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ERPNext vs Odoo: What Open Source Costs in Each One
ERPNext ships its whole feature set under one licence and charges nothing per user. Odoo runs an open-core model: the free Community edition stops short of the modules most businesses run on, and the paid editions are priced per user — $7.25 a month on Standard, $10.90 on Custom. The External API, multi-company and on-premise hosting are all Custom-only, so most real deployments are on the higher one. Prices below were read from each vendor’s own pricing page in August 2026.
| Feature | ERPNext | Odoo |
|---|---|---|
| Per-user cost | None. Frappe Cloud states you "pay only for what you use, and not per user", so headcount does not move the bill. | Standard $7.25 per user per month billed annually ($8.95 monthly); Custom $10.90 ($13.60 monthly). |
| What the free edition gives you | Everything. ERPNext is AGPL-3.0 and the full feature set is in the free, self-hosted edition. | Two different free offers. One App Free is one app with unlimited users, fully hosted — genuinely generous, and Odoo wins on it. The Community edition is free and self-hosted but stops short of modules most businesses need to run on. |
| Using an API | Included. The REST API is part of the platform at every level, including the free self-hosted edition. | Custom tier only. Any integration at all — ETA e-invoicing, a payment gateway, a stock feed — moves you from $7.25 to $10.90, a 50% uplift before any integration work is paid for. |
| Hosting it yourself | Included, or Frappe Cloud from $5 a month for a site and $40 for a server. | Standard is Odoo Online only. On-premise and Odoo.sh are Custom tier, and Odoo.sh hosting is charged on top of the per-user subscription. |
| Cost for 50 users, one year | The server bill — from about $480 — plus a one-off implementation. Headcount does not enter it. | Custom: $6,540. Standard, if you never need an API or a second company: $4,350. |
| Cost for 200 users, one year | Still the server bill. A bigger server, not four times the licence. | Custom: $26,160. |
| Breadth of modules | A focused core — strong on the operational spine, fewer peripheral apps. | Odoo wins here. Website builder, eCommerce, marketing and field apps that ERPNext does not attempt. |
| ETA e-invoicing in Egypt | Reaches the Tax Authority through TaxBridge. | Needs an integration, which needs the External API, which needs the Custom tier. |
| Best fit | Companies adding people faster than they add exotic modules, and anyone who wants the cost flat as headcount grows. | Companies that need the wider app catalogue natively, want their own team customising without developers, and are comfortable with a per-seat bill. |
Prices checked Page updated
Vendor prices change. That date is the last time we read them off the vendor’s own pricing page. Zoho publishes and bills Egyptian customers in pounds; its dollar figures here convert at 50.82 EGP to the dollar, the mid-market rate on 1 September 2026.
Want to know how this works out for your company? Send us the question as you would ask it.
Which one should you pick?
Fifty users on Custom come to about $6,540 a year, and two hundred to about $26,160 — every year, in dollars. On ERPNext both are the same server bill, because there is no licence to multiply.
Odoo earns its price where it is genuinely wider: a website builder, eCommerce and marketing alongside the ERP, and Odoo Studio letting your own team change the system without a developer.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Odoo cost per user?
Odoo publishes $7.25 per user per month on Standard and $10.90 on Custom, both billed annually, with monthly billing at $8.95 and $13.60. There is also a One App Free plan covering a single app for unlimited users. The number that matters for most companies is the Custom one, because the External API and multi-company both sit on that tier.
How much does ERPNext cost?
The software is free under AGPL-3.0 and there is no per-user licence. You pay for hosting — Frappe Cloud publishes sites from $5 a month and servers from $40 — plus a one-off implementation. Adding fifty people does not change the monthly bill.
Is Odoo Community really free?
Yes, it is genuinely free and open source, and you can self-host it. It is not feature-complete: a set of modules most businesses need to actually operate on sits in the paid editions. In ERPNext the free edition is the whole product.
Do we need the Custom plan?
If you integrate anything, run more than one company, want to host it yourself, or want Odoo Studio, then yes. In Egypt the ETA e-invoicing bridge needs the External API on its own, so most deployments here are on Custom — $10.90 against $7.25, a 50% difference on the number people usually quote.
Tell us how many people will use it and what you need it to talk to, and we will price both on the tier you would really be on.