Is Adyen or DATEV better?

Neither clearly leads. Adyen starts at $0.13/per-transaction and DATEV at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Adyen or DATEV?

Adyen starts at $0.13/per-transaction and DATEV at On request.

Does Adyen or DATEV run on more platforms?

Adyen runs on Web, Api, Pos. DATEV runs on Windows, Web.

What is Adyen best used for?

Adyen is most often used for card acquiring with interchange plus pricing for larger merchants, accepting local payment methods across multiple countries, settling in several currencies through linked bank accounts, unified online and in-person payments. Of those, card acquiring with interchange plus pricing for larger merchants and accepting local payment methods across multiple countries are not what DATEV is typically brought in for.

What can Adyen do that DATEV cannot?

Adyen covers Payment processing, Risk management, Unified commerce, Issuing. DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss.

Accounting · head to head

Adyen vs DATEV

Adyen

Accounting

The payments platform built for growth

From: $0.13/per-transaction
Rated: -

Full review Website

DATEV

Accounting

German accounting, payroll and tax software built around the tax adviser rather than the business

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Adyen there is a minimum monthly invoice, set by industry and business model and only disclosed through the sales team, so small volumes are not economic; DATEV dATEV does not publish transparent per-customer pricing the way a SaaS vendor does; your real cost is buried in your tax adviser's fee note, so comparing it against Lexware or sevdesk on price is genuinely hard.
They diverge on capability: Adyen covers Payment processing, DATEV covers Unternehmen online.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Adyen and DATEV actually diverge.

Attributes where Adyen and DATEV differ
Attribute	Adyen	DATEV
Starting price	$0.13/per-transaction	On request
Pricing model	usage-based	quote
Platforms	Web, Api, Pos	Windows, Web
Founded	2006	Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Accounting).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Adyen

Payment processing
Risk management
Unified commerce
Issuing
Platform payments
SAP
Salesforce
Oracle

Only in DATEV

Unternehmen online
Lohn und Gehalt
Rechnungswesen
Jahresabschluss
DATEV DMS
Meine Steuern
DATEV-Schnittstelle

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Adyen

Card acquiring with interchange plus pricing for larger merchantsnot DATEV
Accepting local payment methods across multiple countriesnot DATEV
Settling in several currencies through linked bank accountsnot DATEV
Unified online and in-person paymentsnot DATEV

DATEV

A German GmbH that wants its Steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoeboxnot Adyen
A payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to German statutory deadlines without an external bureaunot Adyen
An SME preparing an e-Bilanz and audit-ready GoBD document archivenot Adyen
A tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflownot Adyen

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Adyen

There is a minimum monthly invoice, set by industry and business model and only disclosed through the sales team, so small volumes are not economic
Published fees are indicative rather than a rate card, with real pricing negotiated
Interchange++ means the card cost varies per transaction rather than being a single predictable percentage
Alternative payment methods carry their own rates on top, such as 3.3 percent plus $0.10 for American Express in North America

DATEV

DATEV does not publish transparent per-customer pricing the way a SaaS vendor does; your real cost is buried in your tax adviser's fee note, so comparing it against Lexware or sevdesk on price is genuinely hard.
The board has decided to wind down the Austria-specific portfolio: existing products remain usable to 31 December 2028, are free of charge during 2029, and cannot be used after 31 December 2029, so any Austrian entity on DATEV has a forced migration dated in advance.
It is built for German statutory practice, so a group with subsidiaries outside the DACH region will run DATEV for Germany and something else everywhere else, with a consolidation step in between.
Large parts of the suite are still Windows desktop software installed on a workstation or terminal server, which means IT overhead most companies no longer budget for when they think they are buying cloud accounting.
The lock-in is social as well as technical: because your adviser holds the installation and the history, changing accounting software usually forces you to change or retrain your adviser, which is a far bigger decision than a software migration.

