Rates current as at May 2026. Subject to change. Take independent tax advice for your specific circumstances.

The Xero App Store has over 1,000 connected apps and the right combination of two or three of them, properly chosen, can save a small business many thousands of pounds a year in time, errors, and missed receivables. The wrong combination quietly burns the same money on duplicate subscriptions, integrations that half-work, and data flowing in two directions when it should flow in one. The sections below cover how to choose Xero integration partners that fit your business, what categories to evaluate first, what to pay, and how to spot the bad signs early.

The five most-installed Xero integration categories in the UK are receipt capture, payment processing, payroll, e-commerce, and CRM. Almost every UK SME running Xero installs at least one app from category one and one from category two. The deeper integrations (inventory, project management, time tracking, payroll bureau) come into play as the business grows and the owner can no longer hold the workflow in their head.

What Xero integration partners are (and what they are not)

A Xero integration partner is a third-party software product certified by Xero to exchange data with the Xero ledger through the Xero API. There are two tiers worth knowing about:

  • Connected apps in the Xero App Store. Public, listed, reviewed. Categories include accounting tools (the largest), bills and expenses, e-commerce, payroll, payments, time tracking, inventory, and CRM. These are app vendors who have built their own integration to the Xero API.
  • Xero implementation and integration partners (Xero certified firms). Chartered accountants, bookkeepers, and consultancies that hold Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum partner status with Xero. They install and configure the apps, not build them. JacRox is in this category.

The two roles complement each other. You buy app subscriptions from the app vendor. A Xero implementation partner advises on which apps to pick, configures the data mapping, and trains your team. For most small businesses the implementation partner is the same firm that does their bookkeeping or accounts.

Top five categories of Xero integration partners worth knowing

Category Leading apps Typical monthly cost What it solves
Receipt and bill capture Hubdoc, Dext, AutoEntry £0 (Hubdoc included) to £25 Mobile-phone receipt capture, supplier-invoice scanning
Payment processing Stripe, GoCardless, PayPal, TrueLayer Per-transaction (1.0% to 2.9%) Pay-now buttons on invoices, faster collection
Payroll Xero Payroll, BrightPay, Staffology, KeyPay £5 to £15 (small payroll) RTI submissions, pension auto-enrolment, payslips
E-commerce A2X, Link My Books, Shopify, WooCommerce £17 to £75 Daily sales summary into Xero, multi-channel reconciliation
CRM HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Capsule £0 to £150 Quote-to-invoice flow, customer record sync

Worked example: full integration stack for a growing e-commerce business

A six-employee homeware brand in Salford, £620,000 turnover, selling through its own Shopify store plus Amazon UK plus Etsy. The owner picked the apps below on the recommendation of their Xero integration partner. Figures are real monthly costs run for 12 months. Xero Standard sits at £33 per month, then each app adds.

App Monthly cost What it does in this stack
Xero Standard £33 Core ledger, bank feeds, VAT return
A2X for Shopify + Amazon + Etsy £59 Daily settlement summaries into Xero, fee breakdown by channel
Dext (Premium plan) £20 Supplier invoice capture, expense receipts via app
Stripe (linked to Xero invoicing) 1.5% + 20p per UK transaction Pay-now on B2B invoices
Staffology Payroll (6 employees) £12 Monthly payroll, RTI to HMRC, pension file to NEST
DEAR Inventory (now Cin7 Core) £249 SKU-level inventory, COGS per channel
Total app stack per month £373 + Stripe fees

The owner had previously spent 18 hours a week on the books (£748 a week at owner-time value of £45 per hour). After the stack went live, that dropped to 4 hours a week. Recovered owner capacity per month: 56 hours, worth £2,520. The £373 stack returned roughly seven times its cost within month two, and the multi-channel A2X reconciliation alone caught £4,200 of underclaimed Amazon refunds in the first 90 days.

How to choose a Xero integration partner

  • If you are choosing an app vendor, start in the Xero App Store and filter to “Xero certified” apps with 4+ star ratings and at least 100 reviews. Avoid apps with fewer than 50 reviews unless your industry is genuinely niche; lower volumes usually mean less mature integration.
  • If you are choosing an implementation firm, look for Xero Silver, Gold, Platinum, or Diamond partner status. Bronze means under 15 active Xero clients; Silver to Diamond means real operational depth.
  • If you need help with one specific app (an A2X setup, a Dext rollout, a HubSpot-to-Xero sync), ask the app vendor for a list of certified consultants. Most maintain a directory of partners trained on their specific tool.
  • For a one-off integration project, expect to pay £600 to £2,400 setup plus monthly app costs. For ongoing managed integration plus bookkeeping, monthly retainers run £400 to £1,500 depending on transaction volume.
  • For complex bespoke integration (your own legacy ERP into Xero, two-way customer sync with a custom CRM), you are likely past the certified-partner stage and into Xero API developer work. Budget £8,000 to £45,000 for genuine bespoke connectors.

