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Xero is running 80% off for six months. QuickBooks is running 90% off for six months. Neither of those is a price — they are hooks, and they expire on your seventh bill. Here is what Xero and QuickBooks actually cost a UK business over two years, and the one feature that decides it.
The short answer, before you scroll
QuickBooks is cheaper. On entry plans over 24 months you will pay £186 for QuickBooks Sole Trader against £307.20 for Xero Ignite. That is £121.20 more for Xero, and no amount of affiliate commission makes that number smaller.
But QuickBooks Sole Trader cannot file a VAT return. The moment you register for VAT you are on QuickBooks Simple Start at £16/month — £297.60 over 24 months. The gap collapses from £121.20 to £9.60, and at forty pence a month the argument stops being about money.
No email required. Nothing gated. Both affiliate links are on this page whichever way you go.
Solid bars are total spend over 24 months. The dashed line marks the end of year one — everything right of it is the real price, the one you pay for as long as you stay. Pick the row that describes you.
Which describes your business?
Ex VAT. Assumes the new-customer promotion running on 31 July 2026 — 80% off six months at Xero, 90% off six months at QuickBooks — then full list price from month seven. Promotions change monthly. Always confirm on the vendor’s own page before you commit. See the full arithmetic.
Amber marks where Xero wins. Where it does not, the cell is plain — and you can count them.
| Xero | QuickBooks | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price / month | £16 Ignite |
£10 Sole Trader |
| Current intro offer | 80% off 6 months → £3.20/mo |
90% off 6 months → £1/mo |
| 24-month cost, entry plan | £307.20 | £186 £121.20 cheaper |
| 24-month cost, VAT-capable plan | £307.20 Ignite — VAT included |
£297.60 Simple Start — only £9.60 cheaper |
| VAT returns on entry plan | Yes — on £16 Ignite | No — needs Simple Start at £16 |
| MTD recognised by HMRC | Yes | Yes |
| Payroll | Included for 5 people from Comprehensive £50 | Paid add-on, available from Simple Start upward cheaper at low headcount, priced separately |
| Bank feeds | The strongest part of the product. Open Banking feeds, and a reconciliation engine that learns your coding | Works, and covers the same UK banks. Feeds drop more often and need reconnecting |
| Invoices on entry plan | 20/month on Ignite a real cap, and easy to hit |
Unlimited |
| Users included | Unlimited on every plan | Capped by tier — 1 on Sole Trader, 1 on Simple Start, 3 on Essentials, 5 on Plus |
| Multi-currency | From Comprehensive £50 | From Essentials £33 |
| Third-party app ecosystem | Largest in the UK — 1,000+ integrations, and the ones that matter are first-class | Large, but thinner on UK-specific tools |
| UK accountant availability | Effectively universal. Xero is the default in UK practice | Very high, and rising. You will not struggle |
| Support | Email / in-product, 24/7. No inbound phone line | Phone and live chat during UK hours |
| Free trial | 30 days + 1 month free | 30 days, no free plan |
| Plan ladder | £16 → £37 → £50 → £65 | £10 → £16 → £33 → £47 → £115 |
| Best suited to | VAT-registered businesses, anyone with an accountant, anyone who will grow | Non-VAT sole traders who want cheap, unlimited invoicing and a phone number |
All prices ex VAT, taken from Xero’s and QuickBooks’ own UK pricing pages on 31 July 2026. Promotional rates are for new customers only and do not renew. Counted honestly, QuickBooks takes more amber cells than Xero on this table — the two that go Xero’s way, VAT on the entry plan and unlimited users, are simply the two that cost the most to be wrong about.
There is no universal winner here. There is only a winner for your specific circumstances, and in two of these four cases it is not the product we earn most from.
Non-VAT sole trader
You do not need VAT returns, so the one feature Xero charges you for is a feature you will never open. QuickBooks Sole Trader gives you unlimited invoices — Xero Ignite caps you at twenty a month — for £186 over two years against £307.20. You would be paying £121.20 for capability you have no use for.
Verdict QuickBooks Sole Trader, £10/mo
VAT registered
VAT forces QuickBooks users up to Simple Start at £16 — identical to Xero Ignite. Over 24 months that is £297.60 against £307.20: forty pence a month. At that margin you should buy on the product, and the product arguments — bank feed reliability, unlimited users, the app ecosystem, and the fact that every UK accountant already lives in Xero — all point one way.
Verdict Xero Ignite, £16/mo
Limited company
A limited company means a director, probably a bookkeeper, and certainly an accountant. Xero includes unlimited users on every plan; QuickBooks charges by tier — one seat on Simple Start, three on Essentials at £33, five on Plus at £47. QuickBooks Essentials is cheaper on paper (£613.80 vs £710.40 over 24 months for Xero Grow) but you are buying seats you would otherwise get free, and your accountant is already in Xero.
Verdict Xero Grow, £37/mo
You need payroll
Xero bundles payroll for five people, but only from Comprehensive at £50/month — £960 over 24 months. QuickBooks sells payroll as a separate add-on on top of a cheaper base plan, so at one or two employees it usually lands lower, and at five it usually does not. This is the one section where we will not hand you a verdict: get both quotes for your headcount before you sign.
Verdict Depends on headcount — price both
We have run a VAT-registered limited company on Xero for four years and kept a QuickBooks subscription alongside it for two. The complaints below are ours, not a competitor’s marketing.
We are paid more when you choose Xero. Here are the five situations where you should not.
