Odoo Renewal Price Australia: Why Month 13 Costs 25% More (A$52 to A$65)

An Odoo renewal proposal is a short document. Typically it shows your current plan and user count and a table comparing a one-year renewal with multi-year prepaid terms, sometimes with a note about why prices might rise. What it won’t show you is the four clauses in your subscription agreement that decide what you actually pay, or the assumptions buried in that table. This guide walks through both, with Australian dollar examples, so you can read the next one properly.

Figures are the Australian pricelist as at 22 August 2026, per user per month, excluding GST. We see a lot of these subscription renewal proposals. What follows is based on the current Odoo Enterprise Subscription Agreement, version 12, dated December 2025, which is the contract every Enterprise customer is on whether or not they have read it.

What an Odoo renewal proposal looks like in 2026

The pattern customers are describing in 2026 is consistent. The proposal sets out the current subscription, then offers multi-year prepaid terms at a modest discount, framed as protection against future price rises. With the US increase in January, European partners predicting a rise for their region, and a new user tier appearing in the Odoo 20 code, that framing is landing on more receptive ears than it used to.

Two things about the comparison table in these proposals are worth knowing before we get to the clauses. The yearly column is commonly illustrated with the price rising 7% every single year, compounding, with no list price change at all. And the “savings” figures for the multi-year options are calculated against that assumption, not against the price you pay today. Keep both in mind; we come back to them.

Clause 5.2: the 7% per year rule, and the one-year question

Clause 5.2 of the agreement covers renewal charges. In substance it says that if the charges you paid during the previous term are lower than the current list price, Odoo may increase them at renewal by up to 7% per year of the previous term.

That last phrase changed in December 2025. Until then the clause allowed a single increase of up to 7% at each renewal regardless of term length. Under the current wording, the allowable increase scales with the term just ended: up to 7% after a one-year term, up to 14% after two years, up to 21% after three. The change removed the old advantage of a long contract, which was that you only faced one 7% step at the end of it, and it is why the multi-year proposals now talk about renewal rising by “a maximum of 7% per year of contract length, compounded”.

Now the one-year question. A view circulating in the community is that the 7% cap applies only to multi-year contracts and that single-year renewals can be repriced to list without limit. We cannot find support for that in the agreement. The clause refers to the previous Term, and a one-year subscription has a Term of one year. If you are told otherwise at renewal, ask for the clause being relied on, in writing, before you sign. If yearly customers are meant to be uncapped, that is material information and you are entitled to it before signing.

Two further points on 5.2. It only applies if your price is below current list, so a customer already paying list has nothing to index from unless the list itself moves. And “up to” means Odoo may apply less; in our experience it usually applies the full amount.

The prepay maths, without the sales framing

Back to the comparison table. Multi-year options are presented as saving money against the yearly plan. They do, if you accept the assumption that the yearly price rises 7% every year. Against the price you pay today they save far less, and they require the whole term paid upfront.

Take a two-user Custom customer paying A$1,560 a year at list. A five-year prepaid term at a 10% discount is A$7,020. Against a yearly column that compounds 7% every year, that shows as a saving of about A$1,950 over five years. Against a flat A$1,560 a year, the saving is A$780, and it costs A$7,020 on day one. For a two-user business that is a small cheque and a reasonable hedge.

Scale it up. A 50-user Custom customer at list pays A$39,000 a year. A five-year prepay at 10% off is roughly A$175,000 upfront. What you get for it is a fixed price for five years and, at the end, a renewal that can rise by up to 7% for each of those five years, so up to 35% in one step. What you give up is A$175,000 of working capital and any ability to reduce users, change plan, or leave if the software stops fitting, with a vendor that repriced the US market by 30% on five weeks’ notice in January.

Our view, for what it is worth, is that prepaying three to five years of software rarely suits the A$2 million to A$20 million businesses we work with, who usually need that cash for stock, staff and equipment and prefer to budget software annually. But it is a cash flow decision, not a software one, and it belongs with your accountant rather than your account manager. What the proposal should not do is make the decision for you by comparing the prepay to a yearly column that already assumes the worst.

“The prepay offer isn’t a trick, but the comparison table does a lot of work. Compare it to what you pay now, not to a column that has already added 7% four times.”

Josh Craig, Director, Auboros

Clause 5.1: the 25% legacy version surcharge

Clause 5.1 allows Odoo to charge, once a year, an extra fee equal to 25% of your annualised subscription if your database is running a version older than the three most recent major releases. The fee can be charged no earlier than six months after a new major version is released.

