Best Accounting Software for iPhone
Zoho Books has the best-rated iPhone app of the eight, 4.8 stars from about 5,100 ratings, and a free plan that lasts as long as yearly revenue stays under $50K. QuickBooks Online is the safer-looking bet on sheer numbers, 4.7 from 265,000 ratings, but its cheapest plan lists at $38 a month for a single user.
Past those two, the table splits by who is doing the books. Six of these are full ledgers for a business with a bank account to reconcile and maybe an accountant to share it with. Hurdlr and Bonsai are built for one person working from a phone: mileage and tax estimates in one case, contracts and client billing in the other, with the formal accounting lighter or locked behind a higher tier.
Our picks
- Highest-rated app with a free way in: Zoho Books. 4.8 stars from 5,100 ratings, a permanent free plan under $50K in yearly revenue, and several users on the first paid tier at $20.
- Logging business miles on the road: Hurdlr. Background GPS mileage capture that stays unlimited on the free version, plus a live estimate of the tax you owe; paid plans start at $9.99.
- Staff and an accountant in the same books: Xero. No per-user license fees on the $25 plan, and the app can take contactless card payments on the phone itself.
- A brand-new business with no budget: Wave. The Starter plan is free with unlimited invoices, estimates, bills and bookkeeping records, for businesses in the US and Canada.
At a glance
| Option | Starting Price | Best For | Free Plan or Trial | App Store Rating | Ratings Count | Requires iOS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $38source | Small businessessource | 30-day trialsource | 4.7source | 265,000source | iOS 16.0 or latersource | |
| $25source | Small businessessource | 30-day trialsource | 4.6source | 1,700source | iOS 16.0 or latersource | |
| $23source | Small businessessource | 30-day trialsource | 4.7source | 11,000source | iOS 18.0 or latersource | |
| $20source | Growing businessessource | Free plansource | 4.8source | 5,100source | iOS 16.0 or latersource | |
| $19source | Small businessessource | Free plansource | 4.4source | 6,600source | iOS 16.4 or latersource | |
| $27source | Small businessessource | 14-day trialsource | 4.1source | 74source | iOS 12 or latersource | |
| $9.99source | Freelancers & self-employedsource | Free plansource | 4.7source | 21,000source | iOS 17.0 or latersource | |
| $15source | Freelancers & self-employedsource | 7-day trialsource | 4.3source | 310source | iOS 15.1 or latersource |
App Store ratings and the iOS version each needs
The ratings sit in a narrow band, 4.1 to 4.8, so the count behind each one says more. QuickBooks Online's 265,000 ratings outnumber the other seven combined, Hurdlr has 21,000 and FreshBooks 11,000. At the thin end, Kashoo's 4.1 comes from 74 people and Bonsai's 4.3 from 310, and Xero, the main global rival to QuickBooks, has only 1,700 on its US app.
Check your phone before you commit. FreshBooks now needs iOS 18.0 or later and Hurdlr iOS 17.0, while QuickBooks, Xero and Zoho Books run on iOS 16.0 and Wave on 16.4. Kashoo still targets iOS 12, which keeps old iPhones in but suggests an app that has not been rebuilt in a long time.
Full books or a freelancer's phone kit
Hurdlr's free version tracks unlimited mileage, but invoicing, bank reconciliation and the core financial statements sit in its Pro tier, so a business that needs a balance sheet from the start belongs with a ledger. Bonsai is the whole back office for a freelancer (proposals, contracts, a client CRM, time tracking and invoicing) with lighter bookkeeping, and at seven days its trial is the shortest here.
Among the ledgers, FreshBooks leans toward the freelancer end: invoicing comes first, time tracking flows onto invoices, and the $23 Lite plan caps you at five clients. Kashoo keeps things deliberately simple: one flat $27 price for sole proprietors and one-person businesses, with unlimited users.
What the starting price actually buys
The Starting Price column is not like for like. Bonsai's $15 is per user, while the rest are per business, and they bundle people differently: QuickBooks' Simple Start is one user plus two accountants and climbs steeply from there, Xero and Kashoo add no per-user fees, and FreshBooks bills extra team members per person. Zoho Books includes several users on its first paid tier but sells extra users and document scanning as add-ons.
As of September 2026, Xero, FreshBooks and QuickBooks were all advertising steep introductory discounts, 90 percent off for six months at Xero, 90 percent for three at FreshBooks and 50 percent for three at QuickBooks. The table shows the regular monthly price, which is what you pay once the offer runs out.
The options in detail
QuickBooks Online
The default answer for small-business accounting in the US, and by a wide margin the most-reviewed iPhone app in this comparison: Intuit's app has more App Store ratings than every other app here put together. From the phone you can send invoices, capture receipts, track mileage by GPS and read your reports, and Intuit has been pushing camera-driven document capture, letting you create an invoice or receipt by pointing the camera at a financial document. The catch is cost and scope: the entry Simple Start plan is a single user with access for two accountants, and the price climbs steeply as you add users, bill payment and inventory.
