Compare
Named tools, real sources, and the rows where we lose.
Most comparison pages are written from memory by the company that wins every row. This one is not. Every cell about another product was read on that vendor's own pages, those pages are linked next to their name, and where they are better than us the table says so.
Researched on 2 August 2026, from each vendor's own pages. Products change. If we have something wrong about yours, write to us and we will correct it and re-date the page. sales@steerd.io
How to read this: a check means we found the capability described on their own pages. A dot means we found part of it, and the note says which part. A cross means we searched their pages and did not find it, which is not the same as the product being unable to do it.
German invoicing and bookkeeping tools
This is the group we overlap with least and get compared to most. They are built around the receipt and the tax return. We are built around the deal and the delivery, and we stop where their real work begins. If you need EÜR and a DATEV export, one of these belongs in your stack next to us, not instead of us.
sevDesk
German invoicing and bookkeeping in the browser, sold as a free tier, an invoice tier and two bookkeeping tiers.
Pages we read
Lexware Office
The cloud product from Lexware, packaged S to XL, from receipt capture up to bookkeeping, payroll and an API.
Pages we read
Papierkram
German bookkeeping with time tracking and projects attached, aimed at freelancers and small firms.
Pages we read
FastBill
German invoicing with receipt capture, banking and tax-advisor access.
Pages we read
| Capability | Steerd | sevDesk | Lexware Office | Papierkram | FastBill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZUGFeRD and XRechnung output | ZUGFeRD-style hybrid and XRechnung, checked in our build against the pinned KoSIT rule set and veraPDF. | Writes e-invoices in ZUGFeRD and XRechnung, unlimited on all three paid tiers and three a month on the free one. | Creates and transmits e-invoices to EN 16931 in ZUGFeRD and XRechnung, captures incoming ones, and files XRechnung for public authorities. | Creates legally compliant invoices in the E-Rechnung and XRechnung format. | Creates, sends, receives and displays e-invoices in ZUGFeRD and XRechnung, and says so for its smallest tier too. |
| Bookkeeping and tax filing | No. We do no bookkeeping and file no tax returns. That job stays with your tax advisor and the tool they already use. | Better than us, on purpose: single and double-entry bookkeeping, EÜR and GuV, VAT return, and a DATEV-compliant export. | Better than us: GuV and EÜR reports, VAT return and recapitulative statement, BWA, asset depreciation, and a free login for your tax advisor. | Better than us: an EÜR in one click, automatic VAT returns with an Elster export, BWA, and a DATEV export over any interval you choose. | Better than us: pre-posting in the product, VAT returns filed without Elster, and receipts pushed straight to your tax advisor over the DATEV interface. |
| Bank connection and reconciliation | No. There is no bank connection and no automatic payment matching. You mark an invoice paid yourself. | Better than us: online banking is connected inside the product from the Buchhaltung tier up. | Better than us: multibanking, automatic matching of payments against open invoices and expenses, and transfers sent from inside the product. | Better than us: several bank and PayPal accounts sync in, open invoices are matched to incoming payments automatically, and a transaction can be turned into a receipt. | Better than us: all accounts on one timeline, with matching that suggests the receipt or invoice behind each payment. |
| A pipeline for winning work | A board with stages your team configures, plus flags for the deals waiting on you, overdue, or gone quiet. | Their tier comparison covers contacts, quotes, invoices and dunning. We searched it for a pipeline, deal stages and a forecast, and found none of them. | There is a CRM section, with customer history, tasks, reminders and revenue statistics per customer. We searched it for deal stages and a pipeline for work not yet won, and found neither. | Quotes carry versions and an accepted quote becomes a project directly, which covers the end of the sale. We searched for stages or probabilities before that quote and found none. | Customer records carry payment reliability stats, and there is optional sync out to CRM systems. We searched the feature page for stages or a pipeline of its own and found neither. |
| Pitch-ready CVs and profiles | Eleven themes, versioned, anonymized on request, exported as PDF or as an editable Word file. | We searched their feature list for a CV, a profile or a candidate document and found nothing of the kind. | We searched the version comparison for a CV or profile builder and found none. This is finance and payroll software. | We searched the feature page for a CV or profile builder and found none. | We searched the feature page for a CV or profile builder and found none. |
