A straight, sourced comparison for a UK sole trader tradesperson or landlord: what each one costs, whether it handles quotes and job costing, whether it covers landlord tax and whether it is ready for Making Tax Digital. Prices are each provider's own published rate for the plan closest to Debbie.
Debbie does the job of a quoting and job app like Tradify and a tax app like Xero or QuickBooks, in one £10 a month plan. Doing it properly with two separate subscriptions costs £41 to £63 a month, so Debbie saves you roughly £31 to £53 a month. Debbie’s £10 has no VAT to add either, so if you are not VAT registered the gap is wider again: Xero’s £18 plan really costs you £21.60. Pay yearly and Debbie is £90, which works out at £7.50 a month, less than every other plan on this page once VAT is added to theirs.
| Debbie | Xero | QuickBooks | FreeAgent | Sage | Tradify | Powered Now | Coconut | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | £10/monthno VAT to add, or £90 a year | £18/month+VAT, Ignite plan | £10/month+VAT, Sole Trader Plus | £19/month+VAT, sole trader plan | £7/month+VAT, Sole Trader plan | £34/monthLite plan, per user | £28/month+VAT, Business plan, single user | £12.99/monthMTD Filing plan |
| Genuine ongoing free option | Free first month, no card | No6-month discount only | No6-month discount only | NoOnly via a NatWest, RBS, Ulster or Mettle account | YesSole Trader Free, non-VAT only, 5 invoices a month | No14-day trial only | NoTrial only | No2 years free with a Zempler account |
| Quotes, jobs & materials costing | Built in | Not included | Not included | Not included | Not included | Built in | Built in | Not included |
| Landlord tools (SA105, tenancies, mortgage relief) | Built in | No | No | No | No | No | Not stated | PartlyProperty income, no tenancy tools |
| Designed for Making Tax Digital (ITSA) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | NoNot an accounting tool | Yes | Yes |
| Built specifically for UK trades | Yes | General accounting | General accounting | General accounting | General accounting | YesJob management only | YesJobs plus tax | General tax app |
| Cost to get job management and MTD record keeping | £10/monthone subscription | £18+plus a separate job app | £10+plus a separate job app | £19+plus a separate job app | £7+plus a separate job app | £34 to £44+plus a separate accounting app | £28+one subscription, per user | £12.99+plus a separate job app |
| More than one business or trade on one plan | Up to three£10, £17 or £25 a month | YesOn one subscription | NoOne income source per account | NoSeparate account per business | NoSeparate company per income source | Not a tax tool | Not stated | YesIncome streams |
Prices correct as of September 2026, based on each provider's own published pricing pages and exclude VAT where the provider quotes ex-VAT. Software pricing changes often, always check current rates directly with each provider before deciding.
The table above is ours. This one is not. TradeStack HQ is a UK trades software comparison site that tested Debbie hands-on over several weeks.
“All 8 lines in our test statement were categorised correctly with zero manual corrections needed … The resulting profit and loss figures reconciled exactly once checked by hand.”
“Every single one, across two separate rounds of testing weeks apart, was fixed the same day it was flagged, which is a genuinely rare turnaround for a one-person team.”
TradeStack HQ, independent review, September 2026. We had no say in what they wrote. Read the full review →
This is not really about the free tiers being a bit stingy. Upgrade any of these to their most expensive plan and a tradesperson still will not get what they actually need day to day. Here is exactly what is missing and what it costs once the discount runs out.
Xero has no free plan, only 80% off your first six months. After that it is £18 a month plus VAT for the entry Ignite plan, rising to £65 a month plus VAT for the top Ultimate plan. Not one of those four plans includes quoting, job tracking or materials costing. Paying more gets you more accounting features, not a job side.
QuickBooks has no free plan either, only £1 a month for your first six months. The entry Sole Trader Plus plan is £10 a month plus VAT afterwards and it does not even include VAT tools, you would need to step up to the £16 a month Simple Start plan for that. No quoting or job tracking on any plan.
FreeAgent is genuinely free but only if your business current account happens to be with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle. Bank anywhere else and it is £19 a month plus VAT. Free or paid, it is accounting only, no job or quote tools.
Sage has the one real standing free plan here, Sole Trader Free but only if you are not VAT registered. Staying non-VAT but wanting more takes you to the paid Sole Trader plan at £7 a month plus VAT, register for VAT and you need the Start plan from £20 a month plus VAT instead. Free or paid, it has no job or quote tools either.
