Intuit announced last week that it would extend its $5/month deal for QuickBooks Online for at least another three months to 30 September.
The discounted rate is $30 cheaper than the standard rate – a saving of 85 percent – and heavily undercuts rival online accounting programs by $30 to $45.
The marketing campaign was launched in January in a bid to scoop up market share in the face of heavy advertising blitzes from MYOB and Xero. Despite the size of the discounting other vendors have maintained their prices with apparently few consequences for growth. Xero today announced it had reached 120,000 customers in Australia and $100 million in annualised revenue.
While a full-blown price war has not yet materialised, Intuit committed to extending the discount deal by one month for every goal scored by the Australian Socceroos in the 2014 FIFA Football World Cup in Brazil. At time of writing, the Australian footballers had scored one goal.
Intuit continued to reduce barriers for new customers with the recent launch of an online conversion service for customers switching from Xero and Reckon Accounts 2014 (formerly the desktop program QuickBooks, distributed by Reckon). Intuit was providing free conversions through the service for “a limited time” through Vietnam-based accounting services provider Odyssey Resources, which already converted MYOB (Enterprise and Premier v.19 and earlier) to QuickBooks Online.