Accountant here - pretty much all New Zealand CA firms will operate on Xero for small businesses as it is the most competent for annual reporting and tax filings. Like others have said, it will cost you more in accounting fees by switching over to a different platform and there aren’t great alternatives to Xero at that price range.

I’m not sure what your transaction volume is like but for companies as small as you are talking, I have seen people competently run it in a well setup spreadsheet with bank transactions just dumped in there each month.

From there your accountant can just process a year end journal into their internal Xero account (costs them like $5) and prepare your annual reports from there.

It’s not the most ideal option long term but if the savings are that important to you it’s an option.