tofu vs Apron
Apron charges for every client you add. tofu charges one price for your whole practice.
Quick Verdict
Choose tofu if most of your clients only need bookkeeping, you add clients through the year, you want a price that holds for 12 months, or some clients use Sage or Zoho Books.
Choose Apron if your clients pay bills, run payroll or use expense cards through Apron, or a few busy clients send most of your documents. It also suits Gold and Platinum partners keeping the £199 cap who don't plan to add many clients.
Apron is a finance platform for small businesses and their accountants, with bill payments, payroll, cards and bookkeeping in one place. On 1 December 2026, it swaps its £5 Capture plan for three Books plans, each billed per client. If that change has you looking for an Apron alternative, the table below does the maths.
What Your Practice Pays
Apron at list price for a new account from 1 December 2026, with each client on its cheapest Books plan. tofu on the plan that covers the whole practice.
| Your Practice | tofu / Month | Apron / Month | Who's Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 clients sending 25 documents each (750 a month) | £79 (800 plan) | £150 (30 clients on Books Core) | tofu, by £71 a month |
| 60 clients sending 40 documents each (2,400 a month) | £199 (2,500 plan) | £300 (60 clients on Books Core) | tofu, by £101 a month |
| 10 clients sending 80 documents each (800 a month) | £79 (800 plan) | £50 (10 clients on Books Core) | Apron, by £29 a month |
| 15 clients sending 150 documents each (2,250 a month) | £199 (2,500 plan) | £165 (15 clients on Books Plus) | Apron, by £34 a month |
Apron list prices checked on 26 September 2026, before Books Club discounts of up to 30%. At the full 30%, tofu still costs less in the first two rows. Apron's Books plans also include expense cards and, each month, 50 payroll payments and 5 supplier payments, which tofu doesn't offer. The table assumes your practice pays, though Apron can bill a client directly instead. tofu prices are for a 12-month term, and paid annually they're £72 and £179 a month.
Per Client vs. Per Practice
Apron charges for every client. The fee lands on your invoice, or on the client's if you switch their billing. From 1 December, each client sits on one of three Books plans: Core at £5 a month for 100 documents, Plus at £11 for 250, or Max at £21 for 1,000. So every client you add costs at least £5 a month at list price.
tofu works the other way round. You choose one plan for the whole practice, sized by how many documents you process: £79 a month for about 800, or £199 for about 2,500. Every client and every team member is included, and adding a client adds no fee.
That's why the answer turns on documents per client. Here's the rule of thumb at list price. With 16 or more clients and up to 800 documents a month in total, tofu's £79 plan costs less. With 40 or more clients and up to 2,500 documents, the £199 plan does.
Overages: Up to 20p a Document vs. None
On Apron, each document over a client's allowance costs 20p on Books Core, 10p on Plus and 5p on Max. Apron says it will prompt you before a client reaches their allowance, so you can move them up a plan instead.
tofu has no overage fees. If your practice reaches its plan's limit, new documents wait in pending until you move up, and you can keep working with everything already extracted. During your term, your bill changes only when you choose to upgrade.
A Price That Holds for 12 Months
When Apron launched Capture in May 2024, £5 per client covered 500 documents a month. From 1 December, it covers 100 on Books Core. The £199 cap has shrunk too. It covered up to 500 clients in 2024 and up to 200 from June 2025. From 1 December, only Gold and Platinum partners already on it keep it, and new clients are billed on top. Our breakdown of the 1 December change has the full history.
Those changes hurt practices that sell fixed fees. If you charge clients a monthly fee with software included, a mid-year price rise comes out of your margin. You can't reprice forty clients overnight.
tofu plans run for a 12-month term, and the price you sign at holds for the whole term, whether you pay monthly or up front. Apron bills monthly instead, and you can move a client between plans at any time.
Accounting Software: Xero and QuickBooks vs. Many
Apron publishes to Xero and QuickBooks Online, and its help centre lists FreeAgent as coming soon. For other software, including Sage, it exports documents and bank statement CSVs instead of connecting.
