Last updated: 31st Jul 2025
Online invoicing software is an invisible employee that helps your business run more efficiently. MYOB and QuickBooks are two of the most trusted names in accounting software for small businesses — but which one deserves your hard-earned bucks?
To give you a solid starting point for your own research, I’ve done a deep dive into MYOB Business and QuickBooks Online plans aimed squarely at small-to-medium businesses (SMBs), including:
- MYOB Business Lite, Pro, AccountRight Plus/Premier.
- QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus and Advanced.
MYOB vs QuickBooks: At A Glance.
| MYOB Is Best For: | QuickBooks Is Best For: |
|---|---|
| Growing businesses with payroll and inventory needs (you get unlimited payroll and advanced stock control). | Small multi-currency businesses — included on all QBO plans, unlike MYOB (only on Premier plan). |
| User-friendly experience — smoother workflows and simpler interface. | Mobile-first businesses — better all-in-one mobile app for core accounting tasks. |
| High-volume payroll — $2/head vs QBO’s $6/head, with no cap on number of employees on higher plans. |
Ease-of-use and flexibility for different business types are the major draws of MYOB Business plans.
Especially if your headcount is expanding — as payroll processing comes built-in.
QuickBooks Online (QBO) is also a solid option.
It’s got a broad feature set, a healthy integrations ecosystem of over 800 third-party apps, and a useful mobile app for on-the-go admin.
Both platforms digitise and automate a bunch of repetitive tasks you’d rather not be doing.
In particular, they simplify bank transaction reconciliations, sending invoices, paying bills/suppliers, categorising expenses, and performance and tax reporting.
Important!
Price-wise, they’re pretty even: MYOB’s lowest tier is cheaper, QBO’s highest tier is cheaper.
So, what really separates one from the other?
Differences in what’s included on each plan could be a deciding factor for you. For instance:
- MYOB’s three core plans for growing SMBs give you unlimited user profiles, while QBO’s three core plans limit you to 3, 5 and 25 users respectively.
- QBO’s plans come with multi-currency accounting as standard — which is only included in MYOB’s most expensive AccountRight Premier plan.
For me, user experience is the decider. QBO is more awkward and effortful — both visually and functionality-wise.
It looks professional, but it’s less appealing to use than MYOB.
I was also unimpressed with QBO’s online help: many searches returned irrelevant results or broken links.
Based on online chatter, its customer support via chat and phone is also hit-and-miss.
1. Ease Of Use.
| MYOB | 9/10 |
| QuickBooks: | 7/10 |
QuickBooks has a reputation with its fans for being a solid platform that rarely glitches.
But it has put a number of long-term users offside in recent years with user interface (UI) changes that are less than intuitive.
For example, there were multiple times I updated a setting or made a change — like adding a new ‘service’ category when doing an invoice — and it wasn’t immediately reflected on-screen, making me wonder,
Nope, just had to refresh.
Another example: when you’re viewing a report, you can’t vertically scroll down from anywhere on-screen.
You’re forced to awkwardly hover your cursor over reports to scroll instead. I’ve seen loyal users dub this a “flow state spoiler” and “bane of my existence”.
MYOB offers a more attractive and easy-to-navigate online experience.
Its screens are less cluttered and its menus less convoluted. I had to use QBO’s help function far more often.
For the small business owner focused on streamlining everyday admin, MYOB is a winner for simplicity.
But QBO does have its perks.
You can also immediately create a new invoice or add payment by clicking on shortcuts on the QBO dashboard, whereas MYOB hides these core actions behind an icon.
The ability to customise, and take quick actions from the home screen, is carried through to QBO’s mobile app, so you can easily handle core tasks and check your cashflow on-the-run.
Important!
MYOB spreads its functionality across multiple mobile apps. I get that a dedicated app for capturing receipts could be useful — but I prefer an all-in-one mobile experience.
QBO’s native app comes with stripped down features, but it’s convenient.
There’s a cohort of 1-star reviewers that say it’s too buggy to bother with, but it’s still considered more reliable than MYOB’s apps.
