Most “best accounting software” lists are written to rank, not to help you choose. They list ten products, give each a paragraph of praise, and never tell you that half of them are billing apps with light bookkeeping, or that one of them (QuickBooks) has not been available in India since 2023.
This guide is shorter and more opinionated. It groups Indian accounting software by the kind of business it actually suits, gives each product’s published price, and says where each one falls short. Every price was checked on the vendor’s own pricing page on 26 September 2026. We say whether GST is included when the vendor’s page does; several do not.
A disclosure: HivePayroll is payroll software, not accounting software, and none of these vendors paid to be listed. We have included a short section on getting salary entries into your books, because that is where payroll and accounting meet.
| Software | Published starting price | Runs on | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| TallyPrime | Silver ₹8,100 a year or ₹22,500 lifetime (+18% GST) | Windows desktop | Traders, distributors, manufacturers, and any business whose CA works in Tally |
| Zoho Books | Free up to ₹25 lakh revenue; Standard ₹749 a month billed yearly (excl. taxes) | Cloud, web, mobile | Service businesses, startups and remote teams |
| BUSY | Free EXPRESS edition; SMART ₹8,000 per 360 days (+GST) | Windows desktop, mobile app | Wholesale, distribution and inventory-heavy businesses |
| Giddh | Free plan; Oak ₹4,000 a year (excl. GST) | Cloud, desktop, mobile | Small firms that need many users on a small budget |
| Vyapar | Silver ₹4,399 a year (offer price) | Windows, Android, iOS | Shops and small traders who mainly need GST billing |
| myBillBook | Plus ₹3,490 a year (offer price) | Android, iOS, web | Mobile-first billing for very small businesses |
| Swipe | Free plan; PRO ₹2,799 a year (offer price) | Web, Android, iOS | Freelancers and small sellers who want free invoicing |
| Marg ERP | Nano ₹5,550 (+18% GST) | Windows desktop | Pharma, FMCG and retail distribution |
| Odoo | One app free; Standard ₹580 per user a month billed yearly (first-year discount) | Cloud or on-premise | Growing companies that want a full ERP |
| RealBooks | Professional ₹40,000 a year for 5 users (excl. taxes) | Cloud | Mid-sized, multi-branch businesses |
If you only read one line: desktop and CA-friendly, choose TallyPrime; cloud and service business, choose Zoho Books; inventory-heavy trading, look at BUSY. The rest are good answers to narrower questions.
QuickBooks still appears on many Indian “best software” lists, but it is not an option. Intuit stopped new sign-ups in India in July 2022, and according to Intuit’s own India page, there has been no access to QuickBooks products in India since 1 July 2023. If an article recommends it to Indian businesses, it has not been updated in years.
Desktop or cloud? Tally, BUSY and Marg are Windows desktop products. They are fast and work offline, but remote access costs extra (Tally sells cloud access separately). Zoho Books, Giddh, RealBooks and Odoo are cloud-first.
Accounting or billing? Vyapar, myBillBook and Swipe are excellent GST billing apps with inventory and basic reports. They are not full double-entry accounting systems in the way Tally or Zoho Books are. If your CA will do the books elsewhere, a billing app may be all you need.
Do you need e-invoicing and e-way bills? If you are required to generate e-invoices, check which plan includes them. On several products it is only the top tier.
How many people will use it? TallyPrime Silver is single-user; Gold is multi-user. Zoho Books adds users by plan. Giddh includes unlimited users on every plan. RealBooks has a five-user minimum.
Best for: trading, distribution and manufacturing businesses, and anyone whose chartered accountant already works in Tally.
Tally is the default accounting software for Indian CAs, and that alone is a reason to choose it: your accountant will not need to learn anything. GST handling is thorough, including e-invoices, e-way bills, direct GSTR-1 upload and reconciliation against GSTR-2A/2B. It also includes a payroll module with PF, ESI and Professional Tax.
Price: Silver (single user) is ₹750 for a month, ₹8,100 for a year or ₹22,500 for a lifetime licence. Gold (multi-user) is ₹2,250 a month, ₹24,300 a year or ₹67,500 lifetime. Add 18% GST. Lifetime licences need Tally Software Services (from ₹4,500 a year for Silver) to keep connected GST features and updates. There is a 7-day free trial.
Watch out: it runs on Windows; accessing it from outside the office means paying for Tally’s cloud access (from ₹600 per user a month) or a hosting provider.
Best for: service businesses, startups and teams that work remotely or across locations.
Zoho Books is the most complete cloud accounting product built for India: GST returns, bank feeds, e-invoicing from the Standard plan, and a mobile app. It connects to Zoho’s other products, including Zoho Payroll.
Price: free for businesses with revenue up to ₹25 lakh (one user plus an accountant, 1,000 invoices a year). Paid plans billed yearly are Standard ₹749 a month, Professional ₹1,499, Premium ₹2,999, Elite ₹4,999 and Ultimate ₹7,999, per organisation, excluding taxes. Monthly billing costs about 20% more. There is a 14-day trial.
Watch out: each plan caps users and invoices, so check the limits at your volume, not just the price.
Best for: wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers with serious inventory.