| Time straight into an invoice | A week grid per project, an unbilled view, and one step from tracked hours to a finished invoice. | Time tracking exists, but their own comparison lists it under add-ons rather than inside any tier, so the path from hours to invoice starts with a separate purchase. | Time tracking is named as one of their 140 plus partner extensions, not as part of the product. We searched the version comparison for a time module of its own and found none. | As good as ours here: the built-in TimeTracker records time and the entries go straight into an invoice. | As good as ours here: hours for you and your staff are tracked live per project, then added to an invoice in a few clicks. |
| German travel expenses with per-diems | German per-diem rule packs including foreign rates, meal reductions, and sealed reports that state the Vorsteuer correctly. | We searched their feature list and tier comparison for Reisekosten, Spesen and Verpflegungsmehraufwand and found none of them. | Reisekosten appear on their page only as an example of what the partner extensions cover, not as a feature of Lexware Office itself. | We searched the feature page for Reisekosten and Verpflegungsmehraufwand and found neither. | We searched the feature page for Reisekosten and Spesen and found neither. |
| Public REST and GraphQL API | REST and GraphQL with API keys and OAuth, documented publicly at docs.steerd.io. | A REST API exists, and their own tier comparison shows it on the top Buchhaltung Pro tier only. | A public API for system to system integration is listed, and their price page describes the XL package as the one that carries it. | A REST API is published alongside the product. | An API for your own software, plus a Zapier app reaching several thousand other tools. |
| Encrypted document vault | A per-team vault with envelope encryption, filename search and in-browser previews. | Receipts are captured and archived for the bookkeeping. We searched for a vault, per-team permissions or encryption of stored files, and found none described. | A Kundenakte collects photos, plans and presentations per customer for the whole team, next to a GoBD long-term receipt archive. We searched for encryption of that store and found it stated only for the handover to the tax advisor. | Documents are filed against a contact, and the page states encrypted transmission and German hosting. We searched for an encrypted per-team vault and found none described. | Receipts are captured, categorized and stored in Germany. We searched for a document vault with per-team encryption and found none described. |
DACH agency and project tools
The closest fight on this page, and the one we take most seriously. These are good products built by people who understand the same market we do. MOCO in particular beats us in several places, and this table says where.
MOCO
An agency ERP from the DACH market: leads, projects, time, billing, expenses and accounting export in one product.
awork
A European work management tool: projects, tasks, capacity planning, docs and time tracking.
Pages we read
| Capability | Steerd | MOCO | awork |
|---|---|---|---|
| A pipeline for winning work | A board with stages your team configures, plus flags for the deals waiting on you, overdue, or gone quiet. | As good as ours here: leads with stages and probabilities you define, follow-ups, a revenue forecast, and a project created straight from the lead. | Projects, tasks and capacity. We searched their plan comparison for deals, a pipeline or a CRM and found none of the three. |
| Pitch-ready CVs and profiles | Eleven themes, versioned, anonymized on request, exported as PDF or as an editable Word file. | Their staff records hold custom fields, files and internal rates. We searched the full feature list for a CV or a skill profile and found neither. | We searched the plan comparison for a CV or profile builder and found none. |
| ZUGFeRD and XRechnung output | ZUGFeRD-style hybrid and XRechnung, checked in our build against the pinned KoSIT rule set and veraPDF. | Invoice formats include XRechnung and ZUGFeRD, alongside Swiss QR invoices and eBill, and incoming e-invoices are read automatically. | We searched their plan comparison for invoicing of any kind and found none, so no e-invoice either. |
| German travel expenses with per-diems | German per-diem rule packs including foreign rates, meal reductions, and sealed reports that state the Vorsteuer correctly. | Staff submit expenses, travel costs and flat rates for approval, and approved items become project costs. Their own expenses page states that daily per-diem rates and mileage are not calculated for you, and suggests a spreadsheet for that part. | We searched the plan comparison for travel, expenses and per-diems and found none of them. |
| Time straight into an invoice | A week grid per project, an unbilled view, and one step from tracked hours to a finished invoice. | As good as ours here: billable and non-billable hours, an hours statement attached to the invoice, and billing by time and materials, fixed price or retainer. | The tracking itself is strong and better documented than ours. Their own time-tracking page sends the invoice elsewhere, naming MOCO, sevDesk, Lexware Office, bexio and easybill as the tools that turn awork hours into invoices. |
