Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: Features Comparison, Pros, Cons

Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online are some of the best small-business accounting software products around. Their biggest differences are their price points, reporting capabilities and popularity in the U.S.

Choose Zoho Books if you’re on a tight budget or prefer to get all of your business software from the same company. QuickBooks Online is a better fit for growing small businesses with complex accounting needs. Your accountant is also more likely to be familiar with it, which is important if you plan on collaborating with them.

NerdWallet independently reviews accounting software products, like Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online, across 10 categories and more than 30 subcategories. We collected the data from the companies’ public-facing websites and from company representatives.

Our accounting software ratings range from one to five stars overall. But we also score individual features to help business owners understand a product’s strengths and weaknesses.

Here’s how Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online stack up:

We don’t incorporate user reviews in our star ratings, because we can’t verify every user’s individual experience. However, small-business owners’ perspectives are still worth taking into account to get a more complete overview.

For a more detailed analysis of the user sentiment around each product, read our individual reviews of Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online.

If you’d rather opt for an all-in-one business software solution than deal with third-party integrations, Zoho Books is a solid choice. Accounting programs aside, Zoho makes software for social media management, HR, payroll, e-commerce, customer relationship management and more. Having all of your business software programs under the same umbrella is convenient and can help you avoid manual data entry.

QuickBooks Online has some in-house solutions — like QuickBooks Payroll and Time — but not as many as Zoho.

Unlike QuickBooks Online, Zoho Books has a free accounting software plan. And, it’s our choice for the best free accounting software, thanks to all its features. Zoho’s free plan includes up to 1,000 invoices per year, a client portal, basic reporting and email support. However, you need to subscribe to a paid plan, which starts at $20 per month, to access automatic bank feeds or if your annual revenue is above $50,000.

QuickBooks Online plans, in comparison, start at $35 per month. There is no free option.

QuickBooks has an industry-leading 37.49% global market share for accounting software, according to 6sense, a revenue intelligence platform. Zoho Books, on the other hand, has a 0.53% market share per 6sense.

That means more accountants in the U.S. are likely to be familiar with QuickBooks than Zoho Books. QuickBooks is the standard for most bookkeepers in general. This is important if you plan on regularly collaborating with your accountant.

QuickBooks Online offers more than double the number of reports that Zoho Books does (100+ versus 40). Those extras include breakdowns of sales by class or location, and profit and loss by customer. That data is important for growing businesses that need to dissect their finances.

QuickBooks Online has more preset report filtering options than Zoho Books, like the ability to sort by customer or employee. Zoho Books lets you create custom tags to filter reports, but that’s not as convenient.

Xero: Better for adding users. All of Xero’s plans let you invite an unlimited number of users to collaborate with you. Zoho Books’ most expensive plan includes 15 users, and QuickBooks Online’s includes 25. Read our full Xero review.

FreshBooks: Better for tracking time. FreshBooks includes time-tracking capabilities in all of its plans, making it a great choice for freelancers who charge by the hour. Automated time tracking is an add-on for QuickBooks Online, and Zoho Books only includes it in the Professional plan and up. Read our full FreshBooks review.