Accounting software is the one subscription nobody cancels. The books have to live somewhere, the accountant already has a login, and switching in the middle of a tax year sounds like a weekend you would rather not spend. Vendors know this, which is why the price goes up in a quiet email rather than a launch.
On October 1, 2026, Xero raised every US plan: Early went from $25 to $27 a month, Growing from $55 to $59, and Established from $90 to $97. That is a rise of 8%, 7% and 8%, and the Early plan still caps you at 20 invoices and 5 bills a month. Every price in this post was checked on November 2, 2026 from the vendor's own pricing page. The old Xero prices come from an Internet Archive snapshot of xero.com/us/pricing-plans taken on September 21, 2026.
What changed at Xero on October 1, 2026
Xero, October 1. Xero's US pricing page now lists Early at $27 a month, Growing at $59 and Established at $97. The same page, archived on September 21, 2026, showed $25, $55 and $90. Xero's own notice, archived on August 25, 2026, said “From October 1, 2026, the price of Xero subscriptions will increase in the US”, that the change applies to new and existing subscribers, and that “the multi-organization discount will begin to be phased out” from the same date. Add-ons such as Payroll are not included in the listed prices.
The plan limits did not move. Early covers “Send quotes and 20 invoices” and “5 bills” a month, and the footnote says the limit applies to approving as well as sending, and that transactions created by app partners count toward it. Growing removes both caps. Established adds multiple currencies, projects and expense claims. None of the three plans charges per user: “No per-user license fees”, as the page puts it.
QuickBooks Online, checked November 2. Intuit lists Simple Start at $38 a month for 1 user, Essentials at $85 for 3 users, Plus at $140 for 5 users and Advanced at $340 for 25 users, with 50% off for the first three months. Intuit also now sells QuickBooks Free: $0 a month for 1 user with no accountant access, 2 invoices and 1 estimate a month, 1 connected bank account, 5 mileage trips and 2 receipt captures.
| Plan | Price a month | Users | Invoices a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xero Early | $27 (was $25) | Unlimited | 20, plus quotes |
| Xero Growing | $59 (was $55) | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Xero Established | $97 (was $90) | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| QuickBooks Free | $0 | 1 | 2 |
| QuickBooks Simple Start | $38 | 1 | Unlimited |
| QuickBooks Essentials | $85 | 3 | Unlimited |
Xero raised the price of its capped plan by $2 and left the cap at 20 invoices. On Early you now pay $1.35 per invoice before you have sent a single one over the limit.
Is Xero free?
No. Xero has no free plan and no free tier. The US pricing page offers one month free, and until November 2, 2026 a 90% discount for the first six months, but the cheapest plan after that is Early at $27 a month (checked Nov 2, 2026). Xero does not charge per user, so a five-person company pays what one person pays. What Xero meters is volume on Early (20 invoices, 5 bills a month) and the add-ons: Payroll, Projects and Expenses are invoiced as usage charges on top of the plan, according to the billing FAQ on the same page.
Is QuickBooks cheaper than Xero?
QuickBooks is cheaper than Xero for one person who sends more than 20 invoices a month, and Xero is cheaper than QuickBooks for any team of three or more. Xero Early at $27 undercuts QuickBooks Simple Start at $38, but Early stops at 20 invoices and Simple Start does not. Once you need unlimited invoices on Xero, the price is Growing at $59, which is $21 more than Simple Start. Add a second and a third user and the order flips: QuickBooks Essentials seats 3 users for $85, and Xero Growing seats any number for $59 (checked Nov 2, 2026). QuickBooks Free at $0 wins outright if two invoices a month is your whole business.
Xero alternatives that are free or open source
Wave, Dolibarr, Odoo's One App Free plan and Akaunting all do double-entry bookkeeping for a small business, and three of the four cost nothing. Of the 314 invoicing and accounting tools in the AppClap catalog (Nov 2, 2026), 15 are open source, 33 can be self-hosted and 147 have a free tier. The AppClap flat-price test applies to each one: a tool passes when the price on its pricing page is the price on the invoice, with no credits, no per-client meter and no usage add-ons.
Free, closed source. Wave's Starter plan is $0 and includes unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records; card payments cost 2.9% plus $0.60 per transaction. Wave Pro is $19 a month or $190 a year and adds bank transaction import, receipt capture and automatic payment reminders (checked Nov 2, 2026). Wave passes the flat-price test; payment processing is a per-transaction fee you opt into, and the prices are listed in US and Canadian dollars only.
Open source, self-hosted. Dolibarr is a GPL-3.0 ERP and CRM with full accounting, about 7,800 GitHub stars, and version 24.0.1 released on September 7, 2026 (repo). It is free at any size on your own server and passes. Odoo's Community edition is LGPL-3.0 with about 55,000 stars (repo), and Odoo's own cloud has a One App Free plan: one app, unlimited users, hosted on Odoo Online for €0, as shown to a visitor in Europe on Nov 2, 2026. Pick Invoicing and the pricing page says the apps it depends on come free too. Paid Odoo plans are priced per user (€14.90 a user a month billed yearly for Standard on the same page), so the free plan passes and the paid ones meter seats.
Source-available, with a cloud. Akaunting calls itself open source, but its licence is the Business Source License: free production use is limited to two users, one company and one thousand invoices, and each release converts to GPLv3 four years after publication. The repo has about 10,300 stars and version 3.3.0 shipped on October 27, 2026 (repo). Akaunting Cloud is $8 a month for 1 company, 1 user plus an accountant and 1,000 invoices; Premium is $24 for 10 users, double-entry and bank feeds; Elite is $56; Ultimate is $145 (checked Nov 2, 2026). The cloud passes the test, with hard caps instead of overage. Invoice Ninja, Elastic License 2.0 and free to self-host, is the invoicing-first option we priced against FreshBooks in October.
Xero itself passes the test on the base plan, with the add-ons as the second meter. QuickBooks passes on its sticker price once the three-month discount expires. Our Xero alternatives page tracks every tool in the category.
How to read an accounting price rise
- Find the cap, not the price. A $2 rise on a plan with a 20-invoice limit is a different product from a $2 rise on an unlimited plan. Count last month's invoices and bills first.
- Count the seats you will have, not the ones you have. Xero charges nothing per user. QuickBooks sells users in blocks of 1, 3, 5 and 25.
- Add the add-ons. Payroll, projects and expenses are separate meters at Xero and separate products at QuickBooks. The headline price is the floor.
- Check whether the discount is the price. Both vendors advertise 50% to 90% off for three to six months. Multiply the full price by 12 and compare that number, then export a trial balance before you decide anything.
What we do about it
AppClap reads the pricing page so you do not have to, and puts the price next to the tool. If you want books that do not meter your invoices or your team, start from accounting software with unlimited users and no invoice cap and we will show you what fits.
Sources: Xero US “Pricing Plans” page (xero.com/us/pricing-plans on Nov 2, 2026, and its Internet Archive snapshot of Sept 21, 2026); Xero US “Upcoming Xero price changes” page (Internet Archive snapshot of Aug 25, 2026); Intuit “QuickBooks Online Pricing” and “QuickBooks Free vs Other Free Accounting Software” pages; Wave “Pricing” page; Akaunting “Plans” page and LICENSE.txt on GitHub; Odoo “Pricing” page; Dolibarr and Odoo GitHub repositories.
