Sufio alternative for German e-invoicing
Last updated 3 September 2026
Sufio is the established invoicing app for Shopify, and its App Store listing now leads with Peppol e-invoicing. For a German merchant that headline is misleading in one specific way: Sufio's Peppol is a Belgian public beta, and what it does in Germany is ZUGFeRD. This page says where each app wins, with a source and a date against every claim.
What Sufio is
Sufio is a professional invoicing app for Shopify and BigCommerce, listed as "Sufio: Invoices You Can Trust" with the tagline "Powerful automated invoicing app with PEPPOL e-invoicing." It automates invoices, credit notes and reminders for every order, in 40+ languages, and its own site says it is trusted by 7800+ online stores across more than 100 countries. It carries a 4.9 rating from 460 ratings. Its listing offers four monthly plans at 7, 19, 49 and 129 USD with a 14 day free trial. Checked on its Shopify App Store listing and at sufio.com on 3 September 2026.
The listing says you can "Submit e-invoices in e-invoicing standards such as Peppol, ZUGFeRD, and Factur-X". Those three are not the same kind of thing, and the difference is the whole point of this page. Peppol is a network you transmit over. ZUGFeRD and Factur-X are file formats you embed in a PDF and deliver yourself, usually by email. Checked on the listing on 3 September 2026.
Sufio's Peppol support went live on 18 December 2025. Sufio describes it as "initially available as a public beta for Belgian merchants", generating Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 e-invoices for invoices and credit notes and submitting them through a certified Peppol Access Point to the customer's endpoint. The same announcement discloses a fee of 0.05 USD per e-invoice successfully sent, on top of the plan price, up to a maximum based on your plan. Checked at sufio.com/news/einvoicing-peppol-belgium-shopify on 3 September 2026.
For Germany, Sufio's own guidance is ZUGFeRD. Its German e-invoicing article says Shopify stores based in Germany should issue B2B invoices in the ZUGFeRD format, a regular PDF invoice with structured data attached, and that Sufio automatically creates ZUGFeRD compliant invoices and credit notes for German stores. The word Peppol does not appear anywhere on that page. Checked at sufio.com/articles/shopify/e-invoicing/germany-zugferd-einvoices on 3 September 2026.
What Zeppol is
Zeppol is a Shopify app for the EU e-invoicing mandates, Germany first, built for the B2B sending obligation that starts in January 2027. It turns an order into an EN 16931 invoice as Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 UBL, checks it against the European rules and the German national ones, gets the VAT right including reverse charge and VIES validation, and delivers it over a certified Peppol access point, keeping the handover receipt. Email delivery of the same EN 16931 document is a first class channel rather than a fallback, because Germany prescribes no transmission channel and plenty of buyers are not on Peppol.
Zeppol is Peppol only. It is not a route into Poland's KSeF or Italy's SdI, and the country pages on this site say so rather than listing those countries as supported. It does not produce ZUGFeRD.
Zeppol and Sufio, side by side
| Zeppol | Sufio | Sufio claim checked against | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Sending a compliant e-invoice on the Peppol network, Germany first | All round invoicing and tax documents for online stores | App Store listing, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Peppol transmission from Germany | The product | Not described. Its German article names ZUGFeRD and does not mention Peppol | Sufio's German e-invoicing article, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Peppol transmission from Belgium | Same pipeline, same document | Yes, public beta for Belgian merchants since 18 December 2025 | Sufio's Peppol announcement, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Certified access point | Yes | Yes, for Belgian sends. Sufio says it uses a certified Peppol Access Point to submit to the customer's endpoint | Sufio's Peppol announcement, 3 Sep 2026 |
| German output format | EN 16931 as Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 UBL. No ZUGFeRD | ZUGFeRD, generated automatically for German stores | Sufio's German e-invoicing article, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Published price | Not published yet | Four monthly plans at 7, 19, 49 and 129 USD, 14 day free trial | App Store listing, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Per document transmission fee | Not published yet | 0.05 USD per e-invoice successfully sent, on top of the plan, capped by plan | Sufio's Peppol announcement, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Validation before sending | Blocks the send and names the EN 16931 rule that refused it | Not described on the listing or the linked articles | Listing and e-invoicing articles, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Invoice number and archive of record | Owned by the app, one number series and one archive | Sufio creates and numbers the documents it issues. Where the archive of record sits is not described | Listing and sufio.com, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Email delivery of the EN 16931 document | A first class channel, not a fallback | Emails invoices, and for Germany that PDF carries ZUGFeRD data rather than an EN 16931 UBL file | Sufio's German e-invoicing article, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Document types | Invoices and credit notes | Invoices, credit notes, reminders, and more across the suite | App Store listing, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Reach and track record | Early access, no reviews yet | 7800+ stores in 100+ countries, 4.9 stars from 460 ratings | Listing and sufio.com, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Platforms | Shopify | Shopify and BigCommerce | sufio.com, 3 Sep 2026 |
| Available today | Early access, built for January 2027 | Yes | App Store listing, 3 Sep 2026 |
Rows marked "not described" mean exactly that: we could not find the claim on Sufio's public pages on 3 September 2026. It does not mean the app cannot do it. Ask them before you decide.
