QuickBooks Online Plus lists at $140 a month for 5 users, and QuickBooks Online Advanced lists at $340 a month for 25 users, so moving from Plus to Advanced costs $200 a month more, or $2,400 a year at list price. For that money Advanced adds workflows (including bill approval), custom user roles, batch invoices and expenses, Excel sync, unlimited accounts, classes and locations, Priority Circle support and, since August 1, 2026, Bill Pay Elite at no extra fee. Prices were read on quickbooks.intuit.com on October 5, 2026, without the 50 percent introductory discount.
Most of the comparisons ranking for this search still quote the old $90 and $200 prices. Intuit raised Essentials, Plus and Advanced for renewals on or after August 1, 2026, so the gap you are actually deciding on today is wider than those pages say. The useful question is not which plan has more features. It is which one or two Advanced features you need, and whether there is a cheaper way to get just those.
QuickBooks Online Plus vs Advanced pricing at a glance
| Line | QuickBooks Online Plus | QuickBooks Online Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| List price | $140 a month | $340 a month |
| A year at list | $1,680 | $4,080 |
| Introductory offer | 50% off for 3 months ($70) | 50% off for 3 months ($170) |
| Users included | 5, plus 2 accountants | 25, plus 3 accountants |
| Chart of accounts | Up to 250 accounts | Unlimited |
| Classes and locations | 40 combined | Unlimited |
| Workflows and bill approval | Not included; add Bill Pay Elite at $45 a month | Included, with Bill Pay Elite since August 1, 2026 |
| Custom user roles and permissions | Standard roles only | Included |
| Batch invoices and expenses | Not included | Included |
| Sync data with Excel | Not included | Included |
| Support | Standard support | Priority Circle with priority support and training |
| 1099 e-filing | Not included in the plan | Free with Bill Pay Elite |
Plans, user counts and features come from Intuit's pricing page. The 250-account and 40 class-and-location limits come from Intuit's usage limits help article.
What does QuickBooks Advanced have that Plus doesn't?
Advanced adds five things that matter in practice: more people (25 users against 5), no structural limits (unlimited accounts, classes and locations), control over who does what (custom roles and automated workflows, including bill approval and payment release), speed for high volume (batch invoices and expenses, Excel sync) and a support tier with training. Everything else on Plus, such as inventory, projects, budgets and receipt capture, is also on Advanced.
Intuit has also been putting new features on Advanced first. The current pricing page lists a construction financials solution and advanced project financials as new on Advanced. If you run job costing on Plus today and those are the reason you are looking, compare them on a trial with your own data before you commit to the higher price.
Is QuickBooks Advanced worth it?
Advanced is worth $2,400 a year more when you need two or more of its features at once, because that is roughly what the separate fixes would cost. If you need only one, there is usually a cheaper route. Here are the usual reasons people upgrade, and the alternative for each.
| Why you are looking at Advanced | The cheaper route | What that costs |
|---|---|---|
| More than 5 people need to log in | None inside QuickBooks Online; Advanced is the only plan above 5 users | $2,400 a year more |
| You hit 250 accounts or 40 classes and locations | Clean up the chart of accounts, or upgrade | Your bookkeeper's time, or $2,400 |
| Bills need approval before they are paid | Add QuickBooks Bill Pay Elite to Plus | $45 a month, $540 a year |
| Card charges and receipts need approval and coding too | An expense tool beside QuickBooks | Depends on seats; see below |
| Inventory has outgrown Plus | A dedicated inventory tool | Depends on the tool |
| Reporting in Excel | Export reports from Plus, or upgrade for live Excel sync | Time, or $2,400 |
The user limit is the one you cannot work around. If a sixth person needs their own QuickBooks login, Advanced is the answer. But check who those people are. At many ten-person companies, the extra logins are department managers who only need to approve spending, not to work in the books.
Does QuickBooks Online Plus have approval workflows?
No. Plus has no workflows of its own. You get bill approval and payment release workflows either by upgrading to Advanced or by adding Bill Pay Elite, which lists at $45 a month. Intuit's help article says the workflow can trigger on amount, vendor or location, supports up to five approval layers in sequence and up to seven approvers in the first group, and denies requests nobody reviews within 30 days.
