FreshBooks Review 2026: My Honest Take After 4 Years of Freelancing

The short version: FreshBooks is excellent for freelancers who need professional invoicing and hate doing books. It’s not the cheapest option and it won’t replace an accountant, but it’ll save you hours every month and make you look way more professional to clients. I’ve been using it since 2022 and I’m still on it — that says something.

How I Ended Up on FreshBooks

Let me paint a picture of where I was in early 2022. I had just gone full-time freelance as a web developer after three years of side-gigging. My “accounting system” was a Google Sheet with columns for client name, amount, date sent, and date paid. Sometimes I’d forget to update it for weeks. One time I completely forgot to invoice a client for $2,400 worth of work — just… forgot. For three months.

That was my wake-up call.

I tried Wave first because it was free (more on that later). Then QuickBooks Self-Employed for about six months. Eventually landed on FreshBooks, and it’s where I’ve stayed. Not because it’s perfect — it’s not — but because it fits how freelancers actually work better than anything else I’ve tried.

FreshBooks Pricing in 2026 — What You’ll Actually Pay

Let’s get this out of the way because pricing pages are always confusing:

My honest take on which plan you need: If you have fewer than 5 regular clients, Lite works fine. Most freelancers I know end up on Plus within a year because you eventually want proposals and better reports. I’m on Plus and have been since month 4.

Watch out for: They keep adding $11/month for each extra team member. If you bring on a subcontractor, that adds up. Also, the monthly-vs-annual pricing difference is significant — you save about 30% annually but you’re locked in.

What FreshBooks Actually Does Well

Invoicing (This Is Where It Shines)

I’m going to be blunt: FreshBooks has the best invoicing of any tool I’ve used, and I’ve tried seven of them.

Here’s what makes it different:

Professional templates that clients actually respect. My old Google Sheets invoices looked… fine. But there’s something about a properly formatted invoice with your logo, clear line items, and a big “Pay Now” button that makes clients take payment more seriously. My average payment time dropped from 18 days to 11 days just by switching to FreshBooks invoices. I can’t prove causation, but the correlation is hard to ignore.

Automatic payment reminders. This is the feature that saved my sanity. Before FreshBooks, I had to manually email clients when invoices were overdue. Which meant I had to remember to check, then write an awkward “hey, just following up on that invoice” email. Now FreshBooks sends a polite reminder at 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days. I don’t have to be the bad guy. The software does it for me.

Online payments built in. Clients can pay by credit card or ACH directly from the invoice. FreshBooks charges 2.9% + $0.30 for credit cards and 1% ($1 min) for ACH. That’s standard processing rates. The convenience of “click to pay” versus “mail me a check” means clients pay faster. Period.

Recurring invoices. I have three retainer clients. FreshBooks automatically sends their invoices on the 1st of every month. I don’t think about it. They get the invoice, they pay it, the money shows up. Automation at its simplest and most effective.

Expense Tracking

FreshBooks connects to your bank account and pulls in transactions. You categorize them, attach receipt photos, and mark them as business or personal. It’s not revolutionary — every accounting app does this now — but FreshBooks makes it genuinely easy.

The mobile app is key here. I snap photos of receipts at lunch meetings, in Ubers, at the office supply store. The OCR reads the receipt and fills in the amount automatically about 80% of the time. The other 20% I manually fix, which takes about 3 seconds.

One thing that annoys me: The auto-categorization AI still puts my Spotify subscription under “Entertainment” instead of “Office Supplies & Software.” I’ve manually corrected it maybe 40 times and it still does it. Minor gripe, but after four years, come on.

Time Tracking

If you bill hourly, FreshBooks has a built-in timer. Start it when you begin working, stop it when you’re done, and it logs hours against the project. At the end of the week (or month), you convert tracked time directly into an invoice.

I don’t bill hourly anymore — I switched to project-based pricing in 2023 — but when I did, this feature was clutch. No more guessing “did I work 12 hours or 14 hours on that project?” The timer doesn’t lie.

Pro tip: If you forget to start the timer (I did this constantly), you can manually add time entries. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

Reports

FreshBooks generates profit & loss statements, expense reports, tax summaries, and accounts aging reports. For most freelancers, this covers everything you need. When tax season rolls around, I export the annual P&L and hand it to my accountant. She’s happy, I’m happy, everyone’s happy.

Where reports fall short: If you need detailed project profitability analysis across multiple projects, or cash flow forecasting, FreshBooks is limited. QuickBooks handles complex reporting better. But honestly, most freelancers making under $200K/year don’t need those features. I know I didn’t.

What FreshBooks Gets Wrong

I promised honesty, so here’s what bugs me:

The Lite Plan Is Too Limited

Five clients sounds reasonable until you realize FreshBooks counts every client you’ve ever invoiced toward that limit — even one-off projects from years ago. So if you did five different projects in your first year with five different clients, you’re already capped. You can archive old clients to free up slots, but it’s annoying to manage.