Tradify is the one that actually does quoting and job tracking well, from £34 a month per user up to £44 for the Plus plan. But it has no tax estimate and no Making Tax Digital support at any price, so you would still need a second piece of software to do your accounts.
Powered Now is the closest thing to Debbie on this page and deserves a fair mention: it does quotes, jobs and certificates and it says it prepares Making Tax Digital quarterly updates too. It starts at £28 a month plus VAT per user, nearly three times Debbie and it says nothing about property income or running a second trade on the same plan, so a plumber with a rental or a second business is back to two subscriptions.
Coconut comes at it from the tax side: bank feeds, receipts, a tax estimate and quarterly updates for £12.99 a month and it will run more than one business or property on one account, which most of the big names will not. It has no quotes, jobs or materials costing, so a tradesperson still needs a job app alongside it.
Add it up and doing this properly with any of the above means two subscriptions, one for the job side and one for the tax side, which comes to somewhere between £41 and £63 a month combined. Debbie does both for £10, with no VAT to add.
Only two apps on this page do both halves of the job, Debbie and Powered Now, and Debbie is a third of the price. Quote it, track the materials and invoice it, then watch those same figures flow straight into your Making Tax Digital return, all inside one £10 a month plan with no VAT to add. You are not choosing between job software and tax software any more. You get the job power of something like Tradify and the tax compliance of something like Xero, built as one app from the ground up, for less than most of them charge for just their one half.
A few things that come as standard with Debbie and are not offered by any of the seven above, at any price.
Landlord tools. If you let a property or your business is only property, Debbie prepares your SA105 property return, applies Section 24 mortgage interest relief and Rent a Room relief automatically and tracks tenancies right down to what an empty period actually costs you. Coconut records property income but has no tenancy tools, no Section 24 relief and no Rent a Room relief. The other six have no landlord features at all.
AI document scanning. Photograph a materials receipt and Debbie reads the merchant, VAT and every line item, splitting reclaimable VAT automatically. It does the same for a Gas Safety Record, an EICR or an annual mortgage statement, reading the figures straight into your records rather than you typing them in.
Multiple businesses, one login. Run a trade and a landlord portfolio or up to three separate trades, on one account, each with its own hourly rate, markup, VAT setting and branding. Most of the above would need a separate subscription per business.
Tax depth beyond a basic filing. Loss relief carried forward or back, Periods of Account for an odd accounting date, amending a calculation already filed. Debbie is built for the situations that come up a few years in, not just a first quarterly update.
"Free" on paper but rarely free in practice. No automatic record keeping means it will not meet Making Tax Digital's digital records requirement once you are in scope and manual bookkeeping is where receipts get lost and reliefs get missed. The average UK sole trader loses an estimated £500 to £1,500 a year this way, in accountant fees, missed tax relief and time. Debbie replaces that from £10 a month.
The same four questions people ask us most, answered straight.
Yes for most sole traders. Debbie is £10 a month with a free first month, no card needed. Xero's cheapest plan is £16 a month plus VAT and QuickBooks' Sole Trader Plus plan is £10 a month plus VAT. Neither Xero nor QuickBooks includes quoting, job tracking or materials costing for a trade business, so a tradesperson using either would usually still need a separate job management app on top.
For a UK sole trader, largely yes. Debbie includes quotes, job tracking and materials costing alongside invoicing and Making Tax Digital record keeping, all in one £10 a month subscription. Tradify is a strong dedicated job management tool but starts at £34 a user a month, has no Making Tax Digital or Self Assessment filing and needs a separate accounting subscription alongside it.
Rarely as a genuine ongoing free option. Xero and QuickBooks offer time-limited discounts, not free plans. FreeAgent is only free if you hold a business account with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle. Sage does offer a genuinely free Sole Trader plan but only for non-VAT registered businesses and like the others it has no built-in job or quote management for trades. None of those four accounting apps do the job side of a trade business at any price, free or paid.
Yes. Debbie prepares the SA105 property return, applies Section 24 mortgage interest relief and Rent a Room relief automatically and tracks tenancies, rent and void periods. None of Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Sage or Tradify offer any landlord-specific tax features.
Quotes, jobs, invoicing and Making Tax Digital, in one app from £10 a month. No contract, cancel any time.
Start your free month