Did You Know?
All QuickBooks Online plans are 100% cloud-based, which means no downloads or having to apply ongoing updates.
MYOB is also primarily browser-based.
Its highest tiers, AccountRight Plus and Premier, require an additional download, although the majority of features can be accessed online so you won’t be tied to your desktop computer.
2. Invoicing And Payments.
| MYOB | 8/10 |
| QuickBooks: | 8/10 |
You’ll be sending branded invoices that let customers quickly pay online within minutes in both platforms.
- On the downside, QBO is more limited in terms of online payment options, because you have to create and connect a PayPal account to accept credit or debit cards.
- On the upside, you can take in-person payments using the QBO mobile app (no card reader required) or buy a card reader from QBO to take payments.
- An advantage for MYOB is that you can apply to be verified for online payments by card within the software, and you’ll also be able to accept payment by Apple Pay, Google Pay and BPAY.
- A drawback if you regularly take in-person payments: there’s no in-built method or MYOB Business app for that — but you can integrate with a third-party app like Square.
Important!
Transaction fees are roughly the same: 1.7% of the transaction amount plus $0.20 for QBO, and 1.8% plus $0.25 for MYOB.
MYOB also lets you surcharge this fee when customers pay by digital wallet or PayPal, so you can claw back some costs while still catering to more customers’ preferences.
In terms of truly shaving time off your invoicing admin, they both have pros and cons. It depends on your workflows and volumes.
As an example:
- MYOB makes it simpler to create recurring invoices via the ‘invoices’ interface, and any invoice you’re in the middle of completing can be saved as a recurring invoice. You’ll have to navigate to a completely different section in QBO to create a new recurring transaction.
- QBO makes it easier to duplicate an invoice from the main list: handy if you offer the same service to multiple clients. There are more options for batch actions, like re-issuing a reminder or printing a delivery note, for multiple invoices at once.
Important!
Both platforms let you apply invoice payment reminders universally, with control over when they’re sent, how many are sent, and what the email says. But only MYOB lets you turn off reminders for individual customers.
Side note: I was annoyed that QBO doesn’t include the option to attach a PDF version of the invoice to emails by default.
You can switch it on, but I struggled to work out how, even after reading the ‘help’ article.
When you create a new customer in QBO, you can specify their usual payment method and payment terms.
You can also opt to ‘remember terms’ for a specific customer while creating an invoice in MYOB, when you select the due date.
And rather than simply providing a calendar for you to select a due date, MYOB gives you a number of more precise options that are useful if your terms aren’t a neat net 30.
Linking invoices (and expenses) to a project is also straightforward in MYOB.
Tracking transactions against a project is only available in QBO’s Plus and Advanced plans – and I couldn’t use the feature during my trial.
I love that you can add your own custom fields to any standard form in QuickBooks.
For instance, I created a field on my invoices that lets me indicate the date range when the work would be delivered.
3. Payroll And Inventory Management.
| MYOB | 8/10 |
| QuickBooks: | 7/10 |
Being able to add payroll to any accounting software plan, as it’s needed, is a smart feature.
You shouldn’t have to advance to a whole new tier just to do a pay run — especially if the number of pays you process varies month-to-month.
MYOB and QBO both let you pay per-person for payroll:
- QBO charges an extra $6 per person, per month, for the convenience, with no limit on the size of your pay run. But it does require signing-up for an add-on solution from Employment Hero.
- MYOB charges an extra $2 per person, per month. You can only do a pay run for up to two people on the Lite plan, but it’s unlimited on Pro. And on AccountRight Plus/Premier you get unlimited payroll processing at no extra charge.
