FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| FreshBooks | QuickBooks | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $23/mo | $38/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 4 |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | ||
| Pricing model | flat-rate | per-seat |
Lite
- Send invoices to 5 clients
- Track expenses in real time
- Create and send estimates
- Get paid with credit and debit cards, ACH bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later
- Generate tax-time reports
Plus
Popular- Send invoices to 50 clients
- Track expenses in real time
- Create estimates, proposals, and client retainers
- Get paid with credit and debit cards, ACH bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later
- Generate tax-time reports
- Run financial and accounting reports
- Expense receipt scanning
- Give your accountant access
Premium
- Send invoices to unlimited clients
- Track expenses in real time
- Create estimates, proposals, and client retainers
- Get paid with credit and debit cards, ACH bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later
- Generate tax-time reports
- Run financial and accounting reports
- Bill receipt scanning with the ability to add line items
- Give your accountant access
- Check project profitability
- Customize your email templates
Select
- Send invoices to unlimited clients
- Track expenses in real time
- Create estimates, proposals, and client retainers
- Access lower credit card transaction fees and capped bank transfer (ACH) fees
- Generate tax-time reports
- Run financial and accounting reports
- Bill receipt scanning with automatic capture of multi-line items
- Give your accountant access
- Check project profitability
- Customize email templates and remove FreshBooks branding
- Import your data via Easy Switch
- Gain access to dedicated phone support
- Add 2 Team Member accounts for no extra charge
Simple Start
- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Categorizes expenses
- Maximizes tax deductions
- Run general business reports
- Automated bookkeeping
- Invoice and get paid
- Automate bill pay with free ACH
Essentials
- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Cleans up your books
- Gets you paid faster
- Run enhanced reports
- Add employee time to invoices
- Get customer referrals, feedback, and work requests
- Collect leads from a custom form on your website
- Link your calendar and let customers schedule meetings with you directly
Plus
Popular- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Reconciles your books
- Surfaces profit & loss insights
- Finds and fixes anomalies
- Catches discrepancies before filing
- Sources leads and helps with follow-up
- Run comprehensive reports
- Plan budgets
- Track project profitability
- Track and manage inventory
- Track classes and locations (40)
Advanced
- Expert-guided setup and onboarding
- AI Chat for instant insights
- Auto-creates projects and allocates costs
- Gives tailored financial insights
- Customize dashboards with personalized KPIs and metrics to measure what matters most
- Track performance with unlimited classes, locations, and custom KPIs
- Build custom management-ready reports
- Automate workflows
- Sync data with Excel
- Customize user permissions and access
- Forecast cash flow and profit
- Batch invoices and expenses
- Backup and restore your data
- Get priority support and training
- Track classes and locations (unlimited)
FreshBooks vs QuickBooks FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- FreshBooks starts lower at $23/mo, compared to $38/mo for QuickBooks.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Neither has a free plan. But FreshBooks and QuickBooks offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. FreshBooks uses flat-rate pricing, while QuickBooks goes with per-seat. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. FreshBooks: FreshBooks sits in the mid-market of small business accounting, priced above Wave (free) but below QuickBooks's more complex tiers — they're going after freelancers and service-based small businesses who find QuickBooks overkill. The aggressive 90% off for 6 months promo suggests they're actively competing on acquisition cost to pull users away from alternatives. QuickBooks: QuickBooks is the incumbent premium play in SMB accounting — they're not trying to be cheap, they're trading on brand trust and accountant familiarity. At $115-275/mo at full price, they're significantly more expensive than alternatives like Wave (free) or Zoho Books, and they know it.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for FreshBooks and QuickBooks and let you know when something moves.