Xero
The main global rival to QuickBooks, and the one accountants and bookkeepers tend to push when a business wants room to grow without per-seat fees: Xero charges no per-user license fees, so the whole team and your accountant can be in the books on the same plan. The iPhone app is a companion to the web product rather than a full replacement, but it does the day-to-day work well: cash flow and invoices at a glance, bills created by photographing a document with the details extracted for you, contactless card payments taken on the phone itself, and a built-in assistant called JAX. Two things to know before choosing it: the US app has a far smaller review base than QuickBooks', and Xero's US site currently leads with a six-month discount rather than the free trial, which now lives in the offer terms.
FreshBooks
Invoicing-first accounting aimed at people who bill clients for their time: the app leads with sending invoices and chasing payment, then adds receipt photo capture, automatic mileage tracking that sorts business trips for tax time, time tracking that flows onto an invoice, and double-entry books underneath. It is the most mobile-native feeling product of the traditional platforms here. Two limits worth knowing: the entry Lite plan only lets you invoice five clients and extra team members are billed per person, and the iPhone app now requires a newer version of iOS than anything else in this table, so an older phone is left out.
Zoho Books
The highest-rated iPhone app in this comparison, and the most generous entry point: Zoho keeps a permanent free plan for very small businesses (available indefinitely as long as your revenue for the year stays under $50K), and the first paid tier already includes several users rather than one. Reviewers consistently note that the mobile app feels more complete than rivals at the same price, covering invoices, bills, expenses, reports and bank reconciliation, and it can take contactless payments on the phone through Stripe. The trade-off is gravitational pull: Zoho Books is one app in a very large Zoho suite, and things like extra users, document scanning and multiple locations are priced as add-ons.
Wave
The one genuinely free option among the well-known names: Wave's Starter plan costs nothing and still lets you create unlimited invoices, estimates, bills and bookkeeping records, which is why it is the usual recommendation for a brand-new or very small business that cannot justify a subscription. Paying moves you to Pro, which adds automatic bank-transaction import, receipt scanning and discounted card processing. Two caveats: the phone app is more limited than Wave's web version and its rating is the lowest of the mainstream products here, and Wave only serves businesses in the US and Canada.
Kashoo
A small, deliberately simple double-entry accounting product for sole proprietors and one-person businesses, with one flat price and, unusually, unlimited users at no extra cost so your accountant and bookkeeper can share the file for free. It connects to bank feeds through Plaid, auto-categorizes transactions, handles invoices and payments through Square and Stripe, and produces the standard reports. It is the underdog here in every sense: the iPhone app has a tiny review base compared with the big platforms, and it still targets a very old version of iOS, which suggests it has not been rebuilt in a long time.
Hurdlr
Built for one-person businesses rather than for companies with staff, and the most phone-native product in this table because its core feature only works on a phone: automatic GPS mileage capture that runs in the background, alongside bank-linked expense import and a live estimate of the tax you owe. The free version is unusually capable, tracking unlimited mileage where rival trackers cap you. It is not a full ledger out of the box, though. Invoicing, bank reconciliation and the core financial statements sit in the higher Pro tier, so a business that needs a balance sheet from day one is better served elsewhere.
Bonsai
Less a ledger than the whole back office for a freelancer: proposals, contracts, a client CRM, project and time tracking, invoicing, payments and expense and income tracking in one place, which is why creative and consulting freelancers pick it over a pure accounting tool. Zoom acquired Bonsai in late 2025 and the iPhone app is now listed as Bonsai by Zoom, though the product still runs under its own brand. Two things to weigh: it is priced per user rather than per business, so a small team costs more than the headline suggests, and the free trial is only a week, the shortest here.
How we researched this
App Store listings and prices differ by country, so these are US listings: each product needed an iPhone app in the US App Store with a rating on display. That removed Sage Accounting, whose app is listed only in the UK store, and Sage 50 Mobile, which has too few ratings to show a score. NetSuite and Odoo were left out because neither shows a single clear monthly price, FreeAgent because it is built around UK tax filing, and Keeper because it has become a tax-filing service rather than accounting software. QuickBooks' Solopreneur plan ships inside the same app as QuickBooks Online, so a second row would only have repeated its App Store data.
Ratings and counts are as each App Store page displays them, rounded the way Apple shows them. Kashoo's $27 comes from its Capterra listing, because its own site loads prices in a way that could not be read, and it lines up with the $324 yearly figure on Kashoo's page. Best For uses each vendor's own description of its audience, which is why five rows say small businesses. Apps raise their minimum iOS with updates and discounts come and go; the App Store listing and the vendor's current offer are where to check both.