Pricing Plan - Increase the limits of Bills in Starter Pricing Plan
Dear Xero
I'm a user of your Standard business plan and happy to pay for this service, but also a user of your Starter Plan for another business in another country and it has some limitations which really need attention for small business owners who don't do much accounting.
The limit of 5 bills a month has to be increased to at least 10 which seams fair for a small business. I don't see the value of your price increase for basic features we need.
The other issue with 5 bills its allocated to each month, so should you have no bills the following month you can't even use the 5 bill options for previous months.

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Michael Coates commented
Xero is a rip off. We once had a much bigger business and the flexibiity of the software was amazing. It was a fully integrate MRP system. Now that we have a small retirement business our accountant asked us to use Xero. It's very limited and I can't see why it costs so much
With the price increase, I have downgraded to the Ignite plan but those artifical limts on invoices and bills are a poor joke. What they don't in their plan details is that if you go over 20 invoices in a month, you get a one off bonus 5 invoices. That's it. Then you have to upgrade to the next level at twice the cost. I suggested to their tech help that 240 invoices a year would make more sense. I also suggested that unused invoices should roll over to the next month. He suggested I post the idea here.
Xero is just not customer focussed.
What happened to the idea that their job is to excite the customer. They seem **** bent on antagonising instead.
Small customers usually grow in small amounts. The Xero plans make big steps that just put customers off.
How about it Xero? Excite us - don't antagonise us. -
Pauline Sargisson commented
Totally agree - i cant work out how the 5 bill limit is applied - my client has only entered one bill in the current calendar month and Im being told the limit is reached... Its far too low to be of any value to even the smallest of businesses, and the cost of the standard plan is getting far too high for really small operators. There is no flexibility over months as mentioned.
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Kenzo Kishimoto commented
To echo Vicky Tan below, the invoice limit is a huge issue for sole trader healthcare professionals. I am a solo physiotherapist in Australia, and like most of you have no need for bulk reconciliation or payroll. I only need Xero to track my expenses and revenue for GST & tax purposes.
As in Vicky's case, I do all invoicing through my clinical software (Splose). This is automatically synced with Xero which is admittedly very handy, but each invoice payment that I reconcile through Xero counts toward the limit; forcing me onto the Grow plan.
I initially chose Xero for the simple and cheap functionality of the Starter/Ignite plan, but am now considering Quickbooks or even simpler all in one solutions like Hnry...
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Ben Fairless commented
I can see that @Kelly Munro "responded" on Sep 9, 2022 however there wasn't any updates. I'm not sure if there ever will be.
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Paul Howlett commented
@Ben Fairless Hear hear!!
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Ben Fairless commented
Increasing the number of bills we can have is the least you can do for continually ripping us off with price increases.
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Kathy Skinner commented
@Joana - they are money grabbing now as I see it with these increased costs - increased the Ignite Plan but no additional bill increase limit at all. I would move my one to that plan but as mentioned before the bill limit doesn't work so she is stuck with the Standard/Grow one unless I can find another package elsewhere that will reduce her costs.
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Joana Mendes commented
Please revisit this.
We are currently on the Standard plan and payroll 2 people, but the new Grow plan will only allow 1 payroll. It will cost an extra $20 per month just so I can payroll 1 extra employee.
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Kathy Skinner commented
Has anyone looked at or used Instabooks New Zealand? They have a plan that is cheaper than what is currently the Standard and if paid for the year gives you 25% off for a limited time. Based on that alone if I moved my client who issues no invoices but has upwards of 20 bills a month would save her over $500 a year if I paid it based on the yearly one and it would also mean she doesn't have to worry about that cost each month. Just not sure if it's inclusive or exclusive of GST but either way still works out cheaper for her.
The first plan (Launch) has a disadvantage of not tracking GST but could be good for someone who isn't GST registered so doesn't require that and is again cheaper than even Xero's Starter/Ignite and even if GST is added to the cost would still be cheaper than Xero. That said would probably also depend on your invoices/bills per month in which case then the next one may be suitable.
