The calm alternative to QuickBooks
Sumwell is full double-entry accounting with none of the clutter. AI does the data entry, asks in plain English when it's unsure, and your accountant gets books they don't have to fix.
1 month free, card required · Bank-level encryption · Free migration from QuickBooks
Net profit · June
$6,743.11
The core idea
Most transactions categorize themselves. For the handful that are genuinely ambiguous, Sumwell asks one specific question, with the vendor and the dollar amount right there, instead of dropping you into an account picker. Answer once and it's remembered forever, even on next year's statements.
Quick question · 1 left
You spent $412.60 with Delta Air Lines, was that a business trip?
Answer once, Sumwell remembers next time.
How it works
Ten steps that used to be ten different tools. Each one hands off to the next automatically.
Link bank and card accounts with read-only bank feeds. Transactions arrive on their own.
New activity imports automatically, or drop in a CSV from any bank in seconds.
Every transaction gets a category and a confidence level. No guessing, no jargon.
When something's ambiguous, you get one clear question, not a form. Answer once; it's remembered.
Snap a photo. Vendor, date, amount, and tax are read automatically and matched to the transaction.
Match your books to the bank month by month. Suggested matches do most of the work.
Professional invoices with online payment built in, one-off or recurring.
Card, ACH, and autopay. Deposits are matched back to invoices automatically.
Schedule bills, approve them in one click, and keep every payment on the audit trail.
Sales tax is tracked per invoice, and every report you need is one click, P&L, Balance Sheet, and more.
Everything included
No modules to unlock, no add-on pricing. Every plan is the whole product.
Automatic, read-only connections to your bank and cards. No manual entry.
Suggested categories with confidence scores, and plain-English questions when it's unsure.
Photo in, expense out, vendor, date, amount, and sales tax extracted for you.
Statement-to-books matching with suggested pairs and a running difference that reaches $0.00.
Branded invoices with online payments, reminders, and automatic deposit matching.
Recurring invoices and recurring payments that run themselves, rent, retainers, subscriptions.
Schedule, approve, and pay bills without leaving your books.
Calculated per invoice, tracked per jurisdiction, and set aside so quarter-end isn't a surprise.
P&L, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, General Ledger, and cash flow, accountant-formatted, one click.
Anomaly flags ('this bill doubled'), trend summaries, and duplicate detection, before they become problems.
Every change logged: who, what, when. Undo-safe and review-ready.
Invite your accountant free. They see clean books, not a mess to untangle.
Reconciliation
Sumwell lines your books up against the bank statement and suggests the matches. You confirm, the difference counts down to $0.00, and the month locks with a full audit trail. If something won't tie out, the AI points at the likely culprit, a duplicate, a missing deposit, a transposed amount.
Northpine Consulting · #1058
Repeats monthly · next Jul 1
Brightwave Media · #1059
Sent Jun 24 · autopay on file
Invoicing · Recurring billing · Sales tax
Set an invoice to repeat and it sends, collects by card or ACH, and books the income, including the sales tax line, tracked by jurisdiction and set aside so quarter-end is a report, not a scramble. Bills work the same way in reverse: schedule, approve, paid, logged.
For accountants & bookkeepers
Clients answer friendly questions; you get a correct general ledger. Accountant mode is free on every plan and built for how firms actually work.
Every client's status at a glance: unreconciled months, items to review, close checklist.
Reclassify in bulk, post journal and adjusting entries, and export working papers.
Who changed what, when, on every transaction, permanently.
Trial Balance, General Ledger, and closing entries that behave the way you expect.
Switching
Free migration on every plan, with a human checking the numbers.
Two clicks in QuickBooks. We show you exactly where they are.
Sumwell rebuilds your chart of accounts, history, open invoices, and unpaid bills.
A migration specialist ties your trial balance to your old books, to the penny, before you switch.
Sumwell vs QuickBooks
We built Sumwell after years of watching small businesses fight their accounting software.
| Sumwell | QuickBooks | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | One flat price, published on this page. No intro rates that double at renewal. | Promo pricing that steps up after 3 months; add-ons priced separately |
| Speed | Pages load instantly. Keyboard-first workflows. | Heavy pages, frequent spinners |
| Interface | One clean screen per task. Nothing you didn't ask for. | Dense menus layered over 20 years of UI |
| Clicks to categorize | One, answer a plain-English question. | Four to six across dialogs |
| Upsells | None inside the product. | Payroll, credit, and lending offers throughout |
| Support | A human who knows bookkeeping, on chat and email. | Tiered phone queues and chatbots |
Pricing
Every plan starts with a 1-month free trial (card required, $0 today). After that, one flat monthly price. No intro rates, no add-ons, no surprise renewal email.
$15/month
For freelancers and single-owner businesses.
$35/month
For growing teams that bill and pay on repeat.
$0/month
For bookkeepers and firms managing clients.
Free for 30 days, card required at signup. Your first charge lands when the trial ends, and you can cancel anytime before then. Have a discount or access code? You'll enter it at checkout. Export your data anytime.
Our story
Sumwell is a startup with one job: fix the things the big guys stopped noticing. We built the tool we wished our own clients had.
Sumwell began in public accounting, watching small-business owners pay more at every QuickBooks renewal for software they dreaded opening: cluttered screens, four dialogs to categorize one coffee, upsells in every corner, and books that still arrived messy at tax time.
Bookkeeping should feel like answering a few plain-English questions, not doing data entry. You shouldn't need an accounting degree to know how your business is doing, and the price on the website should be the price on your card.
We're a startup, and we build in the open. Every feature exists because a real owner or accountant asked for it, support is a person who knows bookkeeping, and early users shape the roadmap directly. Tell us what QuickBooks got wrong; we're probably already fixing it.
Encryption in transit and at rest. Read-only bank connections, we never hold your credentials.
Every change recorded with who, what, and when. Nothing disappears.
Free professional seats, working-paper exports, and role-based access.
A human verifies your converted books against your old trial balance.
FAQ
Every plan starts with 1 month free. A card is required to sign up, but you pay $0 today. Your first charge happens automatically when the 30 days end. Cancel anytime before then and you pay nothing. If you have a discount or 100%-off code, you enter it at checkout and it applies to every bill after the trial.
So your books don't stop the day your trial ends: billing simply starts and nothing is interrupted. You'll see the exact date of your first charge on the checkout page, and you can cancel any time before it.
Export your QuickBooks data (we walk you through the two clicks), upload it, and Sumwell rebuilds your chart of accounts, transaction history, open invoices, and unpaid bills. A migration specialist reviews every import, and your trial balance is verified against your old books before you switch.
Yes. Bank connections are read-only and handled by Stripe Financial Connections. We never see your bank credentials, and the same regulated platform that processes your subscription handles your bank feed. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and every account change is recorded on the audit trail.
No. You answer plain-English questions like 'was this trip for business?' and Sumwell keeps correct double-entry books behind the scenes. Your accountant sees real debits and credits; you never have to.
Accountant seats are free on every plan. Accountants get their own mode: all clients on one dashboard, bulk reclassification, journal entries, and exportable working papers.
Three things: it categorizes transactions (with a confidence score, so you know when it's guessing), it reads receipts, and it watches for anomalies, duplicates, missing months, a bill that suddenly doubled. It never changes your books without your confirmation.
Your data is yours. Export everything, transactions, ledger, invoices, attachments, to CSV anytime, no exit fee, no phone call required.