Xolo vs Companio (2026)

The short answer

Xolo. For years the honest answer was "Xolo if you can afford it, Companio if you're on a budget" — but Xolo's pricing restructure flipped that. Xolo Leap Starter costs €59/month with no setup fee. Companio's entry plan (PRO) costs €89/month plus a €390 setup fee. Xolo is now both the more polished platform and the cheaper one, by €750 in year one.

Companio still makes sense in one specific case: you want to run your Estonian company in Spanish, not English. Companio is based in Barcelona, its dashboard is natively Spanish, and its support team answers in Spanish. Xolo's support has been English-only since around 2020.

Both handle the fundamentals — accounting, invoicing, VAT filing, annual reports — competently. The difference is in polish, banking integrations, track record, language, and now price.

Comparison at a glance

Prices ex VAT, verified against both providers' own pricing pages and the official e-Residency Marketplace on 18 July 2026.

What each one actually costs

Year one for a solo Estonian OÜ on Xolo Leap Starter costs €1,054. The same year on Companio PRO costs €1,804. Here's what's in that number, using the same methodology as the full provider comparison: state fees of €296 (€265 registration + €25 registry fee + 24% VAT on the registry fee — identical for every provider), twelve months of the entry plan, and a €50 one-off Wise Business account.

That €750 gap is real, and it's Companio's setup fee plus €30/month more that does most of the damage — the €390 setup alone is more than half the difference. It didn't always run this way. Companio used to have a €59/month plan that undercut Xolo. That plan no longer exists for Estonian companies; PRO at €89/month is now the entry point.

Companio's higher tiers, for reference: Premium at €199/month adds a dedicated accountant and priority support; Ultra at €594/month is built for high-volume businesses with complex reporting. All three Companio tiers carry the same €390 setup fee, regardless of which one you start on. Xolo's tiers run Starter €59, Standard €99, Pro €139, Premium from €259 per month, all with no separate setup fee — state fees are paid through the platform instead.

Getting started: registration and onboarding

Both providers file your company registration through the same Estonian Business Register, so the official timeline is identical: 2-5 business days once your e-Residency card is active and your provider submits the application, per the e-Residency Marketplace's own guidance. Neither provider can make that step faster than the registry allows — the difference between them is what happens before and after.

Xolo's onboarding runs entirely through their dashboard: you sign the founding documents digitally with your e-Residency card, the platform files the registration, and state fees are paid through Xolo directly, so there's no separate invoice to track. Companio's process is similar in structure but bills the €390 setup fee upfront, separate from the state fees, which you pay again on top.

Feature-by-feature

Dashboard and day-to-day use

Xolo wins. Their dashboard is genuinely good — clean design, fast invoicing, a real-time view of your company's financial position. It feels like a product built by people who use Notion and Linear themselves, not a bolted-on accounting portal.

Companio's interface is functional but simpler. It gets the job done — invoicing, document uploads, a status overview — without the same level of polish. Founders who've used both consistently describe Xolo's dashboard as faster to navigate day to day.

Banking integration

Xolo wins, by one bank. Xolo syncs automatically with Wise, Revolut, and LHV. Companio syncs with Wise and LHV, but not Revolut. If your business banking already runs on Revolut, that alone can decide this comparison — you'd be doing manual reconciliation on Companio instead of automatic sync.

About 80% of e-Residents use Wise as their primary business account, and both providers handle that integration, so for most readers this section is a tie in practice even though Xolo's feature list is wider. See the banking setup guide for the full picture across all providers.

Accounting depth and the dedicated accountant

Both providers include core accounting, invoicing, VAT filing, and annual report preparation at every tier — this isn't a differentiator between them, it's table stakes across the whole e-Residency provider market.

Where they diverge is when you get a named, dedicated accountant rather than a shared support queue. Xolo assigns one from the Leap Starter tier — the entry-level €59/month plan — and mine has caught a miscategorised expense that saved me €340 in tax. Companio only assigns a dedicated accountant on its Premium tier at €199/month; the entry-level PRO plan runs through general support instead.

If having a named accountant who knows your business matters to you specifically, and you're comparing entry tiers, that's a real feature gap, not just a price gap.

Language support

This is where Companio wins outright. Companio's dashboard and support run natively in Spanish, from a Barcelona office. For a founder based in Spain or Latin America who wants to ask "¿cómo funciona el IVA en Estonia?" and get an answer in Spanish, that's worth real money — arguably worth more than the €750 price gap, if English-language accounting terms are a genuine barrier for you.

Xolo's support has been English-only since around 2020; they had German-language support in their earlier years as LeapIN, but that's gone too. Neither provider offers French, Italian, or other major EU languages — it's Xolo in English, or Companio in English or Spanish.

Support responsiveness and track record

Companio's chat support responds within 1-2 business days according to their own published figures. Xolo doesn't publish a standard response-time figure, but in my nine years as a customer, tax questions — including a complex one about US withholding tax on a client payment — have been answered within 24-48 hours.

