{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "xero",
 "name": "Xero",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "xero.com",
 "category": "Financial Operations",
 "task": "Paying bills & getting paid",
 "summary": "Cloud accounting for small business: bank reconciliation, invoicing, bills and reporting.",
 "best_for": "small businesses whose bookkeeper or accountant already works in Xero — the ecosystem and the bank feeds are the real product, and the monthly price is small against what the reconciliation time costs",
 "skip_if": "you invoice a handful of clients and reconcile by hand: the entry tier at $27 a month after the promo buys automation you may not need yet, and simpler invoicing tools cost less",
 "honest_knock": "Read the second number, not the first. Every plan on the US page is 80% off for three months, and the price after that is five times what the button says: $27, $59 and $97 a month. Those standard rates rose on 1 October 2026 from $25, $55 and $90. The second thing to check is the entry tier's ceiling: Early is 20 invoices and 5 bills a month, auto-reconcile costs $5 a month extra on it, and on our September reading the invoice limit counted approving as well as sending, with connected apps able to use it up. That makes Growing at $59 the realistic starting price for anyone billing through other software. And check which country's page you are on, because Xero's tiers and prices differ by market.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$27",
  "entry_price_terms": "Early · standard monthly price after the promotion (80% off for the first 3 months = $5.40)",
  "from_price_usd_month": 27.0,
  "plans": null,
  "plans_source": null,
  "notes": "(re-verified 2026-10-09 in a browser render of their own US pricing page) The 1 October price increase the page announced in September has happened. The standard monthly prices are now Early $27 (was $25), Growing $59 (was $55) and Established $97 (was $90). The headline offer has changed too: 'Get 80% off your plan for your first 3 months', so Early is $5.40 a month for three months and then $27, Growing $11.80 and then $59, Established $19.40 and then $97; a second button offers one month free instead. Early still lists 20 invoices and 5 bills a month, with a footnote marker on the invoice limit; on our 19 September reading that footnote said the limit counts both approving and sending and that transactions initiated by app partners may count toward it. New on Early: auto-reconcile is an optional add-on at $5.00 a month (included on Growing and Established). Growing allows 3 budgets. Multi-currency, project tracking, expense and mileage claims and international bill payments remain on Established only. Optional add-ons: Inventory Plus (no price shown, not on Early) and Xero Payroll powered by Gusto at $36 a month plus $6 per employee or contractor. Standard ACH bill payments are free; fees apply for other methods and for cross-border payments. Subscriptions auto-renew monthly until cancelled. The offer terms were not re-read on this date; on 19 September they limited the then-current 90% offer to new US customers buying their first organisation and to the base subscription only, prices excluded tax and a downgrade was only allowed one month after an upgrade. Xero prices differently by country.",
  "verified_at": "2026-10-09",
  "source_url": null,
  "schema_offer": {
   "price": 27.0,
   "currency": "USD",
   "description": "Early, standard monthly price after the promotion (80% off for the first 3 months = $5.40); 20 invoices and 5 bills a month; USD, excl. tax; auto-renews monthly. Read on the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-10-09.",
   "page": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/b2b/xero-review/"
  },
  "source_quotes": null,
  "recent_change": null,
  "price_history": null
 },
 "free_plan": false,
 "free_plan_evidence": null,
 "cost_traps": [
  {
   "id": "per_seat",
   "label": "Per-seat pricing",
   "evidence": "Optional add-ons: Inventory Plus (no price shown, not on Early) and Xero Payroll powered by Gusto at $36 a month plus $6 per employee or contractor.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-09",
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "id": "addons_extra",
   "label": "Key features are paid add-ons",
   "evidence": "New on Early: auto-reconcile is an optional add-on at $5.00 a month (included on Growing and Established).",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-09",
   "source_url": null
  }
 ],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "QuickBooks or FreshBooks",
  "why": "the standing comparison in small-business accounting — compare the post-promotional price on all three, because all three lead with a discounted rate"
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/xero.json",
  "review": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/b2b/xero-review/",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/xero/",
  "vendor_site": "https://xero.com"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://www.xero.com/",
  "affiliate": false,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Plan-by-plan prices are not structured in this record yet; pricing.notes has the full text.",
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "Being verified: free trial and refund terms are not yet matched to a verbatim line on the vendor's own pages. Not matched does not mean there is none.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product.",
  "Not tested hands-on by us: what the product does comes from the vendor's pages and our reading of them."
 ],
 "verification": {
  "price": "read",
  "free_trial": "being_verified",
  "refund": "being_verified"
 },
 "status_page": null,
 "task_evidence": null,
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "xero:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "xero:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "xero:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "xero:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": {
   "what": "Open-source local server connecting an LLM to Xero accounting data, part of an AI toolkit that also ships a CLI and OpenAI Agents SDK and LangChain integrations. A hosted remote server exists too, but only as a closed beta under separate terms.",
   "plan": "Not stated for the open-source server. The remote beta's own terms are blunter than most: \"if the Software moves out of beta phase and is released commercially, you may need to pay for use of the final commercial product.\"",
   "status": "Live (remote server in beta)",
   "source": "https://developer.xero.com/ai",
   "checked": "2026-07-28",
   "note": "The vendor's own MCP server, from our MCP research; it works with your own account at the vendor."
  },
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_found",
   "detail": "No explicit support for purchases by AI agents on the vendor's own pages.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}