Sage and QuickBooks are two of the most popular cloud accounting platforms for UK small businesses. Both are HMRC-recognised for Making Tax Digital, both handle invoicing, bank feeds, and VAT returns, and both offer mobile apps. But beneath the surface, they differ in important ways — particularly in how they handle payroll pricing, CIS compliance, AI capabilities, and what you actually end up paying each month once add-ons are factored in.

This guide compares both platforms across every category that affects a real UK small business: pricing tiers, payroll, VAT, bank reconciliation, invoicing, reporting, AI, integrations, and support. The aim is not to pick a winner in the abstract — it is to show you exactly where each platform is stronger, and what each one will cost you in practice, so you can choose with clarity.

Pricing Comparison

Both Sage and QuickBooks use monthly subscriptions. However, their pricing structures are fundamentally different — especially in how payroll is handled and how costs scale as your business grows.

Sage Accounting pricing

Plan	Monthly Price (excl. VAT)	Users	Payroll	Key Features
Free (Sole Trader)	£0/mo	1	No	Income/expenses, invoicing, MTD for ITSA, Copilot AI
Start	£18/mo	1	No	Bank feeds, VAT returns, MTD for VAT, Copilot AI
Standard	£39/mo	3	Yes — included	+ CIS, payroll, cash flow forecasting, advanced reports, auto receipts
Plus	£59/mo	Unlimited	Yes — included	+ Multi-currency, inventory, budgets, unlimited users

Sage offers a genuinely free plan for non-VAT-registered sole traders — something QuickBooks does not match. The Standard and Plus plans bundle full payroll at no additional per-employee cost. Sage is also currently running 90% off for the first six months across all paid tiers.

QuickBooks pricing

Plan	Monthly Price (excl. VAT)	Users	Payroll	Key Features
Sole Trader Plus	£10/mo	1	No	Income/expenses, self-assessment estimates, mileage tracking
Simple Start	£16/mo	1	No — add-on from £5/mo + £1.30/employee	Invoicing, bank feeds, VAT, CIS returns, AI bank feeds
Essentials	£38/mo	3	No — add-on from £5/mo + £1.30/employee	+ Bill management, multi-currency, time tracking
Plus	£56/mo	5	No — add-on from £5/mo + £1.30/employee	+ Inventory, project profitability, budgeting, anomaly detection
Advanced	£123/mo	25	No — add-on from £5/mo + £1.30/employee	+ Custom permissions, batch invoicing, workflow automation

QuickBooks has more pricing tiers, giving you more granularity. However, payroll is never included — it is always a separate add-on starting at £5 per month base plus £1.30 per employee per month on the Core tier. QuickBooks is also running 90% off for the first twelve months. There is no free plan — the cheapest option is £10 per month.

Key Takeaway

Sage bundles payroll into its Standard and Plus plans at no extra per-employee cost. QuickBooks charges a base fee plus a per-head rate on top of every accounting plan. The more staff you have, the wider the cost gap becomes.

What You Actually Pay: Real Monthly Costs

Advertised prices are misleading because they exclude the add-ons most UK businesses need. The table below compares what you actually pay each month for accounting plus payroll at equivalent feature levels — Sage Standard (3 users, payroll, CIS, advanced reports) versus QuickBooks Essentials (3 users, bill management, multi-currency) plus Payroll Core.

Business Size	Sage Standard	QuickBooks Essentials + Payroll Core	Annual Saving with Sage
Sole trader, no staff	£0/mo (Free plan)	£10/mo (Sole Trader Plus)	£120/year
1 employee	£39/mo	£44.30/mo	£63.60/year
5 employees	£39/mo	£49.50/mo	£126/year
10 employees	£39/mo	£56/mo	£204/year
25 employees	£39/mo	£75.50/mo	£438/year

Sage Standard is cheaper than QuickBooks Essentials plus Payroll Core at every employee count — and the gap doubles between five and twenty-five staff. A business with ten employees saves over £200 per year on Sage. At twenty-five employees, the saving is nearly £440 per year. Critically, Sage's cost never increases as you hire — it remains a flat £39 per month regardless of headcount.

Even at the sole trader level, Sage's free plan undercuts QuickBooks' cheapest option by £120 per year. There is no scenario in which QuickBooks is the cheaper choice when comparing equivalent features.

Payroll

Payroll is the single biggest cost and capability differentiator between these two platforms.

Payroll Feature	Sage	QuickBooks
Included in accounting plan	Yes — Standard and Plus	No — always a separate add-on
Extra cost per employee	£0 (bundled)	From £1.30/employee/mo (Core) to £3/employee/mo (Elite)
RTI submissions to HMRC	Yes	Yes
Pension auto-enrolment	Yes — NEST, NOW, People's, Smart	Yes — NEST
CIS returns	Yes — native, Standard and Plus	Basic — available from Simple Start
Statutory payments (SSP, SMP)	Yes	Yes
Automatic tax code updates	Yes — from HMRC	Yes
Payslips and P60s	Digital — app + portal	Digital — online
Payroll tiers available	One level (full-featured, included)	Three tiers (Core £5/mo, Premium £10/mo, Elite £15/mo)

Sage bundles complete payroll into its accounting subscription — a business with one employee and a business with fifty employees both pay £39 per month on the Standard plan. QuickBooks requires you to choose between three separate payroll add-on tiers, each with a base monthly fee plus a per-employee charge that scales with your headcount.

