Updated September 24th following the announcement during the Odoo Keynote at Odoo Experience.
Odoo has now officially unveiled Odoo 20 at Odoo Experience 2026, confirming two significant changes to its licensing model: a new lower-cost Light User licence and an increase to the price of the Custom plan.
The Standard plan remains unchanged, while the Custom plan increases from £33.60 to £41.00 per user per month on the normal yearly rate.
At the same time, Odoo has introduced Light Users at £7.00 per user per month, aimed at employees who need access to a more limited range of HR and operational applications without requiring a full Odoo user.
This article was originally published before Odoo Experience based on the Odoo 20 pre-release. It has now been updated following the official Odoo 20 announcement on September 24, 2026.
Odoo 20 pricing changes are now confirmed
Before Odoo Experience, there had been plenty of speculation that Odoo could increase its licence prices internationally following the increase already introduced in the US and Canada earlier this year.
We now have the answer.
The Standard plan remains unchanged, while the Custom plan increases to £41.00 per user per month on the normal yearly rate. Odoo has also introduced the new Light User at £7.00 per user per month.
| Plan | First Year | Standard Price |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | £18.00 / user / month | £22.00 / user / month |
| Custom | £32.00 / user / month | £41.00 / user / month |
| Light User | £7.00 / user / month | £7.00 / user / month |
The Standard plan still includes all of Odoo's applications on Odoo Online, while the Custom plan remains necessary for businesses using functionality such as Odoo Studio, multi-company, external API access, custom modules, Odoo.sh or on-premise hosting.
What does the Custom price increase mean in practice?
The previous ongoing UK price for a Custom user was £33.60 per month which has now increased by about 20% to £41.00.
For a small database the difference may not look significant on a per-user basis, but it becomes much more noticeable as the number of full users grows.
| Full Custom Users | Previous Annual Cost | New Annual Cost | Annual Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | £4,032 | £4,920 | £888 |
| 25 | £10,080 | £12,300 | £2,220 |
| 50 | £20,160 | £24,600 | £4,440 |
| 100 | £40,320 | £49,200 | £8,880 |
These examples use the ongoing UK yearly price rather than the discounted first-year rate.
The introduction of the new Light User at the same time is interesting, as not every employee using Odoo needs to remain a full Custom user which could bring cost down.
What happens to existing Odoo customers?
A new public list price does not necessarily mean that an existing Odoo customer immediately moves onto the full new price at their next renewal.
Odoo's Enterprise Subscription Agreement contains a renewal provision stating that where the charges from the previous term are below the current applicable list price, those charges can increase by up to 7% per year of the previous term.
Existing customers should therefore check the terms of their own subscription rather than assuming their next renewal will immediately move from the previous Custom price to the new £41 list price.
There is an important distinction when additional users are added during an existing subscription. Odoo's agreement states that additional users are charged using the applicable list price at the time they are added, for the remainder of the subscription term.
With the introduction of Odoo 20, the Enterprise Subscription Agreement has also been updated to refer specifically to both full Users and Light Users.
What is an Odoo 20 Light User?
The biggest structural change to Odoo licensing in version 20 is the introduction of the new Light User.
Light Users cost £7.00 per user per month in the UK, giving businesses a much lower-cost option for employees who need to interact with Odoo without requiring full ERP access.
This fills a gap that has existed for some time, in many businesses, relatively few people actually need to operate Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Accounting or Manufacturing throughout the day, while a much larger group still needs to interact with HR, Field Service or operational processes.
A dedicated Light User gives Odoo the opportunity to expand more on these limited use cases under a defined user type with its own access rights and its own lower licence price.
What applications are included for Light Users?
During the Odoo 20 announcement, Odoo presented the Light User functionality across two groups: Employee Experience and Business Apps.
| Employee Experience | Business Apps |
|---|---|
| Self-Onboarding | Point of Sale |
| Time Off | Inventory Barcode |
| Attendance | Shop Floor |
| Expenses | Planning |
| Appraisals | Field Service |
| Referrals | Employee Directory |
This is considerably broader than the limited functionality that was visible when I tested the Odoo 20 pre-release in the weeks before Odoo Experience.
The most interesting part is probably the inclusion of operational applications such as Barcode, Shop Floor, Planning and Field Service.
This means the Light User is not simply an HR self-service licence. It can also cover employees who actively interact with day-to-day business processes without requiring access to the wider ERP.
