Question

Longtime Customer Deeply Disappointed by QuickBooks Pricing and Forced Migration

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
June 20, 2025
7 replies
133 views

I am a very small business—a one-man company with just two employees. I've been using QuickBooks Desktop Pro for over 20 years, and I’m extremely upset by the recent direction QuickBooks is taking.

It feels like I’m being forced to pay significantly more, and that I can no longer use my QuickBooks Desktop Pro software. It’s clear that Intuit is aggressively pushing users to switch to QuickBooks Online. I know I’m not the only one frustrated by this—many of my IT clients who use QuickBooks for their accounting are experiencing the same negative treatment.

The recent price increases are unacceptable. I used to pay $589, which was manageable. But now I’m being asked to pay nearly $1,000 per year—a 70% increase—for the same basic features I’ve used for two decades. And when I spoke to a QuickBooks sales representative about this, I was told, essentially, “If you don’t like it, go find an alternative.” After 20 years of loyalty, that response was infuriating.

This feels like nothing short of a corporate monopoly. QuickBooks is monopolizing its own product, eliminating lower-cost options, and forcing small business owners like myself to pay much more or move to an online version we don’t want or need.

This is not right. It’s bad business, it’s anti-consumer, and it’s incredibly disappointing from a company I once trusted. In the attachment is a Conversion that was taken place.

T

Tony W1

We had this happen to us last week. Please read the email we are trying to send but cannot seem to find who to send it to. I want to blast this out to all the longtime QB desktop small business clients like us.

I am writing to formally complain about a deeply frustrating and concerning experience I recently had regarding my QuickBooks Desktop account.
After receiving a fraud alert on my credit card, I updated my payment information with QuickBooks two weeks ago. However, on the morning of June 13, 2025, I received a notification in QB that my account had been suspended for nonpayment. This should not have happened.
When I called customer service, I first spoke with a representative named "Gisele", who asked me to confirm the last four digits of my new card. When I did, she claimed that card was not on file. I told her I had absolutely updated it and asked her to check the call recordings. She dismissed that possibility, asking whether I had a "confirmation number" for the call (I didn't), then told me "Well, you need to keep it," and insisted QuickBooks does not retain those records-which I find extremely difficult to believe.
After that call, I was transferred to someone in the sales department, named "Kent", who informed me that since my account was suspended, I was now under a new license and treated as a new customer. He made multiple attempts to upsell me to a different plan at a higher rate. When I asked to be transferred back to billing or to a supervisor to resolve what was clearly a mistake, I was told that no such transfer was possible. It truly felt like I was being scammed into paying more for a service I had already tried to renew correctly. The call lasted 39 minutes, He kept me on the phone, would not transfer me and made it seem my files would be lost if I did not upgrade, I did not make him aware that my files were backed up. I hung up on him.
Thankfully, on a subsequent call, I spoke with a third representative who found my updated card on file immediately and simply processed my renewal at the correct rate. She also gave me a 20% discount for being a longtime customer. Her professionalism stood in sharp contrast to the behavior of the first two individuals.
At this point, I believe there was either a serious mishandling of my account or an intentional attempt to mislead me into a more expensive plan. Either way, this experience has shaken my trust.

P

PASC

Intuit just doesn't care. All they care about is money. They just don't care about people or their customers at all. Perhaps they're just jealous of other companies making more money than them, or perhaps they are just so greedy that they can't see beyond that.

The customer service is rude if you bring up these complaints and they may read your email but they don't care.

I will no longer buy TurboTax and I've taken all my entire family off Credit karma and have advised all my friends and clients to do the same. QuickBooks is no longer trustworthy, just go on and look at the complaints all over the QuickBooks community about what QuickBooks is doing to their online customers. Clearly, QuickBooks has become a greedy abusive company. And they're online version is not only excessively expensive, but it's a crappy software it's very very bad. It's not like they took the desktop version, which was good, and put it online it's completely different. Also Google about all the losses they have faced, mostly for misappropriating their clients funds. QuickBooks is bad and into it is bad and I don't think they're ever going to change. They are way too greedy

SIAB

Level 2

@David Lafferty

You can switch to old QB Desktop with a non subscription license.

P

PASC

Continuing to use QuickBooks desktop, as long as you don't want to download and And used do it yourself payroll because I would never let QuickBooks do my payroll, I would never let them have that kind of access to any of the information on my computer, but your facing security breaches, look what they're doing to their loyal customers, imagine what they will do to someone who does that. I need the downloading and payroll so I can't continue to use QuickBooks at all but I don't trust them enough, to implement your suggestion although I do understand it.

I just hope QuickBooks doesn't survive and I hope into it goes under also

SIAB

Level 2

now this year for payroll included, I have to pay $5,900.

You can still use QB Desktop, but you'll need to use a third-party payroll app to get your total expenses down to under $4000 next year.