Pricing, plan by plan

Adyen

$0.13/per-transaction

Transaction-Based Pricing$undefined/mo
- Fixed $0.13 USD per transaction
- Variable fee determined by payment method
- No setup fees

DATEV

On request

DATEV Unternehmen online$undefined/month
- Receipt and bank data exchange with your tax adviser
- Cash book and master data modules
- Ordered and usually rebilled through the adviser
DATEV Mittelstand$undefined/month
- In-house financial accounting and invoicing
- Payroll modules licensed separately
- Per-workplace licensing
Lohn und Gehalt$undefined/month
- German payroll runs and statutory electronic filings
- Priced by number of payslips
- Typically operated by the adviser on the client's behalf

Which should you pick?

Choose Adyen if

You need payment processing.
You work on Web, Api, Pos.
You also want risk management.

Adyen review

Choose DATEV if

You need unternehmen online.
You work on Windows, Web.
You also want lohn und gehalt.

DATEV review

Questions people ask

Is Adyen or DATEV better?: Neither clearly leads. Adyen starts at $0.13/per-transaction and DATEV at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Adyen or DATEV?: Adyen starts at $0.13/per-transaction and DATEV at On request.
Does Adyen or DATEV run on more platforms?: Adyen runs on Web, Api, Pos. DATEV runs on Windows, Web.
What is Adyen best used for?: Adyen is most often used for card acquiring with interchange plus pricing for larger merchants, accepting local payment methods across multiple countries, settling in several currencies through linked bank accounts, unified online and in-person payments. Of those, card acquiring with interchange plus pricing for larger merchants and accepting local payment methods across multiple countries are not what DATEV is typically brought in for.
What can Adyen do that DATEV cannot?: Adyen covers Payment processing, Risk management, Unified commerce, Issuing. DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Adyen: How much does Adyen charge per transaction?

Adyen charges a fixed $0.13 USD per transaction plus a variable fee based on the payment method used. Credit cards typically cost $0.13 + 0.60% + interchange, while digital wallets and BNPL options cost between $0.13 + 0.99% to $0.13 + 4.99%+, depending on the specific method and region.

Source

DATEV: Can I buy DATEV directly without a tax adviser?

In practice, no for most of the range. Membership of the cooperative is restricted to the tax and legal professions, and companies get access through their adviser or as a client of one.

Adyen: Does Adyen have monthly subscription or setup fees?

No, Adyen has no setup fees or monthly recurring charges. You pay only for each transaction processed. The transaction fee structure remains the same regardless of transaction volume or business size.

Source

DATEV: Is DATEV usable outside Germany?

It operates in Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary, but the depth is German. The Austrian product line is being discontinued with a hard end date of 31 December 2029.

Adyen: What's Adyen's Interchange++ pricing option?

Adyen offers an Interchange++ transparent pricing model that passes interchange and scheme fees directly to merchants instead of bundling them into a percentage rate. This allows visibility into exact costs for each payment method.

Source

DATEV: What is the DATEV-Schnittstelle everyone mentions?

It is the standard export format German invoicing and ERP tools produce so bookkeeping data can be handed to a DATEV-based adviser. Supporting it is effectively a requirement to sell accounting-adjacent software in Germany.

Adyen: Can I process payments in multiple currencies with Adyen?

Yes, Adyen supports 100+ payment methods across multiple currencies. You can link multiple bank accounts in different currencies to avoid currency conversion fees on international transactions.

Source

DATEV: Does DATEV handle e-invoicing under the German B2B mandate?

Yes, the accounting and invoicing modules were extended for the XRechnung and ZUGFeRD formats that the German B2B e-invoicing rules require.

Adyen vs DATEV

Adyen

DATEV

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Adyen

Only in DATEV

What people use each for

Adyen

DATEV

Where each one falls short

Adyen

DATEV

Pricing, plan by plan

Adyen

DATEV

Which should you pick?

Choose Adyen if

Choose DATEV if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Adyen

More on DATEV

Keep looking

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