BUSY competes directly with Tally on the desktop, with particularly strong inventory, batch and GST features. Unusually, it has a free edition.
Price: EXPRESS is free. START is ₹5,000, SMART ₹8,000, POWER ₹12,000 and POWER+ ₹50,000, each per 360 days plus GST. E-invoicing and e-way bills start on SMART. START and SMART are single-user; POWER+ supports 10 users. There is a 15-day trial with no card needed.
Best for: small and mid-sized firms that want many people working in the books without per-user fees.
Giddh is cloud accounting with unlimited users on every plan, and e-invoicing and e-way bills are included on every plan too. It is a smaller brand than the others here, which matters if your CA has never used it.
Price: free for up to 1,000 invoices. Oak is ₹4,000 a year, Vine ₹10,000 and Sequoia ₹15,000, excluding GST, with limits set by invoice volume and number of companies.
Best for: shops, kirana stores and small traders who mainly need to create GST bills and track stock.
Vyapar works on Windows, Android and iOS and is quick to learn. The Gold plan includes unlimited e-way bills, sync across devices and up to five companies.
Price: the desktop-plus-mobile yearly plan shows Silver at ₹4,399 and Gold at ₹4,799, marked down from ₹7,499 and ₹9,099. The page does not say whether GST is included, and offer prices change, so check before you buy.
Watch out: it is billing-first. For full books, most Vyapar users export to Tally (available on Gold) or leave the accounting to their CA.
Best for: very small businesses that run everything from a phone.
Price: Plus is ₹3,490 a year and Pro ₹3,990 a year, both marked down from higher list prices; Pro Max starts at ₹570 a month billed yearly. E-invoicing and unlimited e-way bills are on Pro Max only. Plus and Pro allow one user plus your CA. The page does not say whether GST is included, and its FAQ quotes a different starting price from the plan cards, so confirm at checkout.
Best for: freelancers and small sellers who want professional GST invoices for free.
Price: a free plan with unlimited invoices. PRO is ₹2,799 a year and JET ₹3,799 a year (offer prices). E-way bills start on JET; e-invoicing is a separately quoted plan.
Best for: pharma, FMCG and retail distribution, where Marg’s industry-specific features are its advantage.
Price: Nano ₹5,550, Basic ₹10,300, Silver ₹13,900 and Gold ₹26,000, plus 18% GST, with extra users at ₹3,000. The pricing page does not say whether these are yearly or one-time, and adds that final prices vary by requirement, so ask for a written quote.
Best for: growing companies that want accounting, inventory, CRM and more on one platform.
Price: one app is free with unlimited users. Standard is ₹580 per user a month billed yearly, and Custom ₹1,080. Both are first-year discounted prices; the regular prices shown are ₹725 and ₹1,350.
Watch out: Odoo is an ERP. Getting value from it takes setup time, and often an implementation partner.
Best for: mid-sized and multi-branch businesses that want cloud accounting with more control than the SMB tools.
Price: Professional is ₹40,000 a year, Business ₹62,500 and Enterprise ₹1,00,000, each for five users, excluding taxes. Extra users are charged monthly. The five-user minimum makes it expensive for very small firms.
Whichever accounting software you choose, salaries are usually your largest expense, and they need to reach your books as proper journal entries: gross salary, employee and employer PF, ESI, Professional Tax, TDS and net pay, each to the right ledger.
Running payroll inside your accounting software works when you have a handful of employees and simple salary structures. Once you have attendance, leave, reimbursements, TDS declarations and payslips to manage, a dedicated payroll tool saves more time than it costs. HivePayroll is free for up to 10 employees and produces the salary register, statutory reports and payslips your accountant needs each month, whichever accounting software they use.
For most small businesses it is TallyPrime if you prefer desktop software and your CA uses Tally, or Zoho Books if you want cloud access. If you mainly need GST invoices and stock tracking, a billing app such as Vyapar, myBillBook or Swipe costs less.
Yes. Zoho Books is free for businesses with revenue up to ₹25 lakh, BUSY has a free EXPRESS edition, Giddh has a free plan for up to 1,000 invoices, and Swipe offers free invoicing. Each free plan has limits on users, invoices or features.
Neither is better in general. Tally suits desktop-based trading and manufacturing businesses and is what most CAs know. Zoho Books suits service businesses and teams who want to work from anywhere. Ask your CA which one they prefer; it will save you both time.
No. Intuit stopped new sign-ups in India in July 2022, and QuickBooks has not been accessible in India since 1 July 2023.
TallyPrime has a built-in payroll module, and Zoho Books works with Zoho Payroll. Billing apps do not run statutory payroll. For more than a few employees, dedicated payroll software is usually simpler.
Prices were checked on each vendor’s own pricing page on 26 September 2026. Offer prices and plans change often; confirm current figures with the vendor before you buy.
Payroll Applications for Android
Best Payroll Software with Mobile App
Manage payroll on the go with our Android app! Access employee data, process payments, and stay in control - anytime, anywhere.
©2024, IT Brothers Consulting Solutions Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved.
We use cookies to keep the site working and, with your permission, Google Analytics to understand how it is used. Cookie policy