You get the option of paying yearly or monthly as well which is a bonus.The fact they've put the price of the Starter/Ignite up but no increase in the bill limit is just plain greed, so basically poor you if you have more than five bills a month we'll either make you have to upgrade into the next package or else really don't care if they lose those customers. Like some have said they issue very few invoices in a year but have way more bills. They have diverged from what they set out to do when they launched being for SME and competitive with other packages.
Maybe they need to lose 1/2 million customers worldwide and take a hit in their profits to wake up to what they are doing to loyal customers. -
Kathy Skinner commented
I agree - I have a client who will be have to stay with the Grow Plan just because of the number of bills per month. I can't downgrade her to the Starter/Ignite Plan as they only allow 5 bills - this has never been increased since it was brought in and I'm sure a lot of companies have more than 5 bills but I guess it's Xero's way of making you go to the next plan up and that sucks if you don't need everything in that plan. The invoices used to be 5 as well with limit of 20 reconciliation bank lines and the bank lines were insufficient as well. They increased those two but have never adjusted the bill limit.
I tried a journal to see if it could be a work around so I could downgrade her as cash flow is tight a lot of the time so being able to drop her down would have been great. She also doesn't issue invoices so doesn't need 20 a month, unfortunately it isn't as they don't appear on the payable's list which I use to see what needs to be paid or has been missed/overdue. As I see it the Ignite is still no different to the Starter version but costing more for no change anywhere.
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Gina Dagg commented
I agree. 5 bills is not enough and I don't want to upgrade to the next plan just so I can add more bills each month!
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Rose Beale commented
I have been using Xero for the last 18 months as my old program didn't have a lot of the features Xero does. I have had to subscribe to the standard plan as the last 3 months have gone over 20 invoices. I have never gone over 40 per month and only recently gone over 30, it seems ridiculous to me that plans jump from 20 per month to unlimited. I feel there should be another option! I don't use payroll or bill payments at all, as my husband is a self-employed mechanic. I use Xero for invoicing and bank reconciliation.
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Rose Beale commented
i agree I use the standard plan as I occasionally go over 20 invoices a mth but never more than 35 it seems ridiculous to me that plans jump from 20 per month to unlimited. I feel there should be another option! I don't use payroll or bill payment at all.
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Lynda Sutcliffe commented
I agree, my work involves the management of apartment block accounting. Bills for this sector are top heavy, however invoices can be on a 1/4 or yearly basis, most blocks have less than 50 apartments, some only 10. These companies are not-for-profit organisations and do not therefore pay any VAT. So we need the starter package with a yearly allowance for invoices and an allowance for more bills on a monthly basis, for repairs, refuse collection and some apartment blocks have 5 electricity bills alone bi-monthly. So a more flexible package for these companies would be fairer. At present we have to use a standard package for a small apartment block with less than 10 apartments.
If Xero are serious about being there for small companies, they must accommodate them.
Lynda
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Linda McNamara commented
I like the idea of Ignite plan but think the number of invoices to bills should be swapped. I am sure most people would have more bills to pay than money coming in. Make it an option at least.
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William Smart commented
The pricing structure is very backward. I would just like to have some extra bills and my pricing would go from ~£20 to ~£40 just for that small facility. It would be helpful to have but not for double the price
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Lube Saveski commented
With the current price rise for the starter plan I will be leaving Xero with my Australian office and do things manually. Being able to reconcile 5 maximum bills and a price rise I don’t think Xero is listening to small business.
I think the standard plan which I use for my UK business is a valid for and will continue to use, but not worth it for small business on the starter plan.
Hope Xero is reading this and doing something positive for small business, it’s not all about profit and the return to shareholders.
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Lynda Sutcliffe commented
I agree with this post, I use Xero for a number of not for profit companies, they are management companies attached to apartment blocks, they do not have many invoices throughout the year (usually quarterly or annually, some as small as 10 apartments) but are heavy on bills each month which is typical of this type of company. We have to use the standard package as a result of the number of bills, the companies are exempt of VAT etc, so we do not use many features of the standard package. I have asked Xero to look at this but they obviously do not really facilitate small companies.
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Bradley Tarr commented
The latest pricing announcement is not great news for smaller businesses, especially removing payroll!
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Executive Committee commented
We are a not for profit so cost is prohibitive and eats into our funds for our purpose which is to support a school