Keep the books.Lose the bloat.

QuickBooks Pro 2006 for Mac: $199.95 suggested retail, a one-time purchase (Macworld, November 2005). $340 a month is the list price of QuickBooks Online Advanced, the top plan, before promotions (quickbooks.intuit.com/pricing, November 2026). The percentage compares one year of it, $4,080, with the one-time price; prices are as listed at the time, not adjusted for inflation.

Regular US list prices from each company's own pricing page, October 2026; promotional discounts excluded. Yearly costs use a yearly plan where one is offered, otherwise twelve monthly payments. Each is the lowest-priced plan we found that includes projects, billable time tracking and unlimited invoicing. Features as each company describes the plan shown; recurring bills or expenses aren't counted as a subscription tracker. QuickBooks: QuickBooks Online Plus ($140/mo) is the lowest plan with projects; Essentials ($85/mo) adds tracked time to invoices but has no projects, and Simple Start has neither. Plus bills an estimate in parts (progress invoicing); named phases on a project need Advanced ($340/mo), as does automatic depreciation of fixed assets. Xero: Xero's Early and Growing plans don't include time tracking. Its mobile apps have a dark mode; its web app doesn't. Its page for lawyers mentions “trust reconciliation” but describes no client trust ledgers or three-way reconciliation. Xero Analytics can be set up to show an EBITDA metric. FreshBooks: FreshBooks Lite and Plus limit billable clients to 5 and 50; Premium is $756 if paid yearly. 1099 forms come with its Payroll add-on ($40/mo plus $6/mo per person paid). Prices change; check each company's site for current pricing. QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Xero is a trademark of Xero Limited. FreshBooks is a trademark of 2ndSite Inc. EscBooks is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.