FreshBooks vs. Xero

Xero

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
FreshBooks	Score8.6 out of 10	Small Businesses (1-50 employees)	FreshBooks is an accounting service for small businesses. The solution enables users to send and manage invoices, track billable time and collect online payments. The vendor’s value proposition this that their solution provides a straightforward service that simplifies the billing process.	$21 per month
Xero	Score7.8 out of 10	N/A	Xero is an online accounting software product for small businesses and personal finance. Its features beyond general ledger and double-bookkeeping include quotable invoicing, bank reconciliation, purchase order and expense management, and tax management. Third party apps can extend its features further.	$13 per month

Pricing

FreshBooks

Xero

Lite: $21
per month
Plus: $38
per month
Premium: $65
per month
Select: Custom Pricing

Early: $13
per month
Growing: $37
per month
Established: $70
per month

Pricing Offerings
FreshBooks	Xero
Free Trial
Yes	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

No setup fee

10% discount for annual pricing.

Prices in table are in USD and just apply to the US - other markets & prices are listed below: Canada - Starter $18 CAD/month, Standard $45 CAD/month, Premium 5 $58 CAD/month UK - Starter £14/month, Standard £28/month, Premium £36/month AU - Starter $29 AUD/month, Standard $59 AUD/month, Premium 5 $76 AUD/month NZ - Starter $31 NZD/month, Standard $66 NZD/month, Premium $84 NZD/month

Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	FreshBooks	Xero
Considered Both Products	FreshBooks Daniel Jaworski Certified Public Accountant in Finance and Accounting at Deeagle Tax and Accounts Limited (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks FreshBooks does very well in comparison, especially since it is free software for Barclays bank users. Sage software is much worse than FreshBooks. However, Xero and QuickBooks, the market leaders, are still ahead with usability, additional features, reporting, and connection … Incentivized Helpful? Christine Ball Owner at Galaxy Girl Coffee (Food & Beverages, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks FreshBooks interface is better than QuickBooks. Xero's interface is more basic than both, but seems to work fine. Incentivized Helpful? Ryan Freeman President in Corporate at Strider Inc. (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks FreshBooks is an invoicing software that wants to do accounting. Xero is an accounting software that wants to do billing. Both are pretty solid at their core functionality, and weak on the other. However, it's a shorter step for Xero to add interest and recurring CC billing, so … Incentivized Helpful? Amara Omoregie President in Marketing at amaraREPS (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks I really liked Wave Apps for a bit. It had some limitations, but I really like how easy it was to use and intuitive. Great pricing too. So I would recommend that over Freshbooks at this point for someone who is just getting started. Quickbooks is great for accounting. Super … Incentivized Helpful? Asia Matos CEO & Founder in Marketing at DemandMaven (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks Don't get me wrong — I like Xero for accounting purposes. But Xero's invoicing isn't great. There's too many features I depend on that FreshBooks has that Xero just does not. I need to be able to take deposits, send automatic reminders, and create an extremely user-friendly … Incentivized Helpful? Joshua Burcham Designer & Owner in Marketing at Burcham Creative (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks I actually switched from a FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online combination to using Harvest and Xero at the request of my bookkeeper. It seems like FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online are both market leaders in their space. Harvest is more focused on time tracking than being an … Incentivized Helpful? Jeff Looby, CPA Associate at Credit Suisse (Banking, 10,001+ employees) Chose FreshBooks QuickBooks Online and Xero are the most obvious comps to FreshBooks. FreshBooks pricing is based on the number of billable clients while QuickBooks Online will charge additional for additional features regardless of number of billable clients. Xero has additional functionality … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose FreshBooks Freshbooks is an extra cost when used with Xero (or even QuickBooks) and I wouldn't suggest it. Freshbooks needs to find a pivot as they are known as invoicing software, but every other platform (that does more) has that feature built in. Time tracking was a good move, now they … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose FreshBooks We do not consider other options since our client wants the implementation of this platform in order to use it in the two countries where it has operations. At the moment, full integration was not possible and we still share the information with a Mexican system to complete … Incentivized Helpful? Stan Zaslavsky ★ 3D Visuals for Projects Owner in Marketing at Eagle Vision Property (Real Estate, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks FreshBooks' pricing for its functionality is very good for a smallish business as compared to some of the more established competitors. Helpful? Shamese Shular, CB, QBPA Top Bookie, Certified Bookkeeper, QuickBooks ProAdvisor in Finance and Accounting at SHU Books (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose FreshBooks Invoicera was actually a great program as well, but I was just used to FreshBooks, and couldn't shake them! Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose FreshBooks Harvest was not as flexible interactively. That is, you could not sort columns online. Made it hard to manage invoices. Incentivized Helpful?	Xero Jennifer Hess Designer, Developer & CEO in Corporate at SOFO STUDIOS, LLC (Graphic Design, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Used FreshBooks when the business was first starting out because they had a free plan. Quickly needed more features, and switched to QBO. QBO worked well for many years, but they continually increased their fees and the interface got more and more difficult to use. Also, it had … Incentivized Helpful? Andre Yeu Owner / Head Trainer at When Hounds Fly (Consumer Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero We switched off of FreshBooks to Xero. It is somewhat apples to oranges, in that FreshBooks is not a general ledger nor does it claim to be (at least at the time 2 years ago). Our business grew though and having a general ledger with reconcillation features like Xero was … Incentivized Helpful? Sidney Dowell Principal and Founder in Finance and Accounting at sidneydowell.com (Financial Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero is the superior product to Quickbooks, Quicken, and FreshBooks. Hands down. Incentivized Helpful? Travis Campbell, CPA, CA Treasurer in Finance and Accounting at Avanti Computer Systems (Non-Profit Organization Management, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero appeared to have a superior experience to FreshBooks. I understand FreshBooks has its fans, but it seemed too simple for our needs. Helpful? Verified User Chose Xero Xero is really basic and our team can easily adapt with it rather than using other some other non-user friendly apps. We could focus on the work