Lifetime vs Subscription Billing Software India 2026

The short answer

In India, "lifetime" or one-time billing software usually means the software never expires, not that you never pay again. TallyPrime and BUSY both sell lifetime licences. On both, online e-invoicing and connected GST services stop when you skip the yearly renewal, and so do updates. Once you add that renewal, a TallyPrime Silver lifetime licence costs the same as renting it: ₹40,500 before GST over five years.

Disclosure: Codingclave is founder-led by Ashish Sharma in Lucknow. We have built software since 2017 (200+ projects, 4.9 on Google from 92 reviews). We sell our own Billing & Invoice Software at ₹14,999 one-time or ₹1,499 a month, so we have a stake in this question. Our rows in the tables below are our own published prices and features, not an independent review. Every other price comes from the vendor's own page. Prices checked on 2026-10-19.

What that means in practice:

• If you might switch tools within five years, Tally's and BUSY's subscriptions cost the same as their lifetime licences or less, and leaving costs you nothing extra.
• If you keep the same tool for more than five years, a lifetime licence plus renewals wins. TallyPrime Silver saves ₹3,600 a year from year 6. BUSY Standard overtakes the BUSY SMART subscription in year 7.
• Skipping the renewal is the cheapest option on paper. It makes sense only while you are under the ₹5 crore e-invoicing limit and can do without new releases. With Tally, above the limit you would export each e-invoice as a JSON file and upload it yourself; BUSY does not say whether its export still works without BLS.
• The cheapest paid desktop options that stay updated for five years are subscriptions: Vyapar Silver desktop (about ₹16,197) and myBillBook Pro (₹19,950, the lowest myBillBook plan with a desktop app). Neither lists e-invoicing on that plan.
• Our own monthly plan is the most expensive subscription in our five-year table (₹89,940 over five years); our ₹14,999 one-time licence costs less from month 11. (TallyPrime Gold rental, a multi-user plan, costs more at ₹24,300 a year.)

This article is only about how to pay for billing software. If you are still picking a tool, start with our guide to the best billing software for small businesses in India.

One-time vs subscription prices, checked 19 October 2026

Prices checked on 2026-10-19. Prices are before GST and for one user, taken from each vendor's own pricing page (linked in the Sources list at the end). Tally, BUSY and Marg add 18% GST, and Zoho's prices exclude taxes. Vyapar's and myBillBook's pricing pages do not say whether GST is added at checkout.

Tool and plan	How you pay	Price (before GST)	Renewal	If you stop paying	Online e-invoicing
TallyPrime Silver lifetime	One-time	₹22,500, includes 12 months of TSS	TSS ₹4,500 a year, or ₹8,100 for 2 years	Runs; online e-invoicing, connected services and new releases stop	Yes, while TSS is active
TallyPrime Silver rental	Subscription	₹750 a month, ₹2,138 a quarter or ₹8,100 a year	Auto-renews until cancelled	Not stated. Ask.	Yes, TSS is valid for the rental period
BUSY 21 Standard	One-time (perpetual)	₹16,500	BLS ₹6,500 per 360 days	Runs; updates, support and connected GST functions stop	Yes, while BLS is active
BUSY 21 Basic	One-time (perpetual)	₹11,000	BLS ₹4,000 per 360 days	As above	No: BUSY lists it for "Non-GST Business"
BUSY Magic SMART	Subscription, 360 days	₹8,000	Renew the plan	Switches to Demo Mode	Yes, up to 10,000 e-invoices and e-way bills combined
BUSY Magic START	Subscription, 360 days	₹5,000	Renew the plan	Switches to Demo Mode	No: also listed for "Non-GST Business"
Marg ERP	Not stated	Nano ₹5,550, Basic ₹10,300, Silver ₹13,900, Gold ₹26,000	Not published	Not published	Not stated on the pricing page
Vyapar Silver desktop	Subscription	₹3,799 a year, or ₹8,599 for 3 years	Buy again at the price shown then	Not stated	Not listed for Silver (e-way bills: 10 a month)
myBillBook Pro	Subscription	₹3,990 a year	Yearly or monthly	Not stated	No, Pro Max only
myBillBook Pro Max	Subscription	From ₹570 a month billed yearly (₹6,840)	Yearly	Not stated	Yes, plus unlimited e-way bills
Zoho Invoice	Free	₹0 for 500 invoices a year, 2 users	None	Data deleted after 180 days of inactivity	Not listed
Zoho Books Standard	Subscription	₹749 a month billed yearly (₹8,988), or ₹899 monthly	Yearly or monthly	Data becomes read-only	Yes
Codingclave Billing & Invoice one-time	One-time, on your own server	₹14,999	Support after month 3: ask us	No recurring licence fee	Yes, per our product page
Codingclave Billing & Invoice monthly	Subscription, hosted by us	₹1,499 a month	Monthly, cancel anytime	Ask us	Yes, per our product page

