Xero Pricing 2026: Early, Growing and Established Costed for Year One and Year Two

Xero pricing, as of November 2026, is $27 a month for Early, $59 for Growing and $97 for Established on the US plans, and Xero’s page currently shows new US customers 80 percent off for the first three months. That makes year one $259.20, $566.40 and $931.20, and every year after that $324, $708 and $1,164. Xero charges no per-user license fee, which is the biggest structural difference from QuickBooks, so the plan you pick depends on invoice limits and features, not headcount.

I run my stores and teach high ticket dropshipping through Ecommerce Paradise, so software is a monthly line item I look at closely. This guide prices Xero the way I priced QuickBooks and FreshBooks: every plan at list and at the promotional rate, what each plan includes, the add-ons for payroll, inventory and auto-reconciliation, the bill and invoice limits, and what Xero does not print. Every Xero figure comes from the US pages on xero.com, which I read on November 3, 2026.

Disclosure: some links below are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

The formula is the same every time. Year one equals the promotional price times the promotional months, plus the list price times the remaining months. Year two equals the list price times twelve, because Xero bills monthly and does not show an annual price.

Xero pricing plans: all three, both years

This is the table the pricing page does not print. The promo column is the banner price. The year two column is what you pay for as long as you stay a customer. The source for every list price is Xero’s US pricing page, and all amounts are in US dollars before tax.

Plan	List per month	Promo per month	Promo terms	Year one	Year two
Xero Early	$27	$5.40	80% off for 3 months	$259.20	$324
Xero Growing	$59	$11.80	80% off for 3 months	$566.40	$708
Xero Established	$97	$19.40	80% off for 3 months	$931.20	$1,164

Working one row so you can check me: Early is $5.40 for three months, which is $16.20, then $27 for nine months, which is $243. Add them and year one is $259.20. Year two has no promotional months in it, so it is $27 times twelve, which is $324.

Xero cost per month: what the banner discount is worth

The promotion saves you three months at 80 percent off. Here is what that is worth in dollars, and what the headline price would imply if the discount ran all year.

Plan	Actual promo saving	Headline price times 12	Year one reality	Gap
Early	$64.80	$64.80	$259.20	$194.40
Growing	$141.60	$141.60	$566.40	$424.80
Established	$232.80	$232.80	$931.20	$698.40

The first two money columns match because of arithmetic, not a typo: 80 percent off for 3 months is 2.4 months of list price, and the banner price is 20 percent of list, which over 12 months is also 2.4 months. The point of the table is the last column. Anyone who multiplies the banner price by twelve will budget $64.80 for Early when the real first year is $259.20.

The terms behind the discount

Xero’s fine print says the offer is for customers in the United States buying their first organization on xero.com. It applies to the base Early, Growing or Established subscription and does not cover add-ons, usage or payment fees. It cannot be combined with another offer, and Xero can change or cancel it at any time.

That last clause has already mattered. A copy of the page I read earlier showed 90 percent off for the first six months, with an end date of November 2, 2026. The live page I read on November 3 shows 80 percent off for three months instead. If you are reading this later, the banner may have changed again, so use the formula above with whatever percentage and months the page shows that day.

There is also a separate "Get one month free" banner on the pricing page. The page gives no terms for it, so I cannot tell you how it interacts with the 80 percent offer. Xero’s pages I loaded also show no free trial period, only free onboarding help: a Xero Coach, who is a product specialist, is described as free for your first 90 days.

Billing terms worth knowing

Subscriptions auto-renew monthly until cancelled, and the FAQ describes invoicing at the end of each monthly billing period. The page asks "Can I pay the subscription annually?" and the answer describes monthly billing only, so I treat annual pricing as not available. If you upgrade and later want a cheaper plan, the page says you can move down one month after upgrading.

What each Xero plan includes

Prices only mean something next to gates. This table pulls the plan cards and comparison grid on Xero’s pricing page into one view. Where a limit is not printed I have written so instead of guessing.

Capability	Early $27	Growing $59	Established $97
Quotes and invoices	Quotes and 20 invoices	Invoices and quotes, no cap printed	Invoices and quotes, no cap printed
Bills	5 bills	Automated bill entry, no cap printed	Automated bill entry, no cap printed
Bank reconciliation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Auto-reconcile	Optional, $5 a month	Included	Included
Online invoice payments	Yes, payment fees apply	Yes, payment fees apply	Yes, payment fees apply
W-9 and 1099 management, sales tax	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cash flow forecast	30 days	60 days	180 days
Graphs and dashboards	Basic graphs	Graphs, custom dashboards, health scorecards	Same as Growing, plus KPI and ratio analysis
Budgets	Not included	Yes, table shows 3 budgets	Yes
Multiple currencies	Not included	Not included	Yes
Project time and cost tracking	Not included	Not included	Yes
Employee expense and mileage claims	Not included	Not included	Yes
Industry benchmarking	Not included	Not included	Yes
Domestic bill payments	Free standard ACH	Free standard ACH	Free standard ACH
Inventory Plus	Not offered	Optional add-on	Optional add-on
Xero Payroll, powered by Gusto	Optional add-on	Optional add-on	Optional add-on

