Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice pricing and plan limits

Zoho sells two products here, and they’re priced differently. Zoho Invoice is invoicing only and free, with a yearly invoice limit that Zoho shows only inside your account. Zoho Books keeps your books: its free plan, for one user and an accountant, is only for revenue under $50K for the financial year, and the first paid plan, Standard, is $20 a month, or $15 a month billed yearly, for 3 users. Standard is where automatic bank feeds start, which is the usual reason to pay.

Zoho Invoice or Zoho Books?

Decide what you need the software to do, because the two products don’t grow into each other.

• Zoho Invoice sends invoices and quotes, runs recurring invoices and reminders, records expenses and time, and gives customers a portal. It doesn’t keep your books. It’s free with no paid plans, but it has a yearly invoice limit: Zoho’s pricing page doesn’t mention it, and its help center says you see it inside the account. For more invoices, Zoho points to Zoho Billing, another separate product.
• Zoho Books does all of that and keeps the books: bank reconciliation, a profit and loss, a balance sheet, and an accountant login, starting on its free plan.

If you start on Zoho Invoice and later want books, the move to Zoho Books is a switch between products: you’d carry your customers and records across rather than click an upgrade.

Which Zoho Books plan should a one to five person business pick?

Start from revenue and the bank, then count people.

• Revenue under the cap, one person, and you’ll match the bank yourself: the free plan. It allows 1,000 invoices a year, reconciliation, full reports, and 1 accountant.
• Revenue over the cap, or you want bank transactions to arrive on their own: Standard at $20 a month, for 3 users and 5,000 invoices a year. It adds bank feeds, sales tax tracking, and phone and chat support.
• Projects, purchase orders, stock, or more than one currency: Professional at $50 a month, for 5 users.

The plans above Professional add revenue recognition, fixed assets, warehouses, and analytics, which are built for larger businesses than this guide covers.

Say you run a three-person corporate training company: you, a second trainer, and a coordinator who books the sessions and sends the invoices. Revenue this year will pass the free plan’s cap, and all three of you need to log in.

That makes it Standard at $20 a month, which covers all three and brings in your bank transactions. Once you’ve run a couple of month-ends on it, switching to yearly billing brings it to $15 a month. If you hire a fourth person, add an extra user rather than move to Professional, unless you also need its projects or inventory; extra users are $3 per user a month, or $2.50 billed annually.

What moves you up a plan?

On the free plan, revenue: the financial year your revenue crosses the cap, you need a paid plan. Invoice number 1,000 plus one in a year, or a second user, ends it too.

On the paid plans, features more than people, because extra users can be added one at a time. Projects, inventory, purchase orders, and multiple currencies are the reasons for Professional. Each plan also has a yearly invoice limit; Standard’s is 5,000, so a business sending a few invoices a day stays inside it.

Skip Zoho if

• Your revenue is over the free plan’s cap and you still want books for nothing. Wave’s Starter plan has no revenue condition; see Wave pricing.
• You want the lowest paid bill for one person. For one person, the lowest paid bill in this guide is Wave (Pro) at $19 a month; which tool fits a 1 to 5 person business weighs it against what you give up.
• You send a lot of invoices and only want to invoice. Zoho Invoice’s limit isn’t published, so you can’t plan around it until you’re in. When free invoicing is enough compares free plans that state no invoice cap.

Plans and prices

One price per organization, monthly or yearly. The figures that decide your plan are the free plan’s revenue cap and the user count on each plan.

Costs that are easy to miss

• Prices exclude sales tax. Zoho adds local taxes on top of the plan price.
• Getting paid online costs a fee per payment. Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice add no fee of their own; the payment service you connect charges its rate. Through Zoho Payments, on an invoice of $2,000, a card payment costs $58.30 and a bank transfer $5, because the bank-transfer fee is capped. What invoicing costs once customers pay by card works it out at your volume.
• Add-ons are priced separately. Extra users, document scans beyond the plan, and extra locations are Zoho Books add-ons.
• Moving between the two products is a switch. Zoho Invoice to Zoho Books isn’t an upgrade; plan it like any other move.

The rates are Zoho Payments’ own. Other payment services you connect charge theirs.

Does Zoho Books work in Spanish?

Yes, for the app and for your customers. You can switch Zoho Books itself to Spanish, and set a customer’s language so their invoices, quotes, and reminders go out in Spanish. Zoho’s pages don’t say whether support is offered in Spanish.

Our view

Zoho covers both free paths in this category: an invoicing-only product for the owner who just bills, and a free plan with real books and an accountant seat for the business under the revenue cap. Our position: if your accountant wants to log in and your revenue is under the cap, start on Zoho Books’ free plan rather than Zoho Invoice, so you never have to switch products; move to Standard when revenue passes the cap or the bank typing gets old. What you give up is predictability on Zoho Invoice, whose limit you only see once you’re in, and a hard stop on the free plan the year your revenue grows past the cap.

Your next step

Look at this year’s revenue so far and where it’s heading. If you only invoice and your accountant works from what you hand over: start Zoho Invoice, and check its limit in your first week. Under the cap, with an accountant who wants a login: start Zoho Books’ free plan. Over it, or if you want your bank transactions to arrive on their own: take Zoho Books’ 14-day trial on Standard and run one month-end in it before you pay. Start Zoho Invoice, start Zoho Books’ free plan, or see Zoho Books’ paid plans.