Three things the table hides:

• TallyPrime Gold (multi-user) works the same way at a higher price: ₹67,500 lifetime with TSS at ₹13,500 a year, or ₹24,300 a year on rental.
• BUSY counts 360-day periods, not calendar years. Five calendar years need slightly more than five 360-day periods.
• Vyapar and myBillBook show a struck-out "MRP" next to each price: Vyapar Silver desktop ₹6,399 against ₹3,799, myBillBook Plus ₹4,833 against ₹3,490. Nothing on either page fixes the price you will pay at renewal.

What a "lifetime" licence really includes

A lifetime licence buys the right to run the software forever. Updates, connected GST features and support come from a separate yearly plan, and that plan is where most of the long-term cost sits.

Tally. Every new TallyPrime licence comes with 12 months of Tally Software Services (TSS). Tally's TSS page says it covers new releases, connected services for GST, banking and WhatsApp Business, remote access to reports and online data sync. Renewal is ₹4,500 a year for Silver or ₹8,100 for two years (10% off). Renewing before expiry adds one free month. Tally's e-invoice FAQ, updated 25 September 2026, has a table for a licence without TSS: online e-invoicing "Does not work", but offline JSON export does, so you upload each file to the government portal yourself instead of generating the IRN inside Tally. TallyPrime Cloud Access is sold separately.

BUSY. BUSY publishes its BUSY License Subscription (BLS) prices. A 360-day single-user renewal costs ₹4,000 for Basic, ₹6,500 for Standard and ₹7,500 for Enterprise, plus GST. BUSY's own cost example on the pricing page charges BLS from the second 360-day period. If BLS lapses, BUSY says the software keeps running and your data is safe, but new releases, updates, support and connected GST functions become unavailable. BUSY also warns that a release issued after your BLS expired may run in Demo Mode. Cloud access (BUSY Online, ₹10,800 per 360 days) and the mobile app after year 1 (₹3,600, or ₹2,700 if you renew BLS the same day) are extra.

Marg. Marg's pricing page lists Nano ₹5,550, Basic ₹10,300, Silver ₹13,900 and Gold ₹26,000, each with 18% GST extra, and ₹3,000 per extra user on the smaller editions. It does not say whether these are one-time or yearly prices, and it shows no renewal price. It also says final prices depend on your requirements and implementation. Get the renewal price from Marg or its dealer in writing before you compare.

Our one-time licence. Our product page lists 3 months of free support with the ₹14,999 licence. It does not publish what support or updates cost after that, including updates for GST and e-invoice format changes, so ask us before you buy.

Why updates matter. On 22 September 2025, the 56th GST Council's rate changes took effect. Most goods and services moved from four slabs to two main rates, 5% and 18%, plus a 40% rate for a few goods and services (PIB, 3 September 2025). Other rules changed too: the 30-day IRN reporting window for larger businesses and two-factor login on the e-way bill portal both started on 1 April 2025. Even with a renewal, you update item rates yourself; Tally's guide to the September 2025 changes shows users doing it with its GST Rate Setup tool. Without a renewal, you also miss the new releases that handle changed formats and rules like these.

