FreshBooks Pricing: How Much Does FreshBooks Cost?

FreshBooks pricing plans start at $17 per month and go as high as $55 per month when billed monthly, though you can save 10% by opting for an annual bill. Every user added after the first will cost an additional $11 per month, which can add up, though a 50% price cut for the first four months helps add even more value, dropping the starting price to $8.50 per month (billed monthly), or an annual bill of $149.60 per year.

FreshBooks is a leading service in the accounting software industry. It includes a wide range of features, with plenty of third-party integrations available for any functionality it doesn't offer.

Is it ultimately worth the cost? There are plenty of factors to consider, from which features you need to the cost of billing annually vs monthly. And, once you've made up your mind, you can get FreshBooks today with a 30-day free trial to try it out.

In this guide:

• FreshBooks Online Pricing Plans
• Extra Freshbooks Costs and Fees
• How Does FreshBooks' Pricing Compare With Other Solutions?
• Verdict – Is FreshBooks Online a Good Value?
• Frequently Asked Questions

FreshBooks Pricing Plans

We'll take a look at each of the software's three main pricing plans, as well as a fourth, custom-priced option aimed at enterprise-level operations:

• FreshBooks Lite Plan: From $17/month
• FreshBooks Plus Plan: From $22/month
• FreshBooks Premium Plan: From $55/month
• FreshBooks Select Plan: Custom pricng

A 30-day free trial is available for all plans, though there's no permanent free version of any FreshBooks plan. Fortunately, there are plenty of other free accounting software options out there, so you can try before you make a big financial commitment.

Additionally, there is currently a 50% off your first 4 months deal that keeps prices even lower. Read on to learn more about these pricing plans and see how much you can save.

FreshBooks Lite Plan: From $17 per month

FreshBooks Lite allows users to log new income from a drop-down menu available from the main dashboard.

The cheapest FreshBooks plan, Lite, starts at $17 per month when billed monthly, and $204 per year when billed annually — a lump sum that comes out to about 10% off. Currently, a “50% off for the first three months deal” means you can start for just $8.50 per month when billed monthly.

You'll get:

• Custom invoicing
• Unlimited expense entries
• Unlimited time tracking
• Unlimited estimates
• Billing with credit card and ACH payments
• Expense importing
• Over 200 integrations
• 5 billable clients maximum

This lightweight plan is designed for freelancers and the self-employed: It'll help one person keep their invoices, bills, and tax information in order. The primary features include unlimited customizable invoices, as well as unlimited expense entries, time tracking, and estimates. It'll let users accept their clients' payments online through credit card and ACH payments and will automatically import expenses from users' bank accounts. Users will also have access to over 200 integrations, though many of these third-party services will come with their own monthly charge.

One big restriction under this plan? Users are capped at just five billable clients.

FreshBooks Plus Plan: From $30 per month

FreshBooks Lite gives users custom invoices, but the Pro plan allows invoices to be recurring.

The Plus Plan costs $30 per month when billed monthly, and $360 per year when billed annually. Currently, a “50% off for the first three months” deal means you can start for just $15 per month when billed monthly.

You'll get:

• Automated invoices
• Automated late fees
• Automated late payment reminders
• Client retainers
• Unlimited proposals
• 50 billable clients maximum

Under this plan, which is FreshBooks' most popular offering, users will get all the features found in Lite, with the cap on billable clients raised to a healthy 50. Quite a few additional, very useful features kick in as well: For starters, Plus users will be able to set up invoices, late fees, and late payment reminders on an automated, recurring basis. This automation saves a lot of hassle and is a big benefit of accounting software in general. Plus also comes with client retainers, as well as an unlimited number of proposals.

FreshBooks Premium Plan: From $55

FreshBooks Pro, Premium, and Select all give users the ability to create retainers from within the “Invoices” tab.

FreshBooks' Premium plan will cost you $55 per month billed monthly, and $660 per year when billed annually. Currently, a “50% off for the first three months” deal means you can start for just $27.50 per month when billed monthly.

But the price hike won't get you many additional features, although it does expand functionality for some tools available in the Pro plan, including project profitability tracking. It also removes the billable client cap to allow for unlimited clients. (This is a recent expansion: Prior to our review's September 2023 update, the Premium plan only raised the client cap to 500.)

In the end, Premium isn't as cost-effective as the Plus plan, which is available at half the cost. Still, by the time a business is large enough to field between 50 and 500 clients, they likely won't notice the monthly cost to use this plan.

FreshBooks Select

Finally, there's the FreshBooks Select plan. You'll get:

• A dedicated Account Manager
• Customized training for a business's entire team
• A “super low” credit card transaction rates to help larger operations save even more

The cost is customized, meaning you'll need to get in touch with FreshBooks directly in order to find out how much it might cost your business. Needless to say, this plan is only for enterprise operations, so most businesses should opt for a lower plan tier.

Extra Freshbooks Costs and Fees

All the prices listed above are the base prices you can expect to pay, but additional costs might pile up for three reasons: If you're adding team members, need faster payments, or are accepting payments through your invoices.

