Apron's pricing changes on 1 December 2026. Here's what your practice will pay.

Prices checked against Apron's published pricing on 26 September 2026.

The short version

• Apron's £5 entry price stays, but from 1 December 2026 it covers 100 documents a month per client, down from at least 250 today. Each extra document costs 20p instead of 1p.
• Apron offers busier clients Books Plus (£11 for 250 documents) or Books Max (£21 for 1,000).
• The £199 cap stays only for existing Gold and Platinum partners who are on it by 1 December. Apron bills any client they add after that on top of the cap, and accounts created after 1 December get no cap at all.
• New pricing starts on 1 December. The last day to change a client's plan before the first invoice is 31 December, and that invoice arrives on 5 January 2027.

Apron's £5 entry price isn't changing. Much of what it buys is.

On 1 December 2026, Apron replaces its single £5 Capture plan with three Books plans. It cuts the documents that £5 includes, raises the charge for extra documents, and closes the £199 cap to new accounts and new clients. Apron's own FAQ makes the same point: for many practices the £5 stays, and "what changes is what that £5 includes".

That's the part worth reading twice. Below, we've done the maths for four kinds of practice and laid out how Apron's terms have moved since 2024. Then we list what to check before 1 December, whether you stay or go.

A quick disclosure: we make tofu, which competes with Apron on bookkeeping. We've stuck to Apron's published numbers and linked every source so you can check our working.

What's changing on 1 December

Apron is splitting its £5 Capture plan into three Books plans, and each client sits on one of them.

Sources: Apron's pricing announcement, bookkeeping plans and current Capture plan terms. All prices are list prices before Books Club discounts.

A document means one invoice, one receipt or one page of a bank statement. So a client with three bank accounts and six-page statements uses 18 documents a month before a single receipt arrives.

Three smaller changes sit underneath. On Books Core, the connected email inbox that lets William AI hunt for missing documents costs £5 a month extra, while Plus and Max include one. From 1 December, your Books Club discount applies only to plans billed to your practice, not to plans billed to clients, overages or add-ons. And in fairness to Apron, there's more AI in the box: William AI, which used to need Silver tier or above, becomes part of every plan.

Is Apron's price going up? It depends on your clients

Apron's own answer is "it depends", and that's fair. Here's what it depends on.

Quiet clients cost the same. Busy clients cost more

A client who sends 100 documents a month or fewer stays at £5. Past that, the maths changes fast.

Today's column uses the base New Partner allowance of 250 documents, with 1p per extra document. Higher Books Club tiers include more documents today, so a busy client's increase can be bigger, unless you're on the cap (more on that next).

Two numbers are worth pinning above your desk. At list prices, once a client passes 130 documents a month, Books Plus costs less than paying 20p overages on Core. Past 350, Books Max costs less than Plus. Apron says it will prompt you before a client reaches their allowance, so you can move them up instead of paying overages.

On the £199 cap? It no longer grows with you

Existing Gold and Platinum partners who are on the cap by 1 December keep it, and Apron moves their existing clients to Books Max at no extra cost. For the clients you have today, that's a generous deal.

The catch is growth. Apron bills every client you add after 1 December on top of the £199, at £5 to £21 a month each. Add three new clients a month, and a year later a practice paying £199 today pays £379 a month before discounts, or £955 if those clients need Books Max.

If you're on the cap but not yet Gold, check whether you can get there before 1 December. Gold comes with 50 active clients, or as few as seven clients with what Apron calls deep platform adoption.

Opening a new account? There's no cap at all

Apron bills accounts opened after 1 December per client, with no ceiling. Sixty standard clients on Books Core cost £300 a month before discounts, where the old cap would have held the same practice at £199.

Clients on Apron's paid payments plans come out well

If your clients are on Apron's paid Essential or Pro plans, this change works in their favour. Essential becomes Payments Core at £29 a month and Pro becomes Payments Plus at £49, with no change in price. From 1 December, both include 1,000 documents a month plus everything in Books Max.

One thing to watch. If a client pays for their own plan and gets your Books Club discount, that discount stops on 1 December. You can keep it by moving the billing to your practice.

Why this change stings more than the numbers suggest

For many practices, the extra pounds aren't the real problem. The real problem is running a business on terms that keep moving.

Sources: AccountingWEB (March 2024, May 2024) and Apron's help centre (June 2025, December 2026).

Apron says this change funds more AI for every user. Over the same period, the cap has covered fewer clients at each change, and on the base tier, £5 has bought fewer documents.

That matters because small practices often can't pass a price rise straight on. Many charge clients a fixed monthly fee with software included, so when a tool's price moves mid-year, the increase comes out of your margin. You can't reprice forty clients overnight.

It also explains a question we heard in a UK demo this month. The first thing the practice owner asked about our pricing wasn't the price. It was whether we'd change it.

What to do before 1 December

Whether you stay with Apron or not, these seven steps take an afternoon and tell you where you stand.

1. Pull your client usage. Apron's Client usage view shows each client's average monthly documents over the last 90 days.
2. Sort clients into bands. At list prices, up to 130 documents a month suits Books Core, 131 to 350 suits Books Plus, and anything above 350 suits Books Max. Count every bank statement page.
3. Add up the new monthly total and compare it with your current invoice.
4. Check your cap status. If you're on the cap, make sure you'll be Gold or Platinum by 1 December, then price the clients you expect to add next year.
5. Split clients on paid payments plans from bookkeeping-only clients. Clients on paid Essential or Pro plans come out well. The change bites on busier bookkeeping-only clients.
6. Put the dates in your diary. New pricing starts on 1 December. The last day to change a client's plan or billing before your first invoice is 31 December, and that invoice lands on 5 January 2027.
7. If you'll test an alternative, start in October. Run it alongside Apron through one month-end, and you'll have real numbers before that first invoice.