The Mobile App Is Laggy

I love the receipt scanning. I hate waiting 4-5 seconds for the app to load every time I open it. On my Pixel 7, the app feels sluggish compared to Wave’s app or even QuickBooks. It’s not broken, it’s just… slow. And when you’re standing in line trying to quickly snap a receipt, those seconds matter.

No Built-In Quarterly Tax Calculator

This is my biggest complaint. FreshBooks knows exactly how much I’ve earned and how much I’ve spent. It has all the data needed to estimate my quarterly tax payment. But there’s no feature that says “hey, you probably owe about $4,200 this quarter.” I have to export the data and calculate it myself or use a separate tool.

For a platform that markets itself to freelancers, this is a bizarre omission. QuickBooks Self-Employed does this. FreshBooks should too.

Price Increases

When I signed up in 2022, the Plus plan was $25/month (paid annually). It’s now $33/month ($24 annual). That’s a 32% increase in four years. Not catastrophic, but the trend is concerning. Every January I brace myself for the “we’re updating our pricing” email.

FreshBooks vs. The Competition

Here’s how FreshBooks stacks up against the tools I’ve actually used:

FreshBooks vs. Wave

Wave is free. That’s its killer feature. If you’re just starting freelancing and money is tight, Wave handles basic invoicing and accounting perfectly well. I used Wave for 8 months and it served me fine.

I switched to FreshBooks because: better invoice templates, automatic reminders, built-in time tracking, and the proposal feature. Wave has added some of these since, but FreshBooks’ implementation is more polished.

Choose Wave if: You have fewer than 3 clients, you’re just starting out, and you’d rather spend $0 than $19/month.

Choose FreshBooks if: You’re established, you send 5+ invoices monthly, and you value time savings over cost savings.

FreshBooks vs. QuickBooks Self-Employed

QuickBooks Self-Employed ($15/month) has one killer feature FreshBooks lacks: automatic quarterly tax estimates. It separates business and personal expenses, calculates your estimated tax liability, and tells you what to pay. For a new freelancer who’s terrified of screwing up taxes, that’s incredibly valuable.

But QuickBooks’ invoicing is basic compared to FreshBooks. The interface feels like it was designed by accountants (because it was). FreshBooks feels like it was designed by someone who understands freelancers.

Choose QuickBooks if: Tax anxiety keeps you up at night and you want hand-holding through quarterly estimates.

Choose FreshBooks if: You want the best invoicing experience and you’re comfortable calculating taxes yourself (or with an accountant).

FreshBooks vs. Bonsai

Bonsai ($21/month for Starter) tries to be everything: invoicing, contracts, proposals, time tracking, tax estimates, and CRM. It’s the Swiss Army knife approach. For freelancers who want one tool for everything, Bonsai is compelling.

FreshBooks is better at the things it does — invoicing and bookkeeping. Bonsai is better at being an all-in-one platform. I’ve used both and prefer the focused approach, but I know plenty of freelancers who love Bonsai’s everything-in-one-place philosophy.

Who FreshBooks Is Perfect For

• Freelancers billing 5-50 clients per year. The Plus plan’s sweet spot.
• Service-based freelancers (designers, developers, writers, consultants). If you sell physical products, look elsewhere.
• People who hate bookkeeping. FreshBooks makes it as painless as possible.
• Freelancers who want to look professional. The invoices, proposals, and client portal are polished.

Who Should Skip FreshBooks

• Brand new freelancers on a tight budget. Start with Wave (free) and upgrade when you can afford it.
• Freelancers with complex finances. Multiple businesses, inventory, payroll — you need QuickBooks or Xero.
• People who need detailed tax help. FreshBooks won’t hold your hand through quarterly estimates.

My Setup: How I Actually Use FreshBooks

For context, here’s my workflow:

1. New client? Create them in FreshBooks, send a proposal through the platform.
2. Project starts. I set up the project with milestones and payment schedule.
3. Milestone hit. I create an invoice from the project, send it, and FreshBooks handles reminders.
4. Daily. I open the mobile app once to scan any receipts from the day.
5. Weekly. 10-minute check: are all invoices paid? Any overdue? Categorize new bank transactions.
6. Quarterly. Export P&L for tax estimate calculations. Pay estimated taxes.
7. Annually. Export everything for my accountant. Takes about 20 minutes.

Total time spent on bookkeeping: maybe 2 hours per month. Before FreshBooks, I was spending 6-8 hours on the same tasks and still making mistakes.

The Bottom Line

FreshBooks costs $19-60/month depending on your plan. For that money, you get professional invoicing, solid expense tracking, decent reporting, and a tool that actually understands how freelancers work.

Is it the cheapest option? No — Wave is free. Is it the most powerful? No — QuickBooks has more features. But FreshBooks hits the sweet spot of “good enough at everything and best-in-class at invoicing” that most freelancers need.

I’ve been on it for four years. I complain about the price increases and the missing tax calculator. But every January when I consider switching, I open Wave and QuickBooks, compare them to FreshBooks, and renew my subscription.

That’s the most honest endorsement I can give.

Try FreshBooks free for 30 days — that’s enough time to set up your first client, send a few invoices, and see if the workflow clicks for you. If it doesn’t, Wave is always there as a solid free backup.