QuickBooks Online vs Xero
QuickBooks Online and Xero are both accounting software. QuickBooks Online is a commercial product from Intuit. Xero is a commercial product from Xero Limited.
Which to pick
- Pick QuickBooks Online when
- A small business in the US, Canada or UK wants the accounting package most bookkeepers already know.
- Pick Xero when
- A small business in New Zealand, Australia or the UK wants mainstream cloud accounting that local accountants support.
Side by side
Cloud accounting for small businesses: invoicing, bank feeds, bills, expenses, payroll add-on, sales tax and reports.
Cloud accounting for small businesses with bank feeds, invoicing, bills, payroll in some countries, GST/VAT and a large app marketplace.
Intuit raises prices regularly, and multi-entity or inventory-heavy businesses outgrow it.
Plans cap invoices and bills on lower tiers, and multi-entity consolidation needs add-ons.
Production-ready (both)
Cloud service and mobile app (both)
Not published (both)
Closed source, sold by Intuit
Closed source, sold by Xero Limited
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code. (both)
1.8k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
1.4k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Other comparisons
More accounting software
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.