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Xero is a better accounting software than FreshBooks and Sage, with an impressive range of useful features and integrations. One standout Xero tool makes it a great small-business accounting software: the user-friendly budget tracker that’s available on all plans.
FreshBooks and Sage are still worth considering. In fact, FreshBooks may be best for cost-conscious freelancers, since it offers limited features at a low starting cost ($2.10 for the first three months with a deal), and comes with 24/7 support.
In contrast, Sage 50 comes with a higher bill that makes it more attractive to larger companies who will benefit from its cashflow tools and fraud protection.
Read on to compare all the key features, price plans, and support options for these three accounting platforms. If you want, you can even cut to the chase and compare the best deals now with Tech.co’s comparison tool.
| Starting price | Free trial | Best for | Pros | Cons | Try now | ||
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| 30 days | 30 days | 30 days (demo only) | |||||
| Experienced accountants and established businesses with complex financial needs | New businesses | Businesses seeking tailored financial solutions and strong brand reputation | |||||
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| Try Xero now | Try FreshBooks | Compare Prices |
We’re committed to making accurate verdicts at Tech.co, so when comparing accounting software our research team measures a number of metrics including ease of use, advanced features, and support tools. Jump to our methodology section to learn more about our thorough and independent research process.
Xero vs FreshBooks vs Sage: Head to Head
Xero is a better solution than FreshBooks and Sage because it has better features overall (including a handy budget manager), a decent value for its cost, and lots of integrations. In fact, according to our research, Xero is the second-best accounting software for small businesses after QuickBooks Online, and the second to best overall, making it a sturdy option for businesses of any size.
Why? Because Xero has top-notch accounting and planning tools, all the collaboration and AI tools you’ll need, and plenty of third-party integrations to boot. The platform’s billing and expense management features are particularly good.
But, if you’re just looking for the basics, FreshBooks may be for you. FreshBooks has more limited features than Xero, including a lack of forecasting and budgeting tools and a mobile app with few functions. It has better prices than Xero, however, so it might be attractive to newbies or freelancers on a budget, since they are less likely to need advanced features.
FreshBooks also lacks EPOS integrations, meaning it won’t be a good fit for many brick-and-mortar stores.
The Sage 50 software is desktop-first (with some cloud connectivity), so you’ll need to run daily data backups to ensure you don’t lose any information. It costs more, too, starting at about $66 per month. However, it offers helpful features, including its own fraud prevention system, Sage Security Shield.
Despite this, Xero and FreshBooks’ better features and lower costs make them both better picks.
Best for Accounting Features: Xero
When it comes to features, Xero easily beats FreshBooks and Sage — offering one of the most varied toolkits of any accounting software we’ve researched. Xero particularly shines when it comes to core accounting features, financial planning tools, data visibility, and operation-enhancing tools.
FreshBooks is a sharp contrast, with some of our worst testing scores for all those feature categories. It still offers useful core accounting tools (including time-tracking across all plans) but lacks custom reporting and multi-currency invoicing across all plans, in addition to a more limited mobile app than Xero.
Xero’s reporting dashboard displays some of the complex accounting tools that helped the platform perform well in our research. Source: Tech.co user testing
Xero has the best financial management tools
If financial management is your top priority, you’re better off bypassing FreshBooks and Sage. FreshBooks completely lacks budget and forecasting tools, and Sage only offers audit trails on its pricey Premium tier.
In comparison, Xero has the best expense management functions: Users can easily upload receipts, log miles driven, and link expenses so that clients know what they’re being billed for. Plus, creating client profiles for billing is simple (and users can adjust which currencies and descriptions apply to each client.)
Uploading receipt images, logging mileage, and linking expenses to clients were deemed as straightforward and valuable. The bills function stood out to users for its ease of creating clients, adding descriptions, and adjusting currencies.
Moreover, unlike Xero and FreshBooks, Sage lacks project accounting tools like time tracking and project cost calculations (although it offers job management), making it the least versatile solution out of the three.
If you’re looking to carry out basic accounting, financial reporting, and bookkeeping functions, however, Sage will still be up to the task.
FreshBooks’ time tracking features allow users to track time with the timer or by logging time manually. Source: Tech.co user testing
Best for Help and Support: FreshBooks
FreshBooks has risen in our research: the platform hasn’t always offered the 24/7 live support hours it has today. As a result, we now rank it among the best accounting software for customer support, tying with QuickBooks Online for the honor.
If you often find yourself in need of support, all of these platforms will have something to offer. All three options offer online knowledge centers with video tutorials and webinars, but Xero does not offer phone support, email, or live chat, while Sage does not offer email and FreshBooks’ email support is only available on request. Sage and Xero also have community forums, while FreshBooks does not.
Sage stands out for its Sage University feature, which gives users access to on-demand learning and instructor-led classes. All Sage 50 plans come with the Sage Security Shield fraud prevention system, too, stopping problems like ID theft and cyber threats before the need for support arises.
Best Value: FreshBooks
FreshBooks offers a better value for its cost, compared with Xero and Sage. On one hand, Xero does offer a slightly lower starting plan cost, with the $20 per month Xero Early plan undercutting the $21 per month FreshBooks Lite plan. However, the next highest plans offer the most functionality, and FreshBooks comes out ahead with its Plus plan available for $38 per month, compared with Xero’s Growing plan at $47 per month.
