Our Take
4.1
NerdWallet rating
The bottom line:
Striven’s built-in CRM, inventory management and HR solutions set it apart from the other accounting software programs we review. Users praise its overall functionality, but say it’s not the easiest to navigate. Our hands-on testing agrees. Striven is best for larger small businesses that plan to hire an in-house financial manager with previous accounting experience.
Striven
Starting at
$35/month Per user. Additional pricing tiers per user (per month): $70.
Promotion
7-day free trial
Learn more
on Striven's website
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Industry-specific features for consulting businesses, nonprofits, manufacturing companies, professional services and more.
- Tools to ensure tax compliance.
- Suite of in-house solutions for CRM, advanced inventory management, HR and workflows.
Cons
- Monthly costs could add up quickly if you require multiple users.
- No mobile app.
- Limited third-party integrations available.
Full Review
Striven is an enterprise resource planning and accounting software program for small and midsize businesses. It was founded in 2008, and its plans bundle accounting tools with inventory, human resources, project and customer relationship management capabilities.
Unlike many of its competitors, Striven can support larger small businesses and offers industry-specific solutions. Those include custom options for retail, manufacturing, construction, property management and consulting businesses, among others.
Striven has two plans, and its monthly subscription costs are reasonable when you consider all the features they include. However, prices quickly climb if you need more than one user. Each additional seat costs $25 per month, an upcharge that won’t be realistic for lots of businesses.
Those costs make Striven better for businesses that have a financial manager in charge of running all software operations. That way, you don’t have to invite multiple people from different departments.
Smaller businesses with no more than a few employees may be better off opting for a simpler accounting software product that’s more affordable and easier to navigate.
Striven is best for:
✔️ Midsize businesses with complex inventory needs.
✔️ Industry-specific solutions.
✔️ All-in-one ERP software.
Not a fit? Consider these competitors
NerdWallet rating 4.8/5.0 | NerdWallet rating 5.0/5.0 | NerdWallet rating 5.0/5.0 |
Starting at $21/month Additional pricing tiers (per month): $38, $65, custom. | Starting at $20/month Additional pricing tiers (per month): $47, $80. | Starting at $0 Additional pricing tiers (per month): $20, $50, $70, $150, $275. |
Promotion 50% off for 6 months. 30-Day Money Back Guarantee. | Promotion 90% off for 6 months. | Promotion 14-day free trial of the Premium plan. |
at FreshBooks | at Xero | at Zoho Books |
FreshBooks: Better for freelancers. Like Striven, FreshBooks includes portals where your clients can view and pay invoices. However, its base plan is less expensive and much simpler. All FreshBooks plans also include time tracking, which is useful for freelancers who charge by the hour. Read our full FreshBooks review.
Xero: Better for adding users. Striven charges $25 per additional user per month (up to five total). Xero, on the other hand, lets you invite an unlimited number of users to collaborate with you at every plan level. It also includes hundreds more integrations than Striven. Read our full Xero review.
Zoho Books: Better price point. Zoho Books is one of the few accounting software products that offers a free plan and has numerous options for scaling up. The free plan includes accountant access, bank reconciliation tools and a mobile app, in addition to other features. Read our full Zoho Books review.
Striven plan pricing and features
Striven lets you test drive its software for seven days before committing. Its plans come with the same combination of accounting features, in addition to tools for inventory tracking, customer relationship management, human resources and project management.
Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|
$35 per user per month. | $70 per user per month. |
| Includes everything in the Standard plan, plus:
|
All plans come with vendor, customer and job applicant portals that each support up to 100 participants. If you’d like to accept up to 500 participants instead, each portal costs an extra $99 per month. If you need portals to accept an unlimited number of participants, they each cost $499 per month.
What users say about Striven
NerdWallet checked online forums like Reddit and reviews from sites like G2 to gauge how users feel about Striven. We used an AI tool to help analyze this feedback. Here are the major trends we spotted.
👎 Limited online chatter
We didn’t find as many reviews or online mentions for Striven as we did for its competitors. Our AI tool located just four Reddit threads that mention the software. (Zoho Books, another all-in-one business platform, had 617 references, for comparison.) In addition, as of this writing, the most recent reviews from G2 and Capterra were published back in 2023.
