A QuickBooks Online user could pay two-and-a-half times what a desktop user would pay for QuickBooks over five years, an Intuit executive said at the Morgan Stanley Tech Media and Telecom Conference held this week in San Francisco. Kiran Patel, the SVP who heads Intuit's Small Business Group, also said revenue from QuickBooks users who purchase additional Intuit products has doubled over three years.
Patel based his figures on the $25 per month paid by a QuickBooks Online user for five years for total spending of $1,500 per user. That compared to the initial purchase price and revenue from two renewals paid by a desktop user which adds up to roughly $600 for the accounting application. However, Patel admitted, "There is a fair amount of churn" from users who don't stick with the Internet-based product and that it is higher than the turnover of desktop users.
He was not asked, nor did he volunteer the drop-out rate for the online product. It has published the desktop rate and at the Intuit Investors Day in 2009, Patel noted that "One out of five QuickBooks customers never gets through the entire product."
Patel also reported that the average QuickBooks user purchases about $800 in additional products after the initial software purchase and that is up from roughly $400 three years ago. These additional products include payroll, payment and website builder applications.
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards. Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind
