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Odoo is open source, with hundreds of apps and a partner network. Strong for building your own ERP. Before you start, though, you pick modules and often book a partner.
Deal, quote, project, time, invoice and dunning are one ready flow, with GoBD and e-invoicing from day one. Free for 1 user, full feature set.
In short
The best Odoo alternative for service businesses that lack the time to build with a toolkit is cashwerk: a ready-made business platform with CRM, projects, time and GoBD-compliant invoices in one record, free for 1 user, from €12 per user per month for teams. Instead of choosing modules and planning an implementation project, you start right away. Odoo costs €19.90 (Standard) or €29.90 (Custom) per user per month with annual billing.
See for yourself how easy cashwerk is to use.
A fair comparison names the other side's strengths first. Then you read where cashwerk works differently.
Feature by feature – decide for yourself.
Try it with your own data.
Six options for SMBs, agencies and tech teams – from the ready-made platform to the German ERP, with regular list prices from the vendor sites, as of September 2026.
Ready-made platform: deal, project, time, invoice and AI in one flow
More than 45 apps for one price
Low-cost suite with a flat rate per organisation
German cloud ERP for services and trade
German invoicing and accounting software
CRM and ERP in the Microsoft ecosystem
Prices: regular net list prices from the vendors' websites, as of September 2026. Promotional discounts not included.
What does it really cost?
As of September 2026: list prices from the vendors' own pricing pages. Tax treatment differs by vendor.
Run it alongside your current solution – no risk.
Create a free account
Export contacts, companies and opportunities from Odoo as CSV and import them into cashwerk – columns are mapped automatically
Set up projects and pipeline stages, carry over open invoices with your number range, leave accounting with Lexware, sevDesk or your accountant
Everything you need, seamlessly integrated into one platform.
Every feature side by side – transparent and honest.
Odoo is the most flexible ERP on the market: open source, hundreds of apps, a partner network that maps any process. For small service businesses, exactly that freedom is often the reason the system never gets finished.
Odoo's strength is the toolkit. CRM, Sales, Project, Timesheets, Invoicing, Accounting, Inventory, eCommerce – every app can be installed, adapted, extended with Studio or rebuilt by a partner. If you run manufacturing or trade, little compares. The price is the decision at the start: which modules, which settings, which partner, which hosting. Many small teams start with "One App Free", find they need all apps, and then face a rollout project.
cashwerk makes those decisions up front. There is one flow: a contact becomes a deal, the won deal a quote, the quote a project with costing and margin, the tracked time lands as line items on the invoice – as a milestone, recurring or final invoice, as an e-invoice to the public sector, with dunning levels and late-payment interest if nobody pays. None of it needs installing or connecting.
On price the two are close, the logic behind it is not. Odoo costs €19.90 (Standard) or €29.90 (Custom) per user per month with annual billing. That is a discounted rate for the first twelve months; after that the list prices apply, €24.90 and €37.40 billed annually and €31.10 and €46.80 billed monthly. A Success Pack or partner hours often come on top. cashwerk is free for 1 user and costs €14/user/month (€12 annually) on Starter or €29 (€24 annually) on Business, with no implementation and no partner.
For the DACH region there is more: cashwerk hosts in the EU, complies with GoBD and creates XRechnung and ZUGFeRD from the Starter plan without an extra module. Odoo has a German localisation with accounting and e-invoicing; how GoBD-compliant your setup is depends on version, configuration and hosting. The Casper assistant works in the same record and asks before every change – and through the MCP server your own AI tools operate cashwerk with your permissions.
To be fair: if you need inventory, purchasing, manufacturing, accounting or a web shop in the same system, Odoo serves you better. cashwerk deliberately does not build those areas and hands accounting off to Lexware, sevDesk or your accountant. If you want the core flow from deal to cash ready-made and clean, cashwerk is the alternative without the toolkit.
It depends on what bothers you about Odoo. If it is the effort – choosing modules, configuring, partners – cashwerk is the ready-made alternative for service businesses: free for 1 user, from €12 per user per month for teams, with no rollout project. If you still need a full ERP with inventory and accounting, weclapp (German, ready-made) or Zoho One (broad, cheap per head) are the candidates.
As suites: Zoho One and Bitrix24. As a German cloud ERP: weclapp. For invoicing and accounting alone: sevdesk. In the Microsoft world: Dynamics 365. As a ready-made platform for service businesses without a toolkit: cashwerk – sales, projects, time, invoices and AI in one record.
Odoo offers one app free for any number of users. All apps cost €19.90/user/month on Standard (€24.90 monthly) and €29.90/user/month on Custom (€37.40 monthly). Those are discounted rates, valid per Odoo for 12 months for the users ordered initially; the list prices are €24.90 and €37.40 billed annually, and €31.10 and €46.80 billed monthly. A Success Pack or partner for the rollout often comes on top. cashwerk is free for 1 user with the full feature set; Starter costs €14/user/month (€12 annually), Business €29 (€24 annually), with no implementation. As of September 2026.
No. You create a workspace, import contacts via CSV and start working. Number ranges, letterhead, tax rates and roles are set in the settings. With Odoo you first decide which modules you need and set them up – with a partner for larger setups.
Yes, via CSV: export contacts, companies and opportunities from Odoo and import them into cashwerk – columns are mapped automatically and duplicates checked. You set up projects and tasks fresh; open invoices carry over with your number range.
No. cashwerk covers everything up to the invoice – quotes, 14 document kinds, e-invoicing, incoming payments, dunning – and hands off to Lexware or sevDesk on the Business plan or to your accountant. General ledger accounting, inventory, purchasing, manufacturing, web shop and payroll are not part of cashwerk; that is what Odoo is built for.
cashwerk hosts in the EU, GDPR-compliant with a data processing agreement, and invoices are GoBD-compliant. With Odoo Online you pick a region; on the Custom plan you can host on Odoo.sh or your own servers.
Casper in cashwerk works in one record: it answers questions about your customers, deals, projects and invoices from the system and creates tasks, contacts or invoices on request – you confirm writes first. cashwerk is also an MCP server itself, so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor access it with your permissions. Odoo brings AI features in individual apps.
How cashwerk stacks up against other tools
Hosted in the EU, developed in Europe
Fully data protection compliant
Servers only in the EU
Records, audit logs and exports
Start for free. No credit card required. Parallel testing possible.