How we compare accounting software
We list 7 accounting platforms available to Australian businesses and rank them on published rates alone. The estimated cost column is arithmetic applied to the vendor's own rate card at the inputs you enter, not an opinion, and it changes when you change the inputs.
Two things never move a provider up or down. The first is whether we earn a commission: several providers here pay us nothing, and they sit exactly where the arithmetic puts them. The second is prominence, which we do not sell. That matters more in this category than most, because the names most Australian businesses have heard of are not the cheapest ones here.
Prices come from each vendor's own published rate card and are re-read on a schedule rather than typed once and left. Where a vendor publishes only "from $X" with no tier table, we record it as a quote, not as a price.
What drives the cost of accounting software
Three things, and only one of them is the headline number.
User seats. This is the largest hidden difference in the category, because a plan that bundles seats stays one price while a per-seat plan grows with every person you add. Entry plans today: Xero Unlimited, MYOB Unlimited, Reckon Unlimited, against QuickBooks Online 1 (Simple Start) and FreshBooks 1 + collaborators. A three-person finance function on a per-seat plan can cost more than a cheaper-looking plan that bundles seats.
Payroll. Almost every business that employs anyone will need it, and every vendor prices it differently: included, charged per employee on top, sold as a banded add-on that steps up at headcount thresholds, or not offered here at all. All four shapes appear in this category. What each vendor does today: Xero Yes, MYOB Yes ($3/emp/mo), Reckon Yes (banded add-on from $16/mo), FreshBooks No. Comparing entry prices without deciding whether you need payroll compares numbers that are not measuring the same thing.
Plan ceilings. The entry plan is usually capped on something: transaction volume, invoice count, or the number of people you can pay. The plan you start on is frequently not the plan you stay on, and the step up is where the real cost lives.
Do you need accounting software yet?
Worth asking before comparing anything, because for a genuinely small operation the answer is sometimes no.
A business turning over less than $75,000 a year is not required to register for GST. That threshold removes the single most common reason to buy accounting software at all, because BAS preparation is what most sole traders are really buying. Below that line, invoicing plus a spreadsheet plus a shoebox of receipts is a defensible system, and the free tiers in this table are genuinely sufficient rather than a trap.
Three things change the answer. Employing anyone means payroll, and payroll means software. Crossing the GST threshold, or expecting to within the year, means BAS every quarter. And having an accountant who already works in a particular platform makes that platform worth more than its price difference, because your bookkeeping is only half the job.
If none of those apply yet, the honest advice is to buy the cheapest thing that produces a tax-compliant invoice and revisit when one of them does.
GST, BAS and what accounting software has to do in Australia
This is where locally built and locally adapted platforms separate, and it is not visible in a price comparison.
Australian accounting software needs to track GST correctly on both sides, prepare and ideally lodge the Business Activity Statement, handle PAYG instalments, and connect to Australian bank feeds. If you employ, it also needs Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 reporting to the ATO on every pay run.
Bank feeds are the one that quietly decides day-to-day usability. A platform with direct feeds from the major Australian banks reconciles itself; one relying on manual imports turns reconciliation back into data entry, which is the task everybody buys this software to stop doing.
The international platforms in this table are capable products that handle GST, and some handle BAS lodgement less completely than the Australian-built ones. If you lodge your own BAS rather than handing it to an accountant, check that specific capability rather than assuming it follows from the software being good.
How much accounting software costs
The headline figures in the table are the cheapest paid plan each vendor publishes for Australian customers, shown in Australian dollars and including GST where the vendor quotes it that way.
Xero starts at $37/mo (Ignite), MYOB at $11/mo (Solo), and Reckon at $24/mo (Plus). Zoho Books starts at $16.50/mo (Standard) once you pass its free tier, and QuickBooks Online at $33/mo (Simple Start). Each figure carries the plan name it belongs to, because the cheapest plan is not always the one you can actually run your business on.
Some figures here are not comparable to the rest. A vendor that does not publish an Australian rate card shows as a quote rather than a price, and we do not estimate what it would charge; that currently applies to 1 provider in this category. Zoho Books is free below $50,000 of annual revenue, which is a threshold rather than a plan, so the free column and the price column are answering different questions.
Where a vendor advertises a monthly-equivalent figure that is actually billed annually, the annual-billed figure is what we store, because that is what the vendor publishes and what you will be quoted.
Common accounting software traps to avoid
Reading the entry price as the bill. The most expensive plan on this page for a ten-person employer is not the one with the highest headline number. Enter your real headcount in the calculator before drawing any conclusion.
Assuming payroll is included because it is listed. "Payroll" in a feature column can mean included, charged per employee, sold as a banded add-on, or handled by a third party. All four appear in this category.
Buying for the business you have this month. The entry plan's cap is the thing that will move you, and vendors differ far more at the second rung than the first.
Treating the free tier as permanent. A free plan gated on revenue ends the month you cross the threshold, and that is exactly the month you are least able to absorb a migration.
Paying for GST features you are not required to use. Under $75,000 of turnover, GST registration is optional, and a good deal of what you would be paying for does not apply to you yet.