Like Apron, tofu learns from your ledger's history and posts to Xero with the source document attached. It also publishes straight to QuickBooks, Sage and Zoho Books, and prepares files ready to import for FreeAgent. If your clients use a mix of Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and Zoho Books, tofu posts to all four.
Where Apron Still Works
Being fair: Apron does some things well, and a few things tofu doesn't do at all.
Payments, payroll and cards. Apron lets clients pay bills, run payroll and use expense cards in the same place as their bookkeeping. Every Books plan includes 50 payroll payments and 5 supplier payments a month, plus cards. Clients who need more can move to a Payments plan at £29, £49 or £99 a month, each with 1,000 documents and everything in Books Max. tofu doesn't offer payments, payroll or cards. If those clients are happy, leave them where they are.
A few very busy clients. Books Max covers 1,000 documents for £21 a month, about 2p each. If a handful of clients send most of your documents, Apron can cost less than tofu.
The £199 cap, for the clients you have. Gold and Platinum partners on the cap by 1 December keep it, and their existing clients move to Books Max at no extra cost. That's a good deal until you grow, because every client you add after 1 December is billed on top of the cap.
Mobile app and inbox search. Apron has iOS and Android apps, and its William AI can search a client's connected inbox for missing receipts and invoices. Books Plus and Max include one inbox, and on Core it costs £5 a month. tofu doesn't have a mobile app yet.
You can also run both: Apron for the clients who pay through it, and tofu for the rest.
Switching from Apron to tofu
You don't have to move every client at once. Start with your bookkeeping-only clients, because that's where Apron's new pricing bites.
Step 1: Price your clients on Apron's new plans. Apron's Client usage view shows each client's average monthly documents over the last 90 days. Add them up, and you'll see which tofu plan covers your practice.
Step 2: Start a free trial and connect Xero, QuickBooks, Sage or Zoho Books. tofu learns from your coding history, so there are no rules to rebuild.
Step 3: Run a few clients side by side. Clients send photos or PDFs to one WhatsApp number, with no new app or login, or you upload their files yourself. Check tofu's entries against Apron's before you commit.
Step 4: Decide before Apron's first invoice on the new pricing, which arrives on 5 January 2027. The last day to change a client's plan or billing is 31 December.
Every plan includes an onboarding session, and you can process documents the day you connect.
See how they compare
| How It Works | tofu | Apron |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | One plan for your whole practice, sized by total documents | Per client, on one of three Books plans |
| Adding a client | No extra fee | £5, £11 or £21 a month at list price |
| Going over your allowance | No overage fees. New documents wait until you move up | 20p, 10p or 5p per extra document, depending on the plan |
| Price certainty | Fixed for your 12-month term | Billed monthly per client. £5 covered 500 documents a client when Capture launched in 2024, and covers 100 on Books Core from 1 December 2026 |
| Accounting software | Publishes to Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, Zoho Books and Bukku. Import-ready files for FreeAgent and more | Publishes to Xero and QuickBooks Online, with FreeAgent coming soon. Exports for other software, including Sage |
| Line items and bank statements | Included on every plan. A statement counts per page | Included. A statement counts per page |
| How clients send documents | WhatsApp with no app or login, email, upload, Dropbox, Google Drive or SharePoint | Email, WhatsApp, the Apron mobile app, sharing from a phone, or upload |
| Payments, payroll and cards | Not offered | Built in. Every Books plan includes 50 payroll and 5 supplier payments a month, plus cards |
Key pricing differences
Pricing: Per Client vs. Per Practice
From 1 December, Apron charges £5, £11 or £21 a month for each client. tofu charges one price for your whole practice, with unlimited clients: £79 a month for about 800 documents, or £199 for about 2,500, on a 12-month term.
Overages: Up to 20p a Document vs. None
Apron charges for each document over a client's allowance: 20p on Books Core, down to 5p on Max. tofu has no overage fees. New documents wait until you choose to move up.
