Accounting · ranked shortlist
Best Accounting software for Small Businesses in 2026
20 approved accounting listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Small businesses are usually replacing spreadsheets rather than another tool, so the deciding factor is how much of the job one purchase covers. Watch for capabilities that only appear in the upper tiers.
- Tools ranked
- 20
- Entry price range
- $1-$599
- Publish a $0 plan
- 7 of 20
How this ranking is derived
The sort key
Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.
Where the ratings come from
No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.
What the pool is
Approved accounting listings, capped at 20 per page; 20 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the accounting category page.
The ranking
Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.
- #1
Airwallex
Highest rated hereGlobal business accounts and payments
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- freemium
- #2
Billit
Belgian invoicing and accounting software with Peppol e-invoicing
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $7.50 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $250 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- #3
Creem
All-in-one payment and compliance platform for software companies
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $3.90 a month.
- Billing
- Per-transaction flat rate
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- payments, billing, commerce, compliance
- #4
Divvy
Free expense management and corporate cards
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $29 a month.
- Billing
- free
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- expense-management, corporate-cards, Free, budgeting
- #5
Dodo Payments
Unified billing, payments, and distribution for AI and SaaS companies
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $4 a month.
- Billing
- Percentage of transaction plus fixed per-transaction fee
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- payments, billing, ai, SaaS
- #6
Empower
All your finances. One app.
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- quote
- Tags
- personal-finance, wealth-management, investing, retirement
- #7
FreeAgent
Accounting software for small businesses and freelancers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $5 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $16.50.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- #8
Hnry
Accounting for sole traders and the self-employed
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $1 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- usage-based
- #9
Invoice2go
Mobile-first invoicing app for small businesses and freelancers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- invoicing, Small Business, Mobile App, payments
- #10
Invoicely
Web-based invoicing app with a free plan for freelancers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $9.99 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $29.99.
- Billing
- freemium
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- Tags
- invoicing, Freelancers, Small Business, Recurring Billing
- #11
Invoicera
Online invoicing and billing platform for multi-entity businesses
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $50 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $250 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- Tags
- invoicing, billing, Multi Entity, Approval Workflows
- #12
Karbon
Practice management for accounting firms
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $59 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $89 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- #13
Lago
Open-source billing infrastructure for usage-based models
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $399 a month.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- Freemium with optional paid tiers
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- billing, Open Source, pricing, Metering
- #14
Lemon Squeezy
The all-in-one platform for software businesses
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- transaction
- #15
Maxio
Billing and financial reporting platform for B2B SaaS companies
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $599 a month, with no free plan.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 2 tiers
- Tags
- Saas Billing, Revenue Recognition, subscription-management, invoicing
- #16
Metronome
Infrastructure for usage-based billing and monetization
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- Usage-based and custom
- Published tiers
- 2 tiers
- Tags
- billing, pricing, monetization, Usage Based billing
- #17
Orb
Revenue design platform automating usage-based billing and pricing strategy
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- Custom pricing based on billing volume and events
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- billing, pricing, revenue, SaaS
- #18
Polar
Billing and revenue platform for AI and infrastructure companies
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $20 a month.
- 5 published tiers, topping out at $400.
- Billing
- Percentage of transaction plus per-transaction fee
- Published tiers
- 5 tiers
- Tags
- billing, payments, ai, revenue-operations
- #19
Stigg
Usage runtime platform for credits and entitlements
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $399 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $40,000 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- Freemium with usage-based and custom tiers
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- Tags
- billing, Entitlements, Metering, Credits
- #20
Vertex
Enterprise tax determination, compliance, and e-invoicing software
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- tax-compliance, E Invoicing, Indirect Tax, Erp Integration
What accounting software costs
Counted from the published pricing of the 20 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.
- Cheapest paid plan
- $1Hnry
- Median entry price
- $20across 13 priced
- Dearest entry price
- $599Maxio
- Publish a $0 plan
- 7of 20
Paid accounting plans in this set start anywhere from $1 a month for Hnry to $599 for Maxio. The median entry price across the 13 tools that publish one is $20, half of them start below that figure and half above it.
Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Stigg's at $40,000 a month, 66.8× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.
7 of 20 publish a $0 plan, and every one of those also sells a paid tier above it. 6 tools have no free tier of any kind.
