The short answer: a subscription price on either side settles nothing; the 24-month total does. Put everything you pay because you are on Xero in one column for 24 months, starting from the price Xero says applies on October 1, 2026, then put the QuickBooks Online tier your file actually needs in the other column for the same 24 months and add the one-time conversion fee. Subtract. If the Xero column wins, stay and say so out loud. If QuickBooks wins, the difference divided by the conversion fee is your payback in months. No Xero or Intuit dollar figures appear on this page; both vendors change them, and your invoice is the only number that matters. Plan features are checked against xero.com/us and Intuit’s help articles on September 5, 2026.
The base plan is rarely where the money goes. Xero’s US plans bundle differently from QuickBooks Online: multi-currency, project time and cost tracking, employee expense and mileage claims, KPI analysis and international bill payments sit on Established only, Growing gets three budgets, and Early is capped at 20 invoices and 5 bills a month. Payroll is a separate subscription (Xero Payroll, powered by Gusto) with a monthly base plus a per-employee-or-contractor fee, and Inventory Plus is an optional add-on on Growing and Established. Xero charges no per-user fee, which is its real structural advantage. QuickBooks Online bills the other way round: tiers are set by usage limits (1, 3, 5 and 25 billable users), inventory and projects are included from Plus up, multi-currency is on Plus and Advanced, and payroll is again a separate per-employee subscription. So a like-for-like plan comparison does not exist. Only the column totals compare.
Take your last Xero invoice and the October 1 notice. Fill in each line as a monthly figure, multiply by 24, and total.
| Line | Where the number comes from | Monthly | × 24 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 Base plan (Early, Growing or Established) | The post-October-1 price from Xero’s notice, not today’s | ______ | ______ |
| A2 Payroll base fee + per-person fee × headcount | Xero Payroll (Gusto) line on the invoice | ______ | ______ |
| A3 Inventory Plus or other Xero add-ons | Invoice | ______ | ______ |
| A4 Apps bought to fill Xero gaps | Receipt capture, reporting, time tracking, 1099 tools; card statements | ______ | ______ |
| A5 Payment-processing fees on invoice payments | Xero notes fees apply to online invoice payments; average 12 months | ______ | ______ |
| A6 Accountant translation time | Hours your CPA bills to work outside their QuickBooks workflow × rate | ______ | ______ |
| Total A | ______ |
Two lines deserve care. A1 must use the October price, because that is the renewal you are deciding about; Xero’s pricing page states that prices increase from October 1, 2026 and that subscriptions auto-renew monthly until cancelled. A6 is the line owners forget: if your accountant prepares your return from QuickBooks exports every year, the hours are on their invoice, not Xero’s.
First pick the tier, and pick it by counts, not by what Xero called your plan. Count the people who post transactions (Xero does not limit this, QuickBooks does), the accounts in your Xero chart, and the tracking categories you use. Intuit’s usage limits put 250 accounts on every tier below Advanced and 40 combined classes and locations on Plus; the method is the same one we use for choosing between Plus and Advanced after a Desktop conversion.
| Line | Where the number comes from | Monthly | × 24 |
|---|---|---|---|
| B1 QuickBooks Online tier set by your counts | Intuit’s pricing page, or our cost calculator | ______ | ______ |
| B2 QuickBooks payroll base + per-employee × headcount | Intuit’s payroll pricing, same headcount as A2 | ______ | ______ |
| B3 Apps you still need after the move | Strike out anything QuickBooks Online covers natively at your tier | ______ | ______ |
| B4 Payment-processing fees | Same volume as A5 at QuickBooks Payments rates | ______ | ______ |
| B5 Accountant time | Usually lower if the firm works in QuickBooks; ask them | ______ | ______ |
| B6 One-time conversion fee | From $750 single-currency, single-entity; +$500 multi-currency; +$1,000 per extra entity; fixed quote in 24 hours | once | ______ |
| B7 Overlap month | One month of both subscriptions while you verify the new file | once | ______ |
| Total B | ______ |
B6 and B7 are the only one-time lines, and they are the reason the worksheet runs 24 months rather than 12: a move that loses money in year one and wins in year two is still a win, and a move that only wins in year five is not worth the disruption.
