Is DATEV or Personio better?

Neither clearly leads. DATEV starts at On request and Personio at $5/employee-per-month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, DATEV or Personio?

DATEV starts at On request and Personio at $5/employee-per-month.

Does DATEV or Personio run on more platforms?

DATEV runs on Windows, Web. Personio runs on Web, Mobile (iOS, Android).

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 Personio is typically brought in for.

What can DATEV do that Personio cannot?

DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss. Personio covers HR Management, Recruiting, Payroll, Time Tracking.

Accounting · head to head

DATEV vs Personio

DATEV

Accounting

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

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

Personio

All-in-one HR software for SMEs

From: $5/employee-per-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.; Personio payroll processing only available in Germany, UK, and Ireland, limiting multi-country deployment
They diverge on capability: DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Personio covers HR Management.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which DATEV and Personio actually diverge.

Attributes where DATEV and Personio differ
Attribute	DATEV	Personio
Starting price	On request	$5/employee-per-month
Pricing model	quote	Unknown
Platforms	Windows, Web	Web, Mobile (iOS, Android)
Category	Accounting	HR
Founded	Unknown	2015

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

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 Personio

HR Management
Recruiting
Payroll
Time Tracking
Performance Management
Onboarding
Offboarding
Slack

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 Personio
A payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to German statutory deadlines without an external bureaunot Personio
An SME preparing an e-Bilanz and audit-ready GoBD document archivenot Personio
A tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflownot Personio

Personio

No use cases recorded yet. See the Personio review.

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.

Personio

Payroll processing only available in Germany, UK, and Ireland, limiting multi-country deployment
Recruiting module lacks advanced reporting and LinkedIn integration functionality
Limited reporting customization requires manual exports and workarounds
Mobile app has reduced capabilities compared to desktop experience

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

Personio

$5/employee-per-month

No published plan breakdown. See the Personio review.

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 Personio if

You need hr management.
You work on Web, Mobile (iOS, Android).
You also want recruiting.

Personio review

Questions people ask

Is DATEV or Personio better?: Neither clearly leads. DATEV starts at On request and Personio at $5/employee-per-month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, DATEV or Personio?: DATEV starts at On request and Personio at $5/employee-per-month.
Does DATEV or Personio run on more platforms?: DATEV runs on Windows, Web. Personio runs on Web, Mobile (iOS, Android).
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 Personio is typically brought in for.
What can DATEV do that Personio cannot?: DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss. Personio covers HR Management, Recruiting, Payroll, Time Tracking.

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.

Personio: Does Personio offer payroll processing in my country?

Personio provides native payroll support in Germany, UK, and Ireland, with limited support in other European markets through integrations. Coverage varies by country.

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.

Personio: What is Personio's pricing model?

Personio uses a per-employee-per-month (PEPM) model starting at $5-15/employee/month depending on the plan and features. There is no public pricing page, and exact pricing requires a sales consultation.

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.

Personio: Can Personio integrate with other tools?

Yes. Personio provides a public API and maintains a marketplace of pre-built integrations. The Core Pro plan is required for API access and custom integrations.

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 Personio

DATEV

Personio

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in DATEV

Only in Personio

What people use each for

DATEV

Personio

Where each one falls short

DATEV

Personio

Pricing, plan by plan

DATEV

Personio

Which should you pick?

Choose DATEV if

Choose Personio if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on DATEV

More on Personio

Keep looking

Other head to heads