QuickBooks price increases: how much it has gone up, and why
Open your last few QuickBooks renewal notices side by side and the pattern is right there: the number goes up almost every year. Intuit has raised the price of QuickBooks steadily for years, and the jumps have gotten bigger recently, not smaller. The plan most small businesses use is up around 64% in five years, and the top plan by more than eighty percent over the same stretch.
This guide puts the full picture next to those renewal notices. It lays out how much each QuickBooks plan has actually risen, why Intuit keeps pushing the price up, what the increases mean for what you pay over a few years, and the honest set of options in front of you when the next renewal notice lands. No scare tactics, just the figures and what you can do about them.
How much QuickBooks has actually gone up
Start with the numbers, because "QuickBooks keeps getting more expensive" only means something once you see the size of it. Here are the current Canadian prices for the main QuickBooks Online plans, next to how much each has risen over roughly five years.
| QuickBooks Online plan | Price today (CAD/mo) | Approx. rise over 5 years |
|---|---|---|
| EasyStart | $30 | just over 50% |
| Plus | $110 | about 64% |
| Advanced | $220 | more than 80% |
Those are today's Canadian prices, and each plan has climbed steadily over the past five years to reach them. Intuit now raises its prices most years, and the jumps have been getting bigger, not smaller (current Canadian pricing, 2025 increase).
A few things stand out. There is no single tidy "QuickBooks went up X percent" number, because each plan rose at its own pace. Plus, the plan most growing businesses land on, is up about 64%. The entry EasyStart plan rose the least in percentage terms but still more than half, while the top Advanced plan climbed the most, more than 80%. And the increases are not slowing: the steepest jumps have landed in just the last two years.
Why the price keeps rising
Price hikes always come with a stated reason and a real reason, and they are not always the same. Here is the honest read on why QuickBooks costs more every year.
- Intuit wants everyone on the cloud. The biggest driver is strategic. Intuit has stopped selling QuickBooks Desktop to new customers and is steering everyone toward the subscription-only QuickBooks Online. A monthly subscription you pay forever is worth far more to Intuit than a piece of software you buy once, so the whole product line is being pushed in that direction, and priced accordingly.
- It is the market leader, and it prices like one. QuickBooks is the default small-business accounting tool, the one most accountants know and most people are told to buy. That dominance gives Intuit room to raise prices year after year, because switching feels like a hassle and many customers pay the increase rather than move.
- Annual increases are now baked in. This is not a one-time correction. Since 2023, the mainstream QuickBooks Online plans have gone up an average of roughly 12 to 13% a year. When an increase happens every single year, the compounding adds up fast, which is how a plan gets 60% or 90% more expensive across five years without any single hike looking outrageous on its own.
- New features and AI get folded in. Intuit points to added capabilities, more automation, newer AI tools, as justification. For businesses that use those features, some of the increase buys real things. For businesses that use a fraction of QuickBooks, it is paying more for capability they never touch.
None of this makes Intuit unusual. It is a rational strategy for a market leader with a captive base. What it does mean is that the increases have been steady and regular for years, so they are worth planning around rather than being surprised by each renewal.
The Desktop increases were even sharper
If you are on QuickBooks Desktop rather than the online version, you have felt this even more acutely. The Desktop 2025 subscription came with a price increase of around 49% in a single year, a jump big enough that plenty of long-time users went looking for the exit (reported increase).
That steep rise sits on top of a bigger change: QuickBooks Desktop is being wound down. Intuit has stopped selling it to new customers and each version now has a published support end date. So Desktop users are being asked to pay sharply more for a product that is on its way out, which is a large part of why the Desktop price hike stung more than the online one. The full picture, including what stops working and how to get your data out, is in the guide on QuickBooks Desktop being discontinued.
What the increases mean for your bill
A percentage is abstract until you put it against your own renewal. Here is the concrete version.
Most small businesses do not stay on the cheapest plan for long. The features people actually associate with QuickBooks, detailed reporting, inventory, project tracking, more than one user, live in the Plus tier. So the price that matters for most businesses is the Plus price, not the entry sticker. In Canada that is $110 a month today, and it has climbed by around 64% over five years.
The part that hurts is the compounding. Because the increases land every year, the gap keeps widening. A business that budgeted around a plan five years ago is now paying well over half again as much for the same core work, and if the roughly 12 to 13% annual pattern holds, the number climbs again next year and the year after. Over a three or four year horizon, the difference between QuickBooks and a cheaper or free tool is not a rounding error, it is real money that recurs every month.