The one difference that decides it for a German merchant
A ZUGFeRD PDF and a Peppol send are both legal ways to issue a German e-invoice. §14 UStG prescribes the format, not the transmission channel, so an EN 16931 document that reaches the buyer by email is as valid as one that travels over the network. That is why Sufio's German answer is a defensible one, and why this page does not claim it is broken.
The question is what your buyers ask for. A German buyer that has standardised on Peppol will give you a participant identifier and expect the invoice to arrive at it. If your invoicing app cannot reach that endpoint from Germany, you send a PDF into a process that was built to receive a network document, and the reconciliation lands back on a human. Sufio has built the Peppol path once already, in Belgium, so the day it names Germany this row changes. Today it does not.
Where Sufio is the better choice
Three situations, and none of them is unusual.
- You need invoicing, not just the mandate. Branded layouts, reminders, quotes, 40+ languages, VAT handling across a lot of countries. Zeppol does none of that and is not trying to.
- Your German obligation is satisfied by ZUGFeRD. If your buyers accept a PDF with structured data attached, Sufio generates it automatically and you can install it this afternoon.
- You want a track record. 460 ratings at 4.9 stars and 7800+ stores is evidence. Zeppol has none of that yet, and saying otherwise on our own comparison page would be worth nothing.
Where Zeppol is the better fit
- You need to send on Peppol from Germany. That is the case Zeppol is built for, and it is the case Sufio's own German article does not currently cover.
- You need to prove what happened. A refused invoice should tell you which EN 16931 rule refused it, by its rule id, before it leaves, rather than coming back as a rejection later or not at all.
- You want one number series and one archive. The document you sent and the document you keep should be the same document, held by the system that sent it.
- Your buyers are a mix. Some on Peppol, some not. Zeppol emails the same EN 16931 document to the ones who are not, as a channel in its own right.
Questions worth asking either of us
- For my country, does the invoice travel on a network, or is it a file attached to an email?
- Is Peppol support generally available there, or is it a beta in one market?
- What does a send cost on top of the monthly plan?
- What happens when the invoice fails validation, and do I see which rule failed?
- Who owns the invoice number, and where is the archive of record?
Frequently asked questions
Is Zeppol a Sufio alternative?
For the German mandate, yes. For everything else Sufio does, no. Sufio is a mature invoicing suite: invoices, credit notes, reminders, quotes, delivery notes, branded layouts, 7800+ stores. Zeppol does one job, which is getting a Shopify B2B order onto the Peppol network as an EN 16931 invoice, or into the buyer's inbox as the same document, with the invoice number and the archive kept in one place. If your problem is invoice design and paperwork, Sufio is the better buy. If your problem is the January 2027 German sending obligation, that is what Zeppol is built for. Checked on the Shopify App Store listing at https://apps.shopify.com/sufio on 3 September 2026.
Does Sufio send German invoices over Peppol?
Not today. Sufio's own article on German e-invoicing says Shopify stores in Germany should issue B2B invoices in the ZUGFeRD format, and that Sufio automatically creates ZUGFeRD compliant invoices and credit notes for German stores. The word Peppol does not appear on that page. Sufio's Peppol support launched on 18 December 2025 and is described by Sufio as initially available as a public beta for Belgian merchants. Its Shopify App Store tagline now leads with PEPPOL e-invoicing, so read the tagline as the network it reaches somewhere, not as the network your German invoices travel on. Checked at https://sufio.com/articles/shopify/e-invoicing/germany-zugferd-einvoices/ and https://sufio.com/news/einvoicing-peppol-belgium-shopify/ on 3 September 2026.
What does Sufio cost?
Its Shopify App Store listing shows four monthly plans priced at 7, 19, 49 and 129 USD, with a 14 day free trial. On top of the plan, Sufio charges 0.05 USD for every e-invoice it successfully sends over Peppol, up to a maximum based on your plan, and says it only charges that fee for e-invoices that are successfully sent. The fee is disclosed on Sufio's Belgian Peppol announcement rather than on the App Store listing, so budget for it before you compare monthly prices. Checked at https://apps.shopify.com/sufio and https://sufio.com/news/einvoicing-peppol-belgium-shopify/ on 3 September 2026.
Does Sufio transmit over a certified Peppol access point?
Yes, in Belgium. Sufio's own announcement says it generates the e-invoice in Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 and then uses a certified Peppol Access Point to submit it to the customer's Peppol endpoint. That is real transmission on the live network, not a file you download and forward yourself. The scope is what to check: Sufio describes it as a public beta for Belgian merchants, and it does not name a certified access point for Germany. Checked at https://sufio.com/news/einvoicing-peppol-belgium-shopify/ on 3 September 2026.
Is Zeppol available now?
Zeppol is in early access, built for the German B2B sending obligation that starts in January 2027. Sufio has been on sale for years and has 460 ratings at 4.9 stars. If you need something installed this month, that difference matters more than any row in the table. If your deadline is 2027 and you want the German path built rather than adapted, join the early access list.
This page is general information for Shopify merchants, not legal or tax advice, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sufio. Every claim about Sufio was read from its public Shopify App Store listing and its own website on 3 September 2026 and can change at any time. Check their listing and sufio.com for what is true today, and confirm your own obligations with a qualified tax adviser.
E-invoices from your Shopify B2B orders
Zeppol turns every B2B order into an EN 16931 document, checks it against the EU and the German rules, and sends it over Peppol or by email. Join the list and I'll be in touch before the deadline.