FreshBooks Review 2023

The bottom line: FreshBooks is one of the best accounting solutions for freelancers and small-business owners who rely heavily on estimates, quotes, and invoicing. Its user-friendly interface, thorough mobile app, and excellent invoices make it a good fit for on-the-go freelancers, and its third-party integrations sell it for business owners with employees.

FreshBooks has a few key limitations. Most notably, each plan limits the number of clients you can bill per month (although you can send those limited clients and unlimited number of invoices). For that reason alone, it won't work for freelancers who bill dozens of different clients each month. But its unlimited user numbers makes for easy collaboration, and its low starting price beats out QuickBooks Online and rivals Xero. 

With three plans running from $9 to $50 a month, FreshBooks’ features can match a variety of business needs. But since additional users cost $10 extra per month, it’s a particularly good fit for solopreneurs who plan to keep the books largely on their own.

FreshBooks Lite can help you handle most of the important accounting tasks:

• Unlimited invoices and estimates
• Time tracking for correct customer billing
• Credit card and ACH payment acceptance via FreshBooks Payments
• Invoice customization
• Automatic bank account syncing
• Crucial financial reporting
• Business expense tracking

That’s not bad for just $15 a month (FreshBooks' typical starting price once the promotional period ends). But while the plan doesn’t limit the number of invoices you can send, it does limit the number of clients you can bill to just five a month.

Functionally, that’s about the same as Xero’s cheapest plan, which limits you to five bills and twenty invoices a month but starts at $13. (All of Xero's plans come with free unlimited users, too.)

Still, even though FreshBooks costs a little more, choose FreshBooks Lite over Xero if you work multiple projects for (and send multiple invoices to) the same five clients every month. And if expense tracking is one of your top requirements, FreshBooks' cheapest plan could suit you better than Xero's, which doesn't have built-in expense categorization.

Crucially, FreshBooks Lite does not include automatic bank reconciliation. That's odd, to say the least, since bank reconciliation is foundational to small-business accounting. Honestly, everyone can benefit from account reconciliation, no matter how much they make each month—it's a bizarre feature for FreshBooks to leave off. 

For $7 more a month, FreshBooks Plus delivers the same features as FreshBooks Lite with some key add-ons:

• Double-entry accounting and automatic bank reconciliation
• Automated recurring invoices and late payment reminders
• Unlimited proposals

FreshBooks Plus also includes a client retainer option, which means you can let clients pay you in advance for long-term projects.

Most importantly, FreshBooks Plus lets you bill up to 50 clients a month, which makes it a better fit for most small businesses (and some freelancers) than FreshBooks Lite.

Apart from the price, the main difference between FreshBooks Plus and FreshBooks Premium is the number of billable clients. Plus limits you to 50 clients, and Premium bumps you up to unlimited clients. It also adds bookkeeping features that make life easier for midsize to large businesses, such as project profitability tracking. 

We've already covered this, but it's hard to move past FreshBooks' lack of bank reconciliation with its cheapest plan. Almost every other accounting software option includes bank reconciliation by default, including Wave Accounting, which is entirely free. 

Speaking of typical accounting software features, FreshBooks' lack of double-entry accounting with every plan gives us cause for concern. FreshBooks argues that freelancers don't need to use the more meticulous double-entry bookkeeping system, since it's most useful for businesses with complex finances. But we don't agree—and neither do most providers, like Xero and QuickBooks Online, both of which offer double-entry accounting with every plan.

Honestly, the double-entry system is more accurate regardless of your annual income. Using it can save you loads of stress come tax time and help you avoid costly mistakes. We're glad FreshBooks includes it with its Plus plan, but if you end up using FreshBooks Lite, you'll want to check (and double check) your bookkeeping entries by hand.

And while we like that FreshBooks doesn't limit the number of users you can add, we don't love that each user costs $10 extra. If you only work with a few other people, your pricing won't spiral too far out of hand—but add more than three or four and FreshBooks' cost increases exponentially. In contrast, Zoho Books charges $2.50 per additional user (much more reasonable), while providers like Wave and Xero don't impose user limits at all.

We’ve talked about the drawback of FreshBooks’ client limit, but we also want to hit on the perk of FreshBooks’ unlimited features. Unlike some other cloud-based accounting software (most notably Xero), FreshBooks doesn’t limit the number of invoices and estimates you can send each month. That’s one perk of the company's’ humble beginnings as an invoicing-centric software: you don’t have to wait until next month to bill a client for a second project.

FreshBooks customer service is available over the phone from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EDT, which gives you a little leeway if you work on the West Coast—you can still get help on a problem that occurs after 2 p.m. your time. FreshBooks also has a robust online support section and helpful chat feature.

Generally, users also like FreshBooks' customer service and support. That's quite a big deal in a world where QuickBooks Online—part of Intuit, a company with a mediocre customer service reputation—remains one of the most popular accounting software worldwide. For instance, on the consumer review site Trustradius, FreshBooks users give it an average of 8.2 out of 10.¹

And while FreshBooks isn't accredited with the Better Business Bureau, the BBB still gives it an A+ rating, and it's only had to resolve four FreshBooks complaints in the last three years.² Admittedly, fewer people use FreshBooks than QuickBooks—but FreshBooks has thousands of users across the globe, and the company's still brooked just four complaints via the BBB to QuickBooks' 3,000+.³

FreshBooks isn’t the least expensive cloud-based software in the business, especially if you want to add more than one user, but it’s more affordable than QuickBooks with about the same degree of functionality. If you’re looking for a good QuickBooks alternative, we say take FreshBooks out for a spin—but if you can, stick with the Plus plan over the Lite plan. Double-entry accounting and bank reconciliation are worth it.

Looking for accounting options other than FreshBooks? Check out our article on the best accounting software of the year to explore alternatives.

To review FreshBooks accounting software and calculate a star rating, we evaluated it in the following key areas: 

• Accounting features
• Ease of use, including mobile app access
• Plans and pricing, including number of plans and additional costs
• Customer service hours and reputation
• Overall functionality

We also took our accounting expert's opinion under consideration when calculating our star rating. Star ratings are reevaluated frequently and subject to change.