What you lose when a subscription ends

A subscription costs less to start, but your access depends on paying every period. Here is what each vendor says happens when you stop, as of 19 October 2026:

• BUSY Magic (START, SMART, POWER, POWER+): the software switches to Demo Mode when the subscription expires.
• Zoho Books: after you cancel, your data is read-only: you can view it but not create or edit. Zoho's India help page says the data of an account inactive for more than 120 days is permanently deleted.
• Zoho Invoice (free): Zoho deletes the data of a user inactive for more than 180 days, after notice, within the following 20 days.
• TallyPrime rental: plans auto-renew until cancelled. Tally's buy page does not say what the software does if you stop, so ask a Tally partner before you rely on rental.
• Vyapar and myBillBook: neither pricing page says what happens to your data or features when a plan expires. Ask before you pay, and keep the answer in writing.

Two habits protect you whichever model you choose:

1. Export every month. Download invoices, the sales register, party ledgers and GSTR-1 data as Excel or CSV. Your records should never depend on paying a renewal.
2. Assume the renewal price can change. No vendor in this table promises your renewal price.

Total cost over 1, 3 and 5 years

Prices checked on 2026-10-19. These are list prices before GST, for one user and one GSTIN. Renewals are assumed to stay at today's price, which no vendor promises. Discounts, extra users, cloud access, printers and add-ons are left out.

Option	1 year	3 years	5 years	Online e-invoicing
Zoho Invoice (free)	₹0	₹0	₹0	Not listed
Vyapar Silver desktop*	₹3,799	₹8,599	₹16,197	Not listed
myBillBook Pro	₹3,990	₹11,970	₹19,950	No
myBillBook Pro Max (from)	₹6,840	₹20,520	₹34,200	Yes
BUSY Magic SMART	₹8,000	₹24,000	₹40,000	Yes, capped
TallyPrime Silver rental (yearly)	₹8,100	₹24,300	₹40,500	Yes
Zoho Books Standard (billed yearly)	₹8,988	₹26,964	₹44,940	Yes
TallyPrime Silver lifetime + yearly TSS	₹22,500	₹31,500	₹40,500	Yes
TallyPrime Silver lifetime + 2-year TSS packs	₹22,500	₹30,600	₹38,700	Yes
BUSY 21 Standard perpetual + BLS from year 2	₹16,500	₹29,500	₹42,500	Yes
Codingclave one-time	₹14,999*	₹14,999*	₹14,999*	Yes, per our product page
Codingclave monthly	₹17,988	₹53,964	₹89,940	Yes, per our product page

*Codingclave: software price only; add your server and any support after month 3 (ask us). Vyapar: 1-year plan at 1 year, 3-year plan at 3 years, 3-year plan plus two 1-year plans at 5 years.

The cheapest-looking rows are the renewals you skip:

• TallyPrime Silver, TSS never renewed: ₹22,500 at every horizon, with no online e-invoicing (offline JSON only), new releases or connected services from year 2.
• BUSY 21 Standard, BLS never renewed: ₹16,500 at every horizon, with no updates, support or connected GST functions from the second period.

What the five-year column shows:

• Tally's two models tie. ₹40,500 either way for Silver, and ₹1,21,500 either way for Gold. Paying for TSS two years at a time brings Silver down to ₹38,700. The tie assumes you pay rental yearly: ₹750 a month instead of ₹8,100 a year costs ₹45,000 over five years, so the lifetime licence wins.
• BUSY's subscription is slightly cheaper than its perpetual licence over five years. The perpetual licence needs no renewal to keep running, but the SMART plan caps you at 10,000 e-invoices and e-way bills.

