2026 Zoho Books Pricing Explained

Their ecosystem covers everything from CRMs to email and project management. They also have Zoho Books for accounting, which you can use as a standalone platform.

Zoho Books is one of the most popular choices for sole traders, freelancers, small and medium-sized businesses, and even enterprises. On top of the free plan, it has five paid plans for different business needs.

If you don’t have time for going through their website and you simply want to know which plan is best for you, here’s a detailed breakdown of Zoho Books pricing for 2026, with a special focus on how well it works for sole traders.

Just need a simple tool for managing your sole trader finances? Try Rounded for free today.

TL;DR:

• Free plan: One user and one accountant, basic invoicing and GST, Zoho integrations only. Good for solo users already inside Zoho.

• Standard plan: A$16.50 per organisation per month. Up to three users, bank feeds, higher invoice limits. Good for very small businesses with simple accounting needs.

• Professional plan: A$33 per organisation per month. Up to five users, project and task tracking, orders and workflows. Good for small teams billing clients and managing work.

• Premium plan: A$44 per organisation per month. Up to ten users, forecasting, budgeting, revenue recognition. Good for established small to mid-sized businesses.

• Elite plan: A$181.50 per organisation per month. Advanced inventory, multiple warehouses, tracking and ecommerce sync. Good for product-based and inventory-heavy businesses.

• Ultimate plan: A$319 per organisation per month. Up to fifteen users, advanced reporting and custom analysis. Good for larger teams that need deep financial insight.

Zoho Books has one free plan + 5 paid plans

If you want to keep your budget intact, you can get the free Zoho Books plan with some limitations. You can pay monthly or annually and save a bit of money by paying for a year upfront.

Free plan: Best for anyone who wants to test Zoho Books

You can have one user and one accountant, and it’s available for businesses making up to A$50,000 per annum. You can manage clients and invoices (up to 1,000 per year) and take payments online and offline.

There is a client portal for communications, multi-lingual invoices, credit notes, custom invoices and reports, automated payment reminders, and a host of other starting features.

There are some basic tax management features, allowing you to track GST and generate BAS. In terms of payment gateways, you get Stripe, PayPal, and GoCardless.

Integrations are available with the Zoho ecosystem (CRM, Mail, Desk, etc.) and business apps like G Suite, Office 365, Zapier, Slack, OneDrive, and WhatsApp.

You get access to Zoho Books mobile apps if you want to access your finances on a mobile device on the go.

While this is a decent starting point, you’re quite limited in the number of invoices you can send out (80ish per month), and there are no integrations with CRMs outside of Zoho’s own.

This makes the free plan only valuable for very small businesses that already use the Zoho CRM and don’t mind the modest selection of payment gateways.

When it comes to customer support, this is the only plan where you can reach the Zoho team just by email. For all paid plans, you can get help with your online accounting software through voice and chat, too.

“Customer support can be slow: Chat is usually okay, but if I need something more complex (like a weird tax setup), ticket responses sometimes take 24–48 hours.” - G2 review

This plan works for sole traders who don’t want to spend money on an accounting app and aren’t bothered by the limited features (and number of invoices).

If you don’t work in the Zoho CRM, you’ll quickly outgrow it.

Standard plan: best for very small businesses

The Standard plan starts at AUD$16.50 per organisation per month, which is good for up to three users. It gives you all the features from the Free plan, along with a few nice upgrades.

The invoice limit rises to 5,000 per year, and you can do progress invoicing and retention payments

You can connect and fetch bank & credit card feeds via a bank feeds provider

Seven additional payment gateways are unlocked, including Authorize.net, 2Checkout, Braintree and others

Only one CRM integration is available, and it’s Zendesk

This plan is best for very small businesses that don’t need advanced sales tools or connections with a variety of CRM platforms.

Sole traders will appreciate the increased number of invoices and payment gateways. However, being limited to one CRM is not ideal and you’re still missing some key features that would be beneficial to any sole trader, such as tracking your project expenses and predicting profitability.

Professional plan: best for small teams and growing businesses

Starting at AUD$ 33 per organisation per month, the Professional plan lets you invite five users to your team.

On top of everything from the previous plans, you get:

• Tracking project expenses and invoices

• Task tracking

• Sales approvals, retainer invoices and bills

• Vendor credits, recurring invoices and bills, sales orders, purchase orders and approvals

• Project profitability

• Workflow rules (up to ten)

• Integrations with Zoho People and Projects

This plan is a significant step up from the previous ones, and it unlocks more advanced features for small businesses or agencies.

