Xero pricing in Australia: what you really pay once the add-ons are in.
Every Xero plan in Australian dollars, what payroll and projects cost, and the job app, receipt capture and card fees that sit on top. The subscription is only the first line on the bill.
Kristian Njegovanovic, Director, Scalify · Updated 29 October 2026
How much does Xero cost in Australia?
Xero costs A$37 a month on Ignite, A$78 on Grow, A$107 on Comprehensive and A$143 on Ultimate 10, all including GST. Bigger payroll teams pay A$180 to A$300 on the higher Ultimate plans, and Ultra, with multi-entity consolidation, is A$500 a month. There is no free plan.
Xero bills monthly per organisation, which means per set of books, not per user. Every plan lets you add as many users as you like. The prices below are the usual monthly prices on Xero's Australian pricing page. Xero often runs a new-customer discount; the one live when we checked was 90% off the first three months, ending 2 November 2026, and it does not cover add-ons or payment fees.
| Plan | Price a month | Payroll included | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ignite | A$37 | 1 person | Sole traders. Capped at 20 invoices and 5 bills a month. |
| Grow | A$78 | 2 people | A small business with steady invoicing and one or two staff. |
| Comprehensive | A$107 | 5 people | Most small teams. Adds multi-currency, auto-reconcile and document capture. |
| Ultimate 10 | A$143 | 10 people | Teams that need project costing or pay up to 10 staff. |
| Ultimate 20 | A$180 | 20 people | As above, with a bigger payroll. |
| Ultimate 50 | A$250 | 50 people | As above, with a bigger payroll. |
| Ultimate 100 | A$300 | 100 people, then A$2 a person (up to 200) | Larger workforces on one set of books. |
| Ultra | A$500 | As Ultimate 10, then A$2 a person | Groups that need several entities consolidated. |
What do you get on each Xero plan?
Every plan sends invoices and quotes, takes online payments, reconciles your bank and lodges BAS. Moving up mostly buys you more payroll, more bills, longer cash flow forecasts and, at Ultimate, project costing. Ignite is the only plan with hard limits on invoices and bills.
- Ignite covers quotes, 20 invoices and 5 bills a month, bank reconciliation, GST and BAS, basic reports and payroll for one person. Fine if you are the business. Tight the moment you are not.
- Grow lifts the invoice and bill caps, adds dashboards, a 60-day cash flow forecast, expense claims for one user, and JAX, Xero's AI, which categorises and matches bank transactions it is confident about.
- Comprehensive adds payroll for five, expense claims for five users, multiple currencies, automatic reconciliation, smart document capture for bills and receipts, budgets and a 90-day forecast.
- Ultimate adds project time and cost tracking for 10 users, KPI and ratio analysis, industry benchmarking and a 180-day forecast. The number after the name is how many people you can pay.
- Ultra is Ultimate 10 plus consolidation across several entities and advanced forecasting through Syft, with priority support.
How much does Xero payroll cost?
Payroll is not a separate subscription in Australia. Each plan includes payroll for a set number of people: one on Ignite, two on Grow, five on Comprehensive, then 10, 20, 50 or 100 on the Ultimate plans. Above 100, and on Ultra, each extra person is A$2 a month.
For the smaller plans, Xero only says that charges may apply above the included number, without listing a rate. In practice the clean answer is to pick the plan that covers your headcount, including casuals you pay in a busy month. A business with six staff on Comprehensive is one hire away from needing Ultimate 10 anyway.
Three other add-ons catch people out:
- Projects. Job and project costing is only on the Ultimate plans, with 10 users included and A$7 a month for each extra user. If you want to see profit per job inside Xero, Comprehensive will not do it.
- Expense claims. Grow includes one user, Comprehensive five, Ultimate ten. Each extra user is A$5 a month.
- Online bill payments. Grow includes 5 a month, Comprehensive 10, Ultimate 15. After that it is A$0.35 a payment.
Which Xero plan should a small business pick?
On your own with light invoicing, Ignite or Grow. With staff, start on Comprehensive: payroll for five, document capture and auto-reconcile save more time than the A$29 gap to Grow. Step up to Ultimate only when you need project costing inside Xero or pay more than five people.
The question to ask is not which plan has the most features. It is which jobs you will run in Xero and which you will run in another app. If your job management app already tracks profit per job, paying for Ultimate's projects on top is paying twice. Our comparison of MYOB vs Xero covers the other common question at this stage: whether Xero is the right ledger at all.
What do small businesses really pay for Xero once add-ons are in?
