Dext vs Hubdoc vs AutoEntry: A Fair Comparison for Bookkeepers (2026)

Dext, Hubdoc, and AutoEntry differ most on two axes: how they charge and how deep they read. Dext bills practice plans per client per month with a 10-client minimum and reads line items. Hubdoc is bundled free with Xero and reads header fields only. AutoEntry sells monthly credit allowances priced per document, with line items and bank statement pages costing extra credits.

Everything else, from capture methods to ledger integrations, follows from those two choices, and the rest of this comparison walks each one.

This comparison is sourced from each vendor's own pricing and help pages as of October 2026, with the links inline so you can check them. We make a competing product, which is declared in the last section along with the cases where ours is the wrong choice. The individual head-to-heads with Inbox Ledger are on /alternativeto/dext, /alternativeto/hubdoc, and /alternativeto/autoentry.

The three tools in one sentence each

Dext (formerly Receipt Bank) is a UK-founded capture tool aimed at accounting and bookkeeping practices, with per-client pricing, line item extraction, supplier portal fetch, and publishing to several ledgers. Hubdoc is a document capture tool acquired by Xero in 2018 and bundled with Xero subscriptions, extracting header fields and publishing to Xero or QuickBooks Online with the source document attached. AutoEntry is a Sage-owned capture tool sold on monthly credit allowances, reading invoices, receipts, supplier statements, and bank statements, and publishing to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks Online, and other ledgers.

At a glance

Sources for each row are in the sections below.

How does each tool capture documents?

Document capture is the set of ways a tool receives an invoice or receipt before it reads it. All three share the same core: a mobile app photo, a file upload, and a dedicated email address to forward to. They differ on fetch.

Dext. Dext's help center lists upload, email to a dedicated extract-by-email address, the mobile app, and a Fetch connection with a supplier as the submission methods for cost documents, and upload or a bank feed for bank data. Dext Fetch, per the fetch setup article, works only for suppliers on Dext's supported list, collects documents already in the supplier portal within 48 hours of setup, then checks for new documents every 7 days, with email forwarding as the fallback for unsupported suppliers. A weekly check means up to a 7-day lag on new invoices, and the client has to hand over portal logins.

Hubdoc. Hubdoc's site lists photographing paperwork in the mobile app, forwarding invoices from your inbox, and uploading from the desktop. Standard fetch connections, which once logged into banks and utilities, were retired on 27 April 2022 per Xero's product update, which kept direct API connections with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Stripe and recommended auto-forward email rules and uploads as the replacement.

AutoEntry. AutoEntry's site lists the phone app, desktop upload, and emailing PDFs to a dedicated address. Its pages do not describe supplier portal fetching.

The shared limit: every one of these methods depends on a person or a rule forwarding the document, or on a portal login. None of the three connects to the client's own email account to find the invoices that are already there. For a practice, that means the collection problem described in client document collection for accountants is only partly solved by any of them.

How deep does each tool read?

Extraction depth is which fields a tool pulls from the document without a human typing them.

Dext extracts the header fields and, with line item extraction enabled, individual lines with description, quantity, price, and tax. Dext's line item extraction page says it works on invoices, receipts, credit notes, and delivery notes, that every plan includes a monthly allowance of line item extraction credits, and that more can be bought.

Hubdoc extracts, per its document fields reference, the date, total amount, and supplier, plus the due date and invoice or reference number when present; date, supplier, and total are mandatory before publishing. There is no line item extraction. In a Xero product ideas thread, Xero staff said they have no further plans to extract more line item detail in Hubdoc and pointed users to App Store apps. For a practice whose clients receive multi-line distributor or wholesaler invoices, that is the deciding fact.

AutoEntry extracts header fields for 1 credit and line items for 2, per its credit explainer. The practical consequence is that line items roughly double the per-document cost, so practices tend to switch them on per client rather than globally.

Bank statements and supplier statements

Bank statement extraction converts a PDF or scanned statement into transactions the ledger can import; supplier statement extraction reads a vendor's monthly statement so it can be reconciled against the invoices received.

• AutoEntry charges 3 credits per bank statement page and 2 per supplier statement, per the credit explainer. On the 50-credit Bronze plan, a ten-page statement is 30 credits, which is why statement-heavy practices sit on larger plans.
• Dext sells bank statement extraction and supplier statement extraction as add-ons, each available as a monthly subscription or pay-as-you-go per document, with free credits included in plans, per its Australian pricing page.
• Hubdoc no longer fetches bank statements through standard connections after the 2022 retirement; the direct API connections named by Xero are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Stripe.

A note on what "bank statement" means here: all three convert the statement into transactions. None of them matches those transactions to the invoices they captured. That reconciliation step happens afterward in the ledger's bank feed, where it can only match a transaction to a bill that has already been published. The method is in what is a bank reconciliation, and the gap it leaves is in what is invoice reconciliation.

Which ledgers does each publish to?

• Dext publishes to Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage, and its integrations page says it works with 36 or more accounting platforms; a practice with clients spread across ledgers can keep one capture tool.
• Hubdoc publishes to Xero and QuickBooks Online, with Bill.com and Box among the logos on its site. It is designed around Xero, where the extracted data becomes a draft transaction with the document attached.
• AutoEntry connects to Xero, Sage, and QuickBooks, and lists FreeAgent, KashFlow, SortMyBooks, and ClearBooks as other supported software on its site. As a Sage product it is the natural choice for Sage 50 and Sage Accounting practices.