Track record favors Xolo by two years: Xolo has operated since 2016 (as LeapIN, before rebranding), Companio since 2018. That gap matters less for routine bookkeeping than it does the first time something unusual happens — a tax audit, an unexpected regulation change, an edge case your provider hasn't seen before. A provider that's been through more annual report seasons and more VAT rule changes has simply handled more of them.

VAT registration and annual reports

Both providers handle VAT registration and annual report filing as part of every plan — this is one of the few areas where the two are genuinely equivalent on paper. The practical difference shows up in speed and hand-holding rather than the service itself.

On Xolo, my annual report takes about 20 minutes: my accountant prepares the filing, I review the numbers in the dashboard, sign digitally, and it's submitted to the Business Register. In nine years I've had zero missed deadlines and zero filing errors. VAT registration for a new company typically clears within a few business days once the application is submitted — Estonia's VAT threshold is €40,000 in annual turnover, so most first-year companies aren't VAT-registered at all.

Companio processes the same filings, but without a dedicated accountant on the entry PRO tier, requests go through general support rather than a named contact who already knows your business history. That's not necessarily slower — it just means less continuity between one filing and the next.

Who should choose what

Choose Xolo if:

• You want the lower year-one cost (€1,054 vs €1,804 on entry tiers)
• You want a dedicated accountant from your first month, not just on a higher tier
• You use Wise or Revolut and want automatic bank sync
• English-only support is fine for you
• You want the longer track record — nine years and counting

Choose Companio if:

• You want to run your company in Spanish, not English
• You're comparing Companio's higher tiers (Premium, Ultra) against Xolo's equivalent tiers and the feature set fits your specific needs better
• The €390 setup fee and €89/month entry price genuinely don't move the needle for your budget

What switching costs, if you change your mind

Switching from Companio to Xolo (or the reverse) takes 2-4 weeks and doesn't touch your company itself — your OÜ, registration number, Business Register entry, and bank account stay exactly as they are. Only the service contract changes. Your old provider is required to hand over your accounting data; in practice, budget a real overlap month on both providers while the handover completes. The full breakdown, including realistic switching costs across all nine providers, is in the service provider comparison.

Disclosure, stated plainly: Xolo is an affiliate partner — if you sign up through my link, I earn a commission and you get a €100 bonus. Companio is not an affiliate partner. I earn nothing whether you choose Companio or skip this page entirely. I'm recommending Xolo because I've run my own company on it for nine years, not because it's the only one that pays.

Bottom line

If you asked me to recommend one provider without knowing anything about your situation, I'd say Xolo Leap — Starter if you're bootstrapping, Standard once you're established. It's the safer default, and since the pricing restructure, it's also the cheaper one. The old advice — "start with Companio, upgrade to Xolo later" — doesn't survive contact with the current price lists.

Companio remains a solid platform, and for a Spanish-speaking founder, its language support is a genuine reason to pay the €750 premium rather than a consolation prize. For everyone else, you'd be paying more for less: a smaller feature set, a shorter track record, and a dedicated accountant that costs an extra €140/month to unlock.

Either way, you're in reasonable hands. The e-Residency provider ecosystem has matured enough that neither of these two is a bad choice — the question is which trade-offs fit your situation.

Frequently asked questions

Is Xolo cheaper than Companio?

Yes. Xolo Leap Starter costs €1,054 in year one; Companio PRO costs €1,804 for the same year — a €750 difference. Xolo has no setup fee; Companio charges €390 regardless of which tier you start on. Verified 18 July 2026.

Does Companio have Spanish-language support?

Yes — Companio is based in Barcelona and offers a Spanish-language dashboard and support team. Xolo's support has been English-only since around 2020, with no Spanish or German option. This is Companio's strongest differentiator against Xolo.

Can I switch from Companio to Xolo, or the other way around?

Yes. Switching takes 2-4 weeks and doesn't affect your company, registration number, or bank account — only the service contract changes. Your old provider must hand over your accounting data. See the full switching-cost breakdown.

Does Companio charge a setup fee?

Yes, €390, and it applies whichever tier you choose — PRO, Premium, or Ultra. Xolo charges no setup fee on any Leap tier; state fees are paid through the platform instead. That €390 is the single biggest driver of the €750 year-one price gap.

Which provider gives you a dedicated accountant?

Both do, but at different tiers. Xolo assigns a dedicated accountant from the entry-level Leap Starter plan (€59/month). Companio only assigns one from its Premium tier (€199/month) — the entry-level PRO plan runs through general support instead.

Continue reading

• Xolo Review — My detailed review after 9 years as a Xolo customer
• Companio Profile — Pricing, plans, and features (I haven't used it personally)
• All Service Providers Compared — The full nine-provider comparison and year-one cost table
• Choosing a Service Provider — The decision framework behind this page
• Registering Your Estonian Company — What happens after you pick