For a trade or service business running a job app, Xero itself is often under half the monthly bill. A job management app is usually the biggest line, then quoting, receipt capture and card fees. A five-person trade business can easily spend two to three times its Xero subscription on the apps around it.
Here is the stack we see on sales calls most weeks, with prices from each vendor's own page. Watch the GST and currency notes, because these are not quoted the same way.
| Job | Example app | Listed price | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job management | Tradify | A$48 to A$62 a user a month, ex GST | Every user who needs a login is a seat. |
| Job management | ServiceM8 | Free to A$349 a month, incl. GST | Priced by jobs a month, not users. Starter is A$29 for 50 jobs. |
| Quoting | Quotient | US$28 to US$48 a month | Billed in US dollars, so the Australian cost moves with the exchange rate. |
| Receipts and bills | Dext | A$33.58 a month, ex GST | 250 documents and 5 users. Xero's own document capture is on Comprehensive and up. |
| Card payments | Stripe through Xero | 1.75% + A$0.30 a domestic card payment | A fee on every payment, not a subscription. |
A worked example. A five-person trade business on Comprehensive pays A$107. If all five use Tradify on the Pro plan, that is 5 times A$52, or A$260 ex GST, about A$286 with GST. Before a single card payment, that business is spending about A$393 a month, and Xero is barely a quarter of it. The connections between these apps are a cost too, mostly in time; our guide to Xero integrations covers which ones are worth setting up.
Paying for apps that each do one slice of the job, with someone typing between them? We build the automations that connect your quoting, job and invoicing work to Xero, so the data is entered once.
See invoice automationWhat do card payments through Xero cost?
Through Xero's built-in Stripe payments, Australian cards cost 1.75% plus 30 cents per payment and international cards 3.5% plus 30 cents, GST included. PayTo bank payments cost 1.3% plus 30 cents, capped at A$5. These fees sit outside your plan and are never covered by Xero's discounts.
The rates come from Xero's Stripe fees page for Australia. On small invoices they barely register. On big ones they do: a A$10,000 invoice paid by an Australian card costs about A$175 in fees. That is why the PayTo cap matters for anyone invoicing in the thousands, and why surcharging needs to be a decision, not an afterthought.
Can AI or automation cut the Xero add-on bill?
Sometimes. Where an app exists only to move data in and out of Xero, or to format quotes, a custom automation can replace it. Where an app runs scheduling, field work or compliance well, keep it. The bigger saving is usually the hours spent retyping between apps, not the subscriptions themselves.
Honest view from doing this every week: a good job management app is often the right choice and we tell people to keep it. What we replace is the glue. Supplier bills read and coded to the right job, quotes priced from your own rate card, invoices raised when a job closes, and polite chasing on what is overdue, with a person approving anything that goes out. Our invoice automation work does exactly that with Xero staying as your books, and our AI integration service connects the apps you already pay for so they stop needing a person in the middle.
Before cutting anything, map it. Our AI audit looks at your whole stack and where the hours go, then tells you which subscriptions earn their keep and which jobs are worth automating first. For owners who would rather build their own, our two-day AI Sesh workshops in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne connect Claude to your own Xero on the day.
Price your Xero plan last. Work out which jobs live in Xero and which live in other apps first, then pay for each job once.
Common questions
Does Xero charge per user?
No. Xero charges per organisation, and every plan includes unlimited users. Some features are counted by user, like expense claims and project tracking, and payroll is counted by the number of people you pay.
Do I need a separate Xero subscription for each company?
Yes. Each organisation, meaning each set of books, is on its own plan, so three companies means three subscriptions. You can switch between them from one login, and Ultra adds consolidated reporting across entities.
Is there a free version of Xero?
No. There is no free plan in Australia. Xero offers a free trial month, and new customers often get a discount on the first few months, but the full price applies after that.
Can a business claim the GST on Xero?
Xero's Australian prices include GST. If your business is registered for GST, you can generally claim it back as a credit like any other business expense. Confirm the treatment with your accountant.
Can I change Xero plans later?
Yes. You can move up a plan at any time from your subscription settings, and the plans are monthly. Check what you lose before moving down, for example project data or extra payroll employees.
Prices checked 29 October 2026. Xero prices include GST; some add-on prices exclude GST or are billed in US dollars, as marked. Vendors change prices, so check each one before you budget.
Keep reading
Xero is the cheap part. The typing between your apps is not.
Show us the apps around your Xero and the jobs your team retypes every week. We will tell you what to keep, what to connect and what to automate.