Every figure on this page comes from the same three-step sum: six months at the promotional rate, then list price for the rest. Nothing is rounded, nothing is estimated.
| Plan | Months 1–6 | Months 7–12 | Year one | Months 13–24 | 24-month total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xero Ignite £16 | 6 × £3.20 = £19.20 | 6 × £16 = £96 | £115.20 | 12 × £16 = £192 | £307.20 |
| QuickBooks Sole Trader £10 | 6 × £1.00 = £6 | 6 × £10 = £60 | £66 | 12 × £10 = £120 | £186 |
| QuickBooks Simple Start £16 | 6 × £1.60 = £9.60 | 6 × £16 = £96 | £105.60 | 12 × £16 = £192 | £297.60 |
| Xero Grow £37 | 6 × £7.40 = £44.40 | 6 × £37 = £222 | £266.40 | 12 × £37 = £444 | £710.40 |
| QuickBooks Essentials £33 | 6 × £3.30 = £19.80 | 6 × £33 = £198 | £217.80 | 12 × £33 = £396 | £613.80 |
| Xero Comprehensive £50 | 6 × £10.00 = £60 | 6 × £50 = £300 | £360 | 12 × £50 = £600 | £960 |
| QuickBooks Plus £47 | 6 × £4.70 = £28.20 | 6 × £47 = £282 | £310.20 | 12 × £47 = £564 | £874.20 |
Assumptions, stated plainly. All figures ex VAT and in GBP. Monthly billing, no annual prepayment discount applied. The 80% (Xero) and 90% (QuickBooks) six-month new-customer discounts are verified on the entry plans and applied at the same percentage to higher tiers for illustration — confirm the offer on the tier you actually want before you buy. Free-trial months are excluded from every total, which makes both products look slightly more expensive than they will be in your first year, Xero more so because its trial is longer. Promotions are for new customers only, do not renew, and change monthly. Everything here was checked against Xero’s and QuickBooks’ own UK pricing pages on 31 July 2026.
Our method · verified 31 July 2026
Every price on this page was read off Xero’s and QuickBooks’ own UK pricing pages — not a press release, not a review-site database, not another comparison article. Figures are ex VAT unless this page says otherwise, cover the plans named in the tables above, and were verified on 31 July 2026. Promotional rates in this category are revised roughly monthly and are almost always for new customers only, so we re-check every figure on this page monthly and move the verification date when we do.
The 24-month totals are arithmetic rather than opinion: promotional months at the promotional rate, then full list price through to month twenty-four, with the multiplication printed beside each total so you can redo it on your phone.
We publish our method instead of a byline. A named author is easy to invent and impossible for you to check; a named source, a stated date and printed arithmetic are not. This page is written and maintained by Fizoral as a publication. If a number here is wrong it is checkable against the vendor’s own page in under a minute — and we would rather you did that than took our word for it. Read how we research, or tell us about a figure that looks wrong.
QuickBooks is cheaper. Over 24 months on entry plans you pay £186 for QuickBooks Sole Trader against £307.20 for Xero Ignite — a difference of £121.20 ex VAT. The picture changes if you are VAT registered: QuickBooks Sole Trader cannot file VAT returns, so you would need Simple Start at £16/month, which comes to £297.60 over 24 months and leaves Xero only £9.60 more expensive across two years.
No. VAT returns start on QuickBooks Simple Start at £16 per month. This is the most expensive assumption you can get wrong when comparing the two products, because the headline £10 QuickBooks plan is routinely compared against Xero’s £16 Ignite plan as though they were equivalent. They are not — Ignite files VAT returns and Sole Trader does not. If you are VAT registered, or expect to cross the threshold within two years, compare Xero Ignite against QuickBooks Simple Start instead.
It reverts to full list price on your seventh monthly bill. Xero Ignite goes from £3.20 to £16 per month; QuickBooks Sole Trader goes from £1 to £10. Both discounts are for new customers only and do not renew, so year two always costs more than year one. On Xero, the discounted six months account for £19.20 of a £307.20 two-year bill — about 6%. Budgeting from the promotional rate is the most common and most expensive mistake in this category.
Yes. Both are on HMRC’s recognised software list for Making Tax Digital and both support quarterly updates for MTD for Income Tax. MTD compatibility is not a differentiator between them in 2026 — it is table stakes, and any comparison that leads with it is padding. Decide on cost, on whether your plan actually includes VAT returns, on bank feed reliability and on what your accountant already uses.
Xero, in our experience, and it is the strongest single argument for paying more. Both connect to the same UK banks through Open Banking, so coverage is not the difference — persistence is. QuickBooks feeds drop and need re-authorising noticeably more often, and Xero’s reconciliation engine is better at learning how you code recurring transactions. Over a year this is a handful of small irritations rather than one catastrophic failure, but it is the part of the software you touch every week.
Harder than either vendor implies. Transactions, contacts and invoices usually migrate cleanly; reconciliation history, attached receipts, custom reports and payroll records frequently do not. Switching mid-tax-year is the worst option available to you. If you are going to move, move at the start of a new accounting period, and budget a weekend. This is also a decent argument for starting on the more capable product if you genuinely expect to grow — the £121.20 you save now is smaller than the cost of migrating later.
Thirty days is enough to reconcile a full VAT quarter and find out whether the bank feed actually handles your account — the only test that really matters. Both links below are affiliate links, and we have given you the case for each.
Both are affiliate links. We earn a commission if you subscribe and you pay exactly the same either way. Card details are not required to begin the Xero trial. Prices ex VAT, verified 31 July 2026; promotions change monthly, so confirm on the vendor’s page before you commit.