Close the notebook. Cancel QuickBooks.
QuickBooks was built for generic small businesses — and still has zero livestock, land, or chore tools. SteadStack replaces it entirely: the chores you already do automatically build your income statement, balance sheet, and schedules. One platform. No QuickBooks. No spreadsheets. No notepads. No guessing.
What QuickBooks actually costs a farm with 5 employees.
QuickBooks sells low, then stacks add-ons. Here is what a real farm operation pays.
Plus plan + required add-ons
QuickBooks Plus
Needed for inventory & POs
Payroll Core
Base payroll fee
Per-employee payroll (5)
$6.50 each
Time Tracking
Base time tracking fee
Per-user time tracking (5)
$8 each
$3,090 per year
Everything included, no add-ons
Locked for life · No add-ons. No per-user fees. Ever.
Save over $2,990 per year
$257.50 vs. $7.99 — that's $249.51/mo in your pocket, every month, locked in for life.
Feature-by-feature, side by side.
See exactly where SteadStack was built for farms and where QuickBooks was not.
| Feature | SteadStack | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Farm Operations | ||
| Livestock management | ||
| Land tract mapping | ||
| Structure / area / bin hierarchy | ||
| Feeding, treatment & breeding events | ||
| Harvest and crop tracking | ||
| Multi-site management | ||
| Tasks & Scheduling | ||
| Task templates & runlists | ||
| Recurring task generation | ||
| Drag-and-drop task ordering | ||
| Inventory auto-deduction on task completion | ||
| Time tracking | Add-on ($20 + $8/user) | |
| Inventory | ||
| Multi-location inventory | Plus plan ($115/mo) | |
| Weighted-average costing | Plus plan only | |
| Auto-deduction from events | ||
| Reorder alerts | ||
| Feed, medicine & supply categories | ||
| Purchasing | ||
| Requisitions | ||
| Purchase orders | Plus plan only | |
| Receipts with auto-posting | ||
| Vendor bills | ||
| Bill payments | ||
| Accounting | ||
| Double-entry ledger | ||
| Chart of accounts | ||
| Accounts receivable | ||
| Accounts payable | ||
| Bank reconciliation | ||
| Journal entries | ||
| Events auto-post to ledger | ||
| Farm-specific chart of accounts | ||
| Schedule F awareness | ||
| Contacts & People | ||
| Unified contact system | ||
| Labor rate tracking | ||
| Employee, vendor & customer types | ||
| Payroll & Tax | ||
| Payroll processing | Roadmap (use Gusto) | Add-on ($50 + $6.50/employee) |
| 1099 contractor workflow | Roadmap | |
| Sales tax automation | Roadmap | |
| Multi-currency | Roadmap | |
Built for the barn, not the boardroom.
These capabilities don't exist in QuickBooks — because it was built for generic small businesses.
Event-driven operations
Log a feeding, treatment, or harvest once. Inventory levels, cost basis, and the ledger update automatically.
Livestock lifecycle
Track animals individually or in groups through breeding, birth, growth, treatment, and sale.
Land hierarchy
Sites, tracts, structures, areas, and bins. Map your operation the way it actually works.
Task runlists
Drag-and-drop daily checklists that auto-generate, track inventory consumption, and never forget a chore.
Purchasing pipeline
From requisition to PO to receipt to vendor bill to payment. QuickBooks skips half these steps.
Farm-ready chart of accounts
Pre-configured for agricultural operations with Schedule F categories. No guesswork during setup.
What we don't do yet.
We believe in honesty. Here is what QuickBooks offers today that SteadStack has on its roadmap.
Payroll processing
We do not process payroll in-house. We recommend pairing SteadStack with Gusto or a similar payroll provider. Integration is on our roadmap.
1099 contractor workflow
QuickBooks handles 1099 filing. We track contractor contacts and labor rates, but automated 1099 filing is not available yet.
Multi-currency support
If you buy supplies in multiple currencies, QuickBooks handles that today. We are USD-only for now.
Ecosystem maturity
QuickBooks has been around since 1983 and has thousands of integrations. SteadStack is newer, purpose-built, and growing fast.
The real cost for a working farm.
A 200-head cattle operation with 5 employees, 3 sites, and a full purchasing pipeline.
With QuickBooks
$3,090.00 per year
With SteadStack
$935.88 per year
Save over $2,150 per year
Even when you add a dedicated payroll provider, SteadStack costs less and does more for your farm.
Real frustrations from real farmers.
I spend 2 hours every night entering feed amounts into QuickBooks manually because it has no idea what a feeding event is.
— Cattle rancher, 350 head
I pay for QuickBooks Plus, separate time tracking, and payroll. Then I still use spreadsheets for my herd records and task lists.
— Dairy farmer, 3 employees
My accountant set up QuickBooks but none of the categories make sense for a farm. I had to Google what Schedule F accounts to create.
— Mixed-use farmer, first generation
These are real frustrations we hear from farmers every day. SteadStack was built to solve them.
Full accounting built in. Cancel your QuickBooks subscription.
From a backyard garden to a working ranch — lock in founding member pricing before the tier fills.
QuickBooks pricing based on publicly available rates as of February 2026. Actual pricing may vary.