The median entry price for Accounting in 2026 is $19 a month. Across all 252 tools we price-check the median is $19.99, so this category runs about the same as software average.
That comes from 7 tools in the category whose monthly price the vendor publishes on its own site. The range runs from Expensify at $5 to Xero at $27 — a spread of 5.4x for products that sit on the same shortlist.
Every published price in the category
| Tool | Entry price | Free tier | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expensify | $5/mo | No | Per seat |
| Zoho Books | $15/mo | Yes | Flat |
| QuickBooks Online | $19/mo | Yes | Flat |
| Wave | $19/mo | Yes | Flat |
| Sage Accounting | £20/mo + VAT | No | User bands |
| FreshBooks | $23/mo | No | Flat |
| Xero | $27/mo | No | Flat |
How much of this category is free
5 of 9 offer a free tier (56%), close to the 56% average. Enough of the category is free that it is worth shortlisting on that basis alone.
Per seat or flat
1 of 9 charge per seat (11%). Where that is the model, the entry price is not the price: it is the price of one person. Multiply by your real headcount before comparing anything, and check whether viewers are free — on a team with more readers than writers that distinction can halve the bill.
Where to start
The floor is Expensify at $5, with no free tier. Below $19 the category is Expensify at $5, Zoho Books at $15. Those are real products, not trials, and for a small team they are usually the right place to start: the expensive tiers in this category buy scale and administration, which are worth paying for once you have the problem and not before.
What the headline price leaves out
An entry price is a plan, not a bill. The caveats we recorded while verifying this category are the ones most likely to change what you actually pay:
- QuickBooks Online — a free tier now exists; every paid plan is running 50% off for three months (Essentials $75, Plus $115, Advanced $275)
- Wave — Limited advanced features and integrations; payments/payroll cost extra. Verify on waveapps.com.
- FreshBooks — Tiers capped by billable clients; extra team members cost more. Verify on freshbooks.com.
- Xero — Early plan caps invoices/bills; US payroll needs the Gusto add-on. Verify on xero.com.
The free tiers in this category, for the record: Brex, QuickBooks Online, Ramp, Wave, Zoho Books. Whether each is usable or decorative varies, and the only reliable test is running a real piece of your own work through it before the card comes out.
For what each of these actually does rather than what it costs, see our Accounting comparison. Every price here is verified from the vendor’s own page on a recorded date and kept in our public pricing dataset.
What Accounting Costs in 2026. DigiJaws, 2026. https://digijaws.com/reviews/what-accounting-costs/