Do I have too much Quickbooks? Should I be using Simple Start as opposed to Essentials?

If you don't need to manage bills nor track time, SS is enough.  Another option, for $180-200, you may get a perpetual license of Pro 2020 1 user.

Silly question I know, but how do you mean "Manage Bills"?   I do a rudimentary tracking of time, but only for scheduling reference. 

On the anniversary of my initial subscription, I am getting ready to pay twice what I did last year.   DId the prices go up?  

And what is this perpetual license?   Where to I find out more?

I've read your original post, @dericksturke.

The Manage Bills are one of the added features when you're using QuickBooks Online (QBO) Essentials. It means that you can create bills to your vendor and process the payment within QuickBooks. Since you're not using this feature, I suggest using the SimpleStart plan. It's the best plan that suits your business.

You might want to read this article to know the comparison of QuickBooks Plans: Compare QuickBooks Plans.

Also, we've made a price increase last July 2019 for all QBO products. You can check out this article for the recent updates we've launched: FAQ: QuickBooks Online Price Increase for July 2019.

On the other hand, the perpetual license is for QuickBooks Desktop. However, these licenses are no longer available, the last time they were available was in 2016.

As always, you can visit our QuickBooks Community help website in case you need tips and related articles in the future.

You can always get back into this post if you have more questions. I'll be sure to get back to you.

@dericksturke 

QuickBooks Desktop Pro 2020 with one time price

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/desktop/pro/

In SS, you may still manage expenses, but not bills. We can find a few of time tracking app with the free plan with limited feature (e.g applicable only for 1 active project).

Once you are decided to keep using QBO (either SS or Essential, consider using this workaround:

1. Explore and utilize this tool to copy your data between QBO accounts.

https://www.chronobooks.com#_r_chrono

2. Open a new QBO account with discounted plan

 https://quickbooks.grsm.io/US

Hope it helps.