FreshBooks Free Plan: What You Actually Get Before Paying

FreshBooks has no free plan — only a 30-day free trial with no card required. Lite costs $23 a month after that. What the trial covers, and what to use instead.

By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-13T19:28:08+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-13T19:28:08+00:00

FreshBooks Free Plan: What You Actually Get Before Paying

FreshBooks has no permanent free plan. What it offers instead is a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. That is the whole free story. If you search for a free FreshBooks plan, this is the answer: you get 30 days to try the full product, then you pay or you leave. This guide explains what the trial includes, what each paid plan costs, and which free alternatives are worth a look.

The FreshBooks free plan does not exist

FreshBooks lists four plans: Lite, Plus, Premium, and Select. None of them is free. There is no free tier with limited features that lasts forever. Every plan starts with the same 30-day free trial. You do not need a credit card to start it. When the trial ends, you choose a paid plan or your account stops working.

This is different from tools such as Wave and Zoho Books, which do offer free tiers. FreshBooks is upfront about it on its pricing page. Its offer is a trial, not a free plan. Anyone who tells you otherwise is describing the trial, or an old promotion that no longer exists.

The trial does include phone and email support while you set it up. Payroll is not available during the trial, so you cannot run a test pay run before buying. That matters if payroll is part of your decision.

What the 30-day free trial includes

The trial gives you full access to the features of the plan you choose to try. You can send unlimited invoices and estimates. You can track time and expenses. You can connect your bank and reconcile transactions. You can test online payments and late-payment reminders.

Use the trial like a real month of business. Send at least one real invoice. Record a real expense. Connect your bank and reconcile a week of transactions. Run one time report and turn tracked hours into an invoice. A trial you only click through tells you nothing. A trial you actually work in tells you whether FreshBooks fits your workflow.

Note the trial clock. It runs for 30 days from the day you start it, not from the day you first send an invoice. Start it when you have real work to put through it. Starting it during a quiet week wastes a quarter of your test.

FreshBooks also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid subscriptions. That gives you a second safety net after the trial. You can buy, use it for a month, and still get a refund if it does not fit.

FreshBooks pricing: Lite, Plus, Premium, and Select

FreshBooks prices by billable clients, not by features alone. The regular monthly prices in US dollars are Lite at $23, Plus at $43, and Premium at $70. Select is custom-priced for high-volume businesses. Yearly billing costs $248.40 for Lite, $464.40 for Plus, and $756 for Premium, which is a 10 percent discount against monthly billing.

Lite covers 5 billable clients. It includes unlimited invoices, estimates, time tracking, expense tracking, and a Profit and Loss report. It does not include proposals, retainers, double-entry accounting reports, bank reconciliation, or accountant access. It suits a freelancer with a few steady clients.

Plus covers 50 billable clients. It adds proposals, retainers, e-signatures, double-entry accounting reports, bank reconciliation, accountant access, and receipt capture. It is the first plan that works as real accounting software rather than invoicing software. It suits a consultant or small agency with an outside accountant.

Premium covers unlimited billable clients. It adds project profitability reporting, accounts payable tracking, bill receipt capture, and custom email templates. It suits a project-based firm that tracks margins across many clients.

Every plan is built for one user. Each extra team member costs $11 a month. Advanced Payments costs $20 a month. FreshBooks Payroll costs $40 a month plus $6 per user. Those add-ons can double a small bill, so count them before you commit.

FreshBooks free trial vs paid plans at a glance

Prices are regular US list prices from FreshBooks. Promotions change often. FreshBooks frequently discounts the first months heavily, so the price you see at checkout may be lower than the list price for a short time.

The introductory discount trap

FreshBooks runs frequent introductory offers. At the time of writing, its pricing page advertised 80 percent off for four months. That makes Lite $4.60 a month, Plus $8.60, and Premium $14 for the first four months. Another version of the offer gave 90 percent off for three months. The exact discount changes by season and by channel.

The trap is simple: the discount ends, and the list price arrives. Lite jumps from $4.60 to $23. Plus jumps from $8.60 to $43. Budget for the list price from day one. If the tool only makes sense at the discount price, it does not make sense. Also note that buying through a discount offer can skip the free trial, though the 30-day money-back guarantee still applies. Read the offer terms before you click buy.

Payment processing is a separate cost. Standard credit and debit card payments cost 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction in the US. Commercial, corporate, and American Express cards cost 3.5 percent plus $0.30. Those fees apply on top of your plan price, on every payment you accept.

Free alternatives to FreshBooks

If you need a free plan that lasts, FreshBooks is the wrong tool. Wave offers free accounting and invoicing for small businesses, with payroll as a paid add-on. It suits a freelancer who wants free bookkeeping and can live without FreshBooks' project tools. Zoho Books has a free plan for small businesses with limited transactions, and its paid plans start low. It suits a business already using Zoho's other tools.

QuickBooks Online has a limited free plan in the US for solo owners, covering two invoices a month and one bank connection. It is very restricted, but it is free forever. Xero has no free plan, only a trial, like FreshBooks. Its entry plan is comparable in price to FreshBooks Plus.

The honest test is your client count. If you bill five or fewer clients and only need invoicing, FreshBooks Lite at $23 a month is fair. If you need a free tier, Wave is the practical pick. If you need double-entry reports and an accountant inside the file, FreshBooks Plus at $43 a month is the cheapest FreshBooks tier that does the job.

How to use the trial well

Start the trial on a Monday with real work queued. Connect your bank on day one, because bank feeds take time to settle. Import your client list before you send anything. Send your next real invoice from FreshBooks, not from your old tool. Record your expenses for the full month inside it. At the end of the trial, run a Profit and Loss report and a time report. If those two reports answer your questions, FreshBooks works for you. If you had to export data to a spreadsheet to understand your business, it does not.

Check the client cap during the trial. Lite allows five billable clients. A billable client is any client you have invoiced, even once. Five clients can arrive faster than you expect. If you already have six, Lite is out, and your real price is Plus at $43.

Bottom line

FreshBooks has no free plan, only a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. After the trial, Lite costs $23 a month for five billable clients, Plus costs $43 for 50, and Premium costs $70 for unlimited clients. The trial is generous and the product is strong at invoicing, but the client cap decides your real price. If you want a free plan that never expires, use Wave or Zoho Books instead. If you want FreshBooks, start the trial when you have real work to test it with, and budget for the list price, not the discount.