RunwayDue vs Xero

The short answer

Say the hard part of your month is recording what already happened: a few hundred bank lines to reconcile, payroll to run, an accountant who wants to work inside your ledger. Buy Xero and stop reading. It is very good at that, millions of businesses use it, and nothing on this page is going to argue otherwise.

RunwayDue is for the other problem. If a $40,000 project signed in March bills across five months and then June is quiet, your difficulty is not the past. It is that no invoice list can tell you the difference between money that is committed and money that is merely hoped for. That gap is the reason this product exists.

At a glance

Xero US prices checked 31 August 2026 and again on 25 September 2026, with the increase Xero has published for 1 October 2026.

Who each one is built for

Xero's centre of gravity is the accountant. It charges per organisation rather than per person ("No per-user license fees", in its own words), so a bookkeeper can sit in your file all day at no extra cost. The partner programme, the advisor directory and the app marketplace all exist so a practice can standardise a hundred clients on one system. It is a good design, and it explains what people notice first about Xero: it assumes somebody in the room already speaks accounting. The category question underneath this one, and how to test a tool against it, is in how to choose invoicing software when your revenue is not monthly.

RunwayDue starts a step earlier, at the proposal, and follows one piece of business the whole way: proposal, contract, signature, invoice, payment, books. That chain is in the database, not the marketing: an invoice carries the contract and the billing-schedule row it was raised from, and a contract created from a proposal carries that proposal's id. It is not a nicety. It is the thing that makes the forecast possible.

The number Xero cannot work out for you

Xero forecasts cash, and its pricing page tiers the horizon as you move up: 30 days on Early, 60 on Growing, 180 on Established (checked 31 August 2026; Xero's own analytics and forecasting pages describe the horizon differently, so check what your plan actually shows you). It is a good forecast, built from what is in the bank and what has been invoiced.

RunwayDue builds every figure from four layers, in descending order of certainty:

• Collected: money that has actually landed
• Outstanding: billed, not yet paid
• Committed: signed, not yet billed
• Pipeline: proposed, not yet signed, weighted by win probability

The third layer is the one that does not exist in an accounting platform. Xero's business plans sell quotes; they do not hold a signed contract with a billing schedule attached, so an engagement you have won but not yet invoiced is not something Xero can count. RunwayDue stores it as a contract schedule and stacks it into the forecast beside the certain money.

They are shown side by side, and the forecast stacks them so the uncertain part stays visually distinct from the certain part.

For a business billing the same amount every month, none of this matters and Xero's cash forecast is plenty. For a studio living between two large projects, it is the whole question.

Signing your own contracts

Xero's three business plans do not include e-signature for your client agreements. Xero does have a signing product, Xero Sign, powered by Adobe Acrobat Sign. But it lives in Xero Partner Hub and Xero Tax, which are the practice-side tools your accountant uses, and it is sold in prepaid bundles that expire twelve months after purchase, from A$150 for 150 transactions on Xero's Australian site (checked 31 August 2026). It is designed for collating tax returns and reports for a client to sign, not for getting your own statement of work signed on a Tuesday afternoon.

RunwayDue includes e-signature on Pro at no extra cost, and sells it on Free at $2 a document, cheaper by the pack: $7 for five, $12 for ten, $25 for twenty-five, which is a dollar each. In India the list price is ₹100 a document and the checkout adds 18% GST as its own line, so one document is ₹118 (prices checked 11 September 2026). The signed PDF comes back with a certificate of completion bound into it: the named signer, the private link sent to their email, their consent, the time, the network address, and a hash of the original.

What sits behind which tier

Prices checked 31 August 2026. Xero has published an increase for US subscriptions from 1 October 2026, so both sets of numbers are in the table and the structure is the real comparison.

Multi-currency is the sharpest row for anyone invoicing abroad. In Xero it arrives on Established, $90/mo when checked in August 2026 and $97 from 1 October. In RunwayDue every document carries its own currency and the exchange rate saved at the moment it was issued, on every plan including the free one, so reports do not drift when rates move. Indian GST is worked out rather than typed in on every plan too: CGST and SGST when you and your client are in the same state, IGST when you are not, GSTINs checked against their own checksum, and per-slab totals in the tax summary. In the US you set the sales-tax rate per line and RunwayDue applies it. There is no rate lookup by address and no nexus checking, and we would rather say that than approximate it.

The last row cuts the other way, and it is the single strongest thing about Xero's pricing: unlimited users at every tier. The crossover is later than it looks, but it does arrive. Six people on Pro is $39 a month billed yearly, and Business holds ten for $50, against Growing at $55. Past about eleven people who need write access, Xero's flat price wins and keeps winning, and if you are already there the argument is over.

If your accountant asked for Xero

Most people reading a page like this did not choose Xero from a feature list. Their accountant asked for it, which is a good reason. An accountant who works in Xero every day will do your year end faster and more cheaply than one learning something new.

RunwayDue's answer is a read-only login for your accountant: the first one is free on every plan, Free included, and never counted against your seats. It can read everything and cannot change a thing, and on Pro and above it can also run an export. That removes the cost objection. It does not remove the familiarity one, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise: your accountant knows Xero, and they do not know this. If they push back, they are not being difficult. Weigh it.