10 of 20 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.
How these vendors bill
The billing model each of the 20 accounting listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.
- subscription
- 6
- freemium
- 2
- quote
- 2
- Custom pricing based on billing volume and events
- 1
- free
- 1
- Freemium with optional paid tiers
- 1
- Freemium with usage-based and custom tiers
- 1
- Per-transaction flat rate
- 1
- Percentage of transaction plus fixed per-transaction fee
- 1
- Percentage of transaction plus per-transaction fee
- 1
- transaction
- 1
- usage-based
- 1
- Usage-based and custom
- 1
Separately, 10 of 20 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.
What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for
Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 16 accounting tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.
Named most often
- Dedicated support , 3 of 16
- Annual contracts , 2 of 16
- Community support , 2 of 16
- Custom entity and event volumes , 2 of 16
- Custom pricing , 2 of 16
Named by fewer
- Custom-branded widgets , 2 of 16
- Full credits and entitlements engine , 2 of 16
- Multiple billing integrations , 2 of 16
- Premium support (1-hour SLA) , 2 of 16
- RBAC and SSO (SAML) , 2 of 16
Named by exactly one vendor: Access to 40+ payment methods, Basic approval and client portal, Dedicated account manager, Global tax compliance, No hidden charges, Recurring invoices. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.
What “Accounting” covers in practice
The subject tags that recur across these 20 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.
- billing8
- invoicing5
- SaaS5
- payments4
- pricing4
- ai3
- Metering3
- Small Business3
- Freelancers2
- monetization2
Carried by a single tool: Approval Workflows, compliance, enterprise software, Financial Reporting, investing, Open Source, revenue, subscription-management. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.
How to choose between them
Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.
Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them
7 of 20 accounting tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with dedicated support, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.
Read the spread before you read the features
$1 to $599 is a $598 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $599 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.
Check which tier you actually land on
11 of 20 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, dedicated support, annual contracts, community support, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.
The billing model matters more than the headline number
This category splits across 13 billing models: subscription on 6 listings, freemium on 2, and 11 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.
Compare accounting tools directly
Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.
- Airwallex vs Billit
- Billit vs Creem
- Creem vs Divvy
- Divvy vs Dodo Payments
- Dodo Payments vs Empower
- Empower vs FreeAgent
- FreeAgent vs Hnry
- Hnry vs Invoice2go
Go straight to the numbers
- Airwallexpricingalternatives
- Billitpricingalternatives
- Creempricingalternatives
- Divvypricingalternatives
- Dodo Paymentspricingalternatives
- Empowerpricingalternatives
Questions people ask about accounting software
Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.
- How is this accounting ranking decided?
- Mechanically. The 20 approved accounting listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
- Is this list re-ordered for small businesses?
- No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the small businesses framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Small businesses are usually replacing spreadsheets rather than another tool, so the deciding factor is how much of the job one purchase covers. Watch for capabilities that only appear in the upper tiers.
- How much does accounting software cost?
- Across the 20 accounting tools listed here, paid plans start between $1 and $599 a month, with a median entry price of $20. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $40,000 a month (Stigg). 7 of 20 also publish a $0 plan.
- What is the cheapest accounting software?
- Among the ones that charge, Hnry has the lowest published entry price at $1 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
- Is there free accounting software?
- Yes, 7 of 20 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. Each of those also sells paid tiers above the free plan. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
- What features should accounting software have?
- Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are dedicated support (3 of 16 tools that publish plan detail), annual contracts (2) and community support (2). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as access to 40+ payment methods or basic approval and client portal, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
- How is accounting software usually billed?
- subscription (6), freemium (2), quote (2), Custom pricing based on billing volume and events (1), plus 9 less common arrangements, counted across the 20 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 10 of 20 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
- What does accounting software actually cover?
- The 20 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are billing (8), invoicing (5), saas (5), payments (4), pricing (4). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under accounting may overlap on very little.
- How many pricing tiers do accounting tools offer?
- 16 of 20 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 11 of 20 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
- How many accounting tools are listed on Softwr?
- 20 approved accounting listings appear on this page, including Airwallex, Billit, Creem, Divvy. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/accounting, which ranks the same set by published rating.
Keep reading
More on Accounting
Neighbouring categories
Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.