Six questions to ask any tool before you switch

If you do look elsewhere, make sure the next tool's terms won't shift on you as well. Ask every vendor these six questions, us included.

1. Do you charge per client, per user or by volume, and what happens to my bill when I add a client?
2. How long is my price fixed, and is that in writing?
3. What happens when I go over my allowance? Is there an automatic overage charge?
4. Are line items included, or do they cost extra?
5. How do you count multi-page invoices and bank statements?
6. What do my clients have to change? A new app, a new login, a new address?

Where tofu fits, and where it doesn't

Let's start with where it doesn't. tofu isn't a payments platform. If your clients pay suppliers, run payroll or use cards on Apron's paid Essential or Pro plans, those plans hold their price and include bookkeeping from 1 December. It can make sense to leave those clients where they are.

tofu is for the rest of your list: bookkeeping-only clients, and the busy ones in particular, where the new pricing bites. Here are our answers to those six questions.

1. No per-client or per-user fees. You size your plan by how many documents your practice processes, and it covers every client and team member. Adding a client doesn't add a fee. You move up a plan only when your total volume does.
2. Your price is fixed for 12 months. Plans run for a 12-month term, whether you pay monthly or up front, and the price you sign at holds for the whole term.
3. No automatic overage charges. If you reach your plan's limit, new documents wait until you choose to move up. Your bill changes when you decide it should.
4. Line items on every plan. tofu extracts every line, with descriptions, quantities, unit prices, account codes and tax rates, at no extra cost, even on invoices with 50 lines or more.
5. Counting works much like Apron's. A multi-page invoice counts as one document, and bank statements count per page.
6. No new app or login for your clients. Clients send photos or PDFs to one WhatsApp number, using the app they already have. You can also upload files or connect Dropbox, Google Drive or SharePoint.

Under the hood, tofu reads your existing coding history when you connect Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho Books or Sage, so there are no rules to rebuild. Every correction you make trains it further. It posts straight into Xero with the source document attached, publishes to QuickBooks, Sage and Zoho Books, and prepares import-ready files for FreeAgent and other ledgers.

tofu won Practice App of the Year for Asia at the Xero Global App Awards 2026, and was a finalist for the UK award. Seven of the top 10 global accounting networks use it. It's ISO 27001:2022 certified, and it hosts your data in Frankfurt. Every plan includes an onboarding session, and you can process documents the day you connect.

Frequently asked questions

When does Apron's new pricing start?

Apron's new plans take effect on 1 December 2026. The last day to change a client's plan or billing before your first invoice is 31 December. That first invoice arrives on 5 January 2027. If you do nothing, Apron moves your clients onto a Books plan, and nothing stops working.

How much will Apron cost per client from 1 December?

Books Core costs £5 per client a month with 100 documents, then 20p per extra document. Books Plus costs £11 with 250 documents, then 10p. Books Max costs £21 with 1,000 documents, then 5p. Each client sits on one plan, and you can move clients between plans at any time from 1 December.

Is Apron getting rid of the £199 cap?

In part. Existing Gold and Platinum partners who are on the cap by 1 December keep it, and their existing clients move to Books Max at no extra cost. Apron bills clients they add after 1 December on top of the cap, and it bills accounts created after 1 December per client with no cap.

What counts as a document on Apron?

One invoice, one receipt or one page of a bank statement. A six-page statement uses six documents from a client's monthly allowance.

Are Apron's payments plans going up?

Not the paid ones. Essential becomes Payments Core at £29 a month and Pro becomes Payments Plus at £49, at the same prices and payment allowances. A new Payments Max plan costs £99. All three include 1,000 documents a month and everything in Books Max. A practice client still on the free Go plan moves to Books Core at £5 a month.

What are the alternatives to Apron for bookkeeping?

Other options include Dext, AutoEntry and Hubdoc, as well as tofu. Compare them on pricing model (per client, per user or by volume), how long the price stays fixed, what happens when you go over your allowance, and whether line items cost extra. We've compared tofu with Apron, Dext, AutoEntry and Hubdoc if you want the detail.

How long does it take to switch to tofu?

You can process documents on day one. tofu works with Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho Books, Sage and other ledgers, and it learns from your existing coding history, so there are no rules to rebuild. Every plan includes an onboarding session. We suggest running tofu alongside your current tool through one month-end before you switch in full.

Run your numbers before 5 January

Apron's change gives you a clean decision point. Price your clients on the new plans, add a year of growth, and compare the total with a tool that doesn't charge per client.

The fastest way to compare is to try it. Start a free trial, connect a client's Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho Books or Sage account, and run their real documents through tofu this week.

Rather talk it through? Book a demo, bring your Apron client usage numbers, and we'll show you what the same practice costs on tofu.

Sources: Apron Help Centre, Apron pricing is changing on 1 December, Practice (Capture) plan and billing changes from June 2025; Apron, bookkeeping plans and payments and bookkeeping plans; AccountingWEB, 12 March 2024 and 14 May 2024.