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Head to head · Accounting ledger · October 2026 research run

Xero API + MCP vs Zoho Books

Xero API + MCP scores 67.2 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho Books's 61.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do accounting ledger.

Xero API + MCPXero · HTTP API B67.2/100#213 of 722 Zoho BooksZoho · HTTP API C61.1/100#377 of 722

Which one, for what

Xero API + MCP B

Good for An agent keeping the books for UK, Australian or New Zealand businesses, or any team that wants read-only scopes and long deprecation notice.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 79 against 71
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 51
  • Payments & pricing, 35 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 76 against 56

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

Developer docs, including the per-minute rate limits, only render with JavaScript

Zoho Books C

Good for Small businesses already on Zoho that want an agent to raise invoices, record bills and payments, reconcile bank transactions and post journals with narrow scopes.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No profit and loss, balance sheet or other report endpoint appears in the API docs or the OpenAPI files

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runXero API + MCPZoho BooksEdge
Reliability16%206871Zoho Books +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27971Xero API + MCP +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.27551Xero API + MCP +24
Security & auth14%17.56468Zoho Books +4
Payments & pricing10%12.53530Xero API + MCP +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87656Xero API + MCP +20
Transparency & trust7%8.87275Zoho Books +3
Negative events≤1500
Total67.2 · B61.1 · C

Facts side by side

FactXero API + MCPZoho Books
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorXeroZoho
Hosted endpointhttps://api.xero.com/api.xro/2.0https://www.zohoapis.com/books/v3
TransportsHTTP, stdioHTTP
AuthOAuthOAuth
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary service under Zoho's Terms of Service
Tools exposed51none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-012026-10-07
Terms last updated2025-12-042022-03-02
Privacy policy last updated2025-02-112025-12-22
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity350 stars, 395k npm/wk, 64k PyPI/wknone
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)none

Verdicts

Xero API + MCP

Granular OAuth scopes, such as accounting.reports.profitandloss.read, required for apps created from 29 April 2026. Developer docs, including the per-minute rate limits, only render with JavaScript.

Zoho Books

The public OpenAPI files cover 885 operations with OAuth scopes per module and operation, and the Free plan allows 1,000 API requests a day. No report endpoint, official SDK, SLA or dated API changelog was found, and the documented token calls put the client secret in the URL.

Before you call either

Xero API + MCP

  1. Send xero-tenant-id on every call. The token alone doesn't name the organisation
  2. A bill is an Invoice with Type ACCPAY, a sales invoice is ACCREC. There's no separate bills endpoint
  3. Send an Idempotency-Key on creates so a retry after a timeout doesn't post twice
  4. Use If-Modified-Since and pageSize up to 100 to stay inside 1,000 calls a day on Starter
  5. Set XERO_SCOPES to read scopes only when the agent shouldn't write. The MCP still lists its write and delete tools

Zoho Books

  1. Send organization_id as a query parameter on every call. Read it from GET /organizations first
  2. Use the api_domain returned with the token, since each of the nine data centres has its own host (zohoapis.com, zohoapis.eu, zohoapis.in and others)
  3. Send Authorization: Zoho-oauthtoken <token> and refresh hourly. Each user keeps at most 20 refresh tokens and the oldest is deleted
  4. Stay under 100 requests a minute and the plan's daily cap. Codes 44, 45 and 1070 on a 429 mean minute, day and concurrency limits
  5. To repeat an update safely, send X-Unique-Identifier-Key, X-Unique-Identifier-Value and X-Upsert with a unique custom field. Creates have no idempotency key

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Xero API + MCP or Zoho Books?

Xero API + MCP scores 67.2 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho Books's 61.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

Do Xero API + MCP and Zoho Books need an API key?

Both use an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Xero API + MCP and Zoho Books without installing anything?

Yes. Xero API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.xero.com/api.xro/2.0 and Zoho Books at https://www.zohoapis.com/books/v3.

Other comparisons with Xero API + MCP or Zoho Books

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