Sage is the most costly of the three, starting at $66.08 per month for Sage 50 Pro and soaring up to $114.33 per month for the next plan up, Sage 50 Premium.
FreshBooks might have a better price, but with premium accounting features like recurring bills and expense tracking available on all of its paid tiers, Xero remains a safe bet for businesses with a keen eye on their bottom line, and offers a powerful system in return.
Granted, if cutting costs is a top priority, our testers were most impressed with the FreeAgent accounting solution, which offers a $27 per month plan that’s comparable to FreshBooks Plus or Xero Growing.
Check out our guide to the best expense management software to learn more
To see how the providers’ main plans weigh up, check out our comparison table below:
| Price | Users | Bookkeeping Does it include bookkeeping functions? | Accounts payable Does it include a range of accounts payable functions? | Accounts receivable Does it include a range of accounts receivable functions? | Project accounting Does it offer tools to track different projects? | Financial reporting Does it offer financial reporting tools? | Budget and forecasting Does it offer budgeting and forecasting tools? | |||
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| Sage 50 | Sage 50 | |||||||||
| Pro | Premium | |||||||||
| $66.08/month | $114.33/month | |||||||||
| 1 | Unlimited | 1 | 1 | Unlimited | 1-5 | |||||
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| Expenses tracking only | | | | | | |||||
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| Time-tracking only | | | | | | |||||
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If you’re looking to unlock advanced accountancy features, FreshBooks also offers a Premium plan, at $60/month $24/month, with competitive accounts payable and project tools, and a custom-priced Select tier for businesses with complex needs.
Xero offers a premium Established plan too, for $80 per month. This package offers just about every accounting feature under the sun, including multi-currency record payments, employee labor calculations, and custom reporting tools.
You can read a full breakdown of Xero’s pricing model here.
Xero vs FreshBooks vs Sage: Which has the best free trial?
While none of these software solutions offer free versions, Xero and FreshBooks let users test out their products for 30 days, free of charge. Xero offers the strongest free trial, unlocking its full suite of features and 24/7 online support channels to users who sign up.
FreshBooks’s free trial also offers useful accountancy functions like invoice creation and payment tools, bank account integrations, and tax summaries, so while it’s less versatile than Xero’s, it gives businesses a great taste of the software.
In contrast, Sage 50 merely offers a 30-day demo version, with autopopulated data that shows users how it works, but isn’t actually functional.
Best for Integrations: Xero
If you’re looking to combine your product with other software, Xero will hands down be the best option. Thanks to its expansive app store, which is home to over 1,000 add-ons, users can choose from a range of integrations, from CRM solutions like HubSpot to payment services like Stripe.
What’s more, unlike FreshBooks and Sage, Xero can integrate with leading EPOS systems too, including Square, Vend, and Revel – making the tool perfectly suited to brick-and-mortar stores with existing point-of-sale software.
FreshBooks also boasts its very own app store, with over 100 options available, including useful ecommerce tools and accounting add-ons. But while FreshBooks integrations are stronger than Sage, they still pale in comparison to Xero’s.
Xero’s app store includes integrations for a wide range of business types. Its hospitality-focused apps include Square and Tanda. Source: Tech.co user testing
FreshBooks is best for online stores
While FreshBook’s total feature offering falls short of our frontrunner, Xero, it is a good accounting software for online businesses because of seamless integrations with major website builders like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Squarespace.
Paired with the robust inventory management tools included on its lowest tier, these integrations make FreshBooks especially useful to online retail stores and food delivery businesses.
How Do Xero, FreshBooks and Sage Compare With Other Software?
While Xero can’t be beaten on financial planning features, Zoho Books is the best accounting software we’ve reviewed overall, with an impressive research score of 4.8/5 thanks to its first-class inventory tracking, great transaction documentation and comprehensive mobile app.
QuickBooks is another top alternative worth mentioning, too, thanks to a 4.6/5 overall score due to powerful cash flow projections, detailed reporting functions, and simple, easy navigation.
The complexity offered by QuickBooks’ reporting dashboards is well worth the learning curve. Source: Tech.co testing
The market is packed with credible accounting software services, however, so check out our table below to see how they compare in full:
| Starting price | Free trial | Best for | Pros | Cons | Try now | ||
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| 30 days | 30 days | 30 days (demo only) | |||||
| Experienced accountants and established businesses with complex financial needs | New businesses | Businesses seeking tailored financial solutions and strong brand reputation | |||||
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| Try Xero now | Try FreshBooks | Compare Prices |
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.
Final Verdict: Which Accounting Software Is the Best?
If you’re stuck between these three providers, we would recommend using Xero. Xero is a more versatile piece of software than FreshBooks and Sage, with a solid range of basic accounting features, an extensive app store, and top-tier budget, forecasting, and project management tools.
However, while FreshBooks lacks POS integrations and basic budgeting tools, our research suggests it’s a dependable option for online stores because of its impressive ecommerce add-ons and stock tracking tools.
When picking between the three accounting solutions, it really comes down to the needs of your individual business. If you’d like to see a simpler breakdown of our top providers, check our handy form today.
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