FreshBooks
FreshBooks is best known for its ability to create professional invoices and streamline the payment process so that you can get paid by your customers faster. FreshBooks was created for freelancers like PR agencies, accounting firms, and consultants who get paid based on billable hours and need a reliable accounting software to help streamline the process.
FreshBooks has three pricing tiers that run between $15 and $50 per month. They differ in two primary ways: maximum customers that you can invoice and recurring invoices. Unlike the other providers on our list, FreshBooks is the only one that limits the number of customers you can bill monthly for the low and mid-tier plans. All plans include the ability to track time and projects, give access to multiple users, and track accounts receivable balances to ensure timely payment.
|
|
Lite |
Plus |
Premium |
|
Monthly Pricing |
$15 |
$25 |
$50 |
|
Maximum Customers |
5 |
50 |
500 |
|
Number of Users Included |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
Recurring Invoices |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
Time Tracker |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Project Tracking |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Accounts Receivable |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Accept Online Payments |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Progress Invoicing |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
The pricing plans for FreshBooks are:
FreshBooks Lite is the least expensive of the three tiers at $15 per month ($180 per year). It includes a maximum of five customers versus unlimited customer billings for all of the other providers on our list. FreshBooks Lite also allows you to track hours worked by employees and subcontractors. You can easily create invoices and stay on top of unpaid invoices. While you can’t create recurring invoices, you can accept online payments with this plan.
FreshBooks Lite is ideal for freelancers who are just starting out and have five or fewer customers to bill each month. Since you can’t print checks through FreshBooks, it’s best if you pay most of your bills with a debit or credit card or through online banking. Being limited to five customers a month means that you will outgrow this plan quickly and will need to upgrade to the Plus plan.
FreshBooks Plus is the next tier up from Lite and runs $25 per month ($300 per year). It includes a maximum of 50 customers (ten times the Lite plan), and in addition to all of the features that the Lite plan has, it also allows you to create recurring invoices for customers who pay you on a periodic basis (e.g., weekly, monthly, or quarterly).
FreshBooks Plus is ideal for freelancers who need the ability to invoice more than five customers and stay on top of hours worked by employees and subcontractors. FreshBooks also makes it easy to bill customers for hours worked on a project and to manage budgeted hours versus actual hours by project.
FreshBooks Premium is the top tier plan at $50 per month ($600 per year), which is double the cost of the Plus plan. At this steep rate, you can bill an unlimited number of customers (versus 500 for the Plus plan) and you can create recurring invoices like you can with the Plus plan.
FreshBooks Premium is ideal for seasoned freelancers who employ a team of people. Similar to the Lite and Plus plans, the only limitation with this plan is that you cannot print checks to pay vendor bills like you can with all QBO plans. However, you can manually keep track of your bills and then mark them paid when the payment has been made.
FreshBooks is missing one key component: the ability to pay vendor bills within the program. Unlike QuickBooks, you can’t pay bills via check, debit card, or credit card within FreshBooks, which means that your accounts payable balances will not automatically update until you manually mark your bills as paid.
FreshBooks users like how streamlined the invoicing and payment capabilities are in the program. However, customers do not like the fact that FreshBooks is missing key accounting functionality like the ability to reconcile bank and credit card accounts. Check out our FreshBooks user reviews to see all of our reviews.
You can take FreshBooks for a test drive to see if it’s right for you. Just visit the FreshBooks website to sign up for your free 30-day trial, no credit card required. At the end of the trial, if you decide to continue to use FreshBooks, you will need to sign up for a paid subscription.