That is the honest case for at least pricing out your alternatives at renewal time. Not because you must leave, but because the compounding means the cost of not checking grows every year.
Your options when the price goes up
When the renewal notice lands with a higher number, you have more choices than "pay it" or "panic." There are four, and the right one depends on what you actually use QuickBooks for.
Negotiate or downgrade
Before anything drastic, check whether you are on the right plan. Plenty of businesses pay for Plus to use one feature they could live without. Dropping a tier, or calling Intuit to ask about retention offers when your price jumps, sometimes trims the bill with no migration at all. This is the lowest-effort move and worth trying first.
Accept it, if QuickBooks earns its price
If you run payroll through QuickBooks, your accountant works inside your file, or you lean on its deeper reporting and integrations, the increase may still be worth paying. The guide on whether QuickBooks is worth it walks through exactly where it earns its keep. For some businesses the answer is genuinely yes, and a switch would cost more in time and disruption than the price rise does.
Switch to a cheaper tool
If your complaint is mainly the price and you use a fraction of the features, the market is full of cheaper and free alternatives. The roundup of QuickBooks alternatives covers the main names with honest trade-offs, from Wave and Xero to FreshBooks. Several have real free tiers, and for a simple invoicing-and-expenses business the saving recurs every month.
Move your books off the subscription treadmill entirely
Part of why QuickBooks can raise the price every year is that your books live on Intuit's servers and you rent access monthly. Local-first software flips that: the program runs on your own computer and your data stays with you. Argo Books is one option in that camp, and since you are reading this on its site, weigh the mention accordingly. It is a desktop app for Windows, Linux, and macOS with a free tier that has no time limit: 25 invoices a month, basic bookkeeping, and your data on your own machine, with Premium at $15 CAD a month for higher volumes. The honest caveat, the same one the rest of this cluster makes: Argo Books has no built-in payroll, so if you pay staff through QuickBooks you would need a separate payroll service. If your day-to-day is invoicing, expenses, and reports, though, it does that core well without a yearly price rise attached.
Frequently asked questions
Mostly strategy. Intuit is moving everyone from one-time Desktop software to the subscription-only QuickBooks Online, because a monthly fee you pay forever is worth more to them than a one-off purchase. On top of that, QuickBooks is the market leader, which gives it room to raise prices year after year knowing switching feels like a hassle. Since 2023 the mainstream plans have gone up an average of roughly 12 to 13 percent a year, and Intuit points to new features and AI tools to justify it. For businesses that use those features some of the increase buys real value; for businesses using a fraction of QuickBooks it is paying more for capability they never touch.
It depends on the plan, because each rose at its own pace. In Canada the entry EasyStart plan is up just over half over five years, the Plus plan most businesses use is up around 64 percent, and the top Advanced plan has climbed more than 80 percent. There is no single tidy figure that covers all of QuickBooks, but every mainstream plan is up more than half in five years, and much of that jump has come in just the last two years.
Yes, and more sharply. The QuickBooks Desktop 2025 subscription came with a price increase of around 49 percent in a single year. That sits on top of Intuit winding Desktop down: it has stopped selling it to new customers and each version now has a support end date. So Desktop users are being asked to pay a lot more for a product on its way out, which is why the Desktop increase hit harder than the online one.
You cannot stop Intuit raising list prices, but you can soften the hit. Check whether you are on a higher plan than you need and drop a tier if so. When your price jumps, it is worth calling Intuit to ask about retention or loyalty offers, which sometimes trim the bill. Beyond that, the only way to step off the yearly-increase treadmill entirely is to move to a cheaper tool, a free tier, or local-first software where you are not paying a rising monthly subscription at all.
Several, and some are free. If you mainly invoice and track expenses, Wave and Argo Books both have free tiers with no time limit. FreshBooks is friendlier and cheaper for freelancers who bill by time, and Xero is the closest thing to a full QuickBooks experience if you want the capability without the QuickBooks price. The one thing most alternatives do not replace cheaply is built-in payroll for your region, so if that is why you use QuickBooks, switching may not save as much as you expect. The roundup of QuickBooks alternatives covers each with honest trade-offs.
Yes, partly, and you should read it that way. It is on the Argo Books site, and Argo Books is one of the alternatives it mentions. We tried to keep it honest: the price figures come from public sources, the article says plainly that for some businesses QuickBooks is still worth paying the higher price, and it lists negotiating or staying put as real options alongside switching. Argo Books appears once, near the end, with the caveat that it has no built-in payroll. If the right answer for you is to keep QuickBooks, that is the honest answer, and we would rather say it than talk you into a switch you do not need.