| Encrypted document vault | A per-team vault with envelope encryption, filename search and in-browser previews. | Files attach to projects, customers, contacts and staff, deleted documents can be recovered, and there is an audit log. We searched for an encrypted per-team vault and found none described. | awork Docs keeps knowledge in one place, with earlier versions you can restore. That is a docs tool rather than a file vault, and we found no encryption of stored files described. |
| Public REST and GraphQL API | REST and GraphQL with API keys and OAuth, documented publicly at docs.steerd.io. | As good as ours here: an API with account and personal keys, field mapping over custom fields, and webhooks. | An open REST API is listed, and their plan table puts it in the Enterprise tier. |
| MCP server for AI assistants | An MCP server with read and write tools, so an assistant can work in your data rather than beside it. | As good as ours here: an MCP interface for Claude, ChatGPT and others, on their own feature list. | We searched their plan comparison and product pages for MCP and found nothing. |
| Two-way CardDAV contact sync | Two-way CardDAV, so your clients live in your phone address book and edits flow back. | CardDAV puts MOCO contacts in your phone address book on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux. Their own page states the sync runs one way, out of MOCO, so a change made on the phone does not travel back. | We searched the plan comparison for CardDAV or any contact sync to a phone address book and found neither. |
| Team seats | Full seats plus cheaper time-tracking seats, with per-assignment rates, employee cost rates and margin. | As good as ours here: roles or individual access rights per user, teams, and an internal hourly rate per person that feeds profitability. | As good as ours here: priced per user and month on every plan, with predefined permissions on the entry plan and custom ones above it. |
| Bookkeeping and tax filing | No. We do no bookkeeping and file no tax returns. That job stays with your tax advisor and the tool they already use. | Better than us: pre-posting of incoming and outgoing invoices, cost centers, a direct transfer to DATEV Unternehmen online, and exports in DATEV, BMD, Abacus and Banana formats. | We searched their plan comparison for bookkeeping, DATEV or a tax export and found none. Same answer as ours. |
| Bank connection and reconciliation | No. There is no bank connection and no automatic payment matching. You mark an invoice paid yourself. | Better than us: a direct bank connection, payment matching via Camt, and transfer orders for incoming invoices. | We searched their plan comparison for banking or payment matching and found neither. Same answer as ours. |
International all-in-one freelance tools
Well made, widely loved, and built for a different tax jurisdiction. They will run your client experience beautifully and then hand you a PDF invoice that a German recipient system cannot read as an e-invoice.
Bonsai
Business management for independents and small agencies: CRM, proposals, contracts, invoicing, time and expenses.
Pages we read
HoneyBook
Client-flow software for service businesses: lead forms, proposals, contracts, invoices and payments.
Dubsado
Client management with forms, contracts, scheduling and automated workflows.
Pages we read
| Capability | Steerd | Bonsai | HoneyBook | Dubsado |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A pipeline for winning work | A board with stages your team configures, plus flags for the deals waiting on you, overdue, or gone quiet. | A CRM with clients and a service library is on every plan, but their own plan table puts the Deals Pipeline on the Premium and Elite plans only. | As good as ours here: lead capture forms feeding a project pipeline, with proposals and contracts in the same flow. | As good as ours here: custom lead capture forms, and proposals embedded in your own site that start a workflow once accepted. |
| Pitch-ready CVs and profiles | Eleven themes, versioned, anonymized on request, exported as PDF or as an editable Word file. | Proposals, contracts and forms, yes. We searched the plan comparison for a CV or candidate profile and found neither. | We searched their features page and plan list for a CV or profile builder and found none. | We searched the feature overview for a CV or profile builder and found none. |
| ZUGFeRD and XRechnung output | ZUGFeRD-style hybrid and XRechnung, checked in our build against the pinned KoSIT rule set and veraPDF. | Unlimited invoices, online payments and multi-currency billing. We searched their plan comparison for ZUGFeRD, XRechnung and EN 16931 and found none of the three. | Their own launch post names the US, Canada, the UK and Australia as the markets they serve, priced in local currency. Germany is not among them, and we found no German e-invoice format on their features page. | Branded invoices and payment plans, with card processing described around US and Canadian bank transfers and 135 plus currencies. We searched the feature overview for a German e-invoice format and found none. |
| Time straight into an invoice | A week grid per project, an unbilled view, and one step from tracked hours to a finished invoice. | As good as ours here: time tracking on every plan, invoicing from the Essentials plan up, and time entries attached to the invoice. | We searched their features page and plan list for time tracking and timesheets and found neither. | We searched the feature overview for time tracking and timesheets and found neither. |
