Intuit’s QuickBooks is arguably the king of accounting systems for small to medium sized companies. They sell standalone as well as online versions. The pricing for QuickBooks Online runs either $4.95/month for basic account or $16.95/month for Pro version.
Here’s a crop of QuickBooks Clones that offer less expensive alternatives and in some cases even FREE online accounts! There are strict limitations to the free basic accounts so pay close attention to the details which are clearly described on each site.
SimplifyThis is an excellent service and easy to use. The free account allows you to manage unlimited number of customers which is fantastic and offers SSL Encryption, your own logo, autobilling, support, track incidental charges and accept online payments. The only negative is that it only allows you to create three invoices per month. This makes the free account only viable for very small companies, most likely a single person consulting service. Still, it’s a great way to test drive the service before signing up for one of the beefier accounts such as the Tall account that offers 30 invoices per month for just $7 per month. Here’s a breakdown of all their plans.
FreshBooks has the best interface and also easy to use. The biggest difference between FreshBooks and SimplyThis is the way they handle maximum number of customers and invoices.
SimplyThis offers unlimited customers but limits invoices to just three per month, while FreshBooks does the complete opposite: unlimited invoices per month but you can only manage three customers.
Blinksale doesn’t offer as slick an interface as the previous two services but it is still pretty good. They offer the same service limitations to their free account as SimplyThis, offering unlimited customers but only three invoices per month.
Saasu has an impressive user interface and offers many features. Their free account allows unlimited customers and 15 invoices per month. Not too shabby.
Here’s their demo page where you can learn much more and see what it looks like in action. Here are all their plans and pricing.
30-day trials only
These services don’t offer unlimited free accounts as the ones above, but they do offer 30 day trials.
Final Thoughts
This public document will track the best online accounting services similar to QuickBooks so check back often.