Akaunting vs Bench

Two accounting tools side by side. Prices are the starting plan a small business would pick, in USD.

Compare	AkauntingAkaunting	BenchEmployer.com
In one line	Open-source accounting you can host yourself or rent from $8	A bookkeeping team that does your books each month
Starting price	From $8/mo	From $199/mo
Six-person team	$8/mo	$199/mo
Plans	Self-hosted free; Cloud Standard $8/mo (1 user + 1 accountant, 1,000 invoices); Premium $24/mo; Elite $56/mo; Ultimate $145/mo, billed yearly (monthly $12/$36/$84/$218)	Bookkeeping Light $199/mo (up to $250K revenue/yr); Bookkeeping $399/mo; Bookkeeping + Tax $649/mo; 20% off yearly; catch-up free on yearly plans
Pricing model	Free tier	Paid
Free trial	—	—
Users	1 + accountant on Standard	n/a (service)
Both connect to	Square POS, Shopify, Stripe Invoicing
Also connects to	WooCommerce, PayPal Invoicing, Loyverse	Gusto, BigCommerce, Shoeboxed
Team size	Just me · 2–10 people	Just me · 2–10 people · 11–50 people
Available in	US · UK · CA · AU	US
Phone support	None listed	Every plan
Live chat	None listed	Every plan
Support hours	Not published	Phone: weekdays 7am to 5pm PST
Incidents posted	We found no public status page for Akaunting.	We found no public status page for Employer.com.
Capterra score	3.8 / 5 from 28 reviews	Not listed
Trustpilot score	1.5 / 5 from 57 reviews	4.1 / 5 from 1,355 reviews
Fit: Retail shop	50	65
Fit: Restaurant or café	40	60
Fit: Service business	72	80
Fit: Agency or studio	65	80
Fit: Trades or contractor	60	70
Fit: Online store	45	75
Why people pick it	Open source and self-hostable Cheap cloud plans	A bookkeeper you can message any time Free catch-up on yearly plans
Where it falls short	Few bank feeds in the US Most features are paid add-on apps	Costs far more than software Service paused in late 2024 before the sale
	Visit Akaunting ↗	Visit Bench ↗

Six-person prices are what a team of six would pay on the published plans; "Not listed" means those plans don't cover six. How we calculate prices