Two catches are worth knowing before you pay. First, those workflows approve bills. A charge on a company card, or a receipt someone photographed after a client dinner, is not a bill and goes through no approval step. Second, approvers in a QuickBooks workflow are QuickBooks users, and Plus includes five. If your approvers are three managers plus the owner, plus the person who enters bills, you are already at the limit.
We cover the bill approval options side by side, with costs for a ten-person company, on our QuickBooks bill approval workflow page.
How much more is Advanced for a ten-person company?
Here is one company priced three ways. Ten people, on QuickBooks Online Plus today, with one person entering bills and reconciling, and three managers who should sign off on spending over $1,000. Much of the spend runs through two company card programs.
| Setup | Extra cost a year over Plus | What gets approved | QuickBooks logins needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upgrade to Advanced | $2,400 | Bills and payment release, plus custom workflows | Up to 25 included |
| Stay on Plus, add Bill Pay Elite | $540 | Bills and payment release only | Approvers count toward Plus's 5 |
| Stay on Plus, add Expenditure Growth for 4 seats | $1,008 | Receipts, vendor invoices and card statement lines | Managers approve in Expenditure, no QuickBooks login |
| Plus, Bill Pay Elite and Expenditure Growth | $1,548 | Bills in QuickBooks, everything else in Expenditure | Approvers split between the two |
Expenditure Growth is $21 per seat a month billed yearly, with a three-seat minimum, so four seats come to $1,008. If every employee who spends should submit their own receipts, ten seats come to $2,520, which is more than the Advanced upgrade, and we would rather you knew that now. The point of the table is different: none of the QuickBooks routes puts card spend through an approval step, and that is usually where most of the money goes at a company this size.
When should you upgrade to QuickBooks Advanced?
Upgrade when you need more than five logins for people who really work in the books, when you are near the 250-account or 40 class-and-location limits and the structure is right, or when you want custom roles, workflows and batch entry together. In those cases the $200 a month buys several things at once and the separate fixes would cost about the same.
Stay on Plus when the pull toward Advanced is one feature. Approvals for bills cost $45 a month with Elite. If inventory is what has outgrown Plus, a separate inventory management and stock forecasting tool is often the better fit than paying for every other Advanced feature to get slightly better inventory reports. And if the real problem is that nobody signs off on card spend and receipts get coded by guesswork, that is an expense problem, not an accounting plan problem.
Where Expenditure fits next to QuickBooks Online
Expenditure works beside QuickBooks Online Plus. You upload receipts and vendor invoices and import each card or bank statement as CSV, OFX or QFX. Every item is read at line level, coded to your QuickBooks chart of accounts and checked against earlier items for duplicates. Approval rules send anything over your threshold, for one vendor, one GL account or all spend, to an admin who approves or rejects it with a note, and Scale adds up to three steps with a different approver each time. At month end you export the coded lines as a QuickBooks Online CSV file. More on how the QuickBooks side works is on our QuickBooks expense management page, and on invoices specifically, our invoice approval software comparison.
What we do not do: Expenditure does not pay vendors, never moves or holds money and does not sync live with QuickBooks. We never sell your data or train a model on it, and this is software and insight, not tax or accounting advice. Plans and seat prices are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the price difference between QuickBooks Plus and Advanced?
At list price, $200 a month. Plus is $140 a month and Advanced is $340 a month, which is $1,680 against $4,080 a year. Both plans are sometimes offered at 50 percent off for the first three months, which narrows the gap only for that period. Intuit raised these prices for renewals on or after August 1, 2026.
How many users does QuickBooks Online Plus allow?
Five users, plus access for two accountants. Advanced allows 25 users and three accountants. There is no plan between them, so a business that needs a sixth person in QuickBooks Online has to move to Advanced. Time-tracking and reports-only access rules vary, so check the user type before you upgrade for one person.
Is Bill Pay Elite included in QuickBooks Advanced?
Yes, from August 1, 2026. Intuit includes Bill Pay Elite in every QuickBooks Online Advanced subscription with no additional subscription fee. On Simple Start, Essentials or Plus, Elite is a separate add-on at $45 a month, and it is what adds bill approval and payment release workflows to those plans.
Can I get approval workflows without QuickBooks Advanced?
Yes, two ways. Add Bill Pay Elite for $45 a month to approve bills and payments inside QuickBooks, or use an expense tool such as Expenditure to approve receipts, vendor invoices and card charges before they are exported to QuickBooks. Elite is cheaper for bills alone; the expense tool covers card spend that Elite does not.