| German travel expenses with per-diems | German per-diem rule packs including foreign rates, meal reductions, and sealed reports that state the Vorsteuer correctly. | Expense tracking, cost tracking and expense markups are in the plan comparison. We searched it for German per-diems and foreign meal rates and found neither. | We searched their features page and plan list for expenses and travel and found neither. | We searched the feature overview for expenses and travel and found neither. |
| Encrypted document vault | A per-team vault with envelope encryption, filename search and in-browser previews. | Plans carry file storage measured in gigabytes, and invoice attachments can be locked. We searched for an encrypted per-team vault and found none described. | A client portal gives clients access to their own documents and templates. We searched for an encrypted vault for your own files and found none described. | Contracts, documents and communications are centralized, with round-the-clock client access through a portal. We searched for an encrypted per-team vault and found none described. |
| Bookkeeping and tax filing | No. We do no bookkeeping and file no tax returns. That job stays with your tax advisor and the tool they already use. | Income tracking, a financial overview, and QuickBooks and Xero integrations. We searched their plan comparison for EÜR, DATEV or a German tax export and found none. | A QuickBooks integration is listed on one plan. We searched for bookkeeping of their own and found none. Same answer as ours. | We searched the feature overview for bookkeeping or an accounting export and found neither. Same answer as ours. |
| Bank connection and reconciliation | No. There is no bank connection and no automatic payment matching. You mark an invoice paid yourself. | Better than us: their plan table lists bank sync for expenses. | HoneyBook Finance and online payments are named among their products. We searched for a bank feed that reconciles your own account and found none described. | Payments are processed and described as bank-level protected, which is about security rather than a bank feed. We searched for account reconciliation and found none. Same answer as ours. |
| Public REST and GraphQL API | REST and GraphQL with API keys and OAuth, documented publicly at docs.steerd.io. | Their plan table lists Zapier, QuickBooks, Xero, Gmail and Slack integrations. We searched it for a public API and found none named. | Integrations with Zapier, QuickBooks, Gmail and others are listed. We searched their features page for a public API and found none named. | We searched the feature overview for a public API and found none named. |
Sales CRMs
If all you need is a pipeline, buy one of these. They are better at the pipeline alone than we are, and all three have shipped an MCP server ahead of most of this market. The question is what happens after the deal is won, because that is where they stop and we keep going.
Pipedrive
A sales CRM built around activity-based selling and pipeline management, with an open API and a marketplace.
Pages we read
HubSpot
A platform of hubs around one CRM: sales, marketing, service, content, data and revenue.
folk
A lightweight relationship CRM with enrichment, sequences and AI assistants.
Pages we read
| Capability | Steerd | Pipedrive | HubSpot | folk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A pipeline for winning work | A board with stages your team configures, plus flags for the deals waiting on you, overdue, or gone quiet. | Better than us at this one thing: customizable pipelines, activity tracking and lead qualification are the entire product, and it shows. | Better than us at this one thing: a sales pipeline built into the CRM in a single click, with deal inspection and forecasting on top. | As good as ours here: pipeline management on every plan, with custom deal objects from the Premium plan up. |
| Pitch-ready CVs and profiles | Eleven themes, versioned, anonymized on request, exported as PDF or as an editable Word file. | We searched their product and feature list for a CV or profile builder and found none. | We searched the hub and product list for a CV or candidate profile and found none. | We searched their plan comparison for a CV or profile builder and found none. |
| ZUGFeRD and XRechnung output | ZUGFeRD-style hybrid and XRechnung, checked in our build against the pinned KoSIT rule set and veraPDF. | Invoicing appears on their features page as a category of marketplace integrations rather than a product of their own. We searched for a German e-invoice format and found none. | They do invoice: quotes with e-signatures, invoices, payment links, and processing in 130 plus currencies. We searched for a German e-invoice format and found none named. | We searched their plan comparison for invoicing and found none. |
| Time straight into an invoice | A week grid per project, an unbilled view, and one step from tracked hours to a finished invoice. | We searched their product and feature list for time tracking and timesheets and found neither. | We searched the hub and product list for time tracking and timesheets and found neither. | We searched their plan comparison for time tracking and found none. |