Break-even: when one-time beats monthly

Break-even is the point where the lifetime licence plus renewals has cost as much as the subscription; after it, the lifetime licence is cheaper each year.

• TallyPrime Silver: year 5. Lifetime plus TSS costs ₹22,500 + ₹4,500 a year from year 2. Rental costs ₹8,100 a year. Both reach ₹40,500 at five years, and from year 6 the lifetime licence costs ₹3,600 a year less. Gold breaks even at the same point. If you are unsure, rent first: Tally offers rental users an upgrade to the lifetime licence "at a price benefit", though the page does not say how much.
• BUSY 21 Standard vs BUSY Magic SMART: in year 7. Standard costs ₹16,500 + ₹6,500 per period. SMART costs ₹8,000 per period. They meet after about 6.7 periods of 360 days. If several people bill at once, get a written multi-user quote: BUSY's Standard feature list says "unlimited simultaneous users in same office", but its cost example calls ₹16,500 a single-user licence with additional users extra. SMART allows extra users at an unpublished price.
• Codingclave: month 11, software price only. Ten months of our monthly plan is ₹14,990, eleven months ₹16,489. That comparison ignores the server you need for the self-hosted licence and support after month 3, so add those before you decide.

A rule of thumb: buy the lifetime licence only if you expect to use the same software for more than five years and will pay the renewal. For anything shorter, the subscription wins. Above ₹5 crore, a subscription also beats any lifetime licence you do not plan to renew, because without the renewal you lose online e-invoicing.

E-invoicing and e-way bills: which plans include them

These are the GST rules your plan has to handle, checked on 19 October 2026 against the e-invoice and e-way bill portals, the GST Council's HSN press release and TaxGuru's summary of the notifications (12 October 2026).

Rule	Applies to	In force since	What it means for your plan
E-invoicing: IRN and QR code on B2B invoices, exports and similar documents	Aggregate turnover above ₹5 crore in any financial year from 2017-18	1 August 2023 (Notification 10/2023-Central Tax)	The plan must generate the IRN or at least export the JSON file. Once you cross the limit, it applies for good.
30-day IRN reporting window	Aggregate annual turnover of ₹10 crore or more	1 April 2025 (GSTN advisory, 5 November 2024)	Invoices and credit or debit notes older than 30 days are rejected by the portal.
E-way bill	Movement of goods worth more than ₹50,000, whatever your turnover	In force (e-way bill portal)	Check plan caps: Vyapar Silver lists 10 e-way bills a month, BUSY SMART 10,000 e-invoices and e-way bills combined.
Two-factor authentication on the e-way bill portal	All taxpayers and transporters	1 April 2025	Keep the registered mobile number reachable for portal logins.
HSN codes on invoices	6 digits if previous-year turnover was above ₹5 crore; 4 digits on B2B invoices up to ₹5 crore	1 April 2021 (Notification 78/2020-Central Tax)	Your item list needs HSN codes of the right length.

B2C invoices to consumers are outside the e-invoicing scope, so a shop above the limit generates IRNs only for its B2B invoices.

Which plans in this article include online e-invoicing, according to the vendors' pages on 19 October 2026:

• Included: TallyPrime lifetime with active TSS, and TallyPrime rental. BUSY 21 Standard and Enterprise with active BLS. BUSY Magic SMART, POWER and POWER+, capped at 10,000, 20,000 and 50,000 e-invoices and e-way bills combined. myBillBook Pro Max. Zoho Books Standard and above. Our Billing & Invoice Software (both plans, per our product page).
• Not included: BUSY 21 Basic and BUSY Magic START (both listed for non-GST businesses), myBillBook Plus and Pro, and Zoho Books Free.
• Not stated on the pricing page: Vyapar's plan comparison lists e-way bills but not e-invoicing. Vyapar's PC page lists "E-way Bill/ E-Invoice" under its Gold plan, so ask whether Silver includes it. Marg's pricing page lists editions only. Zoho Invoice's India pricing page lists no e-invoicing, while an older help page ties it to paid plans that page no longer shows. Ask each vendor which plan you need.

