Cuéntamo vs Holded: the honest comparison

Looking for an alternative to Holded?

If you are here, either Holded is not quite fitting or you are checking before you decide. This page will not try to talk you round: it says where Holded is better, where Cuéntamo is, and who each one suits. If your answer at the end is «I will stay where I am», that is a useful answer too.

They're not the same thing (and that's fine)

Before comparing feature by feature, it helps to understand that Holded and Cuéntamo solve different problems. Holded is an ERP, a business management suite: invoicing, accounting, cash management, CRM, inventory, projects and even payroll — everything for running a company. Cuéntamo is a personal finance and forecasting app that also covers the taxes of the autónomo (self-employed worker in Spain): the record books and the quarterly VAT/income-tax returns, but not the full machinery of a company.

Put another way: Holded runs the business; Cuéntamo tracks your money (personal and self-employed together) and helps you see what's coming. That's why many things Holded does, Cuéntamo doesn't even attempt — and vice versa.

When Holded is your tool

If you need to issue invoices to your clients, keep the full accounting of a company or of a self-employed business with structure, manage a team, track inventory, run a sales CRM or handle payroll, then you need an ERP. Holded is built exactly for that and does it well. Cuéntamo doesn't compete there: it doesn't issue invoices, doesn't do double-entry bookkeeping and has no CRM, inventory or payroll.

• Real invoicing. Templates, numbered series, sending to the client, collections. Cuéntamo does none of this.
• Company accounting. Journal entries, balance sheet, profit and loss, corporate tax forms.
• Business management. CRM, inventory, projects, time tracking and payroll in a single panel.

When Cuéntamo fits better

If you're an autónomo (or a private individual) and what you want is to see your numbers clearly — how much you'll have left next month, how much to set aside for the Agencia Tributaria (the Spanish tax agency), how your net worth is doing — without setting up the infrastructure of an ERP, Cuéntamo is lighter and more direct. It also covers something Holded doesn't: your personal finances alongside your self-employed ones. And if Spanish isn't your first language, there's a difference you'll feel every day: Holded is a product designed in Spanish for a Spanish audience, while Cuéntamo is genuinely bilingual — your Spanish taxes, in English.

• Balance forecast. From your recurring income and expenses, it projects your balance up to 5 years ahead and warns you before you go into the red — with your upcoming tax bills already in the picture, so you know how much of that money is yours and how much is the taxman's.
• Self-employed taxes, without the maze. VAT and IRPF (Spanish personal income tax) — and IGIC in the Canary Islands — quarterly filings like the modelo 303 (the quarterly VAT return), the four record books required by the Agencia Tributaria, deductibility and depreciation.
• Your whole life, not just the business. Personal accounts, expense splitting and debts, net worth and investments.
• Privacy. No bank connection: you import your transactions from a file. No ads, and your data is never sold.
• Import without handing your credentials to a third party. Holded aggregates your accounts by connecting to your bank; Cuéntamo doesn't. Besides file upload, you can use Habeas, a free local-first browser extension: you log in to your bank yourself and it reads your movements in your own browser, without your credentials or data ever passing through Cuéntamo or a third party. It doesn't (yet) connect to every bank and you use your own session, but it saves you typing without giving up your privacy.