Optical shop software, compared honestly.
Four options an Indian optical shop actually shortlists: two general billing tools, two built for opticals. Published prices, what each one is genuinely good at, and the questions to ask before you pay.
I build one of them. That is a reason to read this critically — and the reason I know exactly where the general tools stop.
The shortlist
Two categories, not four products.
The real decision is not which app. It is whether an optical shop needs optical-specific software at all — and for a lot of profitable shops the honest answer is no. Decide the category first; the products inside a category are much closer to each other than the two categories are.
Category one
General billing software
Vyapar and myBillBook are the two an optician is most often shown. They are good, widely used GST billing apps with stock, parties and reports, sold to every kind of small business in India. They are cheap, they are mature, and they know nothing about a lens.
Category two
Optical-specific systems
OptoSoft and Optocore are built for optical retail: prescriptions, lens jobs, and the parts of a spectacle sale that do not look like a line item. Fewer shops use them, they cost more than a billing app, and they do the things the billing app cannot.
What they charge
Published prices, as listed on 24 September 2026.
Every figure below is the vendor's own published price on its own website, except Vyapar's — Vyapar's pricing page does not render a price to a plain fetch, and third-party listings disagree with each other, so it is shown as a range with a link. Check all four yourself before you buy; prices move.
| Product | Published price | |
|---|---|---|
| R | Optocore optical-specific 3–25 users · 1–3 stores | ₹2,500–15,000 a year, + GST |
| L | OptoSoft optical-specific unlimited staff, per store | ₹6,000 per store, a year |
| R | myBillBook general billing 1 user + CA · 3 on Pro Max | ₹3,490–6,840 a year |
| L | Vyapar general billing priced per device | ₹700–4,800 a year, by device |
Sources, all checked 24 September 2026: optosoft.in/pricing, mybillbook.in/pricing-plans, vyaparapp.in/pricing, and our own pricing page. Message charges are extra on any product that sends WhatsApp, because Meta bills per message.
The part that decides it
Four things a general billing app cannot do for an optical shop.
Not "does not do well" — cannot, because the data model has no place to put it. This is the whole of the category decision.
1. Two GST rates on one invoice
A frame under heading 9003 is billed at 18% and a corrective lens under 9001 at 5%, so a single pair of glasses is two rates on one bill. Our own ERP says 76% of spectacle bills carry two rates. A general app can do per-line tax, but nothing in it knows which line is which, so the classification lives in the operator's head every single time. The full breakdown, including the part that is genuinely disputed, is in our HSN and GST reference.
2. A prescription, as a record
Right and left, sphere, cylinder, axis, addition, PD, with the date it was taken. A billing app has a customer name and a phone number. Without the power on file you cannot re-order, cannot check what changed, and cannot recall anyone — see what a prescription record has to hold.
3. A lab job with stages
Ordered, at the lab, back, fitted, checked, collected — and the lab's quote against the lab's invoice. On an 8.6-day average wait, only 43% is the lab; the rest is the shop. A sale that closes at payment cannot answer "is my order ready?", which is the question customers actually ring about. Where the other 57% goes.
4. A recall that runs itself
An eye test is due roughly twelve months after the last one. That is the cheapest sale an optical shop will ever make, and it needs the prescription date, a consent record and a message that sends without anyone opening a list. A billing app has none of the three.
Optical against optical
OptoSoft and Optocore are the same category and different shapes.
Both are built for opticals. OptoSoft publishes GST billing, prescriptions, barcode inventory, appointments, multi-store, role-based access, unlimited staff, and WhatsApp on Meta's official API, at ₹6,000 per store a year. It is a real product with real customers and a longer track record than ours. Where we differ is worth stating plainly rather than sloganeering:
- where we start cheaper₹2,500 a year buys billing, prescriptions, lens orders and the lab desk for a single shop. The comparable optical-specific entry price is ₹6,000 a store.
- where the books areCash book, ledger, profit, GSTR-1/3B/CMP-08 and payroll are in our ₹7,500 plan. On most optical systems the books are your CA's problem and payroll is a separate purchase — ask any vendor to show both on screen.
- how messages are pricedWe bundle none. Every message is billed to your wallet at Meta's published rate with no markup, through your own number. Ask every vendor the same question: per message, what do you add on top of Meta?
- what sends the messageOurs fire on shop events — bill raised, job ready, job delayed, prescription turns twelve months, order collected, balance outstanding — rather than on somebody choosing a list. Ask to see a trigger fire from a real state change during the demo.
- where we are behindWe are newer, we have fewer shops live, and our Growth plan for chains is not on public sale yet. If you need three branches running next week, say so and we will tell you honestly whether to wait.
Straight answer
Which one to buy.
Buy a general billing app
If you bill under about a dozen times a day, you do not run a recall programme, your lens buying is by feel rather than by data, and you mainly want compliant invoices and clean books. That describes a lot of profitable shops, and paying optical prices for it is waste. Vyapar and myBillBook both do this job well.
Buy an optical system
If "is my order ready?" takes more than ten seconds to answer, if you cannot say who is due for an eye test, if you are unsure your invoice would survive scrutiny on the two-rate split, or if you are re-typing powers into a notebook. At that point the billing app is costing you more than it saves.
If you land in the second box, the full specification of ours is on the optical shop software page, and the seven things to make any vendor demonstrate live are in the buyer's guide. Run that list at every demo, including ours.
Questions
Asked before every switch.
Is Vyapar or myBillBook enough for an optical shop?
For billing and books, often yes. For prescriptions, lens jobs and recalls, no — those are not features they are missing, they are records their data model has no place for. If you do not run recalls and do not track lab jobs, a general billing app is the cheaper and sensible choice.
How much does optical shop software cost in India?
Optical-specific systems publish between ₹2,500 and ₹15,000 a year for a single shop, depending on how much of the books and automation is included. General billing apps run roughly ₹700 to ₹6,840 a year. Message charges from Meta are extra on any product that sends WhatsApp.
Can I move my data from Vyapar or myBillBook?
Yes. Customers, products, stock and outstanding balances come across, and we do the migration before your trial starts so the first screen has your shop in it. What does not exist in a general billing app — powers, lab jobs, recall dates — starts fresh, because it was never stored.
Why is there no free plan?
Because a shop's billing system is not a place to be a free user. The 14-day trial is the full Complete plan, no card, and the entry plan is ₹2,500 a year — about ₹208 a month.
Is this comparison biased?
It is written by the person who builds Optocore, so read it critically. What is checkable here is checkable: every price links to the vendor's own page, and every claim about what we do can be made to happen in front of you in a demo. Where a rival does something well, it says so above.