When a small business outgrows its spreadsheets and its accounting package at the same time, two names come up more than any others: Odoo and ERPNext. Both are open-source business suites with accounting, sales, stock, projects and HR. Both can be hosted for you or run on your own server. And both are easy to underestimate, because the licence is the smallest part of what they cost.
We read both vendors’ own pricing and product pages on 4 October 2026. This is what they say, where each is the better choice, and, since we make a product in the same space, where neither is what you are actually looking for. We do not sell an ERP, and we say below which jobs Orbiz cannot do.
Odoo and ERPNext at a glance
| Odoo | ERPNext | |
|---|---|---|
| Who makes it | Odoo | Frappe, with a network of implementation partners |
| Open source | Two editions: Community (open source) and Enterprise (licensed) | Fully open source; Frappe says no features are behind a paywall |
| Free option | One App Free: one app and its dependencies, unlimited users, hosted by Odoo | Self-host the whole suite on your own server |
| Hosted price basis | Per user per month, all apps, priced by the visitor’s country | Per site or server per month, not per user |
| Hosted entry price | Standard: $7.25 a user a month billed yearly, as served to us from Pakistan (first 12 months; then $8.95) | Frappe Cloud sites from $5 a month |
| Accounting and payroll | In Enterprise; the editions page lists neither full accounting nor payroll in Community | Included: accounts, invoicing and HR and payroll are in the suite |
| Implementation | Odoo’s own Success Packs for small companies; a partner above about 50 employees | Yourself, a Starter Pack, or one of 200+ partners; Frappe does not implement directly |
What Odoo costs, and why the number moves
Odoo prices by the visitor’s country and has no currency or region selector, so two people reading the same page see different figures. From Pakistan on 4 October 2026, the Standard plan, with every app on Odoo Online, was $7.25 a user a month billed yearly and Custom was $13.40, both marked as a discount valid for 12 months for the first users ordered, after which they are $8.95 and $16.40. The same page as archived on 25 September 2026, served to a US visitor, listed Standard at $24.90 and Custom at $49.00 for the first year, then $31.10 and $61.00. Check the price from your own country before you budget.
Custom is the plan that adds Odoo Studio, multi-company, the external API and the choice of Odoo.sh or on-premise hosting; Odoo.sh hosting is charged on top. Odoo also sells Light Users, quoted by an advisor, for people who only need things like their own time off, expenses and payslips. The One App Free plan is genuinely free for unlimited users, but only for one app plus the apps it depends on. Installing a second app means moving to a paid plan.
The free Community edition is a different thing: open source, run on your own server. Odoo’s editions page lists what it leaves out, and for a small business the list matters. Community has invoicing, CRM, sales, inventory, project, timesheets, employees, recruitment and time off. It does not have full accounting (general ledger, bank reconciliation and the rest), payroll, appraisals, approvals, Studio, the mobile apps or hosting. Those are Enterprise.
What ERPNext costs, and what it leaves to you
Frappe’s pricing page splits the cost of ERPNext into two parts: hosting and implementation. The software is free and open source, and Frappe states that there are no paid features hidden behind paywalls. You can self-host it using Frappe’s installation scripts, which the page recommends for companies with a technical team, or host it on Frappe Cloud, Frappe’s managed hosting, where you pay for the site or server and not per user. Sites start at $5 a month. Server prices start at $20 on the ERPNext pricing page and at $40 on the Frappe Cloud pricing page; the two pages disagree, so ask before you rely on either. Frappe Cloud gives a 14-day free trial.
The second part is where small businesses get caught out. Frappe does not implement ERPNext itself. You either set it up alone with the documentation, buy a partner’s Starter Pack for a migration, or hire one of more than 200 certified partners. A full ERP touches your chart of accounts, tax set-up, stock valuation and payroll rules, and somebody has to configure each of them correctly.
Which one suits which business
Odoo is usually the better fit when
- You want a polished hosted product and are happy to pay per user for it.
- Your sales run through a website or online shop: Odoo has a website builder and e-commerce in the same suite.
- You will use Odoo Studio to customise screens without code, and can justify the Custom plan.
- You only need one app today, and the One App Free plan covers it.
ERPNext is usually the better fit when
- Headcount will grow and you do not want a licence bill that grows with it.
- You have, or can hire, someone technical to host it or to work with a partner.
- You want accounting, stock, manufacturing and payroll in the open-source edition, without an Enterprise tier.
- You expect to change the software itself, and want the whole codebase available to you.
Both are serious products, and both have a mature partner network. The honest tie-breaker is usually implementation: get a quote for the set-up from a partner of each before comparing licences, because for most small businesses it is the larger number in year one.
When neither is what you need
Many small businesses shortlist an ERP because their real problem is running the team, not the books. Hiring through a careers page, tracking attendance and leave, paying people from their timesheets, running projects and keeping track of who worked on what. If accounting and stock are already fine in your accounting package, a full ERP is a large project to solve a smaller problem.
That is the gap Orbiz is built for, and it is a narrower one. Orbiz has HRMS for hiring and employee records, AMS for attendance, leave and time tracking, Ledgr for payroll from those timesheets, plus project management, files, notes, screen recording and a password vault, under one login. It has no accounting, inventory, CRM or e-commerce, and no add-on marketplace. If you need any of those, Odoo or ERPNext is the right answer and Orbiz is not. Some teams run both: an accounting system for the books and Orbiz for the people and delivery side.
Orbiz is priced per organisation rather than per user: $99 a month for up to 10 people and $349 for up to 50 people, billed annually, with every tool included; the bands are on the pricing page. The feature-by-feature comparison is on Orbiz vs Odoo, and the wider shortlist, including Dolibarr, Zoho One and Bitrix24, is on Odoo alternatives.
A checklist before you choose
- List the jobs the system must do in year one: books, stock, sales, people, projects.
- If the books and stock are fine where they are, ask whether you need an ERP at all.
- Read Odoo’s price from your own country, and note the price after the first year.
- Check which Odoo edition has the apps you need before assuming Community will do.
- For ERPNext, decide who hosts it and who you call when an upgrade breaks something.
- Get an implementation quote for each, in writing, before comparing licences.
Sources, read 4 October 2026: Odoo’s pricing page and its Community vs Enterprise editions page; the Wayback Machine’s capture of Odoo’s pricing page on 25 September 2026 for the US list price; Frappe’s ERPNext pricing page, Frappe Cloud pricing page and ERPNext product page. On the broader choice between one suite and separate tools, see all-in-one vs best-of-breed software and the hidden cost of eight SaaS subscriptions.
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