The problem is that if you’re small enough, many of these features will simply be unnecessary bloat that you’ll never get to use.

As a sole trader, you get increased limits and more value, but some of the features (e.g. vendor credits, workflow rules) will feel unnecessary. And for the money, you can get better value elsewhere.

“While Zoho Books offers many advantages, one aspect that may be a drawback is the learning curve for users who are new to accounting software. The extensive features and customisation options, although beneficial, might be overwhelming initially.” - Source

Premium plan: best for established and mid-sized businesses

Starting at $AUD 44 per organisation per month, Premium allows you to invite ten users instead of five.

Of course, you get all the features from the previous plans, plus some extras, such as:

• Basic revenue recognition

• Fixed asset

• Custom domain and vendor portal

• Budgeting, custom buttons, validation rules and related lists

• Cash flow forecasting reports

• Additional integrations include Zoho Sign and Twilio

This is yet another upgrade that will work for small to mid-sized businesses that need electronic signatures and communication tool integrations, with a few nice extra features on top.

For sole traders, the upgrade in features is probably not worth the price.

Elite plan: best for product-based and inventory-heavy businesses

The Elite plan starts at $AUD 181.50 per organisation per month and supports up to ten users.

It includes everything from the Premium plan and adds advanced inventory management features that are not available on lower tiers.

This plan unlocks serial and batch tracking, multiple warehouses, bin locations, and composite items, which makes it suitable for businesses that need tighter control over stock movement.

This plan is best for growing businesses that sell physical products and need accurate inventory tracking across locations, sales channels, or warehouses, without moving to a separate inventory system. It’s completely out of budget for most sole traders.

Ultimate plan: best for larger teams that need advanced reporting and customisation

The Ultimate plan starts at $AUD 319 per organisation per month and supports up to fifteen users.

It includes all Elite features and adds the highest level of customisation and analytics available in Zoho Books.

The main upgrade in this plan is access to advanced reporting and analytics, including deeper financial dashboards and the ability to create more complex custom reports.

You also get extended custom field limits, more automation options, and greater flexibility in tailoring workflows to match internal processes.

Zoho Books add-ons

Both Elite and Ultimate can include optional enhancements that boost what Zoho Books handles beyond the core plan features.

User add-on

If you need more users than the plan’s included limit, you can buy extra user licences.

In Australia, this add-on is around $AUD 4.40 per additional user per month when billed monthly, or around $AUD 3.30 per additional user per month when billed yearly.

This lets extra team members log in to Zoho Books without needing to upgrade your entire subscription.

Advanced autoscans

This add-on increases your document autoscan allowance after you use up the included scans. It is priced at $AUD13.20 for 50 scans per month, billed annually.

Locations

This add-on is for businesses that need to track accounting across multiple locations, for example, separate branches or stores, while keeping everything under one organisation. It costs $AUD14 per location per month, billed annually.

Expense claim

This add-on is for companies that want proper employee expense submissions and approvals, rather than basic expense entry. It is priced at $AUD 9 per active user per month, billed annually.

BillPay

This add-on is for accounts payable workflows, helping you manage bills and bill payments inside Zoho Books. It costs $AUD 44 per month, billed annually.

Why Zoho Books may not be the right fit for you

If you’ve read through all these Zoho Books plans and still can’t find one that works for you, you’re not alone.

The free plan is not enough, and paid plans bring too much complexity and features you may never use.

If you’re a sole trader or freelancer, Rounded is simply the better choice.

No unnecessary features.

Zoho Books does have advanced accounting features, but for any sole trader, they are overkill.

Rounded focuses on simplicity and giving you only the features you need to run your business, such as easy invoicing, expense tracking, tax estimates, income and profit overview, and others.

Built for Australian businesses

While Zoho supports BAS/GST setup and compliance, and can integrate with other business workflows, you will need to set up BAS/GST areas properly and may need guidance from an accountant at first.

Rounded has built-in tax calculations, BAS summaries, and GST reporting tailored to Australian sole traders, which makes period-end tasks easier if you file your own BAS.

Simple pricing

Rounded’s pricing is easy to understand, without the wide variety of plans and complex add-ons that add confusion and cost to your monthly bill.

If you want a tool that is built for Australian sole traders and freelancers, has just the right feature mix, helps you stay tax-compliant, and has simple pricing, Rounded is always a better choice than Zoho Books.

Try it for free today. (No credit card required)