itself rather than having problems with learning its complexity. Xero is very user-friendly and also gives tutorial which is great! … Incentivized Helpful? Angie Martin Growth Expert in Marketing at The Growth Manager (Management Consulting, 11-50 employees) Chose Xero Xero stands out as the industry leader in terms of ease of use, functionality, integration possibilities, usability, and reporting functionality. Having extensive experience with various accounting software as a business owner and mentor, Xero consistently proves to be my top … Incentivized Helpful? Daniel Jaworski Certified Public Accountant in Finance and Accounting at Deeagle Tax and Accounts Limited (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero ranks highly among the competitors, however multi-level reporting is better done in QuickBooks. More price sensitive, micro-businesses can find decent cheaper or free alternatives. Those wanting integration with other apps like cashflow management, inventory, reporting … Incentivized Helpful? Carolyn Swora Workplace Culture Architect & Owner at Carolyn Swora (Management Consulting, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero has enterprise capabilities but can be used for small businesses. Coming from a large enterprise, I had a certain way of looking at the business that I was used to. Xero met that whereas the other products didn't - they appealed directly to small businesses with a … Incentivized Helpful? Mohsin Ejaz Senior Accountant in Finance and Accounting at Tax Shop Accountants (Accounting, 11-50 employees) Chose Xero Ignoring pricing, Xero is among the best options available. It has the most complete feature set along with Quickbooks. It is more user-friendly compared to most of its competitors. It has well-designed mobile apps that can actually do something in contrast with most … Incentivized Helpful? Vuyile Mthethwa Managing Director in Corporate at Happy Hope Dweller (Internet, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Seamless integration with all accounts, much more user-friendly, I chose Xero because of these 2 factors. Incentivized Helpful? Steven Duran Platform Director - Saint Joseph Communications in Sales at 5 Stones (Media Production, 51-200 employees) Chose Xero We really liked Xero because it was incredibly affordable when compared to the other solutions that we evaluated. There are some things that need to be improved but overall it's a really enjoyable online accounting solution. I'm happy with my experience of Xero and I know there … Incentivized Helpful? Matt Heerema Director at Mere Agency (Internet, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero hits our "maximum point" on the curves of simplicity, usability, and feature set. In my opinion it is by far the best in class, and the only reason it hasn't taken over Quickbooks entirely is that industry-standard products, no matter how inferior, are difficult to … Incentivized Helpful? John Cotter Accountancy Practice Principal in Finance and Accounting at Yes Accounting Limited (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Four years ago, Xero was the market leader. I had written an article on cloud accounting and compared all of the offerings. I had concerns as Xero was from New Zealand and preferred to use a UK company. However, Xero had more flexibility via its APIs and was, at that time, … Incentivized Helpful? Dan Schmidt, CPA Owner in Finance and Accounting at The Emerging Business CFO (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero QBO - UI/UX and integrations are far superior. The only area where QBO is currently ahead is job costing Freshbooks - we recommend for some pre-revenue and solopreneur clients only. Xero provides a full-featured solution Helpful? Nicholas Bird, CPA, CIA Partner in Corporate at Lucid Books LLC (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero I have written several reviews comparing Quickbooks/Freshbooks/Xero. In many categories they offer very similar features. What sets them apart and will continue to set them apart in the long run is their approach to the market. Quickbooks has a closed ecosystem approach, while … Incentivized Helpful? Shelly Lingor Director of Business Accounting Solutions in Professional Services at The LBA Group (Accounting, 51-200 employees) Chose Xero Xero is the best. Xero thinks about the accountants and supports that role very well. Xero "makes sense" to average business owners and also is very powerful tool for the accountants. They have built the product right and keep improving it with every release they do. We picked … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Xero Previously exclusively a desktop QuickBooks "shop". Hate the version control issues and need to collect and transfer data files to get source documents. Auto bank downloads clunky and not as intuitive as Xero bank recon features. Few clients use FreshBooks - nice customer … Incentivized Helpful? Kris Bowling Owner in Finance and Accounting at K Bowling Accounting (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero was chosen by the client simply because it integrates with FreshBooks. I prefer QuickBooks for its ease of use, but it doesn't integrate with FreshBooks. The bank reconciliation feature of Xero is very similar to QuickBooks which is a benefit. The reporting feature in … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Xero Quicken is really old, that's what I used to use and I like it but there is no bank feed support. QuickBooks is incredibly bloated. Freshbooks is just for invoicing (we still use it for that). Incentivized Helpful? Amhed Herrera CTO (Chief Technical Officer) in Information Technology at Softworks SRL (Computer Software, 11-50 employees) Chose Xero Freshbooks Quickbooks Online Helpful? Derek Draper Partner Assistant in Customer Service at Covington+ Associates, CPAs (Accounting, 11-50 employees) Chose Xero FreshBooks, CCH / TR suite Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

