Xero Pricing Australia 2026: Plans, Costs & What's Actually Included

Last updated: November 2026  ·  Prices verified at xero.com/au/pricing-plans on 4 November 2026  ·  Affiliate disclosure

Xero subscriptions in Australia come as four main plans, sometimes called packages, starting at $37 a month. Every plan bundles payroll up to a set number of people, along with bank reconciliation, invoicing, BAS and STP. What separates the plans is mostly how many people you can pay, plus access to multi-currency and Projects higher up. All four prices went up during 2026, so if you are working from a figure you wrote down earlier in the year, it is out of date.

Xero pricing in Australia (2026)

Plan	Price/mo (AUD)	People you can pay	Multi-currency	Projects	Best for
Ignite	$37	1	✗	✗	Solo operators, freelancers
Grow	$78	2	✗	✗	Small teams up to 2 on payroll
Comprehensive	$107	5	✓	✓	Growing businesses, importers and exporters
Ultimate 10	$143	10	✓	✓	Larger SMBs wanting the full feature set

Prices are GST-exclusive. Xero bills monthly with no lock-in, so you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel whenever you like.

Two things the pricing page does not make obvious. Ultimate does not stop at 10: there is Ultimate 20 at $180, Ultimate 50 at $250 and Ultimate 100 at $300, all sitting behind the tier selector on the Ultimate card rather than getting cards of their own. And there is a plan above Ultimate called Ultra at $500 a month, which surfaces in the promotional fine print and nowhere obvious. The prices exist. You just have to go looking for them.

Xero payroll pricing, and why there is no payroll-only plan

This is the most common thing people search for on Xero pricing and the hardest to get a straight answer on, so here it is. Xero does not sell payroll separately in Australia. There is no payroll-only subscription and no per-employee line item on the public price list. Payroll is bundled into every plan, and the number of people you pay is what pushes you from one plan to the next.

Plan	People you can pay	What it costs to run payroll
Ignite	1	$37/mo, the cheapest way to run payroll through Xero at all
Grow	2	$78/mo
Comprehensive	5	$107/mo
Ultimate	10, 20, 50 or 100	$143 at 10, $180 at 20, $250 at 50, $300 at 100
Ultra	10, then a per-user fee	$500/mo

So the real answer to "how much is Xero payroll" is the gap between the plan you would otherwise buy and the plan your headcount forces on you. A sole trader paying only themselves runs payroll for $37. Take on one part-timer and you are on Grow at $78, and that $41 jump is the actual cost of the second person, not any advertised payroll fee.

About the $5 per employee figure

You will see it quoted widely, and an earlier version of this page quoted it too. It does not appear to be a payroll charge. On Xero's own AU pricing page the $5 per additional user sits against Claim expenses and mileage, which is the Xero Expenses add-on. Xero's plan documentation puts the same per-user wording in the Expenses and Projects columns, not the payroll column, where the entries are flat counts instead: 1 person, 2 people, up to 5, then tier options up to 200.

Xero's terms do reserve the right to charge more if you exceed the number of people paid, but no rate for that is published anywhere we can find. Treat any specific per-employee dollar figure for Xero payroll as unverified until you see it in your own signup flow or on your own invoice.

What is included in every Xero plan

Whichever plan you land on, you get unlimited invoices and quotes, bank feeds and reconciliation with daily imports from Australian banks, GST tracking and BAS lodgement to the ATO, STP Phase 2 payroll up to the plan's headcount, expense claims through the mobile app, unlimited user logins so your accountant and bookkeeper cost nothing extra, 24/7 online support, and access to over 1,000 integrations. Note the invoice caps on Ignite though: it is limited to 20 invoices and quotes and 5 bills, which catches people out more often than the payroll limit does.

Xero subscription plans, one by one

Ignite, $37/month

The entry plan, formerly called Starter. Payroll for one person, which makes it right for sole traders, freelancers and consultants with no staff. You get the full Xero experience minus multi-currency and Projects, but you are capped at 20 invoices and quotes a month. Best for: sole traders, freelancers, consultants, one-person operations.

Grow, $78/month

Payroll for up to 2 people and no invoice cap. The step from Ignite to Grow is $41, which is a big jump in percentage terms for what is often just a second payroll slot, so it is worth checking you actually need it. Best for: small businesses with 1 or 2 people on payroll that do not need multi-currency.

Comprehensive, $107/month

The first plan with multi-currency and Xero Projects for time and cost tracking, plus payroll for up to 5. This is the usual landing spot for growing businesses dealing with overseas clients or suppliers, or billing by the hour and wanting project profitability. Best for: international transactions, project-based billing, or up to 5 people on payroll.

Ultimate 10, $143/month

Everything in Comprehensive plus payroll for up to 10. This is where the comparison against MYOB gets uncomfortable: $143 for 10 people against MYOB Business Pro at $70 plus $3 each, which is $100 for the same 10. Best for: businesses with 6 to 10 people on payroll that want the full Xero feature set and are buying the ecosystem rather than the price.

Xero add-on costs and fees to watch

Expenses and Projects users. This is the one place the per-user fee is real. Ignite includes no Expenses users, Grow includes 1, Comprehensive up to 5 and Ultimate up to 10, and extra users on those two modules are charged at $5 each per month. Projects works the same way on Ultimate. Neither has anything to do with how many people you pay.

Hubdoc. Document capture and receipt scanning is included free with all paid Xero plans, a change from when it was billed separately. If you are weighing it against Dext, our Dext vs Hubdoc comparison covers when paying extra is worth it.

How Xero pricing compares to MYOB

Both sets of figures below are verified at the vendors' own AU pricing pages. QuickBooks sits outside the table because it prices payroll separately: $32.72 Simple Start, $60 Essentials, $81.81 Plus and $125.45 Advanced, plus $6 per employee per month through Employment Hero. That puts five people on Essentials at $90, which actually undercuts Xero Comprehensive at $107.

People paid	Xero	MYOB	Cheaper
Just you	$37 Ignite	$29.25 Lite	MYOB by $7.75
2	$78 Grow	$32.25 Lite	MYOB by $45.75
5	$107 Comprehensive	$85 Pro	MYOB by $22
10	$143 Ultimate 10	$100 Pro	MYOB by $43
15	Ultimate 20 $180	$115 Pro	MYOB by $65
32+	Ultimate 50 $250	$165 AccountRight Plus, flat	MYOB by $85

MYOB is cheaper at every single headcount, and the gap widens rather than closes. That is the opposite of what an earlier version of this page said, which had MYOB only becoming cheaper from 15 people up. MYOB's own crossover sits at 32 people, where Business Pro at $70 plus $3 each reaches $166 and AccountRight Plus at $165 flat takes over. Full numbers in our MYOB pricing guide and MYOB AccountRight pricing guide.

None of which makes Xero the wrong answer. It makes it the more expensive one, and worth paying for if you want the bigger app ecosystem, 24/7 support, or an accountant who already works in it. Just go in knowing you are paying a premium rather than believing you are not. If you would rather see what else is out there, our Xero alternatives comparison puts MYOB, QuickBooks and Reckon One side by side on real monthly cost, and the Reckon review covers where its cheaper payroll add-on genuinely holds up against Xero for a small team.

Common questions about Xero pricing

Comparing options? See our full MYOB vs Xero comparison or the 3-way Xero vs MYOB vs QuickBooks guide.

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