MYOB

MYOB is one of the most established accounting platforms in Australia and New Zealand, with over 40 years in the market and roughly 1.2 million subscribers. If your business already runs on MYOB, integration is achievable and there are experienced developers in the ANZ market who know the platform well. The core accounting engine is solid, particularly for Australian tax and BAS requirements.

The integration story is where things get harder. MYOB still has no webhook support, so any integration that needs to react to changes has to constantly poll the API, which eats into the already tight rate limits. There are no batch operations either, meaning every record needs its own API call. Authentication changes in March 2025 also broke some existing integrations, and the developer documentation has gaps that can trip you up.

Overall, MYOB is a reasonable choice if you need Australian tax compliance and your team is already comfortable with it. But if you're choosing an accounting platform today and integration matters to you, Xero offers a significantly better developer experience. MYOB is owned by KKR (private equity), and an exit is expected in the coming years, so keep an eye on ownership changes that could affect the product direction.

MYOB (Mind Your Own Business) traces its origins to 1982 in the United States, but its real home is Australia and New Zealand where it became the dominant accounting software through the 1990s and 2000s. The company was listed on the ASX in 1999, taken private by Bain Capital in 2011, then acquired by KKR in 2019 for A$2.4 billion.

Today MYOB is privately held under KKR ownership, with Paul Robson as CEO since September 2023. Employee estimates range from around 1,300 to 2,900 depending on how subsidiaries are counted. The company operates primarily in Australia and New Zealand, having exited the US market back in 2008.

MYOB's market position has shifted significantly. A decade ago it held 80%+ of the ANZ online accounting market. Today Xero commands roughly 60% while MYOB sits at 20-25%. MYOB remains strong in the mid-market segment, particularly with businesses that need desktop and cloud hybrid capability or on-premise deployment. KKR has held MYOB for nearly seven years now, which is long for private equity, and industry observers expect an exit (likely a trade sale) in the near term. MYOB posted a A$156 million pre-tax loss in 2023, which complicates any sale valuation.

MYOB is an accounting and business management platform targeting small and medium-sized businesses in Australia and New Zealand. It covers accounting, tax management, BAS preparation, payroll, invoicing, inventory management, and financial reporting.

The product lineup has been consolidating. The main offerings are now MYOB Business Lite (for sole traders and small businesses with up to two employees), MYOB Business Pro (for SMBs with multiple employees), and AccountRight Plus/Premier for businesses that need desktop and cloud hybrid capability with advanced features like multi-currency and unlimited inventory. MYOB Acumatica (formerly MYOB Advanced) serves the mid-market as a full cloud ERP built on the Acumatica platform. In 2025, MYOB launched Solo, a mobile-first product targeting sole traders with invoicing, expense tracking, and cashflow monitoring.

MYOB has been adding AI features in beta, including automated BAS preparation, smart bank reconciliation that learns from your behaviour, and AI-powered business insights. Open Banking connectivity via Mastercard is rolling out from March 2026.

MYOB uses a tiered subscription model with a significant price range. Solo starts at $11 per month (or $99 per year) for sole traders. MYOB Business Lite runs $35 per month, and Business Pro is $70 per month. These are the cloud-only products.

AccountRight Plus, which adds desktop capability, unlimited inventory, and unlimited payroll, jumps to $165 per month. AccountRight Premier (adding multi-currency and multi-business management) is priced higher again. MYOB Acumatica, the mid-market ERP, is custom-quoted.

Heavy promotional discounts are common, with 50% off for the first three to six months being typical. Price increases took effect in July 2025 across multiple tiers. One common complaint is that AccountRight Plus at $165 per month is notably more expensive than Xero's top tier at around $78 per month, which makes the price-to-features comparison unflattering for MYOB in the pure cloud space.

MYOB has a REST API that covers accounting, contacts, invoicing, payroll, inventory, and banking functions across its Business and AccountRight product lines. The API works and covers most common integration scenarios, but it feels dated compared to competitors.

The biggest limitation is the lack of webhooks. If your integration needs to react to changes in MYOB (new invoices, updated contacts, payment received), you have to poll the API constantly using LastModified filters. This is inefficient and eats into the rate limits, which are set at 8 calls per second and 1 million calls per day per API key. For small data volumes that's adequate, but anything involving bulk sync or real-time updates requires careful queuing and patience.

There are no batch operations either, so every record needs its own API call. Creating 100 invoices means 100 separate requests. Combined with the rate limit, high-volume operations are slow.