One structural difference worth knowing either way: a paid Xero subscription cancels with a one-month notice period during which you are still billed. RunwayDue drops you to the free plan instead, and nothing is deleted for not paying. Every invoice, proposal, contract and signed PDF stays openable and sendable, though automatic reminders, recurring invoices and reports stop until you move back up, and bills and expenses stay readable but cannot be edited or paid. Self-service export is a Pro feature, but if you are on Free and ask for your data we send it.

When Xero is the better choice

Not a formality. These are real:

• You have bank transactions to reconcile. RunwayDue has no bank feeds, and no way to bring transactions in from a file either, so every expense is typed in. At two hundred card transactions a month, Xero's auto-reconciliation, on Growing and above (checked 25 September 2026), saves you more time than everything else on this page combined.
• You need payroll. Xero has it in the US through Gusto, priced separately. RunwayDue does not, and will not. Payroll is jurisdiction-specific in a way that punishes an approximation.
• You carry stock, or bill time against projects. Inventory Plus and project time-and-cost tracking are Xero products. RunwayDue has neither.
• You need integrations. Xero has an app marketplace and a public accounting API. RunwayDue has no marketplace, no Zapier and no public API yet.
• You want cards taken automatically on your own invoices. RunwayDue takes cards at its own checkout and not on yours. Your invoices carry your bank details or your own payment link rather than a card button, and you record the payment when it lands.
• You want a track record. RunwayDue launched in August 2026. No reviews, no community, no customer count to quote. Xero has all three, and that is a legitimate reason to choose it.
• You are in India and your accountant already works in Xero. India is not one of Xero's own regions: its list runs New Zealand, Australia, the US, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the UK, Canada, Singapore and South Africa, with everywhere else as "rest of world". Plenty of Indian practices run clients on it anyway, and if yours is one of them, that is the deciding fact, not the region list. A CA who opens Xero every morning will get through your year end faster and cheaper than one meeting a new product for the first time on your file. Weigh it seriously and let them keep the tool they are fluent in.

There is no mobile app here either, and RunwayDue runs one process on SQLite, which has not been tested at any scale beyond a small business.

Where that leaves it

Xero is the better back office. RunwayDue is the better front half, with a real set of books attached and sized for a team with no finance department: profit and loss on an accrual or cash basis, balance sheet, cash flow, aged receivables and payables, tax summary.

Pick on whichever problem is costing you more, and if QuickBooks is also in the running, how RunwayDue compares with QuickBooks Online is here too. If it is reconciliation and compliance, that is Xero. If it is knowing in August what October looks like, try this one for a fortnight and find out.

Frequently asked questions

Is RunwayDue cheaper than Xero?

For a small team, yes. When checked on 25 September 2026, Xero Early was $25 a month and Growing, the first plan without a cap on invoices, $55; Xero has published $27 and $59 from 1 October 2026. RunwayDue Pro is $15 a month billed yearly, or $17 monthly, for two people, and six people on Pro is $39 a month billed yearly. Because Xero charges per organisation rather than per person, its flat price wins from about eleven people who need write access on yearly billing, or about nine on monthly billing, at the $55 Growing price checked on 25 September 2026, and from about twelve and ten at the $59 Xero has published from 1 October 2026.

Does Xero include e-signature for client contracts?

Not in its three business plans. Xero Sign, powered by Adobe Acrobat Sign, lives in Xero Partner Hub and Xero Tax, the practice-side tools accountants use, and is sold in prepaid bundles that expire twelve months after purchase, from A$150 for 150 transactions on Xero's Australian site (checked 25 September 2026). RunwayDue includes e-signature on Pro and sells it on the free plan at $2 a document, or $1 each in a pack of twenty-five.

Can Xero forecast revenue from signed contracts?

Xero forecasts cash from what is in the bank and what has been invoiced, over 30 days on Early, 60 on Growing and 180 on Established according to its pricing page (checked 25 September 2026; its analytics pages describe the horizon differently). It cannot count an engagement you have signed but not invoiced, because its business plans sell quotes rather than holding a signed contract with a billing schedule. RunwayDue counts that as committed revenue, shown beside collected, outstanding and weighted pipeline rather than added to them.

Which Xero plan includes multiple currencies?

Established, which was $90 a month when checked on 25 September 2026 and is $97 from 1 October 2026. In RunwayDue every document carries its own currency and the exchange rate saved when it was issued, on every plan including Free, so reports do not drift when rates move.

Does Xero charge per user?

No. Xero charges per organisation, with "no per-user license fees" in its own words, so a bookkeeper or accountant can work in your file at no extra cost (checked 25 September 2026). RunwayDue includes two people on Pro and ten on Business, at $6 a month for each person after that, plus one free read-only login for your accountant that can read everything and run an export but cannot change anything.

Does Xero reconcile bank transactions automatically?

On Growing and above. Every Xero plan has bank feeds and reconciliation, and auto-reconciliation, which matches transactions for you, starts on Growing (checked 25 September 2026); at two hundred card transactions a month, that saves more time than any other difference between the two products. RunwayDue has no bank feeds and no file import, so every expense is typed in and marked reconciled one at a time.

Is there a notice period to cancel Xero?

Yes. Xero's US terms ask for one month's notice to cancel a paid subscription, and you are billed until it ends (checked 25 September 2026). RunwayDue has no notice period: a cancelled plan runs to the end of the period you paid for, then the workspace drops to the free plan with every invoice, proposal, contract and signed PDF still openable and sendable.