FreeAgent’s pricing starts from just $27 per month, making it one of the most affordable accounting software options on the market.
What’s more, you get all the functionality of a premium option, including tax forecasting and planning at no additional cost.
Our in-depth research also found that FreeAgent was quite easy to use, particularly for beginners, with its intuitive interface providing simple navigation throughout the platform and its templates making recurring actions that much easier.
In this review, you’ll learn about whether or not FreeAgent is a good fit for your business, delving deep into the features, pricing, usability, and help and support options. You can also check out our best accounting software for small business guide to see what other providers are out there.
Pros
- Simple, low cost pricing options for businesses
- Built-in tax forecasting tools for future financial planning
- Helpful cash flow alerts for surpluses and shortfalls
Cons
- Overly complex and unhelpful support options
- Difficult to navigate for basic feature usage
- Distracting call-to-action buttons everywhere
- Billed monthly: $27/month
- Billed annually: $270/year
- 30-day free trial
FreeAgent Pricing
FreeAgent only offers a single plan to choose from, starting at $22.50 per month when billed annually, and $27 per month when billed monthly.
However, FreeAgent offers a cheaper “intro rate” for new users, which costs just $13.50 a month for the first six months, or $135 annually. After those six months, though, you’ll go back to the standard pricing.
Does FreeAgent have a free plan?
Despite the name, FreeAgent does not offer a free accounting software plan. Instead, the platform provides users with a 30-day free trial that allows them to test the platform before making a financial commitment. Even better, you won’t have to input a credit card; you can just get started right away.
However, there is an exception. If you have a current business account with Natwest, Royal Bank of Scotland, or Ulster Bank, you can get access to FreeAgent at no cost. On top of that, if you have a Mettle bank account and make at least one transaction per month, the accounting software is free to use.
Check out our guide to the best free accounting software to learn more
FreeAgent Features
FreeAgent covers most of the functionalities you’d need for accounting software. Its most notable features are:
- Recurring and automated invoices
- Sales tax reporting
- Payment reminders
- Multi-currency invoicing
- Automatic tax updates
- Time tracking
- Expense claims
- Cash flow projection
- Document collaboration
In our research, we evaluate accounting software providers based on three different categories of features: core accounting, financial planning and visibility, and operational efficiency. Below, we’ll outline exactly how FreeAgent performs when it comes to these three categories, so you can evaluate how the accounting software could help your business succeed.
Core accounting
FreeAgent’s accounting feature includes recurring invoices, multi-currency functionality, automatic tax updates, and the ability to sync with multiple bank accounts.
- FreeAgent includes tax forecasting and planning tools free of charge, while other providers require a paid add-on.
- Its time tracking features allow users to convert the data instantly into client invoices, with breakdowns for hours worked by task or project (this can’t be paused or resumed, though).
- There’s no way to see if clients have viewed an invoice, and the software won’t remember frequently used accounts or categories.
Check out our guide to the top accounting trends to learn more
FreeAgent offers time tracking features that we found easy to use directly in the platform. Source: Tech.co testing
Financial planning & visibility
FreeAgent offers functionalities like bill and expense tracking, cash flow projection, alerts for shortfalls and surpluses, and the ability to set budgets for specific projects – making FreeAgent’s features some of the best in our research.
- FreeAgent offers top-tier inventory management features, allowing us to track real-time quantity updates, including fixed assets for our business.
- Its reporting tools were lacking compared to competitors, with no custom reports or custom templates available across the platform.
- FreeAgent also doesn’t appear to be GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) or IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) compliant, which could be an issue for larger businesses that want to ensure accuracy and transparency.
The FreeAgent dashboard provided us with a snapshot of your business’ financial situation. Source: Tech.co testing
Operational efficiency
FreeAgent hangs with the best accounting software for operational efficiency, offering as many as 65 third-party integrations and open API access for custom integrations.
- There are no limits on users; team members can collaborate on documents in real-time, and there are user permissions and roles built in.
- FreeAgent provides a client portal for self-service, which allows them to upload documents, make payments, and approve transactions.
- The platform isn’t very customizable and doesn’t allow users to create clients with multiple delivery addresses.
FreeAgent offers fewer integrations than some popular accounting software, but the major players are there. Source: Tech.co testing
FreeAgent Usability
From a usability standpoint, FreeAgent was definitely adequate, particularly for small businesses. The simplicity of the interface made it intuitive, with clear labels for basics like contacts, expenses, billing, and other core tools in accounting software.
FreeAgent was particularly useful for small businesses thanks to its wealth of templates, which made it easy to set up invoices and estimates for reuse, saving our team a lot of time on recurring tasks. The timeline features were also quite useful, making invoicing especially intuitive in seeing exactly when actions take place and how often.
For more complex functionality, though, FreeAgent definitely had some issues. Finding options like currency settings and overdue reminders was not easy, which means that large businesses with more advanced needs could have some difficulty getting used to the system. Overall, though, FreeAgent was quite suitable when it came to usability, particularly for smaller businesses that don’t require a lot of in-depth functionality.