That level of silence is uncommon. But it’s unclear what significance it has, if any. It does color our analysis, though. It’s hard to determine whether current users still feel the same way toward Striven as they did in 2023. It’s possible the software has changed since then as well.
Still, the available info helps provide some context. We also confirmed specific product feedback via testing when possible. But we’d encourage taking advantage of Striven’s seven-day free trial. That way, you can get a firsthand sense of the tool and whether it meets your needs.
👍 Customer support
Overall, users seem to be satisfied with Striven’s customer service, despite the fact that phone support is limited to callbacks. They say it’s easy to get in touch with representatives, and they appreciate the quality of the support.
It also sounds like Striven’s support might be more personalized than some of its competitors’. For example, a reviewer said they didn’t receive “robotic” responses from the support team. We tested this out using the site’s live chat module and were put in touch with a human who very quickly answered our question. Plus, we didn’t have to interact with an AI chatbot to get there.
In addition to 24/5 live chat support, Striven has an in-depth user guide to help you get set up and learn how to use all of the software’s tools. If you need more assistance, webinars are also available.
👍 All-in-one business software solution
Striven offers more than just accounting tools. Its users value the fact that they can manage their books, CRM operations and inventory management within a singular program. They say it helps make daily routines more seamless. This seems like an especially popular sentiment among businesses with complex inventory and supply chain management needs.
👎 Learning curve
Striven’s advanced functionality comes with a tradeoff, according to reviewers. They say the learning curve can be tough at first, and that it’s sometimes difficult to find what you’re looking for.
If you already dislike navigating online sites and programs, Striven may not be the best fit. Alternatively, if you have the resources, you might hire someone to manage your finances in-house. That way, they can take their time learning how to get the most out of Striven.
Our experience testing Striven
👋 I'm Hillary Crawford, a lead writer and content strategist for NerdWallet. I've been covering small-business accounting software since 2021 and am QuickBooks certified. I did the testing for Striven.
To do that, I test drove Striven’s core business edition and evaluated the demo account’s key components in May 2025. Here’s what stood out.
My take: There’s a lot going on.
I see why users say navigating Striven can be a challenge. The dashboard has a slightly outdated appearance, and I wasn’t immediately sure how the icons on the top right of the page differ from the tabs on the top left. Understanding where to start would certainly take some time to get used to.
Striven dashboard.
My take: Not as intuitive as the competition, but very detailed.
I like that you can select from a list of previously saved invoice items to save time. This is especially nice for businesses that sell a lot of the same product or service.
There are also fields where you can input additional data points, like unit price, shipping and handling and class. In this demo, Striven uses class to identify different departments and locations.
Invoicing page in Striven.
From what I can tell, you can’t customize the invoice template itself from this screen. Instead, you have to click “company” and visit the settings page. Competitors, like QuickBooks Online, typically let you customize invoice templates and create new invoices from the same page.
My take: Lots of filtering options.
Striven’s reporting module makes it easy to drill down into the details. To evaluate customization options and readability, I ran the profit and loss report. In addition to the basic date filters, you can sort by class, customer or vendor. I appreciate the different display options, too. You can view the results in a table or as a bar graph.
Profit and loss statement.
My take: Less automated than competitors.
The demo account’s reconciliation page didn’t include many mock transactions, so I relied on the company’s YouTube tutorial instead.
Basically, you choose the account you’d like to reconcile, pull up your bank statement in a separate tab and check off each Striven transaction when you find its match in the bank statement. Striven separates the transactions into two columns: checks and payments, and deposits.
The process is very manual. For example, it doesn’t seem like the system suggests matches for unreconciled transactions. Plus, there’s no column that lets you quickly see how each transaction has been categorized.
Source: Striven Business Software on YouTube.
Striven’s reconciliation process might be more time consuming than the competition’s. That’s another reason I’d recommend it for businesses that already have a financial manager or in-house accountant.
My take: A helpful approach for larger teams.
Striven lets you set “milestones” for each project, so that you can track when your team checks off important tasks. And in the dashboard, you can sort milestones by the person assigned to them. This can help you track your team members’ performance over time and set clear expectations and timelines.
Project management dash.
My take: Very attentive.