Four rows carry most of the decision. The 20 invoice and 5 bill limit is the reason Early is an entry plan and not a store plan. Multiple currencies is the reason a store selling in more than one currency ends up on Established. Projects and employee expense claims are included only on Established, and they are not sold separately on the pricing page. Everything else is forecast depth and dashboards.

The Early plan limits, and why they matter to a store

Early allows quotes and 20 invoices and 5 bills. The pricing page does not say over what period those counts reset, so confirm that in Xero’s help center before you rely on it. Its footnote adds two details: the invoice limit applies to both approving and sending, and transactions started by app partners may automatically count toward the limit.

That second detail is the one to take seriously if you run an online store. If you connect a sales channel and an app turns orders into Xero invoices, those invoices may use up the cap, and I would not assume a busy store fits inside 20. In my experience, the cap suits a consultant or a very low volume seller who invoices by hand, and a store with steady order flow should price Growing from the start.

No per-user fees: the seat comparison

Xero’s pages list "No per-user license fees" as a benefit of every plan, but they do not print a user limit either way. QuickBooks sets a user ceiling on each plan, and FreshBooks sells extra team members at a fixed monthly fee per person. Here is a four person team costed on each, year two, list price, no payroll, using the numbers from the vendors’ own pages.

Option	Monthly	Year two annual	How I got there
Xero Growing	$59	$708	No per-user fee, so the plan price is the whole price
FreshBooks Plus	$76	$912	$43 plus 3 extra people at $11, assuming the owner account is included
QuickBooks Plus	$140	$1,680	Plus is the first plan with 5 users, and Essentials stops at 3

Two cautions. First, FreshBooks’ pricing page does not state how many users each plan includes, so the $912 rests on my assumption that the owner account is covered and each of the other three is a paid $11 seat. Second, this is a seat comparison, not a feature comparison. QuickBooks Plus lists inventory tracking, and Xero Growing does not unless you add Inventory Plus, which I cost below.

I compare the two seat models in more depth in my head to head on seat fees and invoice caps.

Xero add-ons: payroll, inventory and auto-reconcile

Xero’s plan prices cover the ledger. Everything that makes a store or a payroll run work is priced separately, and the discount does not touch any of it.

Xero Payroll, powered by Gusto

Xero’s payroll page prices payroll at $36 a month plus $6 per employee or contractor, on top of whichever Xero plan you hold. The page describes federal, state and local tax calculation and filing, W-2 and 1099 handling, direct deposit, and support for all 50 states at no extra cost. It also says it supports small teams of 1 to 20 and that payroll is not available to Xero’s US mobile subscribers.

People paid	Monthly payroll	Annual payroll
1	$42	$504
3	$54	$648
5	$66	$792
10	$96	$1,152

The arithmetic is $36 plus $6 times the headcount. For three people that is $36 plus $18, which is $54 a month, or $648 a year. Contractors count at the same $6, so a store that pays two freelancers and one employee pays the same $54.

The payroll page advertises 3 months free in its hero section and "two months" in a closing banner, and neither shows terms. I therefore left any free payroll period out of every number in this guide. If you qualify, it lowers year one, and you should confirm the length at signup.

For comparison, QuickBooks’ payroll only Workforce Payroll plan, which my guide prices at $50 a month plus $7 per employee, comes to $852 a year for three employees against Xero’s $648. The two are not the same product, because QuickBooks sells three payroll tiers and Xero sells one, so I walk through the QuickBooks side in my QuickBooks payroll pricing guide. If you are choosing a payroll provider first and a ledger second, my Gusto pricing guide covers the company that powers Xero’s payroll.

Inventory Plus

The pricing page lists Inventory Plus as an optional add-on on Growing and Established. A tooltip on the page prices it at $39 a month and says it handles up to 10,000 orders a month, with stock tracking, stock transfers, purchase orders and syncing from multiple sales channels. That is $468 a year. The page does not show a version for Early.

Because the add-on’s address on xero.com contains the words old inventory plus, I would read the add-on’s own page before building a stock process on it. The pricing page still sells it today, but I cannot tell you from the pages I loaded whether Xero plans to change it.

Auto-reconcile on Early

Growing and Established include auto-reconcile. On Early it is an optional $5 a month, which is $60 a year and takes Early from $27 to $32 a month. If you reconcile a few hundred transactions a month, that $60 is easy to justify, and it is the cheapest upgrade on the page.