Software: Xero and QuickBooks vs. Many
Apron publishes to Xero and QuickBooks, with FreeAgent coming soon and exports for other software. tofu publishes to Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and Zoho Books, and prepares import-ready files for FreeAgent.
Pricing Overview
Apron's list prices per client from 1 December 2026, and tofu's prices per practice, in GBP.
| tofu | Apron | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | One plan for the whole practice | Per client, every month |
| Term | 12 months, paid monthly or up front | Billed monthly. Move a client between plans at any time |
| Entry plan | £79 a month (about 800 documents; £72 a month paid annually) | £5 a month per client (Books Core, 100 documents) |
| Next plan | £199 a month (about 2,500 documents; £179 a month paid annually) | £11 a month per client (Books Plus, 250 documents) |
| Top plan | Enterprise (quoted for higher volumes) | £21 a month per client (Books Max, 1,000 documents) |
| Extra documents | No overage fees | 20p, 10p or 5p each, depending on the plan |
| Clients and users | Unlimited | Each client billed separately. The practice account is free |
Apron prices from its bookkeeping plans page, checked on 26 September 2026, before Books Club discounts of up to 30% on plans billed to the practice. From 1 December 2026, only Gold and Platinum partners already on the £199 cap keep it.
What's Actually Included
Both read line items and bank statements. They differ on how you pay, which ledgers they reach, and what sits around the bookkeeping.
| Feature | tofu | Apron |
|---|---|---|
| Line-item extraction | ✓ IncludedOn every plan | ✓ Included |
| Bank statements | ✓ IncludedOne page counts as one entry | ✓ IncludedOne page counts as one document |
| New clients | ✓ No extra feeOne plan covers every client | ⚠ Per client£5 to £21 a month each |
| Extra documents | ✓ No overage feesNew documents wait until you move up | ⚠ Overage fees5p to 20p a document |
| Sage and Zoho Books | ✓ Publishes directly | ⚠ No direct connectionExports instead, including a Sage CSV for bank statements |
| FreeAgent | ⚠ Import-ready files | ⚠ Coming soon |
| Payments, payroll and cards | ✗ Not offered | ✓ Built in |
| Mobile app | ✗ Not yet | ✓ iOS and Android |
Add Clients Without Adding Fees
On Apron, every client you add after 1 December costs at least £5 a month at list price, and busier clients cost £11 or £21. Take on three clients a month, and in a year Apron will charge at least £180 a month more. That's true whether or not you're on the £199 cap.
On tofu, a new client adds no fee. One plan covers every client and every user, and your price holds for the 12-month term. Your plan moves when your total volume outgrows it, and only when you choose to move up.
Why Bookkeepers Are Switching to Tofu
"It's the extraction, and the way that it remembers what it's supposed to be doing with everything. Somebody actually remembers what you tell it to do."
“Before using tofu, it would take me between 3 to 4 hours to input and review a client’s invoices. With tofu, I can now complete the process in just 30 to 60 minutes, saving me a significant amount of time.”
Frequently asked questions
No. Limits reset on the 1st each month.
No. We only count each invoice once. Re-extract as much as you need while training the AI.
All subscriptions bill on the 1st of each month. If you subscribe mid-month, you pay full price and get full allocation immediately. Next bill is the 1st.
Yes, on all plans. Competitors charge extra for this.
Tofu is ISO 27001:2022 certified, GDPR/CCPA compliant, and uses bank-grade AES-256 encryption with multi-factor authentication. We work with the top global accounting networks.
No. Your whole team uses Tofu at one price. We don't charge per seat.
New documents wait in "pending" until you upgrade. You can still work with everything already extracted. Most firms upgrade same-day and keep processing.
Pro ($79) works for firms under 20 clients doing ~800 extractions monthly. Business ($199) fits 20-50 clients at ~2,500 extractions. If you're processing 1,000+ per client, start with Business to avoid hitting limits mid-month.
Each unique bill, invoice, or receipt that is extracted counts as one entry, regardless of the number of pages. A multi-page invoice is still one entry. Bank statements are counted as one entry per page.