Authentication underwent significant changes in March 2025. New API keys must use updated OAuth 2.0 scopes, and only Admin users can now approve authentication requests. These changes broke integrations that were registering new instances or re-authenticating. Existing keys using old scopes continue to work for now. There's also a poorly documented limit of only two active API keys at a time. Creating a third key silently deactivates one of the existing ones, which causes confusing rate limit errors.

Getting your data out of MYOB is possible but fragmented. You can export individual data types (accounts, contacts, transactions) as CSV or tab-separated files, and reports can be exported as PDF, Excel, or CSV. However, there's no single "export everything" button, so you need to export each entity type separately.

AccountRight users can create company file backups as ZIP files, and MYOB is adding automatic weekly backups with six-month retention. The API can be used for programmatic extraction, but the lack of batch operations and the 8-calls-per-second rate limit make bulk extraction slow going.

There's no built-in migration tool for moving to Xero or QuickBooks. Third-party services like SwitchMyBooks exist for this purpose. Older AccountRight desktop files in .myob and .myox formats can be accessed via ODBC for data extraction, which is useful for businesses moving off legacy versions.

Vendor lock-in risk is moderate. Your financial data is accessible, but getting it out in a clean, complete format takes deliberate effort and potentially custom tooling.

Documentation quality is mixed. The basics are covered and MYOB has a developer centre with API references, but there are notable gaps. The two-active-key limit, for example, is poorly documented and causes confusing errors. Error messages from the API can be misleading, and developers frequently report having to dig through community forums to find solutions to common problems.

MYOB offers free developer accounts for testing, which lowers the barrier to getting started. However, there's no proper sandbox environment that mirrors production data structures, so testing is limited.

The developer community is small compared to Xero's ecosystem. The MYOB Community forums have active threads but the volume of integration-focused discussion is modest. Stack Overflow coverage is limited. Overall, a developer experienced with modern APIs will find MYOB frustrating. The lack of webhooks, the tight rate limits, and the documentation gaps mean budgeting extra time for any MYOB integration project is essential.

Vendor lock-in risk with MYOB is moderate. Your financial data can be exported as CSV files and accessed via the API, so your core numbers aren't trapped. However, the export process is fragmented (entity by entity, no bulk export), and the API rate limits make programmatic extraction slow for large datasets.

The bigger lock-in factor is operational. If your team has built workflows, reporting processes, and payroll configurations around MYOB's specific way of doing things, switching to Xero or QuickBooks means rebuilding all of that. AccountRight users with desktop files have additional migration complexity.

The lack of a built-in migration tool means you'll likely need third-party services or custom development to move platforms. This isn't unusual for accounting software, but it's worth planning for. Keep your chart of accounts and key configuration documented outside of MYOB in case you ever need to rebuild elsewhere.

MYOB does not support webhooks. The official guidance is to poll the API using LastModified and status filters. This is one of the platform's most significant integration limitations and a top complaint from developers.

MYOB is a capable accounting platform with deep roots in the Australian and New Zealand market. For businesses that are already running on it and need solid tax compliance, payroll, and BAS handling, there's no urgent reason to leave. The core accounting engine works, the company has been around for decades, and the product continues to receive investment.

Where MYOB falls short is the integration story. No webhooks, tight rate limits, no batch operations, and a recent history of breaking authentication changes make it harder and more expensive to integrate with than modern alternatives. If you're choosing an accounting platform today and expect to connect it to other business tools, Xero offers a significantly better experience for developers and integrators.

Who should use this: businesses already on MYOB that need Australian tax compliance, organisations requiring desktop and cloud hybrid access, and mid-market businesses needing the Acumatica ERP capabilities. Who should think twice: businesses prioritising integration with other tools, anyone starting fresh who values a modern API ecosystem, and organisations sensitive to the uncertainty of a pending private equity exit.

MYOB holds ISO 27001 certification with annual audits, and is PCI DSS compliant for credit card data handling. Infrastructure runs on Microsoft Azure and AWS, both hosted in Australia. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and external security testing is conducted against OWASP ASVS standards.

MYOB does not hold SOC 2 certification, which is less relevant in the ANZ market where ISO 27001 is the primary standard but worth noting if you have US compliance requirements. The company has a dedicated internal security team and processes aligned with Australian and New Zealand mandatory data breach notification obligations.

No public security breaches have been reported in the 2024-2026 period.