For GST returns, the Invoice Management System and the rest of compliance, see our GST-compliant software guide.

Offline vs cloud billing

How you pay is tied to where the software runs.

• Installed on your PC: TallyPrime, BUSY and Marg are installed on your own computer or office server, and your data stays there. Billing does not stop when the internet drops. Online e-invoicing still needs a connection, and on Tally and BUSY an active renewal.
• Desktop apps from subscription tools: Vyapar says its Windows software creates invoices offline and syncs later. myBillBook adds a desktop app from the Pro plan; ask whether it bills without internet before you rely on it.
• Cloud: Zoho Invoice and Zoho Books are cloud services. Your data lives on Zoho's servers, so plan on needing a connection to bill.
• Our software: the one-time licence is self-hosted on your server, and the monthly plan is hosted by us. Our product page does not list offline billing. If your counter has unreliable internet, ask us what the one-time licence needs before you buy.

The hidden cost of any self-hosted licence is the work around it. Someone has to keep the server or PC running, take backups, install updates, renew the security certificate if it is reached over the web, and know who to call when something breaks. A subscription rolls those costs into its price, which is why it looks expensive over five years.

Which model fits your business

Choose a subscription when:

• it is your first year with billing software, or you might switch tools;
• your turnover is close to ₹5 crore and you want e-invoicing included without a separate renewal;
• you have no one to look after a server, backups and updates.

Choose a one-time licence when:

• you are confident you will use the same software for five years or more;
• your CA already works in that software, which is often Tally or BUSY;
• you have budgeted the yearly renewal, or you want to own and run the software yourself, source code included.

Use a free plan when you are a freelancer or a small service business. Zoho Invoice covers 500 invoices a year at no cost.

A made-up example, not a client case study. Rahul runs a hardware shop in Kanpur with one billing PC and about ₹3 crore turnover, mostly from contractors. His CA files his GST returns from Tally. He expects to cross ₹5 crore in about two years and plans to run the shop for at least ten more. On today's Silver prices, lifetime plus yearly TSS costs him ₹63,000 over ten years, against ₹81,000 on rental: ₹18,000 saved. If he gave up on Tally after two years, the lifetime route would have cost ₹27,000 against ₹16,200 for rental. Because his CA is settled on Tally and e-invoicing is coming, the lifetime licence with TSS suits him.

Different businesses have their own guides:

• Restaurants and cafes: billing sits inside a POS. Our restaurant POS subscription vs one-time comparison does the same maths for that category.
• Medical stores: batch, expiry and Schedule H rules matter more than the payment model. See our pharmacy software comparison.
• Traders whose bigger problem is stock: start with our inventory software guide.
• SaaS and membership businesses that bill customers on subscription: you need recurring billing with proration and dunning; our SaaS billing guide covers Razorpay, Stripe and Cashfree.
• Anyone still choosing the tool itself: the best billing software guide compares ten tools one by one.

Our Billing & Invoice Software: one-time or monthly

Prices checked on 2026-10-19. This is what our product page states.

Both plans include every feature: GST invoices with CGST, SGST, IGST and HSN or SAC codes, GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B ready reports, e-invoicing with IRN and QR code, e-way bills, several GSTINs under one account, multi-currency and recurring invoices, credit and debit notes, expense tracking, profit and loss reports, WhatsApp invoice sharing and WhatsApp or SMS payment reminders. Both plans allow unlimited invoices.

One-time licence, ₹14,999: self-hosted on your own server with the source code, free installation and setup, free onboarding and training, 3 months of free support, and no recurring licence fee.

Monthly plan, ₹1,499: hosted by us with automatic updates and backups, free setup, onboarding and staff training, priority support on WhatsApp and phone, SSL, security and uptime monitoring. You can cancel anytime.