I had low expectations when I found out that Striven’s phone number leads you straight to an automated voicemail. If it’s an emergency, they say you’ll get directed to a representative. Otherwise, the system asks you to leave a message and expect a response the next business day.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I don’t have to go through an AI chatbot to get in touch with a human via live chat. Additionally, a representative emailed me the same day I signed up for Striven’s demo. They included a link to their calendar, so that I could set up a one-on-one meeting to get started.
I clicked the “schedule support” option in the demo account as well, just to see where it would take me. It asked me to provide my email address, so that I can set up a 15-minute screenshare with a representative. I definitely appreciate that personalized approach.
Striven's "schedule support" option.
How we evaluated Striven
NerdWallet independently reviews accounting software products, like Striven, across 10 categories and more than 30 subcategories. We collected the data from Striven’s public-facing website and from company representatives.
Our accounting software ratings range from one to five stars overall. But we also score individual features to help business owners understand a product's strengths and weaknesses. Here’s how Striven stacks up:
Striven is top of the line for the following categories:
- Pricing listed on website: Yes.
- Free trial period: You can test drive Striven for 7 days.
- Double-entry accounting: Yes.
- Chart of accounts customization: Yes.
- Cash- and accrual-basis reporting: Yes, you can change the report basis.
- Phone support: Phone support is available via callback. Users must first leave a voicemail.
- Online support: Live chat is available 24/5 on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET on weekends.
- Help library: Yes.
Striven is good, but not the best, in these areas:
- Reporting: Striven has more than 30 reports available, which is less than competitors like QuickBooks Online and Xero. They include different versions of the profit and loss statement and balance sheet, as well as reports on audit trails, budgets, cash flow and tax. All plans let you filter by class and date.
- Invoicing: Striven lets you generate up to 100 invoices at a time. You can also make them recurring, customize templates and add your business’s branding. You need to integrate with Authorize.net to accept online payments.
- Inventory: All of Striven’s plans include inventory tracking capabilities. It lets you set up low stock alerts and integrate with e-commerce platforms to sync in-store and online inventory.
- Accounts payable: Striven allows you to pay up to 500 bills at a time.
- Mobile app: There is no mobile app, but Striven’s site is mobile responsive.
- Project tracking: All Striven plans allow you to create and track projects.
- Transaction categorization: In addition to sorting transactions by account, you can use class tracking and add customers to transactions to categorize them more granularly.
- Industry-specific reports: Striven has industry-specific editions of its software for retail, professional services, field services, manufacturing, logistics and distribution, construction and contracting, real estate and property management, IT services, nonprofits, consulting, law and education.
Striven is decent in the following categories:
- Audit trails: Yes.
- Bookkeeper certification: Yes, there is a Striven certification course online.
- Accountant access: If you want to give your accountant access to your books, you need to pay $25 per month for an additional user.
Striven is acceptable in the following categories:
- Monthly pricing: $35-$70 per user per month.
- Bank reconciliation: Striven’s reconciliation process is more manual than that of competitors. You compare your bank statement with transactions in Striven to make sure they match up.
- Bank feeds: Striven supports bank feeds that let you automatically import your transactions.
- Dashboard customization: Striven lets you customize which widgets appear on your dashboard.
- User limits: Striven plans include just one user. Additional users (as long as there are under five users total) cost $25 per month each.
- Capacity to support larger small businesses: Striven can support an unlimited number of company locations.
Striven is subpar in the following categories:
- Payroll: Striven does not list any third-party payroll integrations, but it does have built-in payroll management features.
- POS: Striven integrates with Square, Shopify and Stripe.
- Bookkeeping services: No.
- Additional integrations: Additional integrations are limited to products like Google Calendar, ShipStation, Gmail and Twilio.
We also took user sentiment into account to gauge what small-business owners think about Striven. This involved looking through individual reviews and feedback on sites like G2 and Reddit. Then, we used AI tools to help spot larger trends within those comments. We don't incorporate these user reviews in our star ratings, because we can't verify every user's individual experience.
However, we do test the product ourselves to evaluate commonly mentioned pain points and develop our own objective assessment. For more information on how we score accounting software products, see our full methodology.
Learn more
on Striven's website
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