P

PASC

I am exactly in your same position. I have been a loyal customer of QuickBooks desktop since 1999 and now they're treating me like garbage. They have to come not only aggressively greedy but they have become detestable and I will be finding a new software because they're online version stinks, it's subpar and overpriced. I don't know what's wrong with Intuit but I will never use TurboTax or Credit karma again because I just don't trust the company anymore and I wish there was a way to warn everybody who is even considering using QuickBooks online after being gouged since COVID. He used to be 589 every 3 years and now this year for payroll included, I have to pay $5,900. That is greedy and into it has caught the disease of greed and it is a disease and there is no cure and their greed is insatiable and if you're trapped with a company like that, they will rip you off incessantly. All over the QuickBooks community are complaints about how they take their clients funds, who paid through their merchant service, hold it forever and then close their account and they never get their money. I can't tell what difference between that and stealing and this is the new Intuit. I wish the federal government would step in because that is awful. And now it's time to switch to a new software. I am elderly, unable to live on social security, And I have to work and QuickBooks is proud of the fact that they're getting rid of their desktop customers when all their customers prefer the desktop version. Intuit should be ashamed of itself and not arrogant or prideful and rude. Their customer service is rude. It has now become one of the worst companies not in just a country but in the entire world

B

boo24

We are also a very small business and have been using QuickBooks for 32 years when it was just Quicken. We provide bookkeeping & payroll services to other small businesses in our area. Here is the pricing nightmare we've experienced in just six year’s time:

2021 $1106 0% increase

2022 $1199 8% increase

2023 $1649 38% increase

2024 $1999 28% increase

2025 $2999 33% increase

2026 $4149 38% increase ARGH!!!

This pricing is no longer affordable for us so we will be looking for an alternative small business bookkeeping & payroll software. ARGH!!!

Has anyone else found an alternative to QB desktop as we will never want to use QB Online. No one we know has been happy with it and some have even gone back to the desktop version they still had on their computer!

Intuit has been mostly a marketing machine for at least two decades and we are very small potatoes basically just a French fryto them. And they no longer care about us unless maybe if we go to their online version

SIAB

Level 2

@boo24

What version of QB Desktop are you using? How many user licenses do you have? What is your budget?

B

boo24

We are using QB Desktop Accountant Plus 2024 including full payroll. Just 2 licenses via the Pro-Adviser subscription. We'd appreciate half or about $2500 per year or even less if possible. Any ideas how to get the cost down. At almost $5k per year now . . . it is almost 10% of our gross profit!!!

D

dz46

Amen!

AI cannot move fast enough that we will no longer need this company's terrible software! I give it one more year where AI will be used to create polished programs (they are not polished ATM) and if you don't know how to do it people will publish the code freely.

Same goes with accountants, we will be able to just drop all our info into AI and it will do all your taxes (and AI will know EVERY line of the tax code instantly.

P

PASC

HI, I am also a very small business, and I'm down to just me. I am 70 years old and want to retire but can't afford to because Social Security is a Ponzi scam and Medicare is a joke. I have been using QuickBooks Desktop since 1999 and I am shocked over the decisions they have made and how this once "leader of their industry" is now abusive and ripping off their very own customers, and how they truly are now at the very bottom of their industry. There are so many complaints, in this platform, from businesses who used QuickBooks Desktop for their credit card merchant company and QuickBooks Desktop NEVER gave these loyal customers their money. QuickBooks desktop job was to run the charge through, give the funds to the rightful business and keep their BankCard Merchant Fee. They have become to incredibly and shockingly corrupt and greedy that QuickBooks Desktop stole their money, closed those customers accounts, deleted their books and left them broke and scrambling. They need to get together and do a Class Action Suit, before QuickBooks desktop totally disappears. I wonder, are they trashing QB Desktop because they fear their criminal and immoral actions will catch up with them?

Intuit is not confused over right and wrong nor are they confused about what money they are entitled too and when they are simply stealing from their very own customers. Do a Google search: "Complaints about QuickBooks Desktop keeping revenue, paid by credit card, using QB as their Credit Card Merchant Company and never giving it to the business to whom it belongs, NEVER! Intuit LIED so very much about TurboTax, so very very much, that the federal government and the FTC have sued them a lot. They have paid millions in fines and now have completely lost their moral compass. They are resting on the laurels and abandoning their morals. There behavior is not just naughty or wrong, it is criminal.

AND after watching them pull all these stunts, stealing, lying, raising the price of their software from $650 every three years to thousands every year... who would stay with them now? PLUS, their online version is terrible and if it weren't, the desktop folks would have switched over. It's not like they took their QuickBooks Desktop and made an online version. QuickBooks online it awful and absolutely nothing like the accounting of QuickBooks Desktop. It should not be used for any real business, AND most definitely not be used by accountants. Intuit is so so so very very stupid, they really believe their desktop customers are going to stay with QuickBooks and move their company to the Online version and their online version is so pathetic and useless that it can't even stand up to Quicken. I refused to take any clients who wanted me to use QuickBooks online, so they all went to Desktop and now have to say Bye Bye to the software they used, happily for so long. AND all this is Intuit's own fault, lying and stealing all the time, worshipping money so much that they gladly stoop to such low levels to steal and lie. Bottom Line: QB Desktop customers are paying the fines of Intuits deplorable and egregious behavior with TurboTax. Also, the online version will end up being so expensive and it stinks.....

SIAB

Level 2

@PASC

I completely understand your frustration, and you expressed the same sentiment in December. Why don't you continue using QB Desktop + a 3rd party merchant service? When is your QB Desktop renewal date? Perhaps I can share another option to lower your costs.

I

Integrated 11

New Member

one of the main benefits of a bookkeeping software is the banking download which will be lost along with any security updates.

J

Jayc52480

I am in the same situation as you, only they raised mine to 1609.00 yearly. I use it for construction and I’m a one person user. I would like to know if anyone has found something cheaper. They are forcing us to go online, but from what I can tell it’s not much cheaper!!!

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