The contacts page in FreeAgent made it easy for us to keep track of clients’ info. Source: Tech.co testing
FreeAgent Help & Support
Unfortunately, FreeAgent is only available for help from 9am-5pm from Monday to Thursday and only 9am-4pm on Fridays. This is a significant drawback compared to some competitors that offer support outside of business hours.
Additionally, while many providers offer some level of 24/7 support, like FreshBooks and Zoho Books, FreeAgent has no 24/7 support at all, so you’ll have to wait for an actual person to help you solve your problem.
Beyond that, though, FreeAgent offers phone, email, and live chat functionality to solve problems. The platform also offers a helpful knowledge center to self-service your concerns, and it has proven to offer correct and relevant answers on topics like tax returns and payment links. It is missing a user forum for further self-service, but we found the knowledge center so vast that we were able to handle everything we needed.
We were able to resolve our queries with FreeAgent’s AI chatbot. Source: Tech.co testing
How Does FreeAgent Compare with Other Providers?
Compared to other providers, FreeAgent offers below-average forecasting features and third-party integrations, and its help and support options definitely leave a bit to be desired. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, there are plenty of other options out there that might be a better fit.
Zoho Books was the top choice in our in-depth research, providing an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, paired with the most core accounting features of any other platform. QuickBooks is another popular solution, and for good reason, as it offers robust help and support tools and seriously competitive pricing with scalable pricing for small and large businesses.
You can also check out our best accounting software guide to learn more about these platforms, or you can just check out the table below to see how these platforms match up against each other on everything from features to pricing.
| Starting price | Free trial | Best for | Pros | Cons | Try now | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| FreeAgent | Zoho Books | Xero | QuickBooks | FreshBooks | Clear Books | ||
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| Free |
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| $23/month | From £1/month (approx. $1.34) for first 6 months | ||
| 30 days | 14 days | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days | ||
| Budget-conscious businesses | Integrations | Experienced accountants and established businesses with complex financial needs | Businesses needing advanced financial insights and customization | New businesses | Professionals requiring comprehensive tax preparation tools | ||
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| Get Quotes | Try Zoho Books | Try Xero now | Try QuickBooks | Try FreshBooks | Get Quotes |
At Tech.co, we take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we're giving you the clearest, most useful recommendations.
After conducting an initial investigation to identify the most relevant, popular, and established accounting tools in the market, we conducted further research, including testing six major accounting software platforms.
Based on years of market and user needs research, we've established an accounting software testing methodology that scores these platforms against six main categories, and 25 subcategories — with a total of 1,512 areas of investigation being considered overall.
We also put the platforms through their paces with hands-on testing to gain a deeper grasp of their average user experience. We dedicated 57 hours to carrying out 37 user tests, with a total of 555 tasks being completed in total.
Our main testing categories for accounting software are:
- Core accounting features: We check how adept a platform will be at managing accounting tasks, focusing on key bookkeeping features like invoicing, tax preparation, journal entry, time tracking, financial transactions, and payment support.
- Operational efficiency: We determine how capable a system is at ensuring day-to-day processes run seamlessly, paying close attention to third-party integrations, collaboration tools, AI automation, and customization options.
- Financial planning: We assess how capable a system will be at measuring income, profits, and losses. Specifically, we check for the presence and quality of forecasting and budgeting, inventory management, reporting, and compliance tools.
- Help and support: We assess how useful and reliable a platform's support system is, focusing on support options, whether it's 24/7 support or knowledge center accuracy, as well as cloud backup, and security safeguards.
- Pricing: We compare the overall cost of each platform, taking factors like monthly costs, set-up fees, hidden fees, and free plans into account. We also measure how strict contracts are, and how much it would cost for a business to terminate them early.
- User experience: An overall judgment of how easily users can interact with the platform. We tested each accounting platform and got our team to report how easy they were to use, how they felt when they were using them, and how likely they were to recommend the platform to another business.
When it comes to calculating a product's final score, not all testing areas are weighted evenly, with factors like “core accounting features” and “operational efficiency” being prioritized for small businesses, while sector-specific features are valued more highly for businesses across different industries.
We understand that accounting software is always evolving. That’s why at Tech.co, we have full-time product researchers to re-run this testing process regularly. It’s the only way to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
Learn more about our research.
Verdict: Is FreeAgent Right for You?
FreeAgent is an affordable, functional accounting software that is best for small businesses on a budget and those that are in need of tax forecasting tools without too much investment. The planning and forecasting tools are the bright spot for FreeAgent, with automatic tax updates for changing regulations built directly into the platform.
The easy-to-use platform also makes it easy for beginners to get started, although the customer support is below average, which means you might want to look elsewhere if you expect to need a lot of help in the long run.
To learn more about FreeAgent and other accounting software options, be sure to check out our in-depth comparison guide to find out which of these platforms is the best fit for your business.
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