In practice: Odoo 19 shipped in September 2025, which made versions 17, 18 and 19 the covered set. From April 2026, anyone on version 16 or older has been liable for the surcharge. Odoo 20 is due after the keynote on 24 September 2026, at which point version 17 leaves the covered set and becomes liable from around April 2027. The trade-off Odoo offers for the fee is that old versions now receive official support rather than being cut off entirely. Partners covered the mechanics in detail when the clause arrived in July 2025, including some of the tricky cases around contracts renewed before the change.

The surcharge is calculated on your current price, not list, and it sits outside clause 5.2, so it stacks on top of any renewal increase. For a 20-user Custom customer at A$65 per user, it is A$3,900 a year for as long as you stay on the old version. Set that against the cost of upgrading, which our Odoo version upgrade guide breaks down, and the decision is usually clear within a year or two.

The promotional cliff nobody mentions at signing

The prices on odoo.com/pricing are first-year prices. The footnote says the discount is valid for 12 months and applies to the users ordered initially. In Australia that means Custom moves from A$52.00 to A$65.00 per user per month on yearly billing at your first renewal, and Standard from A$34.40 to A$43.00. That is a 25% step before any clause in the agreement comes into play.

It also interacts with clause 5.2 in an unhelpful way. Your first-year price is by definition below list, so the first renewal can involve both the end of the discount and a 7% indexation on top, depending on how Odoo applies the clause. Ask which you are getting.

Users added during the first year don’t get the discount. They are charged at the list price of the day, which is why a growing business can find two different per-user prices on one invoice, and why the Odoo forum has a steady stream of questions titled some variant of “why did my subscription cost go up when I added a user”.

Three questions nobody answers

Does a user who has never logged in count? Yes. The agreement counts any active user account with create or edit access, whether or not they have ever signed in. Archive the accounts you created for people who never started.

Is the 25% legacy fee pro-rated if I upgrade mid-year? No. The fee is assessed once a year against your annualised price when Odoo runs its check, about six months after a major release. Finish an upgrade two months after the check and, on the cases partners have reported, you still wear the full 25% for that year, which is why upgrade timing matters more than most people mention.

Can I mix Standard and Custom users on one subscription? No. The plan applies to the database, not the person, so one Studio user puts every user on Custom. That is the whole argument for asking whether you need Custom at all.

Monthly plans: the 30-day notice trap

Monthly billing costs about 25% more than yearly in Australia (A$81.00 against A$65.00 for Custom at list), and it comes with a catch that has caught out customers trying to manage cost: reducing your user count on a monthly plan now requires 30 days’ notice. Archive a user today and you keep paying for them for another month. If you are on monthly billing for flexibility, check that the flexibility you are paying for is real.

Five questions to ask your Odoo account manager before you sign

Ask them in writing, and keep the answers with the agreement.

• What will my per-user price be at this renewal, and which clause is it calculated under? You want to see the promotional cliff and any clause 5.2 indexation stated separately.
• Does the 7% per year cap in clause 5.2 apply to my renewal? If the answer is no for a one-year term, ask for the basis.
• Am I, or will I be, liable for the clause 5.1 surcharge, and from what date? Get the date in writing if you are on version 17.
• If I add users during the term, what price will they be charged? The answer is list price of the day; confirm it.
• If I prepay a multi-year term, what is the maximum my price can rise at the end of it? You are looking for 7% multiplied by the number of years.

If the answers don’t match the agreement, that is worth knowing before you sign rather than after. For the record, we’re a partner for both Odoo and MYOB. Licence revenue isn’t our business; making the system work for your company is. If a one-year term, a lower plan or fewer users is the right answer, that’s what we’ll recommend. If you’re weighing whether Enterprise is still the right edition at all, our comparison of Odoo Community and Enterprise for Australian businesses is the place to start, and our Odoo pricing guide for Australia covers the full cost picture beyond the licence.

Got an Odoo renewal proposal on your desk?

Auboros is a Brisbane-based Odoo partner working with businesses across Queensland and Australia, and reading renewal proposals against the agreement is something we do for clients whether or not we built their system. If you’d like a second opinion on yours before the 30-day notice window closes, book a free consultation, no pitch. We’ll tell you which clauses apply and what the options cost, in plain numbers. More on how we work with Odoo clients is on our Odoo services page.