Pension provider support is also broader on Sage. Sage connects to NEST, NOW:Pensions, The People's Pension, and Smart Pension for auto-enrolment. QuickBooks supports NEST. For businesses that use a pension provider other than NEST, this matters.

CIS is a critical differentiator for construction businesses. Sage handles CIS deductions, monthly returns, and HMRC submissions natively within the platform on Standard and Plus plans. QuickBooks has CIS functionality from the Simple Start tier, but Sage's implementation is more deeply integrated with its payroll system — deductions, contractor statements, and filing happen in one workflow.

VAT and Making Tax Digital

Both platforms are fully HMRC-recognised for MTD and can submit VAT returns directly. The core VAT filing experience is comparable.

VAT Feature	Sage	QuickBooks
MTD VAT submission	Yes — all paid plans	Yes — Simple Start and above
MTD for ITSA (April 2026)	Yes — including free plan	Yes — Sole Trader Plus and above
MTD AI Agent	Yes — UK's first	No
VAT error checking	Yes	Yes — AI-powered VAT error checker
VAT schemes (Flat Rate, Cash)	Yes	Yes
VAT detail drill-down	Yes — per box	Yes

QuickBooks has a solid VAT AI Agent that flags discrepancies between profit and loss reports and VAT returns — a genuinely useful feature. However, Sage has a unique advantage with the MTD AI Agent, the UK's first agentic AI tool designed to autonomously prepare and submit quarterly income updates for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment. With MTD for ITSA going live in April 2026, this is immediately relevant for sole traders and landlords who face new quarterly digital filing obligations. No other UK accounting platform has an equivalent.

Bank Reconciliation

Bank reconciliation is the daily task that determines how much time you spend inside your accounting software, so the experience quality matters.

QuickBooks is strong here. Bank feeds connect reliably to UK banks, and QuickBooks uses AI-powered categorisation to suggest transaction matches. The workflow is clean, and the machine learning improves its suggestions as you use it. The mobile app is particularly well-regarded for on-the-go categorisation and receipt capture.

Sage is comparable and improving. Bank feeds connect to all major UK banks, transaction import works well, and Sage Copilot now provides AI-powered matching suggestions. Sage has invested heavily in improving its reconciliation workflow in recent updates. For most businesses, the practical difference between the two platforms here is marginal — both handle the core task reliably.

Invoicing

Feature	Sage	QuickBooks
Unlimited invoices	All paid plans	All plans
Invoice customisation	Good — logo, colours, fields	Strong — most flexible templates
Recurring invoices	Yes	Yes
Quotes and estimates	Standard and above	All plans — convert to invoice
Automated payment reminders	Yes — Copilot AI chasing	Yes — template-based reminders
Online payment links	Yes — Stripe, GoCardless	Yes — one-click pay-enabled invoices
Batch invoicing	No	Yes — Advanced plan

QuickBooks has marginally stronger invoice template customisation and offers batch invoicing on its Advanced plan. However, Sage's differentiator is Copilot AI-powered invoice chasing. Rather than sending fixed-template reminders, Copilot monitors overdue invoices and drafts context-aware, personalised chasing messages. Early adopters have reported getting paid an average of seven days faster. For most small businesses, getting paid sooner matters more than template flexibility.

AI Capabilities

Both platforms are investing heavily in AI, but they have taken different approaches — and Sage is further ahead in autonomous task execution.

AI Feature	Sage Copilot	QuickBooks Intuit Assist
Included in all plans	Yes — free on all plans	Partially — features vary by tier
Automated invoice chasing	Yes — drafts and sends	Limited
AI-powered bank feeds	Yes	Yes — strong categorisation
Receipt data extraction	Yes — totals, tax, dates	Yes — mobile capture
Anomaly detection	Yes — proactive alerts	Yes — Plus and above
Cash flow forecasting	Yes — forward-looking	Yes
Natural language questions	Yes	Yes
MTD AI Agent	Yes — autonomous compliance	No
VAT AI Agent	Yes	Yes — flags P&L vs VAT discrepancies
Customer follow-up agent	Via Copilot invoice chasing	Yes — Plus and above (email prioritisation)
Finance-specific AI training	Yes — trained on accounting	General + finance

QuickBooks has invested in a broad range of AI features through Intuit Assist — particularly strong AI-powered bank feeds and a useful VAT error checker. On higher tiers, you also get anomaly detection and an AI customer agent for email follow-ups.

