

But for most small-business owners in most industries, QuickBooks Online has better automation, better access, and a better price point. It’s an especially good choice for small-business owners without a consistent internet connection and big businesses with complex, industry-specific financial needs. QuickBooks Desktop still has a place in the accounting software industry. Pro Plus and Premier Plus limit customer service hours to just 12 hours a day, weekdays only. Notably, only QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise includes 24/7 customer service. If you choose QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, you'll also need to pay extra if you want to access customer service via live chat. Speaking of extra fees, QuickBooks Desktop also charges for e-commerce app integration, invoice-based payment acceptance, and online data hosting. Different software packages include licenses for 1 to 10 users, up to 20 users, up to 30 users, and up to 40 users. In contrast, QuickBooks Enterprise is sold in user-based increments. And with Desktop Premier Plus, your four additional users cost an annual fee of $300 each.

Exactly how high that cost is depends on the plan you choose: for Desktop Pro Plus, you can add two users for $200 per year each. Unlike QuickBooks Online, each additional QuickBooks Desktop user costs extra. Like QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop limits your user number by plan.

Most notably, Premier Plus has 150+ customizable reports for nonprofits, general contractors, and retailers. The QuickBooks Desktop Premier Plus plan is particularly useful for business that want industry-specific features. However, if you’re not a Mac user, you can choose from all three QuickBooks Desktop plans. In other words, Mac users can't scale up their software from one plan to the next as they add software users. This plan, QuickBooks Desktop for Mac, has the same features as QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, the most basic desktop-based plan. We also don’t recommend QuickBooks Desktop to Mac users, since there’s just one desktop-based plan for Mac users. (And for what it's worth, the app is very poorly reviewed by its very limited number of both iOS and Android users.) The QuickBooks Desktop version of the mobile app is also incredibly limited in scope-you can use it to scan receipts only. That feature comes in handy if you have limited internet access, but it isn’t right for business owners who do most of their accounting on the go. QuickBooks Desktop isn’t cloud based, so you can only access it from the computer you installed the software on.