Add-Ons: Team Members and Advanced Payments

Each starting price gives a business one user account. The cost to add more team members to the Lite, Plus, or Premium plans is $11 per person per month. This price was recently raised: Prior to our September 2023 update, FreshBooks charged just $10 per additional user. This charge can add up fast, so make sure you know how many people will need to regularly access your accounting software before you commit to FreshBooks.

FreshBooks has another popular add-on, Advanced Payments, which can be added to the Plus and Premium plans for an additional $20 per month.

Advanced Payments lets users operate a virtual terminal for faster payment acceptance. It's secured and PCI-compliant, though it comes with a 3.5% + $0.30 fee per transaction, in addition to the monthly charge. Without it, users will still have a recourse for payments, since all the plans will let users accept credit cards and ACH bank transfers.

FreshBooks Invoice Fees

Using the invoice features of FreshBooks can incur small additional fees. FreshBooks is one of the only invoice service that facilitates payment through both first and third party payment processors, which can come with different fees.

If you use FreshBooks' payment system, debit and credit cards will cost you 2.9% of the total invoice cost, plus 30 cents. If you operate through bank transfers, this charge will only be 1%.

If you use a third party service, like PayPal or Stripe, you'll pay a similar fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents.

While the ability to use first and third party payment is great, there are some other key features included in FreshBooks' invoice service, like the ability to incorporate multiple currencies into your invoices, or add tracked hours into the invoice's expenses.

How Does FreshBooks Pricing Compare With Other Solutions?

FreshBooks isn't the only software name in the accounting game. Here's a quick overview of the other best small business accounting services available today — like Xero, Zoho Books, and Wave — and how much they cost compared to FreshBooks' plans.

Xero

Available from $13 per month, Xero has three plans: Early, Growing, and Established. Early is the $13 per month plan, Growing costs $37 per month, while Established costs $70 per month.

The Early plan has more restrictions than FreshBooks' comparable Lite plan, allowing just 20 invoices and quotes, five bills, and reconciliation for just 20 bank transactions. The Growing plan offers more functionality, including unlimited invoicing, billing, and bank transactions, but it's still not as much as FreshBooks Plus has to offer. Xero's pricing is higher, so FreshBooks comes out on top.

Zoho Books

The Zoho Books accounting app starts with a Free plan, then the $15 per month Standard plan, followed by the $40 per month Professional plan, the $60 per month Premium plan, the $120 per month Elite plan, and the $240 per month Ultimate plan.

It's an attractive option, particularly with the Free plan offering a wide range of abilities with no strong limitations, aside from a cap of 1,000 invoices per year. There's one catch for Free, however: To access it, you'll need to prove your business is small enough that its revenue is under $50,000 a year.

If your business needs multiple team members to access its accounting software, Zoho Books' pricing isn't bad: The Standard plan supports three users at no extra cost, while the Professional plan supports five.

Sage 50cloud

The Sage 50cloud software solution comes in three plans. They offer different pricing for monthly vs annual bills, but the monthly bills require a one-year commitment, which is functionally pretty close to paying an annual bill.

At any rate, three plans are available: Pro Accounting, for $57.17 per month when billed monthly, and $578 per year when billed annually; Premium Accounting, for $96.58 per month when billed monthly, and $970 per year when billed annually; and Quantum Accounting, for $136 per month when billed monthly, and $1,610 per year when billed annually.

You can save 15% for the first year of Premium and Quantum plans, making them just $824.50 and $1,368.50 per year, respectively.

All these plans are more expensive than FreshBooks, though the Quantum Accounting plan in particular offers something unique: It's for businesses with up to 40 employees, and includes industry-specific features that make it a custom fit for the construction, distribution, manufacturing, and nonprofit industries.

FreeAgent

Refreshingly, FreeAgent just has one plan. It'll cost you $12 per month for the first six months, and then $24 per month after that. Users, clients and projects are all unlimited, and there's a 30-day free trial as well.

The service is based out of the UK, and that's when their support hours are, which may pose a barrier to US-based businesses. London, for example, is a full eight hours ahead of the west coast. Otherwise it's a solid service, handling estimates, invoices, expenses, time tracking, banking, and projects.

QuickBooks Online

The QuickBooks dashboard offers many of the same functions as the FreshBooks software.

QuickBooks Online's pricing comes in four plans: The Simple Start plan costs $30 per month; Essentials costs $60 per month; Plus costs $90 per month; and Advanced costs $200 per month. All plans offer 50% off for the first three months.

In general, QuickBooks offers even more features than FreshBooks, although it has fewer third-party integrations. In terms of functionality, QuickBooks' Plus plan is comparable to the Plus plan from FreshBooks.

The plans each support a different number of users. Simple Start has just one, Plus supports up to five users, and Advanced supports up to 25 users. As a result, the number of employees any given business needs to access its accounting software might make QuickBooks a cheaper alternative to FreshBooks: If just three or four users need it, FreshBooks is cheaper, but any more, and QuickBooks is the better deal.

Get the full lowdown in our FreshBooks vs QuickBooks head to head guide

Frequently Asked Questions