QuickBooks alternative
QuickBooks Online is solid accounting — and its job costing starts on the Plus plan, entered from a desk. QuickBooks Online Plus — the cheapest QBO tier with project profitability — is $140/month as of August 1, 2026 (raised from $99). JobCost Pro costs jobs from the field, starting free: snap the receipt, the margin updates. And when your accountant wants QuickBooks, we export straight into it.
The founder lived this one. Chris closed a $42,000 bathroom remodel thinking he'd hit 30% margin; three months later his accountant ran the real numbers in QuickBooks and it was 12% — $7,500 in receipts had never made it from the truck to the books. That isn't QuickBooks failing at accounting. It's the gap between where costs happen (the supply house, the jobsite) and where QuickBooks lives (a desk, after the fact). An accounting system can only cost the receipts that get entered.
Snap the receipt at the counter. The AI reads vendor, line items, and total, files it to the right job, and your margin updates before you're back in the truck. No batch entry at a desk, no waiting on the bookkeeper.
In QuickBooks Online, project profitability tracking starts on the Plus plan — $140/month list price as of August 1, 2026 (raised from $99). In JobCost Pro, per-job costing is the whole product: free for 3 projects, then $29.99/month.
One tap exports categorized transactions — CSV for QuickBooks Online, IIF for Desktop — with categories pre-mapped to contractor account names. We replace the shoebox, not your books.
QuickBooks Online is the standard for small-business accounting, and this page won't pretend otherwise. The real question is what runs your jobs day to day — and what that costs.
| Feature | JobCost Pro | QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $0 (real free tier) | $38/mo (Simple Start) |
| Per-job costing / project profitability | Every tier, live | Plus tier and up ($140/mo list as of Aug 1, 2026) |
| Receipt capture | AI scan → line items → right job, automatic | Capture to the books; you assign projects |
| Voice expense capture | Yes | No |
| Crew GPS clock-in | Yes (geofenced) | QuickBooks Time is a separate add-on |
| Live margin on your phone | Yes, as costs land | Project reports after entry |
| Built for | Contractors in the field | Every small business, books-first |
| Double-entry books, bank feeds | — (we export to QuickBooks instead) | Yes — their specialty |
| Invoicing | Yes, built from job costs | Yes |
| Works with your accountant | CSV/IIF export into QuickBooks | The industry standard |
¹ QuickBooks Online Plus — the cheapest QBO tier with project profitability — is $140/month as of August 1, 2026 (raised from $99). Other tiers per quickbooks.intuit.com, verified July 2026: Simple Start $38/mo (1 user), Essentials $75/mo (3 users), Advanced $275/mo (25 users). Intuit offers intro discounts (e.g. 50% off for 3 months) and a 30-day trial; list prices shown.
It's the accounting system: double-entry books, bank feeds, reconciliation, sales tax, and an ecosystem where virtually every accountant is fluent. If the question is "what should run my company's books," QuickBooks is a fine answer — which is exactly why JobCost Pro ships an export into it instead of a replacement for it.
The job. Costs land while they happen — receipt scanned at the counter, filed to the right job with line items, margin recalculated before you're back in the truck. Job costing isn't a $140/month tier here; it's the whole product, and it starts free.
Line items, returns, and faded thermal paper — read and filed to the right job in seconds, from the field.
Hands full? Say the amount, vendor, and job. Logged before you leave the parking lot.
Every job's margin recalculates the moment a cost lands. A job trending under bid shows up in week two, not at closeout.
CSV for QuickBooks Online, IIF for QuickBooks Desktop, with contractor account mapping ("Construction Materials", "Subcontractor Labor"). A bundle option packs receipt images and invoice PDFs alongside.
Geofenced clock-in, auto clock-out, mileage between jobs — labor lands on the job it belongs to.
Build the invoice from what the job really cost — reimbursables included — and send it as a PDF or share link.
A year-end package of categorized expenses and receipts in the format your CPA actually wants.
Three projects and 50 receipts a month, free indefinitely. Run a whole job through it before paying anything.
Free for 3 projects and 50 receipts a month. Pro at $29.99/mo. Contractor at $49.99/mo with 5 seats. Business at $149.99/mo with 15 seats. Flat pricing, no per-user meter.
Less than a single trip to Home Depot.
Start free. Upgrade when you're ready.
3 projects, 50 receipts/month — get started free
For solo contractors — unlimited projects & receipts
For crews — 5 team members, GPS & payroll
Full platform — 15 team members, 1099s, API
Paid plans renew automatically at the price shown for the selected interval (monthly or yearly) until you cancel. You'll be charged in US dollars plus any applicable sales tax.
Cancel anytime in Settings → Billing — no refunds for past billing periods. Refund Policy · Terms
For accounting, no — and it doesn't try to be. If QuickBooks runs your books, bank feeds, and taxes, keep it; JobCost Pro replaces the receipt-shoebox-to-QuickBooks step and the "how is this job actually doing" blind spot. Plenty of solo operators run JobCost Pro alone and hand their CPA the year-end tax export instead.
Yes. CSV formatted for QuickBooks Online import, IIF for QuickBooks Desktop, with categories pre-mapped to contractor account names like "Construction Materials" and "Subcontractor Labor." There's also a bundle export that includes the receipt images and invoice PDFs for your records.
It does — project profitability tracking starts on the Plus plan ($140/month list as of August 1, 2026, raised from $99) and works well once costs are entered. The catch is the word "entered": it depends on every receipt making it from the truck to the desk. That entry gap is the $7,500 lesson this app was built on.
QuickBooks Online Plus — the cheapest QBO tier with project profitability — is $140/month as of August 1, 2026 (raised from $99). Other tiers per quickbooks.intuit.com (verified July 2026, list prices): Simple Start $38/mo, Essentials $75/mo, Advanced $275/mo. JobCost Pro: free tier, then $29.99 (Pro), $49.99 (Contractor, 5 seats), or $149.99 (Business, 15 seats) flat.
That's the designed workflow for crews that already have books: capture and cost everything in JobCost Pro during the job, then export categorized transactions into QuickBooks for month-end. Field capture where it's fast, accounting where your accountant lives.
No — it's the main reason the QuickBooks export exists. Your accountant keeps their system and gets cleaner data than a shoebox of receipts; you get live job margins they were never going to give you mid-job.
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Built for the job, not the books.
Free tier. No credit card. Your accountant keeps QuickBooks.