Is DATEV or Karbon better?

Neither clearly leads. DATEV starts at On request and Karbon at $59/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, DATEV or Karbon?

DATEV starts at On request and Karbon at $59/month.

Does DATEV or Karbon run on more platforms?

DATEV runs on Windows, Web. Karbon runs on Web.

What is DATEV best used for?

DATEV is most often used for a german gmbh that wants its steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoebox, a payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to german statutory deadlines without an external bureau, an sme preparing an e-bilanz and audit-ready gobd document archive, a tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflow. Of those, a german gmbh that wants its steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoebox and a payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to german statutory deadlines without an external bureau are not what Karbon is typically brought in for.

What can DATEV do that Karbon cannot?

DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss.

Accounting · head to head

DATEV vs Karbon

DATEV

Accounting

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

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

Karbon

Accounting

Practice management for accounting firms

From: $59/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: 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.; Karbon monthly billing option only available for teams of 4 or more users
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which DATEV and Karbon actually diverge.

Attributes where DATEV and Karbon differ
Attribute	DATEV	Karbon
Starting price	On request	$59/month
Pricing model	quote	subscription
Platforms	Windows, Web	Web

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 DATEV

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

Only in Karbon

Nothing recorded that DATEV does not also cover.

What people use each for

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

DATEV

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

Karbon

Automating client document collection for tax practice intakenot DATEV
Tracking all client requests in workflows tied to jobsnot DATEV
Aligning hours worked with billable time per engagementnot DATEV
Automating period close by connecting practice management to accountingnot DATEV
Streamlining client document submission and approval workflowsnot DATEV

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Karbon

Monthly billing option only available for teams of 4 or more users
Team plan at $59/month per user minimum cost may be expensive for smaller practices
No seat license discounts published; scaling costs linearly with user count

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Karbon

$59/month

Team$59/month
- Per-user pricing
- Designed for small accounting firms
- Minimum team size of 4 for monthly billing
Business$89/month
- Per-user pricing
- Workflow automation
- Integrations for growing practices
Enterprise$null/mo
- Custom pricing
- Tailored for large accounting firms
- Dedicated support

Which should you pick?

Choose DATEV if

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

DATEV review

Choose Karbon if

Nothing in the data separates Karbon from DATEV on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.

Karbon review

Questions people ask

Is DATEV or Karbon better?: Neither clearly leads. DATEV starts at On request and Karbon at $59/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, DATEV or Karbon?: DATEV starts at On request and Karbon at $59/month.
Does DATEV or Karbon run on more platforms?: DATEV runs on Windows, Web. Karbon runs on Web.
What is DATEV best used for?: DATEV is most often used for a german gmbh that wants its steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoebox, a payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to german statutory deadlines without an external bureau, an sme preparing an e-bilanz and audit-ready gobd document archive, a tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflow. Of those, a german gmbh that wants its steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoebox and a payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to german statutory deadlines without an external bureau are not what Karbon is typically brought in for.
What can DATEV do that Karbon cannot?: DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Karbon: How much does Karbon cost?

Karbon pricing starts at $59 per user per month (Team plan, billed annually) or $79 per user per month (monthly billing for 4+ users). Business plan is $89/month annual or $99/month monthly. Enterprise pricing is custom.

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.

Karbon: Is there a discount for annual billing on Karbon?

Yes, Karbon offers annual billing at a discount compared to monthly. Team plan is $59/month annually versus $79/month monthly. Business plan is $89/month annually versus $99/month monthly.

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.

Karbon: What is the minimum user requirement for monthly billing on Karbon?

Karbon requires a minimum team size of 4 users to access monthly billing. Teams smaller than 4 must choose annual billing.

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.

DATEV vs Karbon

DATEV

Karbon

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in DATEV

Only in Karbon

What people use each for

DATEV

Karbon

Where each one falls short

DATEV

Karbon

Pricing, plan by plan

DATEV

Karbon

Which should you pick?

Choose DATEV if

Choose Karbon if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on DATEV

More on Karbon

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