Odoo vs MYOB (2026): Which Should an Australian Business Choose?

Published: 8 August 2026 · Last reviewed: 8 August 2026 · By Sherman Hsieh — Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Business-Software.com; former Siebel Systems executive.

The short answer

Odoo and MYOB are not the same kind of product — one is a ledger with excellent payroll, the other an operating system for the whole business — so the decision hinges on which problem you actually have.

• The pick: MYOB, for most small Australian businesses whose needs are the books, the pays and the BAS.
• Why: Decades of ATO-proven Single Touch Payroll and near-universal accountant fluency — when the ATO changes a rule, MYOB ships the update and you never notice. Odoo’s payroll is only STP Phase 2 compliant from Odoo 19; earlier versions don’t lodge with the ATO at all.
• Pick Odoo instead when: you’re a product business of roughly 10–100 staff stitching MYOB to separate stock, e-commerce and job systems — Odoo replaces that bolt-on stack with one database (CRM, inventory, manufacturing, accounting).
• What it costs you: MYOB A$70–210/month per business regardless of headcount; Odoo A$43/user/month list (A$34.40 first-year promo, ex GST) — per-seat vs per-business pricing points in opposite directions as you grow.
• Scale check: Odoo’s real cost is the partner implementation, which typically exceeds the first year’s subscription. Boredom with MYOB is not a business case.

At a glance

What users report

• Odoo’s counted complaints (G2’s tallies): missing features in 22 reviews and customisation difficulty in 27 combined; support gets 7 con-mentions against a 3.9/5 Capterra support sub-score. The theme that matters most for this comparison: reviewers repeatedly describe needing developer or partner help to configure, with several citing five-figure partner bills, and even 5-star reviewers calling initial setup “a monumental task”.
• Odoo’s version upgrades draw specific warnings: Capterra reviewers report major structural changes breaking custom modules between annual versions — budget upgrade work if you customise heavily.
• MYOB’s most consistent negative is support across four platforms: lowest sub-score on Capterra/GetApp (3.4/5), the most-quoted complaint on TrustRadius, and the leading theme in ~3,500 ProductReview.com.au reviews. The product itself scores solidly with long-term users.

Our call: the reviews mirror the structural trade — Odoo’s risk is the implementation and upgrade path, MYOB’s is the day you need to ring support.

Review data: G2, Capterra, TrustRadius and ProductReview.com.au, counted 8 August 2026. Theme tallies are the platforms’ own.

Two products from two different categories

This comparison trips people up because the products are not competing on the same shelf. MYOB is a ledger with excellent payroll attached; Odoo is an operating system for the business with a ledger inside it. MYOB Business (cloud) and AccountRight (desktop heritage, now cloud-connected) exist to record transactions, pay staff, reconcile bank feeds and lodge BAS. That scope is deliberate, and within it MYOB is polished and well supported.

Odoo is a modular suite of several dozen apps sharing one database: CRM, sales, purchasing, inventory, manufacturing, e-commerce, projects, helpdesk and accounting among them. You subscribe per user and switch on the apps you need. There is also an open-source Community edition you can self-host for free, though it lacks the hosted platform and several enterprise apps, and most Australian deployments go through an implementation partner rather than self-serve.

The practical consequence: a business that only ever opens MYOB to do the books will find Odoo bewildering and overbuilt. A business juggling MYOB plus a stock app plus a Shopify store plus a job-tracking spreadsheet is the one Odoo was designed for, because those bolt-ons and rekeying jobs are exactly what a shared database removes.

Australian payroll and compliance

Payroll is where the two diverge most sharply, and where the risk sits. MYOB has lodged Single Touch Payroll with the ATO since STP began, handles STP Phase 2 and SuperStream as a matter of routine across every plan, and has processed Australian pay runs for decades. When the ATO changes a reporting requirement, MYOB ships the update and most customers never notice. That track record is the single strongest argument for staying put.

Odoo’s position is newer and version-dependent. Per Odoo’s official documentation, Odoo 19 is STP Phase 2 and SuperStream compliant, with GST and BAS handled by the Australian localisation. Odoo 18 and earlier, however, do not submit payroll data to the ATO at all, so a business on an older version or a partner-maintained fork needs a workaround or an external payroll product. If you evaluate Odoo in 2026, confirm in writing that your implementation will run Odoo 19 or later and that the partner has completed at least one live Australian pay run. In our experience the accountant relationship settles more of these decisions than any feature grid; if your bookkeeper has run MYOB for a decade, that fluency is worth real money at BAS time and should be priced into the comparison.