If your clients are on Xero, the choice is wide open; the Xero App Store context is in best Xero add-ons and integrations. If they are on Sage or FreeAgent, AutoEntry or Dext are the candidates.

How is each one priced?

Pricing structure decides how the bill moves when the practice grows, which matters more than the sticker price.

Dext. For practices, Dext's partner pricing page sells Essentials and Advanced plans per client per month, excluding tax, on an annual subscription billed monthly, each with a 10-client minimum; a plan builder returns a quote from your client list and the rate comes down as the list grows, with a 14-day free trial and no card required. Because the rate depends on your client mix, we do not quote a figure. For businesses, Dext's pricing page is structured around the number of users and the volume of documents processed per month, with bespoke pricing above five entities. The structural consequence for a small practice: six clients cost the same as ten, and every new client raises the monthly bill.

Hubdoc. Free with Xero. Xero's Hubdoc page says that once you have subscribed to Xero on any pricing plan you set up Hubdoc within your Xero account for free, and Hubdoc's own 2020 announcement marked the start of inclusion in Xero business plans (Cashbook and Ledger plans were excluded at the time). Zero marginal cost per client, if every client is on Xero.

AutoEntry. AutoEntry's pricing page lists monthly plans of 50 credits at $13, 100 at $24, 200 at $46, 500 at $103, 1,500 at $298, and 2,500 at $469 (USD, excluding tax), with a custom package above 2,500, 25 free trial credits, unused credits rolling over for 90 days, an overdraft of up to 200 percent of the allowance billed at a higher rate, and unlimited users, storage, and clients on every plan. Cost tracks documents, not clients, and bank statement pages are the expensive item.

Verdicts by situation

• Every client is on Xero and invoices are mostly single-line. Hubdoc. It is free and the header fields are enough; add a line item tool only for the clients who need it.
• Clients on mixed ledgers, including Sage or FreeAgent, with variable volumes. AutoEntry. Per-document pricing is fair across a long tail of small clients, and the ledger list is the widest of the three.
• A practice of 10 or more clients that wants supplier fetch, line items, and a practice-shaped product. Dext. The per-client structure is predictable once you are past the minimum, and Fetch covers suppliers on the list.
• Fewer than 10 clients. Dext's minimum makes it the expensive option; Hubdoc or AutoEntry fit the size.
• Multi-line invoices (distributors, wholesalers, agencies) across many clients. Dext or AutoEntry; Hubdoc is ruled out by the absence of line items.

When Inbox Ledger fits instead

We build Inbox Ledger, so here is the honest placement. Inbox Ledger connects to Gmail, Outlook or IMAP with read-only access, finds invoices and receipts, extracts the data with AI, matches them to bank statement transactions, and pushes bills to QuickBooks Online or Xero. It differs from the three tools above on three points and loses on two.

Where it differs.

1. Collection without forwarding or portal logins. The client signs in once with Google or Microsoft and grants read-only mail access; emailed invoices are found without anyone forwarding them, and a retroactive scan reads up to 24 months of past mail for the backlog. None of the three tools above connects to the client's inbox.
2. Reconciliation against the bank statement. A bank statement in PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QFX, MT940, or BAI2 is matched to the captured invoices with a confidence score and a plain-language reason per match, and unmatched transactions and invoices get their own lists. Duplicate payments and silent price increases roll up across a firm's clients into one Money Found view. The three tools above convert statements; they do not match them. Mechanics on /features/reconciliation.
3. One pool, unlimited client workspaces. Firm plans are annual and sized by total invoice volume, with unlimited client workspaces and team members drawing from one shared credit pool; unused credits roll over. There is no per-client rate and no client minimum. Plan sizes are on the accountants page.

Where it loses.

1. Ledger coverage. Bills push to QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Dynamics 365 Business Central, with exports to Google Drive, Sheets, OneDrive, and CSV. There is no native Sage, FreeAgent, or KashFlow connection; a practice on those ledgers should look at AutoEntry or Dext.
2. Paper-first workflows. Inbox Ledger captures paper receipts through Telegram and WhatsApp bots and manual upload, which works, but a practice whose primary input is a client photographing receipts all day will find Dext's or AutoEntry's mobile apps more central to the product.

One pricing note for Xero practices: the Xero push is a paid add-on on self-serve plans (see pricing) and is included in the Premium and Firm plans, so a firm plan carries no extra Xero cost. Line item extraction, bank reconciliation, and duplicate detection are included on every plan rather than metered separately.

If you want to compare on your own clients' documents, the free Inbox Audit connects one inbox read-only and shows every invoice, vendor, and recurring charge from the last 12 months with duplicates flagged, and a new firm receives 50 trial credits before choosing a plan. The wider category, including tools outside these three, is in automated invoice capture software.

Frequently asked questions

Can I run Dext and Hubdoc at the same time?

Yes. Some Xero practices split it this way: Hubdoc for the clients whose invoices are simple and Dext for the clients who need line items or fetch. Make sure only one of them publishes a given client's documents to the ledger, or you will create duplicates.

Does any of the three detect duplicate payments?

No. Check each vendor's help center for how it handles a repeated document, but none of the three detects a duplicate payment, meaning two bank transactions settling one invoice, because none of them matches captured invoices to bank transactions. That check lives in the reconciliation layer, and the control is described in how to prevent duplicate invoice payments.

What should I check before switching capture tools?

That every document already published to the ledger is attached to its transaction there, and that you can export the archive of anything not yet published. The documents are the record; the capture tool is only the pipe.