QuickBooks vs Wave vs Zoho Books: Which Free Plan Is Worth It?
QuickBooks has no permanent free plan, while Wave and Zoho Books do. We compare what each free tier covers, where it falls short, and how to switch.
Subscription price increases keep pushing small businesses back toward free software. A recent Fortune comparison lined up QuickBooks, Wave, and Zoho Books on exactly that question. We took our own look at the same ground: which of these three actually gives you a free plan you can run a business on, and what that plan costs you later?
Which of the three is genuinely free?
Wave keeps it simple. The core accounting, invoicing, and receipt tracking cost nothing, for as long as you want them. The money comes from payment processing and payroll, which are paid add-ons.
Zoho Books has a free tier too, but it is gated. Eligibility depends on your annual revenue, so it targets the smallest operations. Cross that ceiling and you move onto a paid plan.
QuickBooks Online is the odd one out. Intuit does not offer a permanent free tier. There is a time-limited trial of the paid plans, and when it ends you subscribe or stop. When a comparison mentions free QuickBooks, it almost always means that trial.
The catches in every free tier
Free covers bookkeeping, not everything bookkeeping touches. Payroll sits outside Wave’s free tier, and Intuit sells payroll as a separate subscription on any QuickBooks plan. If you take card or bank payments through Wave, each transaction carries a processing fee. That is how the free plan pays for itself.
The other limits appear as you grow. Free tiers restrict user counts, automation, and reporting depth, and support tends to be self-serve. A free plan fits a solo business far better than a growing team.
Moving your QuickBooks history to another tool
Plenty of readers are already on QuickBooks and weighing the jump. Plan it carefully. Neither Wave nor Zoho Books opens a QuickBooks company file directly. You export customers, vendors, the chart of accounts, and open transactions to spreadsheets, then map and import them one list at a time.
Open invoices and bills need particular care, because balances must land exactly right or your first reconciliation becomes archaeology. Export everything before you cancel QuickBooks Online. Once a subscription ends, the data sits read-only and is eventually deleted.
We do this conversion work every day. If you would rather not map the lists yourself, see our QuickBooks data migration service.
Before you switch anything
Run both systems in parallel for one closed month. Reconcile the new system against your bank, and confirm your trial balance matches the old file. If the two agree, the free plan is doing its job and the move is safe to finish. If they disagree, you have found the gap while the old file is still live.