Aplos vs QuickBooks for Nonprofits and Churches: An Honest Cost Comparison

If your organization qualifies for TechSoup, QuickBooks Online Plus costs $80 a year, and Aplos Lite costs about $948 a year at its list price, so QuickBooks is the cheaper tool by a wide margin. Aplos earns its higher price when you have many restricted funds and want fund accounting built in rather than built with classes.

Comparisons published by vendors tend to measure against QuickBooks' commercial price. This one uses the price a nonprofit actually pays, as of October 2026.

The cost math

QuickBooks figures come from TechSoup's QuickBooks Online page and Intuit's pricing page. Aplos's pricing page blocked automated access during our research, so Aplos figures come from search excerpts of aplos.com/pricing; treat them as list prices to confirm.

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Users included
QuickBooks Plus via TechSoup	n/a	$80	5
QuickBooks Advanced via TechSoup	n/a	$170	25
QuickBooks Plus (commercial list)	$140	$1,680	5 + 2 accountants
Aplos Lite	$79	$948	2
Aplos Core	$129	$1,548	Not confirmed
Aplos Advanced	from $229	from $2,748	Not confirmed

Three worked comparisons:

1. Aplos Lite vs TechSoup QuickBooks Plus: $948 − $80 = $868 more per year for Aplos.
2. Aplos Core vs TechSoup QuickBooks Plus: $1,548 − $80 = $1,468 more per year for Aplos.
3. Aplos Core vs commercial QuickBooks Plus: $1,680 − $1,548 = $132 less per year for Aplos.

The third comparison is the one that makes Aplos look cheaper. It only holds if you can't get QuickBooks through TechSoup, for example if you aren't eligible, or you've already used your organization's one donated subscription.

Users also change the math. Aplos Lite includes 2 users, and an Aplos help article says each additional user is $20/month. Four users on Lite would be $79 + (2 × $20) = $119/month, or $1,428 a year. QuickBooks Plus via TechSoup covers 5 users for $80.

Aplos also displays a 50%-off price on some plans with an asterisk. We couldn't read the terms, so we've used list prices. If you get a promotional rate, compare it with the price you'll pay after it ends.

Fund accounting: the real difference

A nonprofit often has to show how much remains in each restricted gift or grant, and what it was spent on. That is fund accounting.

Aplos is built for this. Funds are a core part of the system, so fund balances and fund-level statements are part of the design rather than something you assemble.

QuickBooks Online Plus doesn't have funds as a native concept. It does include class and location tracking, per TechSoup's listing, and most nonprofits on QuickBooks use classes as funds. You tag every income and expense line to a class and run reports filtered by class. Net assets by fund take extra setup, and the system depends on whoever enters transactions tagging them correctly.

Neither approach is wrong. The question is how many restricted funds you manage and who keeps the books. How you present restricted net assets in your financial statements is an accounting question; ask your CPA which approach supports your audit or review.

Other differences worth weighing

Factor	QuickBooks Online (TechSoup)	Aplos
Built for	Small businesses, widely used by nonprofits	Nonprofits and churches
Fund tracking	Classes and locations	Native funds
Users	5 (Plus) or 25 (Advanced)	2 on Lite; extra users $20/mo each
Accountant familiarity	Very common	Less common outside the nonprofit sector
Payroll	Not included; billed by Intuit	Not covered in our research
Existing account	Must start a new subscription	New system either way
Lifetime limit	One donated subscription per organization	None found

A third-party review cited in our research notes that Aplos Lite lacks budgeting, AP/AR and integrations; we couldn't confirm this on Aplos's own pages, so check the plan comparison before choosing Lite.

Switching costs

Both options involve migration if you're coming from somewhere else.

• Moving to TechSoup QuickBooks from commercial QuickBooks means creating a new subscription and copying your company. TechSoup says the offer can't be applied to an existing account. See the QuickBooks TechSoup migration guide.
• Moving to Aplos means a full system migration: setting up funds, your chart of accounts and opening balances.

Either way, the cleanest time to switch is the first day of a fiscal year, or at least a quarter, so that no reporting period is split across two systems.

Decision guide

Answer these in order:

1. Do you qualify for TechSoup, and have you not used your one QuickBooks donation? If no, compare Aplos with commercial QuickBooks. Aplos Core ($1,548/yr) is slightly cheaper than QuickBooks Plus list ($1,680/yr).
2. Do you hold restricted gifts or grants? If no, QuickBooks via TechSoup (or even a free tool) is enough. See free accounting software for nonprofits.
3. How many funds, and who enters transactions? A handful of funds and a consistent bookkeeper: QuickBooks classes work. Many funds, grant reporting, or a rotating volunteer treasurer: Aplos reduces the risk of untagged entries.
4. Is the price gap worth it? The gap between Aplos Lite and TechSoup QuickBooks Plus is $868 a year. If Aplos saves your bookkeeper or accountant enough hours to cover that, it pays for itself.

Bottom line

For most small nonprofits and churches that qualify, QuickBooks Online Plus through TechSoup is the lower-cost choice, and classes handle a modest number of funds. Aplos is the better fit when fund accounting is central to your work and the people keeping the books benefit from a system designed around it.

For a broader view of options for churches, including PowerChurch and Wave, see church accounting software pricing. To see what your organization would save across all its software, run the free audit. Details for each tool are on the Aplos and QuickBooks Online pages.