QuickBooks Online vs Kashoo: Pricing, Features, and Which One Fits (2026)

QuickBooks Online and Kashoo sit at two different scales of the same job. Kashoo is simple, flat-priced cloud accounting aimed at freelancers, sole proprietors, and very small businesses that want their books handled without much setup. QuickBooks Online is the deeper, more expensive platform built to grow with a business and to plug into a large network of U.S. accountants. If your books are small and you want low cost and a short learning curve, Kashoo usually fits; if you need depth, scale, inventory, or an accountant who already lives in the software, QuickBooks usually fits.

One naming note before the comparison: the company behind Kashoo now sells its accounting product under the TrulySmall name (TrulySmall Accounting, plus a free companion tool called TrulySmall Invoices), while the kashoo.com site still uses the Kashoo brand and its help center covers both. They are the same product lineage, so this post treats "Kashoo" and "TrulySmall Accounting" as one option.

The quick version:

• Kashoo charges a single flat monthly price with unlimited users. QuickBooks Online charges by tier and caps users from one on Simple Start up to 25 on Advanced.
• Kashoo is built for the smallest businesses and low transaction volume. QuickBooks scales through five plans with deeper reporting, bill management, and inventory.
• QuickBooks has the far larger U.S. accountant network and app marketplace. Kashoo keeps a short integration list and fewer accountant-facing tools.
• Neither moving to Kashoo nor cancelling QuickBooks preserves your full QuickBooks history with its attachments and audit trail, so archive that history before you cancel.

QuickBooks Online vs Kashoo at a glance

Prices are U.S. list prices in 2026 and change often, so confirm the current figure on each company's pricing page before you decide.

Pricing compared

QuickBooks Online has five plans at current U.S. prices in 2026: Solopreneur at $20, Simple Start at $38, Essentials at $75, Plus at $115, and Advanced at $275 per month. Payroll and payment processing are billed on top, so the real monthly cost usually runs higher than the plan price, and Intuit has raised prices most years.

Kashoo takes the opposite approach with a single flat plan. Reviews of the current product put it at around $27 per month at current prices, described by one as less than half the cost of QuickBooks Online, and Software Advice lists the same flat rate with unlimited users included. The vendor's own pricing page renders the live figure and offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card, so check it for the exact number before you sign up. The free TrulySmall Invoices tool covers basic invoicing on its own if that is all you need.

Line the two up and the pattern is clear. Kashoo is cheaper and simpler at the bottom of the market, especially once you count the unlimited users. QuickBooks costs more but buys you room to grow, more reporting, and the value of an accountant who already works in it.

Users, and why the flat price matters

The clearest split between the two is user access. Kashoo includes unlimited users at no added charge, so your bookkeeper, your accountant, and anyone on your team can each have a login for the same flat monthly price. QuickBooks Online counts users per plan: one on Simple Start, three on Essentials, five on Plus, and up to 25 on Advanced, with accountant seats granted separately.

If only you and one other person touch the books, the QuickBooks limits rarely bite. If several people need access, Kashoo's flat price can be meaningfully cheaper, though most businesses small enough to pick Kashoo do not have many users to begin with.

Which one is easier to run?

For a non-accountant, Kashoo is usually the gentler start. It leans on automatic categorization and bank feeds to keep bookkeeping light, and Software Advice notes it works best for lean operations with lower transaction counts. Setup is short and the interface stays uncluttered, which is the main reason freelancers and sole proprietors choose it.

QuickBooks Online asks more of you up front. There are more menus, more settings, and more report options, which is exactly what makes it powerful once your business grows past the basics. The trade is a steeper learning curve for the smallest operators who may never use the depth they are paying for.

Features: where each one pulls ahead

Both platforms cover the essentials: invoicing, bank feeds, reconciliation, expense tracking, and standard financial reports. The gap opens at the edges.

QuickBooks Online leads on depth. It offers stronger bill management (accounts payable) on Essentials and up, inventory tracking on Plus and Advanced, deep and customizable reporting, its own U.S. payroll as a paid add-on, and a large U.S. app marketplace. It also has the widest pool of U.S. accountants and bookkeepers who already work in it every day, which matters the moment you hand the books to a professional.