| German travel expenses with per-diems | German per-diem rule packs including foreign rates, meal reductions, and sealed reports that state the Vorsteuer correctly. | We searched their product and feature list for expenses and travel and found neither. | We searched the hub and product list for expenses and travel and found neither. | We searched their plan comparison for expenses and found none. |
| Encrypted document vault | A per-team vault with envelope encryption, filename search and in-browser previews. | Smart Docs creates shareable, trackable documents and templates, and each account sits in its own encrypted database. That is document sending plus platform security rather than a per-team file vault. | Their products page lists document tracking for sales enablement content. We searched for a document vault, and for encryption of stored files, and found neither described. | We searched their plan comparison for document storage and found none. |
| Public REST and GraphQL API | REST and GraphQL with API keys and OAuth, documented publicly at docs.steerd.io. | As good as ours here: an open API and webhooks, with a developer site of their own. | Better resourced than ours: a large date-versioned public API across CRM, content, files and events, with a full developer platform around it. | A REST API is in their feature table, and their plan list puts API access on the Premium tier and above. |
| MCP server for AI assistants | An MCP server with read and write tools, so an assistant can work in your data rather than beside it. | As good as ours here: MCP sits in their own product navigation, next to the API. | As good as ours here: HubSpot publishes MCP servers that let an AI tool read and write CRM data with your account context. | As good as ours here: MCP is listed among their key features. |
| Two-way CardDAV contact sync | Two-way CardDAV, so your clients live in your phone address book and edits flow back. | Their mobile app keeps contacts and deals on the phone. We searched for CardDAV, or a sync into the phone address book, and found neither. | We searched the hub and product list for CardDAV or a phone address book sync and found neither. | Email, calendar and WhatsApp sync are listed. We searched for CardDAV into the phone address book and found none. |
Spreadsheets, Notion and a Word CV
The most common competitor we have, and the only honest one in the list, because it costs nothing and it does work for a while. This column is about where it stops working, not about mocking anyone who is still there. Most of us started there.
Spreadsheets, Notion and a Word CV
Not a product, a practice: a sheet for the pipeline, a Notion page for the client, a Word file for the CV, and your inbox holding it together.
No vendor page to cite| Capability | Steerd | Spreadsheets, Notion and a Word CV |
|---|---|---|
| A pipeline for winning work | A board with stages your team configures, plus flags for the deals waiting on you, overdue, or gone quiet. | A board in Notion holds stages perfectly well. What it will never do is tell you that an inquiry has gone quiet for eleven days. |
| Pitch-ready CVs and profiles | Eleven themes, versioned, anonymized on request, exported as PDF or as an editable Word file. | A Word CV looks fine once. Keeping eleven versions of it straight, one anonymized, one without the photo, one for the client who wants the last three projects only, is where the folder starts lying to you. |
| ZUGFeRD and XRechnung output | ZUGFeRD-style hybrid and XRechnung, checked in our build against the pinned KoSIT rule set and veraPDF. | A PDF exported from Word is not an e-invoice. There is no structured XML inside it, nothing validates it, and from 2027 the larger businesses you invoice have to receive one that does. |
| Time straight into an invoice | A week grid per project, an unbilled view, and one step from tracked hours to a finished invoice. | A timesheet tab works right up to the month you have to reconcile it against what you already billed. |
| German travel expenses with per-diems | German per-diem rule packs including foreign rates, meal reductions, and sealed reports that state the Vorsteuer correctly. | The per-diem tables can be typed into a spreadsheet. Getting the foreign rates and the meal reductions right every single time is the part that quietly goes wrong. |
| Encrypted document vault | A per-team vault with envelope encryption, filename search and in-browser previews. | A cloud folder is shared by link, not by permission, and nothing in it is encrypted per team. |
| Two-way CardDAV contact sync | Two-way CardDAV, so your clients live in your phone address book and edits flow back. | Your phone contacts and your client list are two lists. They drift apart the first time you edit one of them. |
| Bookkeeping and tax filing | No. We do no bookkeeping and file no tax returns. That job stays with your tax advisor and the tool they already use. | A spreadsheet is not bookkeeping either. Both we and the spreadsheet leave that to your tax advisor, which is the right answer for both of us. |
Still not sure it beats what you have?
Start free and put your own numbers in it, or send us the tool you are comparing against and we will tell you honestly where it is better.