Total A minus Total B is positive. Switching saves money over two years. Divide B6 plus B7 by the monthly saving (A minus B, excluding the one-time lines, divided by 24) to get the payback in months. Under twelve is comfortable; over eighteen means the saving is thin and the decision should rest on workflow, not cash.
Total A minus Total B is negative. Xero is cheaper for you over two years, usually because you have several users and no payroll, which is exactly the profile Xero’s no-per-user pricing rewards. Renew. If the base plan is the problem, run Column A again with the next plan down; Xero allows a move to a less expensive plan one month after an upgrade, and the Early plan’s 20-invoice and 5-bill caps are the test of whether it fits.
The columns are within a few percent. Then the decision is not financial, and the honest questions are the ones on our price-increase page: does your accountant work natively in Xero, do you depend on Xero-only integrations, and do you use multi-currency heavily. A yes to any of those tilts toward renewing; a CPA who keeps asking for QuickBooks exports tilts the other way.
A six-person design firm on Established with payroll for six, one receipt-capture app and a CPA who bills four hours a year translating Xero reports. Assume, for illustration only, that Column A totals $9,600 over 24 months and that the QuickBooks tier set by six billable users is Advanced, giving a Column B of $8,400 in subscriptions plus a $750 conversion and a $400 overlap month: $9,550. The difference is $50 over two years. That is a coin toss on cost, so this firm decides on workflow, and because its CPA is a QuickBooks shop it moves. Change one assumption, drop payroll, and Xero wins by a clear margin, because Advanced’s per-tier price is being paid for seats, not features. The numbers are invented; the shape of the answer is not.
The chart of accounts, contacts, open invoices and bills, bank and credit-card history and as many years of detail as you choose all convert; the honest exclusions are itemised before we start and the file is reconciled to your Xero trial balance at cutover. How many years to bring is its own decision, covered in how much history to migrate. Timing matters too: with Xero’s increase on October 1 and a clean January 1 cutover available, the worksheet above is worth an hour this month.
Total 24 months of everything you pay because you are on Xero: the base plan at the price that applies from October 1, 2026, payroll, Inventory Plus, other add-ons, the apps you bought to fill gaps, payment fees and any hourly translation work your accountant bills. Total the same 24 months on the QuickBooks Online tier your counts require, add the one-time conversion fee, and compare. If the Xero column is larger, the difference divided by the conversion fee tells you the payback in months.
There is no like-for-like map. QuickBooks Online tiers are set by usage limits: Simple Start 1 billable user, Essentials 3, Plus 5 and Advanced 25, with a 250-account chart on everything below Advanced and 40 combined classes and locations on Plus. Xero has no per-user fee, so a Xero file with eight people posting transactions lands on Advanced regardless of which Xero plan it was on.
Our fixed price starts at $750 for a single-currency, single-entity file. Multi-currency adds $500 and each additional entity adds $1,000. Years of historical detail and attachments move the number, and you receive the fixed quote within 24 hours of the scoping call.
Yes, but on its terms: Xero's pricing page says you can change to a less expensive plan one month after upgrading, and the Early plan caps you at 20 invoices and 5 bills a month. Run the worksheet with the cheaper Xero plan in the left column as well; if the caps fit, staying and downgrading can be the right answer.
If Column B wins, or the columns tie and your accountant already lives in QuickBooks, the Xero to QuickBooks conversion page explains the six-step process and the fixed-price quote.
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Founder of Numerawise Solutions, established MMXXIV in Atlanta. Intuit ProAdvisor Gold tier. Former Intuit Technical Support engineer. Has personally led two hundred accounting software conversions for US small businesses since founding the practice. Reachable directly at [email protected].