Common mistakes with Xero integration partners

  • Two apps writing the same transaction. The classic example is Stripe paying into the bank AND posting an invoice into Xero, then the bank feed posting the same payment, creating duplicates. Always set one source of truth per transaction type.
  • Old app subscriptions still billing after replacement. Cancel the old subscription the day the new app goes live. Apps installed via the Xero App Store still bill through the vendor, not through Xero, so they do not auto-cancel.
  • Integration permission scope too broad. Some apps request “full access” to Xero when “read sales invoices” is all they need. Review the OAuth scope at install and decline if it asks for more than its function requires.
  • Mid-month integration cut-over. Switching e-commerce integrations or payment processors mid-VAT-quarter creates reconciliation breaks. Always cut over on a VAT quarter boundary or month-end.
  • Pinning your business to an unsupported app. If a vendor stops updating their app or it loses Xero certification, your data flow breaks silently. Check the Xero App Store rating and last-updated date once a quarter for every app in your stack.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Xero integration apps are there?

The Xero App Store lists over 1,000 connected apps as at May 2026. Roughly 80 of those have over 500 reviews and rate 4 stars or higher, which is the practical short-list most UK businesses choose from.

What is the difference between a Xero integration partner and a Xero connected app?

A Xero connected app is the software product (Stripe, Hubdoc, A2X, etc) that pushes or pulls data through the Xero API. A Xero integration partner is the consultancy, accountant or bookkeeper that installs and configures the apps for you. Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond are the partner tiers based on volume of active Xero clients.

Do Xero integrations cost extra?

Yes, almost all of them. Some apps are free (Hubdoc is included with most Xero plans), some are pay-per-transaction (Stripe, GoCardless), and most are SaaS subscriptions ranging from £5 to £300 per month per app. Budget £100 to £400 monthly app stack for a typical small business; more if you run inventory or multi-channel e-commerce.

Which Xero apps are best for UK businesses?

The most-installed in the UK are Hubdoc and Dext (receipt capture), Stripe and GoCardless (payments), BrightPay and Staffology (payroll), A2X (e-commerce reconciliation), Shopify and WooCommerce (sales channels), Capsule and Pipedrive (CRM). Your specific industry will narrow the list.

Can a Xero integration partner help with MTD for VAT?

Xero is itself MTD-compatible so the core VAT return is handled inside Xero. An integration partner will help if you need bridging software between an upstream system (a legacy ERP, a non-Xero point-of-sale, a custom invoicing tool) and Xero. Talk to a Making Tax Digital specialist such as MTD.Digital for non-standard VAT setups.

How do I cancel a Xero integration safely?

Two-step. First, disconnect the app inside Xero (Settings then Connected Apps then Disconnect). Second, cancel the subscription inside the app vendor’s own portal. The Xero-side disconnect stops the data flow; the vendor-side cancel stops the billing. Forgetting step two costs UK businesses an estimated £30 million a year in zombie subscriptions.

Should I use the Xero App Store or a third-party directory?

Start with the Xero App Store because every listing is certified by Xero, version-checked, and review-moderated. Third-party app review sites are useful for cross-comparison but their listings include uncertified and stale apps.

Further reading

Speak to a Xero integration partner in Manchester

In our experience of installing the major Xero integrations for North West businesses across retail, e-commerce, professional services, construction, and hospitality, the single most expensive mistake we see is paying for two apps that do the same job because nobody cancelled the old one when the new one went live. We have seen monthly app-stack bills come down by 30 to 50 per cent in the first quarter of working with a new client purely from a clean stack audit. Our position is that every business on Xero should review the connected-apps list once a quarter and challenge each one to justify its place.

JacRox is the Xero cloud accounting arm of Jack Ross Chartered Accountants, an ICAEW-regulated chartered firm based in Manchester and founded in 1948. We are a Xero Silver Partner. If you would like an honest opinion on which Xero integrations are right for your business, and which to avoid, get in touch via our contact page or call us on 0161 832 4451.