Payment fees and the amounts not shown

Standard ACH bill payments are free on all three plans. Other bill payment methods carry fees, cross-border bill payments are an optional extra with fees, and online invoice payments carry payment fees as well. Xero’s page points to separate pages for the fee schedules and prints no dollar or percentage amounts itself. The footnotes also say payment fees are not eligible for subscription discounts. Check the fee pages for your payment mix before you compare Xero to a vendor that prints its rates.

Year one and year two with the add-ons stacked

Here is how the bill builds when you stack add-ons. The promotion applies to the base plan only, I applied no free payroll period, and payroll is costed for three people at $648 a year.

Setup	Year one	Year two
Early alone	$259.20	$324
Early plus auto-reconcile ($60)	$319.20	$384
Growing alone	$566.40	$708
Growing plus Inventory Plus ($468)	$1,034.40	$1,176
Growing plus payroll for 3 ($648)	$1,214.40	$1,356
Growing plus Inventory Plus plus payroll for 3	$1,682.40	$1,824
Established alone	$931.20	$1,164
Established plus Inventory Plus plus payroll for 3	$2,047.20	$2,280

Checking two rows. Growing plus Inventory Plus is $566.40 plus $468, which is $1,034.40 in year one, and $708 plus $468, which is $1,176 in year two. The last row is $931.20 plus $648 plus $468, which is $2,047.20, and $1,164 plus $648 plus $468, which is $2,280. These are examples, not quotes, because your headcount and add-on choices change them.

The useful comparison is Growing plus Inventory Plus at $1,176 in year two against QuickBooks Plus at $1,680, since QuickBooks lists inventory tracking from Plus. The gap is $504 a year. It is not a like for like comparison, because I have not compared how deeply each product handles stock, so treat it as a reason to test both rather than a verdict. My ranking of accounting software by where inventory starts goes deeper on that question.

How Xero pricing compares to QuickBooks and FreshBooks

Same rule as my other pricing guides: year two, list price, no promotions, cheapest first. FreshBooks is on its monthly billing regular price, because Xero shows no annual option. FreshBooks also shows a yearly toggle that takes another 10 percent off, which I excluded for like for like.

Product	Year two annual	What the vendor’s page shows
FreshBooks Lite	$276	$23 a month, 5 billable clients
Xero Early	$324	$27 a month, 20 invoices and 5 bills
QuickBooks Simple Start	$456	$38 a month, 1 user
FreshBooks Plus	$516	$43 a month, 50 billable clients
Xero Growing	$708	$59 a month, no per-user fee
FreshBooks Premium	$840	$70 a month, unlimited billable clients
QuickBooks Essentials	$1,020	$85 a month, 3 users
Xero Established	$1,164	$97 a month, multicurrency and projects
QuickBooks Plus	$1,680	$140 a month, 5 users, inventory tracking
QuickBooks Advanced	$4,080	$340 a month, 25 users

Sources: Xero’s US pricing page, and Intuit’s QuickBooks Online pricing page for the QuickBooks rows. The FreshBooks rows come from FreshBooks’ own pricing page, and I read all three in November 2026.

I cover each side in full in my QuickBooks Online pricing guide. The FreshBooks side is in my FreshBooks pricing guide.

What the table says is that Xero sits in the middle of the pack on price, but the three vendors limit different things. FreshBooks limits billable clients, QuickBooks limits users, and Xero limits invoices and bills only on Early. Pick the limit that your business is least likely to hit. A store with many orders and a small team should fear the invoice cap more than a seat fee, and a services business with ten staff should fear the opposite.

What Xero does not publish

A pricing article earns its keep by being clear about gaps. Here are the ones I found, as of November 2026.

Payment fee amounts. Online invoice payment fees and non-ACH bill payment fees apply, and the pricing page prints no rates.

User limits. The page says there are no per-user license fees. It does not print a cap or confirm there is none.

Limits on Growing and Established. Invoice, quote, bill and bank transaction limits are not printed for those plans, which suggests no cap, but the page does not say so.

Early limit period. The 20 invoices and 5 bills are not tied to a stated period on the pricing page.

Offer terms. The "one month free" banner and the payroll free period have no terms on the pages I loaded.

Annual pricing. Not shown. The FAQ describes monthly billing.

The contrast worth noting is that some vendors print more. FreshBooks, for example, prints its card fee of 2.9 percent plus $0.30 and a 1 percent ACH fee in its pricing FAQ. If total visible cost matters to you, that is worth weighing, and it is a reasonable reason to ask Xero for the numbers in writing before you commit.

Who each Xero plan fits

This is general information, not personal advice, and your numbers will differ. These are my opinions based on the plan limits above.

