FreshBooks vs Zoho Books 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 | Zoho Books | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $23/mo | $20/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 6 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | ||
| Pricing model | flat-rate | flat-rate |
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
FREE
- Create invoices, quotes, expenses & journals
- Receipt autoscans
- Sales receipts
- Manage vendors
- Mileage tracking
- Accept online payments
- Enable self-service customer portal
- Retention payments
- Automate payment reminders
- Bank reconciliation
- Setup recurring invoices
- W-9 management
- Track 1099 contractors
- Prepare and file 1099s
- P&L, Balance Sheet & 50+ Reports
STANDARD
- Progress invoicing
- Track sales tax and use tax
- E-File 1099-MISC & 1099-NEC
- Connect bank feeds
- Setup recurring expenses
- Enable transaction period locking
- Add custom fields
- Create custom reports
- Create journal templates
- API Access
PROFESSIONAL
- Track sales and purchase orders
- Record multi-currency transactions
- Bill timesheets
- Project profitability
- Manage retainers
- Track inventory
- Create price lists
- Setup sales and purchase approvals
- Customize business workflows
- Collaborate with users (chat, voice, video and screen sharing)
- Create custom user roles
PREMIUM
- Revenue recognition - Basic
- Fixed asset management
- Profit Margin
- Manage budgets
- Cashflow forecasting
- Enable self-service vendor portal
- Set up custom domain
- Create business-specific custom modules
- Add custom button
- Create custom field validation rules
- Embed contextual web pages/apps
- Manage custom functions
ELITE
- Revenue recognition - Advanced
- Dashboard customization
- Advanced Inventory Control
- Manage warehouses
- Composite items
- Track serial numbers
- Batch tracking
- Print shipping label
- Track shipments
- Connect online sales channels (Etsy, eBay, Amazon)
- Integrate Shopify stores (Up to 2)
- Track bin locations
ULTIMATE
- Advanced analytics
- 50+ Pre-built data visualization
- Add and track KPIs for your business
- Analyze along with other data sources (with Zoho Analytics add-on)
- Collaboratively create reports with colleagues
- Embed reports in web sites/applications
- Records/Rows (3 Million)
FreshBooks vs Zoho Books FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Zoho Books is the cheaper option, starting at $20/mo vs $23/mo for FreshBooks.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Zoho Books has a free plan. FreshBooks doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a flat-rate model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- 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. Zoho Books: Zoho Books is the aggressive underdog play against QuickBooks and Xero — a free tier that actually works, and paid plans that undercut competitors at nearly every level. They're going after cost-conscious SMBs and bootstrapped businesses who don't want to pay Intuit prices.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for FreshBooks and Zoho Books and let you know when something moves.