Operations depth versus accounting depth

Where MYOB goes deep on compliance, Odoo goes deep on operations. Its inventory app handles multiple warehouses, barcode scanning, lot and serial tracking, and reordering rules. Manufacturing covers bills of materials, work orders, routings and shop-floor terminals. The e-commerce and POS apps write orders straight into the same stock and ledger records, so a sale online, in store or from a sales rep lands in one place. For a wholesaler, importer, manufacturer or multi-channel retailer, this is the substance of the decision.

MYOB’s answer to those needs is thinner. AccountRight Plus and Premier include serviceable inventory for straightforward stock-and-sell businesses, and the add-on marketplace can extend it, but manufacturing and e-commerce always mean third-party products with their own subscriptions, sync tools and support queues. That architecture works until order volume or product complexity grows, at which point reconciling three systems becomes somebody’s part-time job. Conversely, Odoo’s accounting, while competent and GST-capable, does not match MYOB’s Australian tax ergonomics, and far fewer local advisers can work in it. You are trading accounting comfort for operational reach, and the right trade depends on which side of the business hurts.

Cost at 5, 15 and 30 users, and when to change nothing

The pricing models point in opposite directions. MYOB charges the business; Odoo charges the people. All figures ex GST.

• 5 users: Odoo Standard costs A$215/month (A$172/month for the first 12 months on the new-customer promo of A$34.40 per user). MYOB Pro is A$70/month and AccountRight Plus A$165/month regardless of headcount. MYOB is cheaper on subscription alone.
• 15 users: Odoo Standard is A$645/month, or A$975/month on the Custom plan (A$65/user) if you need Studio, multi-company or external API access. AccountRight Premier is still A$210/month. Odoo costs roughly three times as much per month, but is now plausibly replacing a CRM, an inventory app and an e-commerce connector as well.
• 30 users: Odoo Standard reaches A$1,290/month. MYOB’s sticker stays flat, but a 30-seat business truly running everything through AccountRight is rare; the true comparison is MYOB plus the constellation of add-ons around it, and that stack frequently costs more than the Odoo bill while integrating worse.

Two cautions. Odoo’s subscription is not the real cost; a partner-led Australian implementation commonly runs from the low tens of thousands upward depending on scope and data migration. With ERP, the subscription is the cheapest line on the invoice. And sometimes the honest answer is to keep MYOB and add nothing: if you have fewer than about ten staff, no physical stock, and your accountant handles BAS without complaint, migrating buys you disruption and an implementation invoice in exchange for capability you will not use. Boredom with the current system is not a business case.

The verdict

Choose Odoo if you are a product business, roughly 10 to 100 staff, currently stitching MYOB to separate stock, e-commerce or job systems, and you want operations and accounting in one database. Insist on Odoo 19 or later for payroll and budget properly for the partner engagement.

Choose MYOB if your needs are accounting, payroll and BAS, your team is small, and your accountant already lives in it. At A$70 to A$210 per month with proven ATO lodgement, it is the lower-risk, lower-effort option, and Pro at A$70/month undercuts a five-seat Odoo subscription three times over.

Look elsewhere entirely if you have outgrown SME software altogether: our small-business ERP graduation guide covers the step-up decision, and MYOB Acumatica is MYOB’s own quote-only, consumption-priced mid-market ERP with native Australian payroll for businesses at that scale.

Frequently asked questions

Is Odoo payroll ATO-compliant?

Only on the right version. Odoo 19 is STP Phase 2 and SuperStream compliant per Odoo’s official documentation, but Odoo 18 and earlier do not submit payroll data to the ATO. Before signing, confirm your implementation runs Odoo 19 or later and ask the partner for a reference customer lodging STP from it today.

Can Odoo replace MYOB?

Yes, functionally: Odoo’s Australian localisation covers GST, BAS and, from version 19, compliant payroll, alongside CRM, inventory and manufacturing that MYOB cannot match. Whether it should replace MYOB is a different question; for a small service business the migration cost and the loss of accountant familiarity usually outweigh the gains.

How much does Odoo cost in Australia?

A$43 per user per month on the Standard plan and A$65 on Custom, ex GST with annual billing, with a first-year promo of A$34.40 and A$52 respectively for new customers. Budget separately for partner implementation, which typically exceeds the first year’s subscription for any non-trivial deployment.

Which is cheaper for a growing team, Odoo or MYOB?

MYOB, on subscription alone, at almost any headcount, because its SME plans are priced per business rather than per user; AccountRight Premier stays A$210/month whether you have five staff or thirty. The comparison changes once you add the third-party stock, e-commerce and CRM tools a growing product business bolts onto MYOB, which is where Odoo’s single per-seat fee starts to win.

For the wider field, see our guide to the Best ERP Software in Australia (2026), or compare MYOB against its closest accounting rival in Xero vs MYOB.