Xero Price Increase
Xero have announced that prices for their Standard and Premium pricing plans are increasing by $5 per month from the end of September, 2018.
Standard plans will increase 9% to $60 per month, with Premium plans rising 7% to $75. Prices exclude GST.
We are sure this is not welcome news but in their defence, Xero has held prices steady for the last 3 years.
Those clients who are on a monthly plan with us will notice that the Xero component of their invoice will increase from our October invoice run, but only if you have a Standard or Premium Plan. T
he good news is that other Xero plan prices are not changing.
If you are sending invoices from Xero or using foreign currency, you will be impacted.
So what do you get in return?
Xero have introduced a new feature called Xero expenses. This upgrades the old expenses function and according to Xero, you’ll notice:
- Reduced data entry and streamlining of the entire process
- Ability to process receipts in different currencies
- Push notifications – to everyone involved, at each step in the process from submission through to approval and reimbursement
- Flexible user permissions, being able to control who can submit and approve claims
- Better reporting, allowing you to see where your money is being spent
- You can now assign expenses to projects and tracking categories
The price rise noted above will only cover one user of Xero expenses. Each additional active user will incur an additional $5 per month. Xero define an active user as someone who has submitted at least one expense claim in a month.
You can read more about the new Xere Expenses feature here.
What’s our View?
The new expenses feature is a significant improvement on the old, but then you always had the old version for no additional cost. We think that the additional expenses functionality is a little bit of a red herring when justifying the price increase.
We get that software costs will always increase but we think their justification is a little opaque.
Small and medium businesses are restrained in how much they can pass on to their customers in the face of price increases from their suppliers.
We would like to see Xero show the same restraint. A small annual increase would be preferable. Better still, they could keep their package costs the same, just as we have for over 5 years.