QuickBooks Online is 46% more expensive than MYOB Business based on the scenario of adding payroll for 5 team members on a mid-tier plan.
| QBO | MYOB | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual costs mid-tier plan | $648 Plus plan paid annually | $567 Pro plan paid annually |
| Annual costs of payroll for 5 employees | $360 $6/month X 5 ($30) X 12 | $120 $2/month X 5 ($10) X 12 |
| TOTAL | $1,008 | $687 |
Not only is QBO’s standard payroll integration more expensive, if you you want to take advantage of advanced features like modern award interpretation, rostering, or time and attendance tracking, you’ll pay even more:
- $10/month plus $6/month per employee.
Being able to manage rosters and pay based on employee timesheets is included in MYOB’s plans.
If you need more control over different wage arrangements for different employees, you can create wage categories on MYOB’s AccountRight Plus or Premier plans.
Did you know?
Even if you only have one employee, or you’re paying yourself a salary/director’s fees as the sole director of a company, you’re legally required to submit reports to the ATO via Single Touch Payroll (STP). Both MYOB and QBO make STP simple so you can stay compliant.
For basic inventory management — being able to track your transactions and revenue by product/service, and gathering data to support regular stocktakes and reordering — both MYOB and QBO get the job done.
All plans include inventory tracking, with an unlimited number of products tracked in AccountRight Plus/Premier.
QBO’s form for adding products and services doesn’t allow for multiple units of measure (e.g., box, case, hour, pair) in the way MYOB does.
And if you’ve got multiple warehouses or facilities holding stock, you’ll be out of luck with QBO — whereas MYOB’s Premier plan comes with multiple location support.
4. Reporting And Tax Management.
| MYOB | 9/10 |
| QuickBooks: | 8=/10 |
Neither MYOB nor QBE will give you major headaches if you’re looking to generate reports on your earnings, expenses, and GST you’ve collected.
Filtering information and customising reports felt slightly easier to grasp in QBO.
But MYOB gives you the same kinds of options to adjust your date range and included data, as well as save your custom reports.
Clear descriptions of what each report covers on the main listing are also a plus for MYOB (don’t have to guess what you’re clicking into).
Both platforms let you build out snazzy management reports and other ‘packaged’ PDFs with your choice of financial data that you can share with others, or keep for your own records.
QBO offers four design templates.
You can make the layout landscape, apply a logo or other graphic to the footer of each page (and even specify its size), add a watermark, and apply custom colours using HTML colour codes.
5. Price.
| MYOB | 9/10 |
| QuickBooks: | 9/10 |
Leading accounting tools seem to always be running introductory offers with a heavily discounted price.
It’s in their interests to get you hooked, because they know that switching accounting software down the track isn’t anyone’s idea of fun.
When the honeymoon is over, there are a few differences between the full-price plans from MYOB and QBO to be aware of:
- MYOB’s lowest tier for SMBs (Lite) is 33% less expensive per month than QBO’s lowest tier (Essentials): $34 versus $45 per month.
- QBO’s highest tier (Advanced) is 36% less expensive per month than MYOB’s comparable AccountRight Plus plan: $110 versus $150 per month.
Of course, it’s not a apples-to-apples comparison.
For example, QBO’s lowest tier includes features MYOB doesn’t, such as multi-currency and mileage tracking.
And MYOB’s lowest plan differs from QBO in that it includes inventory and orders, and the ability to track jobs.
On MYOB’s $150/month plan, you wouldn’t pay a cent extra to process a pay run for 250 people.
Important!
On QBO’s $110/month plan, you’d have to fork out an extra $1500 per month, or use a different add-on solution.
Once I’ve committed to tools for my business, I prefer to pay annually to save money.
It’s nice to see both platforms offer a discount for paying 12-months upfront: QBO slashes fees by 10% while MYOB gives you a hefty 25% discount.
MYOB vs Quickbooks: My Verdict.
There’s no major chasm dividing MYOB Business and QuickBooks Online in terms of features and value-for-money.
But QuickBooks is the inferior choice if inventory management and payroll processing for a growing team are must-haves in order for your business to scale.
Neither of those factors affect my business, but I still preferred MYOB: because life’s too short for bad UX.
I will always lean towards tools that deliver functions in a user-friendly way that keep me productive and unruffled.
Jody