Light Users and active employees
Something will need some clarification by Odoo in the following days. The updated Enterprise Subscription Agreement defines a Light User as either an active user account designated as a Light User in Odoo, or an active employee record which is not linked to a normal active backend user account.
Historically, it has been common to create Employee records for a much larger workforce without those employees necessarily being licensed backend users. With this new wording, active employee records are now explicitly included within the Light User definition on Odoo 20.
Businesses with a large number of Employee records should therefore look at this carefully when moving to Odoo 20, even where those employees have never previously had a normal backend login.
I will ask for some clarifications to the HR team tomorrow during the second day of Odoo Experience and update back.
How does this compare with Odoo 19?
Some of the use cases covered by Light Users have already been possible in Odoo without creating a full internal user.
In Odoo 19, employees can already interact with features such as Attendance, Point of Sale and Manufacturing Shop Floor through kiosk-style functionality without every employee requiring their own full internal-user licence.
The difference with Odoo 20 is that Odoo is now formalising a much broader category of employee access under a dedicated licence type.
This gives employees their own limited access to Odoo and expands the range of applications they can interact with while maintaining a clear distinction from a full internal user.
What happened to the pre-release Light User?
I had been testing the new Light User before Odoo Experience, and the pre-release implementation was changing quite quickly.
At one point, the supplied Light User only displayed five applications:
- Documents
- Planning
- Employees
- Appraisals
- Expenses
Other functionality could still be accessed indirectly. Discuss could be opened through shortcuts, Knowledge could be reached through search, and Planning allowed access to shifts, although several actions still produced access-right or multi-company errors.
Expenses was visible but could not reliably create records, Appraisals was only partially functional, and the available applications changed several times during the final weeks before release.
With the final announcement now showing a much broader list of supported applications, it is clear that the pre-release environment was not a reliable representation of the final Light User permissions.
For the final Odoo 20 functionality, I would therefore use Odoo's announced application list rather than the behaviour of those earlier test databases.
Who could benefit from Odoo Light Users?
The Light User model becomes particularly interesting for businesses where the number of employees is much higher than the number of people who genuinely need full ERP access.
A company may have 100 employees while only 20 or 30 regularly work with Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Accounting or other full business applications.
The remainder might primarily need to:
- Complete their onboarding
- Book and review time off
- Clock in and out
- Submit expenses
- Take part in appraisals
- View the employee directory
- Check or manage their shifts
- Use Barcode in a warehouse
- Interact with Shop Floor in manufacturing
- Complete Field Service work
- Operate Point of Sale
Those are exactly the kinds of employees for whom paying for complete access to the ERP has often felt excessive.
At £7.00 per month, the Light User gives Odoo a much clearer distinction between employees who interact with the system and the users who actually operate the wider ERP.
Could Light Users offset the Custom price increase?
Custom users are becoming more expensive, but businesses now have another licence type available for employees whose requirements are more limited.
For companies where almost everybody genuinely needs full access, the result is straightforward: the Custom subscription is going to cost more.
If a business currently has employees using full licences primarily for Planning, Expenses, Attendance, Barcode or similar limited processes, some of those users may now fit within the Light User model instead. The saving from moving suitable employees away from full licences could offset some of the increase in the Custom user price, depending on the structure of the business and how those employees use Odoo.
What should existing Odoo customers review?
For businesses already using Odoo, there's nothing yet to do. The Light User accounts are only available from Odoo 20.0, and upgrade is not recommended for a few months.
Check the existing subscription agreement and renewal position before assuming that the new Custom list price applies immediately. Then review your user accounts, and those whose day-to-day use of Odoo is mostly limited to the applications now included with Light User access.
For some businesses the new model will increase the overall subscription cost. For others, particularly those with a large operational or HR-heavy workforce, the introduction of Light Users could significantly change how licences are allocated.
Final thoughts
Before Odoo Experience, the obvious question was whether Odoo would follow the North American price increase with a similar increase elsewhere. Price changes did in fact arrive, but they were a lot smaller than originally anticipated.
Standard pricing remains completely unchanged, Custom increases to £41.00 per user per month, and Odoo has introduced a £7.00 Light User at the same time.
That changes the conversation from simply asking how much an Odoo user costs to asking what type of access each employee actually needs. For smaller businesses with a handful of full users, the new Custom price will probably be the most noticeable change. For larger businesses with warehouse staff, manufacturing operators, field workers or a large HR population, the Light User may ultimately have a much bigger impact.