Early at $324 a year fits a very low volume operation. Think a founder who invoices a handful of wholesale or service customers by hand and has few bills. If a sales app will create invoices for you, check the cap warning first.

Growing at $708 a year is where I would start most stores. It removes the printed 20 and 5 limits, includes auto-reconcile, and adds dashboards and budgets. It is also the first plan where Inventory Plus is offered. For a team of three or four people, the lack of seat fees is a real saving.

Established at $1,164 a year is for a store selling in more than one currency, a business tracking project time and costs, or one that needs employee expense and mileage claims. If none of those apply, the extra $456 a year over Growing buys forecast depth and KPI analysis. That can be worth it for a store planning inventory purchases months ahead, and it is wasted for one that does not.

Switching, trials and getting set up

Xero’s pages describe free expert setup help and a free Xero Coach for 90 days, which is useful if you are leaving another system. Moving your history takes planning, and I wrote up the order of operations in how to switch accounting software without losing your history.

If you are still deciding whether Xero belongs on your shortlist at all, read the five gates that decide accounting software before price does. Then run the price against those gates, and not the other way around.

None of the above is tax or accounting advice. Prices, plan contents and tax treatment change, and they vary by jurisdiction. Confirm anything that affects a filing with your CPA or with the taxing authority directly.

Running the business behind the books

A $708 ledger is either a serious cost or a rounding error, and which one depends on the margin structure of what you sell. That is the part I spend my time on, and it is why accounting software is only one of several business expenses a store owner has to plan for.

Start with the list of profitable high ticket niches if you have not settled on a category. If the model is unfamiliar, here is a plain explanation of how high ticket dropshipping works and why the unit economics differ so much from cheap goods. Fewer, larger orders also means fewer invoices to push through a limit like Early’s.

Sourcing is the hard part, and it drives your cost of goods, which is what your books have to track. So I wrote a complete step by step supplier sourcing guide covering approach, terms and vetting.

Get the legal entity right before your first sale, because your books, your bank account and your payroll all hang off it. My walkthrough of business formation for a high ticket store covers the choices.

If you hire your first employee, the IRS explains what employers must withhold, deposit and report on its employment taxes page, and that is the work a payroll add-on is supposed to take off your desk. For the storefront I have run on Shopify for years.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Xero cost per month in the US in 2026?
As of November 2026, list prices are $27 for Early, $59 for Growing and $97 for Established. New US customers buying their first organization on xero.com are currently shown 80 percent off for three months, which makes the first three months $5.40, $11.80 and $19.40. Month four is charged at list.

Does Xero charge per user?
No. Xero’s US pages say there are no per-user license fees. They do not print a user limit, so confirm the number of users you need before you subscribe. Payroll is separate and charges $6 per employee or contractor on top of a $36 monthly base.

Does Xero have a free trial?
Not on the pages I loaded. What the pricing page shows is a limited discount for new customers and free onboarding help from a Xero Coach for the first 90 days. A separate "Get one month free" banner appears without terms, so ask Xero what it covers before counting on it.

How much is Xero Payroll for three employees?
As an example, $36 a month plus $6 for each of three people is $54 a month, which is $648 a year, on top of your Xero plan. Contractors cost the same $6 each. Xero’s pages mention free payroll months without terms, so I did not apply any.

Which Xero plan includes inventory, projects and expense claims?
Inventory Plus is an optional $39 a month add-on on Growing and Established, up to 10,000 orders a month. Projects and employee expense and mileage claims are included only on Established, at $97 a month list, and the pricing page does not sell them separately.

Bottom Line

Xero costs $324, $708 or $1,164 a year depending on the plan, and those numbers should drive your decision. Year one is cheaper by $64.80, $141.60 or $232.80 under the current offer, and that is the entire value of the promotion. If you hold inventory, your real price on Xero is Growing plus Inventory Plus at $1,176 a year, and if you pay three people, add $648.

The no seat fee model is the strongest argument for Xero, and the Early invoice and bill limits are the strongest argument against buying the cheapest plan for a store. Then accept that payment fees, the length of free periods and several limits are not printed, so your true annual cost is knowable only after you ask. Do the arithmetic before you sign, not in month four, and run anything that touches a return past a CPA.

Related Articles

If you are still deciding between tools, or want the pricing detail behind the comparison table above, these are the posts I would read next.

• QuickBooks vs Xero 2026: Seat Fees, Invoice Caps and the Real Annual Cost
• Xero Alternatives in 2026: 4 Options Compared on Price, Limits and Inventory
• QuickBooks Online Pricing 2026: Every Plan Costed for Year One and Year Two
• FreshBooks Pricing in 2026: Complete Plan Breakdown, Add-Ons, Team Member Fees, and Transaction Costs Explained
• Best Accounting Software for Ecommerce 2026: Ranked by Where Inventory Starts