Features

FreshBooks

Xero

Comparison of Customization features of FreshBooks and Xero
Feature	FreshBooks 9.1 35 Ratings	Xero 8.4 151 Ratings
API for custom integration	9.330 Ratings	7.979 Ratings
Plug-ins	9.026 Ratings	9.0138 Ratings

Comparison of Security features of FreshBooks and Xero
Feature	FreshBooks 10.0 41 Ratings	Xero 7.1 189 Ratings
Single sign-on capability	10.01 Ratings	5.572 Ratings
Role-based user permissions	10.041 Ratings	8.7187 Ratings

Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of FreshBooks and Xero
Feature	FreshBooks 7.5 57 Ratings	Xero 8.7 213 Ratings
Dashboards	9.057 Ratings	8.6209 Ratings
Standard reports	8.855 Ratings	9.0211 Ratings
Custom reports	4.82 Ratings	8.4187 Ratings

Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of FreshBooks and Xero
Feature	FreshBooks 7.5 56 Ratings	Xero 7.3 223 Ratings
Accounts payable	8.041 Ratings	8.8203 Ratings
Accounts receivable	9.455 Ratings	8.8209 Ratings
Cash management	7.03 Ratings	8.4191 Ratings
Bank reconciliation	7.02 Ratings	8.7216 Ratings
Expense management	6.651 Ratings	8.2197 Ratings
Time tracking	7.642 Ratings	7.973 Ratings
Multi-currency support	7.01 Ratings	7.6130 Ratings
Regulations compliance	6.021 Ratings	8.7112 Ratings
Self-service portal	9.13 Ratings	8.4130 Ratings
Fixed asset management	00 Ratings	8.8137 Ratings
Multi-division support	00 Ratings	8.2112 Ratings
Electronic tax filing	00 Ratings	9.8116 Ratings
Global Financial Support	00 Ratings	7.167 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers	00 Ratings	9.065 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting	00 Ratings	4.440 Ratings
Localizations	00 Ratings	8.039 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations	00 Ratings	9.890 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting	00 Ratings	2.433 Ratings
Configurable Accounting	00 Ratings	2.859 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework	00 Ratings	3.333 Ratings
Standardized Processes	00 Ratings	3.659 Ratings

Comparison of Order Management features of FreshBooks and Xero
Feature	FreshBooks 9.5 49 Ratings	Xero 6.2 89 Ratings
Pricing	8.839 Ratings	6.262 Ratings
Order entry	9.337 Ratings	6.256 Ratings
Credit card processing	9.741 Ratings	6.358 Ratings
Cost of goods sold	10.01 Ratings	6.366 Ratings
Order Orchestration	00 Ratings	6.121 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility	00 Ratings	6.124 Ratings
Order exception Resolution	00 Ratings	6.117 Ratings

Comparison of Payroll Management features of FreshBooks and Xero
Feature	FreshBooks - Ratings	Xero 7.5 73 Ratings
Pay calculation	00 Ratings	8.065 Ratings
Benefit plan administration	00 Ratings	8.023 Ratings
Direct deposit files	00 Ratings	7.249 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management	00 Ratings	7.141 Ratings
Reimbursement management	00 Ratings	7.054 Ratings

Comparison of Inventory Management features of FreshBooks and Xero
Feature	FreshBooks - Ratings	Xero 6.7 101 Ratings
Inventory tracking	00 Ratings	9.097 Ratings
Automatic reordering	00 Ratings	6.224 Ratings
Location management	00 Ratings	6.229 Ratings
Manufacturing module	00 Ratings	6.016 Ratings

User Ratings
	FreshBooks	Xero
Likelihood to Recommend	9.4 (75 ratings)	7.8 (238 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	7.6 (18 ratings)	7.1 (35 ratings)
Usability	9.6 (20 ratings)	8.3 (163 ratings)
Availability	10.0 (2 ratings)	9.0 (10 ratings)
Performance	8.0 (1 ratings)	10.0 (8 ratings)
Support Rating	6.0 (11 ratings)	9.2 (36 ratings)
In-Person Training	- (0 ratings)	9.1 (1 ratings)
Online Training	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (5 ratings)
Implementation Rating	10.0 (1 ratings)	7.3 (10 ratings)
Configurability	- (0 ratings)	9.0 (1 ratings)
CPA Rating	7.0 (1 ratings)	9.1 (10 ratings)
Ease of integration	- (0 ratings)	7.1 (122 ratings)
Product Scalability	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (6 ratings)
Vendor post-sale	- (0 ratings)	9.0 (2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (2 ratings)

FreshBooks vs. Xero

FreshBooks

Xero

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