Kashoo leads on simplicity and price. It handles invoicing, income and expense tracking, sales tax, a double-entry ledger, and multi-currency, with receipt capture on mobile. Where it falls short of QuickBooks is the advanced end: reporting is more basic, inventory is not a focus, payroll runs through a third-party integration such as Gusto rather than a built-in module, and the integration list is short next to the QuickBooks marketplace. For a very small business, none of that is necessarily a problem; for a growing one, it becomes a ceiling.

Who should choose which

Choose QuickBooks Online if you expect to grow, you need inventory or deeper bill management, you rely on heavily customized reports, you want payroll from the same vendor as your books, or you value having an accountant who already knows the software.

Choose Kashoo if your books are small and steady, you want the lowest reasonable cost, you would rather not manage tiers and per-seat pricing, and you prefer a short setup over a long feature list. For a freelancer or sole proprietor with modest transaction volume, Kashoo often does everything needed for less money.

Either way, one thing does not change: the decision to switch accounting software is separate from the decision about what to do with the history sitting in QuickBooks today.

Switching from QuickBooks to Kashoo? Export your history first

A migration and a complete record are not the same thing. Moving from QuickBooks Online to Kashoo is really about getting your day-to-day bookkeeping running in the new software, not about handing you a full copy of everything QuickBooks held. Standard migrations generally carry only a limited window of recent history to set up your opening balances, and they do not bring the pieces you are most likely to be asked for later.

Three things routinely stay behind in QuickBooks after a switch:

• Your attachments, meaning the receipts and documents attached to transactions, along with the link showing which transaction each file belongs to. QuickBooks' own export separates the files from their transactions, and a migration to another platform does not carry them.
• The audit log, the record of who entered or changed each transaction and when. It does not travel with a migration.
• Your full multi-year history in its original form, everything past the short window a conversion sets up.

That gap becomes a real loss because of what happens next. When you cancel a paid QuickBooks Online subscription, Intuit keeps the company in read-only mode for 12 months and then deletes it permanently. After that deletion the company is gone, and resubscribing opens a new, empty company rather than restoring the old one. A free trial gets only 90 days. The read-only year explainer walks through exactly how much time you have.

The safest time to build the archive is while QuickBooks is still live, before you migrate and before you cancel. Get a complete, verified copy of the QuickBooks company first. If you would rather not spend days rebuilding receipts and reports by hand, that is the service we run. We build one complete, audit-ready archive of your QuickBooks Online company: the full general ledger in both cash and accrual basis, every financial report for each year, every attachment still linked to its transaction, and the audit log, delivered as a single download so you can move to Kashoo and cancel with your whole history preserved.

If you are closing the business rather than switching, the same archive can help support a future IRS request for records, long after the subscription is gone.

Frequently asked questions

Is Kashoo cheaper than QuickBooks Online?

Usually, yes, for a very small business. Kashoo's single flat plan runs around $27 per month at current prices with unlimited users, while QuickBooks Online ranges from $20 to $275 per month across five tiers with users capped per plan. QuickBooks can still be the better value once you need its depth, so compare the specific features you would actually use, not just the sticker price.

Is Kashoo the same as TrulySmall Accounting?

They are the same product lineage. The company behind Kashoo now markets its accounting product as TrulySmall Accounting and offers a free TrulySmall Invoices tool alongside it, while the kashoo.com site and help center still use the Kashoo name. If you see either name, you are looking at the same simple cloud accounting product.

Will I lose my QuickBooks history if I cancel after switching?

You can. A cancelled QuickBooks Online company goes read-only for 12 months, then Intuit deletes it permanently, and resubscribing does not bring a deleted company back. Anything a migration to Kashoo left behind, including your attachments and audit log, is erased on that schedule unless you archived it first.

Do I still need my old QuickBooks records if the business moved to Kashoo?

Usually. The IRS generally expects business records to be kept for at least three years, with longer periods in some cases: four years for many employment tax records, six years if income was substantially understated, seven years for a worthless-securities or bad-debt claim, and no limit at all for a fraudulent or unfiled return. That is far longer than a short migration window covers, and your CPA can tell you which period applies to you.