However, Sage Copilot is the more mature AI assistant in 2026. It goes beyond answering questions and into autonomous action — actively chasing overdue invoices, detecting anomalies proactively, and handling MTD compliance submissions through the agentic MTD AI Agent. Sage also includes Copilot free on every plan, including the free Sole Trader tier, while QuickBooks gates its more advanced AI features behind higher-priced plans.

Reporting

QuickBooks has the deeper reporting engine. Custom reports, class and location tracking, project profitability analysis, and saved report templates give QuickBooks genuine depth for businesses that need detailed management reporting. The Advanced plan adds business analytics with Excel integration and unlimited Chart of Accounts for granular categorisation.

Sage is strong on multi-dimensional analysis. Sage's analysis types let you tag transactions by department, project, location, or custom dimensions and filter all core reports — profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, and cash flow — by those tags. Budget-versus-actual variance reporting is available on Plus. For most small businesses, Sage's reporting is more than sufficient. But if you need deep project profitability tracking or class-based reporting across many locations, QuickBooks has the edge.

App Integrations

QuickBooks has a larger ecosystem. With connectivity to over 750 third-party apps, QuickBooks integrates well with e-commerce platforms (Shopify, WooCommerce), payment processors, CRM tools, and inventory systems. The marketplace is mature and well-documented.

Sage has a smaller but focused ecosystem. It integrates with the most important UK tools — Stripe, GoCardless, Shopify, AutoEntry — and covers the needs of the majority of small businesses. However, if your operations depend on a wide range of specialised third-party tools, QuickBooks is more likely to have what you need.

Mobile App

QuickBooks has one of the strongest mobile apps in UK accounting. You can create invoices, categorise transactions, capture receipts, track mileage automatically, and manage cash flow — all from the app. It is consistently well-reviewed and particularly useful for business owners who are frequently on the move.

Sage's mobile app covers the essentials. You can manage invoices, capture receipts, and view cash flow on the go. It is functional and reliable, but QuickBooks' app is more feature-rich and more polished. If mobile-first accounting is a priority for your workflow, QuickBooks has the advantage here.

Support

Support Channel	Sage	QuickBooks
UK phone support	Yes — all plans	Yes — 8am–7pm Mon–Fri
Live chat / messaging	Yes	Yes — 8am–10pm Mon–Fri, 8am–6pm weekends
Email support	Yes	Yes
Onboarding assistance	Yes	Yes — free onboarding call for new subscribers
Knowledge base	Extensive	Extensive
Accountant network	Yes — Sage Partner	Yes — QuickBooks ProAdvisor

Both platforms offer UK phone support — a significant advantage over Xero, which provides no phone support at all. QuickBooks also provides extended live messaging hours including weekends and offers a free onboarding call to new subscribers. Support quality is comparable across both platforms. This is one area where neither has a decisive advantage — both serve UK small businesses well.

Who Each Platform Is Best For

Choose Sage if:

You employ staff and want payroll bundled in at no extra per-employee cost — saving up to £438 per year versus QuickBooks at 25 employees
You are in construction and need deeply integrated CIS returns, contractor statements, and HMRC submissions
You want the most capable AI assistant (Copilot) for autonomous invoice chasing, anomaly detection, and MTD compliance
You are a non-VAT-registered sole trader wanting a genuinely free plan — the only £0 option among the major UK platforms
You use a pension provider other than NEST (NOW, People's, Smart)
You want accounting, payroll, and HR on one platform with flat, predictable pricing that does not increase as you hire

Choose QuickBooks if:

You need the deepest custom reporting engine — class tracking, location tracking, project profitability, and saved report templates
You run an e-commerce business with strong Shopify or WooCommerce integration needs
You want the best mobile accounting experience — QuickBooks' app is the most feature-rich on the market
You have no employees and want to avoid paying for bundled features you do not use — QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus at £10/month is lean and focused
You need workflow automation and batch invoicing at scale (Advanced plan)
You prioritise the widest third-party app ecosystem

The Bottom Line

For sole traders with no employees, Sage's free plan is the strongest starting point in UK cloud accounting. No other major platform offers a genuinely free tier with MTD compliance. QuickBooks' Sole Trader Plus at £10 per month is good value, but it is not free — and over a year, that is £120 that Sage saves you outright.

Once your business employs staff, the calculation becomes unambiguous. Sage Standard at £39 per month includes full payroll for unlimited employees. QuickBooks Essentials at £38 per month does not include payroll at all — adding Payroll Core takes the real cost to £44.30 for a single employee, and the gap grows relentlessly with every hire. At ten employees, Sage saves you £204 per year. At twenty-five, the saving reaches £438.

QuickBooks' genuine strengths — its excellent mobile app, deep custom reporting, and large app marketplace — are real and matter to certain businesses. If you are a sole trader who needs powerful reporting and a best-in-class mobile experience, QuickBooks is a strong choice.

But for the majority of UK small businesses — those that employ people, need payroll and CIS under one roof, want AI that actively works rather than just answers questions, and prefer flat, predictable pricing that does not penalise them for growing — Sage is the better platform in 2026.