The monthly plan is the most expensive subscription in our five-year table (₹17,988 a year, about twice TallyPrime Silver rental or Zoho Books Standard) and earns that only if you want us to run the system for you. The one-time licence suits a business that wants to own the source code and run it on its own server. Because we build the software in-house, we can also quote changes to it for your business.

When not to buy ours:

• your CA runs your books in Tally and wants them to stay there;
• you send only a few invoices a month, so a free plan is enough;
• you want the cheapest subscription with e-invoicing (myBillBook Pro Max, TallyPrime Silver rental, BUSY SMART and Zoho Books Standard all cost less than our ₹1,499 a month);
• you need billing that keeps working with no internet and we have not yet confirmed that for your setup.

If none of those apply, open the live billing demo (login details come on WhatsApp; the demo page has the button) and click through it yourself. Or book a walkthrough and bring the questions below. If no packaged tool fits your pricing rules, our custom software cost guide explains what a custom billing module costs and why.

Questions to ask before paying for "lifetime"

Ask every vendor these questions, ourselves included, and get the answers in writing:

1. What does the first year include, and what does year 2 cost? Ask for the renewal price (TSS, BLS, AMC or support plan) on the quotation itself.
2. What stops if I do not renew? Ask about online e-invoicing, e-way bills, GSTR upload, new releases and support, one by one.
3. When GST rates or formats change, what do you update and what do I change myself? Ask whether those updates need an active renewal, and who updates the item list.
4. Are there caps? Ask how many e-invoices, e-way bills, users, companies and GSTINs the plan allows.
5. Is GST added on top of the price shown?
6. What happens to my data if I stop paying, and in what format can I export all of it? Excel, JSON and a Tally export are the useful answers.
7. If I start monthly, can I move to the one-time licence and keep my data?
8. For a self-hosted licence: what server or PC does it need, who installs updates, and who takes backups?

Our product page does not yet answer several of these for our own software: whether ₹14,999 and ₹1,499 include GST, what support and updates cost after month 3, what server the one-time licence needs and whether it bills offline, whether e-invoicing goes through a GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) at any cost, whether the monthly plan has a yearly price, how you get your data after cancelling, and whether you can move from monthly to one-time. Ask us for those answers in writing before you pay anything.

About the author

Ashish Sharma founded Codingclave in Lucknow in 2017. The team has delivered 200+ projects worldwide and holds a 4.9 rating on Google from 92 reviews. We build business software, including the Billing & Invoice Software discussed above, for Indian and international clients.

Sources

All checked on 19 October 2026. Prices are as listed on each page that day.

• Tally Solutions: Buy TallyPrime, rental and lifetime plans
• Tally Solutions: Tally Software Services (TSS) renewal
• TallyHelp: e-Invoice FAQ, licence status table (updated 25 September 2026)
• TallyHelp: Licensing TallyPrime, TSS on rental licences (updated 27 August 2026)
• Tally Solutions: GST rate change, how to update GST rates in TallyPrime (updated 22 September 2025)
• BUSY: plans and pricing, BLS renewal and Demo Mode FAQ
• Marg ERP: pricing
• Vyapar: plans and pricing
• Vyapar: billing software for PC (offline billing, desktop plan features)
• myBillBook: pricing plans
• Zoho Invoice India: pricing and data retention FAQ
• Zoho Invoice help: e-invoicing overview
• Zoho Books India: pricing
• Zoho Books India: cancelling a subscription
• PIB: recommendations of the 56th GST Council, 3 September 2025
• TaxGuru: GST e-invoice in October 2026, ₹5 crore coverage and 30-day IRN rule (12 October 2026)
• GST e-way bill system (₹50,000 rule, 2FA from 1 April 2025; site updated 25 September 2026)
• GST e-invoice system (6-digit HSN notice under Notification 78/2020)
• GST Council: press release on HSN and SAC codes from 1 April 2021 (Notification 78/2020)
• Codingclave: Billing & Invoice Software product page