can't track seed and labor inputs against bushel output without three workarounds.
Complete overkill for a freelance writer. I don't need payroll, inventory, or 1099 management. I need a timer and an invoice button.
$55/month and it doesn't understand short-term rental tax deductions, depreciation schedules, or per-property P&L tracking.
$55/month and no job tracking from measurement through order through install.
You pay for QBO to do client work AND need another tool for your own business invoicing. Double software cost.
No RMR account model. Every month is a manual invoice.
Accounting software that can't calculate food cost per plate or manage event-based billing with headcount changes.
Overkill for a one-batch creamery. None of the inventory tracking knows what "mix" or "overrun" mean.
Free but can't track per-wig material costs or differentiate custom vs. ready-made economics.
Free but nightlife accounting is chaos — cash, Venmo, promoter fees, and bar splits don't fit clean categories.
No recurring CSA share model — every renewal is a manual invoice. 200 members × manual = no.
Free but can't track per-beat revenue across leases, exclusives, and custom work.
Free but can't handle multi-property expense tracking or generate per-property profitability reports.
No mileage tracking or per-client visit log.
No per-visit needle cost, mileage, or supervising-vet rev share.
Free but can't manage class registration, attendance, or per-class supply cost tracking.
Free but can't track per-project costs across custom commissions and product sales.
Assessments are recorded per trade, so the same tool reads differently depending on the work — a complaint about progress billing matters to an iron worker and not to a hair stylist. 16 trades are represented above; we add more as we record them.
Today's sticker price only tells you what a subscription costs today. These are dated changes, each linked to the announcement or report it comes from. Tap one for the numbers.
For renewals on or after February 1, 2026, Pro Plus and Mac Plus went from $999 to $1,149 a year for one user, and each extra seat from $200 to $230.
Source: SWK Technologies, Insightful Accountant (Dec 2, 2025)
From July 1, 2025: Simple Start $35 to $38, Essentials $65 to $75, Plus $99 to $115, Advanced $235 to $275 a month.
Source: Woodard Report (May 27, 2025)
After September 30, 2024, new US customers can no longer buy these Desktop editions. Existing subscribers can keep renewing.
Source: Intuit
Only changes we can link to a vendor announcement or a named publication are listed. Plans, add-ons and discounts vary, so check the vendor's current pricing page before you decide.
Comparing "$X per month forever" against "$279 once" is not a fair fight unless we say what the monthly fee is buying. It buys real things:
Where we think the trade goes the other way: those benefits are priced as rent, they compound every year you keep paying, and you stop having them the month you stop. Which side of that is worth more depends on your business, not on our opinion — run the numbers below on your own tool list rather than taking ours.
30-day money-back guarantee. Replaces both subscriptions.
Pricing verified March 2026.