Did Xero buy Melio?
Yes. Xero announced the acquisition in late June 2025 and completed it on 15 October 2025 for US$2.5B, with up to $3B including an earnout. Melio's own FAQ says Melio.com will continue to operate independently as a standalone app supporting all accounting software, not just Xero. Xero has separately said it intends to embed Melio's functionality inside Xero for US customers. Both things can be true at once, but it is a reasonable thing to weigh if you are not a Xero customer.
How much does Melio cost in 2026?
Checked against meliopayments.com/pricing on 28 July 2026: Go $0 forever (one user, five free ACH payments a month), Core $25/month or $20 on annual, Boost $55/month or $44 annual, Unlimited $80/month or $64 annual, and Platinum on custom pricing. Core and Boost charge $10/month per additional user. On top of the subscription sit per-transaction fees — ACH $0.50 beyond the allowance, check $1.50, wire $10, card 2.9%, and instant transfer at 1% capped at $75.
Is Melio actually cheaper than HelloBooks?
Only if you compare the subscription in isolation and ignore the fact that Melio is not your accounting system. A realistic Melio stack is the Melio subscription plus per-transaction fees plus the ledger underneath it. HelloBooks Pro at $9.99/month is the ledger, the AP workflow, purchase orders, three-way matching and the AI, with unlimited users and no per-payment fee. If you only pay a handful of bills a month, Melio Go at $0 is genuinely cheaper for that narrow task.
Does Melio integrate with Sage?
No. Sage does not appear anywhere on Melio's integrations page, which is a real gap relative to BILL. QuickBooks Online and Xero sync start at Core, QuickBooks Desktop requires Boost, and NetSuite requires the Unlimited tier at $80/month. If you are on Sage, Melio is not a straightforward fit.
Does Melio have AI?
Melio announced Agent Mel, a conversational assistant, on 28 January 2026. It answers questions on bill status and vendor information, surfaces cash-flow insights and overdue payments, and helps with setup. What is not published is whether Agent Mel is generally available, in beta or on a phased rollout, or which tiers include it — the only tier signal is that the pricing page lists an "AI assistant" from Core upward. We have deliberately not claimed a status here that Melio itself has not stated.
What AI does HelloBooks ship today?
AI auto-categorization at 95%+ accuracy, OCR bill and receipt capture with smart line-item extraction, Munimji — a conversational accounting assistant with 60+ tools — AI payables with approval routing, AI calling for overdue receivables, a CFO agent, Auto-Inbox capture from email and photos, and AI analysis on every standard report. There is also a public read-only MCP server at agents.hellobooks.ai/mcp. All of it draws on one credit wallet with no per-action pricing, and the Free plan includes 2,500 credits a month.
What are the most common complaints about Melio?
The negative reviews cluster tightly. On G2 and Capterra between 2024 and 2026, the recurring themes are sudden account freezes with opaque compliance demands, ACH payments failing or going unaccounted for without clear resolution, users being able to change vendor banking details without alerts or approval, and difficulty reaching a human in support. Two of the sharper reports are from January and April 2026, so the pattern appears to have persisted after the Xero acquisition. Melio's overall scores remain good — G2 4.4 — but the distribution is a barbell rather than a normal curve.
Can HelloBooks pay my bills?
No, and that is a deliberate design decision. HelloBooks bank connections are read-only, so the software can never move money. You capture, code, approve and match bills in HelloBooks, then pay through Stripe, Razorpay, PineLabs, shareable payment links or your own banking rails. If you want a single product that both records and executes the payment, Melio does that and HelloBooks does not.
Can I migrate from Melio to HelloBooks?
Partly, and you should know the limit up front. Melio exports payment history to CSV from Settings > Tax and reports, but the maximum date range is twelve months in the past, and there is no documented full vendor-master export or public export API. So plan on exporting your last twelve months of payments and rebuilding the vendor master from your accounting system rather than from Melio. HelloBooks imports chart of accounts, customers, vendors, items, invoices and bills from CSV with AI mapping that retains existing account numbers.
Does HelloBooks do purchase orders and three-way matching?
Yes. Unlimited purchase orders are included on every plan, including Free. Three-way matching — comparing the purchase order, goods-receipt note and bill, and flagging quantity or amount discrepancies before payment — is included with Pro at $9.99/month. Melio does not publish a three-way matching capability, which is expected for a bill-pay product rather than a criticism of it.
How do the two handle 1099s?
Melio includes W-9 collection and 1099 automation from the Core tier. HelloBooks tracks contractors against the $600 threshold, holds W-9 details and e-files 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC directly. Both cover the workflow; the difference is that in HelloBooks the contractor payments are already in the ledger, so there is nothing to reconcile between two systems at year end.
What about international payments?
This is Melio's clear advantage. It supports international payments to more than 80 countries in 15 currencies, with international ACH in USD at a $20 flat fee. HelloBooks handles multi-currency accounting with automatic FX gain and loss on all plans, and supports 187 countries for tax vocabulary and rate cards, but it does not execute cross-border payments — you do that through your own rails.
Is HelloBooks secure?
HelloBooks is SOC 2 Type II certified, with the report available under NDA through the Trust Center; ISO 27001 is on the compliance roadmap and we do not claim it as certified. Data is encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2+ in transit, MFA is available, hosting is AWS with 99.9% uptime and daily encrypted backups. Because bank connections are read-only, the class of incident Melio reviewers describe — funds frozen or misdirected — is structurally not possible in HelloBooks.
Will my accountant work in HelloBooks?
Yes. It is conventional double-entry with a familiar chart of accounts, journals and standard reports. Free supports two users; Pro and Business have unlimited users with roles and permissions so your accountant gets a separate login. Firms can join the free Partner Program for a practice dashboard, bulk AI operations across clients and a directory listing at /find-an-accountant.
Is there a free HelloBooks plan like Melio Go?
Yes, and it covers considerably more ground. HelloBooks Free is free forever with no credit card: unlimited invoices, bills, quotes and purchase orders, AP/AR aging, P&L, balance sheet and cash flow, one bank and one card via Plaid, the full iOS and Android app, up to two users and 2,500 AI credits per month. Melio Go is also $0 but is single-user, capped at five free ACH payments a month, and is not an accounting system.
What is Melio genuinely better at?
Executing payments. Melio has broader rails than we do — ACH, check, fast check, overnight check, wire, same-day wire, card and international across 80+ countries — plus Pay Over Time financing on supplier bills, and free AR invoicing on every tier. If your problem is "paying suppliers is painful" rather than "our books are painful", Melio solves the narrower problem better.