What's the best accounting software for a freelancer or an under-10 business in 2026?

Xero wins this ranking on one design choice: it never charges per user. Early costs $27 a month, Growing $59, Established $97, and you can invite your bookkeeper, your office manager and your business partner on any plan. For a small team, that's the difference between one login shared by three people and three proper logins with their own access.

Compare it with QuickBooks Online. Simple Start covers one user at $38 a month. The moment a second person needs to log in, you move to Essentials at $85. A two-person team pays $1,020 a year on QuickBooks Essentials and $324 on Xero Early (if it sends 20 invoices a month or fewer), before any payroll.

Payroll is an add-on: $36 a month plus $6 per employee. Your first hire costs you $42 a month in payroll on top of your plan.

Where it falls short: many US accountants work in QuickBooks first. If yours only knows QuickBooks, you may pay for extra hours at year end. Users also rate support below the other criteria.

Check the Early cap: 20 invoices and 5 bills a month. Past that, Growing at $59 lifts the limit. Since users are free on every plan, you upgrade for volume, never just to add a login.

Many US accountants and bookkeepers work in QuickBooks Online. That matters more than any feature list. When your CPA logs in and finds a familiar setup, year-end cleanup takes fewer billable hours.

Intuit now lists a free plan for a single user, but read its limits: 2 invoices a month unless your clients pay through QuickBooks Payments, one bank account, no mobile app, no integrations and no accountant access. It's a way to look around, not to run a business. Paid plans are tied to users: Simple Start at $38 a month for one user, Essentials at $85 for three, Plus at $140 for five, and Advanced at $340. Simple Start, Essentials and Plus each include two accountant seats, so your accountant doesn't eat one of your user slots. On paid plans, you pick either a 30-day trial or half price for your first three months.

Its limit: the user ladder. A two-person business that outgrows the free plan jumps from one user to three at $85 a month. Read the price after the discount, not the discounted price: the 50% offer only lasts three months.

Tip: before you leave the free plan, list who really needs to log in. Your accountant doesn't count, since the accountant seats are separate. If it's still just you, Simple Start at $38 is enough.

Wave is the tool to beat if you don't want to pay anything. The Starter plan costs $0 and covers invoicing and bookkeeping, but without automatic bank imports: you add transactions yourself. Pro, at $19 a month, brings automatic bank imports and roles for a team (admin, editor, viewer).

The catch is in the payment fees. On Starter, a card payment costs 2.9% plus $0.60. On a $500 invoice, that's $15.10. Pro costs $19 a month, or $190 a year, and drops the fixed fee to $0 on your first ten card transactions each month (the 2.9% stays). If you get paid by card more than a few times a month, Pro can pay for itself.

Wave also sells help from its own bookkeepers, called Wave Advisors: $149 a month on Pro, $199 on Starter. That's useful if you fall behind and need someone to catch up your books.

Its limit: the free plan has no automatic bank imports, and Wave doesn't try to compete on depth with Xero or QuickBooks.

Tip: do the math on your card payments before you pick a plan. Ten card payments a month on Starter cost $6 in fixed fees alone, which is roughly a third of the Pro price.

Zoho Books has the most generous free plan for a small business that expects to grow. It works up to $50,000 in revenue, for one user, an accountant seat and up to 1,000 invoices yearly. That accountant seat is the detail that sets it apart from Wave: your CPA can log in without you paying for anything.

When you outgrow it, Standard costs $20 a month, or $15 billed yearly. Professional is $50 ($40 yearly) and Premium $70 ($60). Paid plans include several users, and each extra user costs $3 a month ($2.50 yearly). Adding a part-time assistant costs you less than a coffee a week.

Zoho Books also fits into the wider Zoho suite. If you already run your sales in Zoho CRM, you keep one vendor and one login. Our Zoho review covers the suite as a whole.

Its limit: fewer US accountants know it well, and support scores lag behind the rest of its scores.

Tip: watch the $50,000 line. Once your revenue passes it, the free plan no longer applies. Budget $180 a year for Standard billed yearly before you cross it.

FreshBooks starts from the invoice, not from the ledger. If your business is selling your time or projects, that's the right way round. Clients, estimates, invoices and payments sit at the center, and the books follow.

The pricing is tied to how many clients you bill. Lite costs $23 a month for up to 5 billable clients. Plus is $43 for 50, and Premium $70 with no limit. Select is on quote. Each extra team member costs $11 a month. Payroll is $40 a month plus $6 per person, and Advanced Payments is a $20 add-on.

That client cap is the thing to check. A freelancer with six clients a year already needs Plus, which nearly doubles the price. FreshBooks often runs a deep intro discount for the first months: judge the tool on the full price you'll pay afterwards.

Its limit: it costs more than Xero for a team, since each extra person is billed. And if you sell products, the client-based pricing fits less well.

Tip: count the clients you actually invoice in a year, not the ones in your address book. If it's five or fewer, Lite is one of the cheapest paid tools on this page.