FreshBooks

What it is

FreshBooks is invoicing software organized around client work. You add a client, log time and expenses against them, and send an invoice they can pay online. Around that core sit recurring invoices, automatic late payment reminders and expense tracking, so the billing side of a service business runs without a spreadsheet and a calendar note.

The organizing unit is the billable client, not the invoice. That shows up everywhere in the product, and it is also how the plans are priced: what you pay depends on how many clients you actively bill, not on how many invoices you send them.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

It fits freelancers, consultants and small service teams who sell time and want the path from worked hours to a paid invoice to be one product instead of three. If you already track time somewhere and retype it into invoices every month, that retyping is the thing FreshBooks removes.

It is a weaker fit in two situations. If you have a lot of small clients, the client ladder gets expensive quickly, because moving from five to six billable clients means moving up a plan. And if your reason for looking is that invoicing currently costs you nothing, note that FreshBooks has no free tier at all: Wave and Zoho Invoice both do the core job for free, and are the honest first stop if budget is the constraint.

Pricing

FreshBooks is paid, with no free plan. Lite is $23 per month and covers 5 billable clients, Plus is $43 per month for 50 clients, Premium is $70 per month for unlimited clients, and Select is custom priced. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee rather than a free tier.

Read that ladder before you pick. The jump from Lite to Plus is driven by client count, not by features you asked for, so a business with seven small clients pays the Plus price even if it invoices less than a business with three large ones.

Set it up

Official guide: How do I create an invoice?

1. Create a FreshBooks account on the Lite plan ($23/mo, up to 5 billable clients, which are clients you invoice). There is no free plan, but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Sign up with your email address and a password, verify your account through the email FreshBooks sends, and answer the few questions on your business. You now land on your Dashboard.
2. On the Dashboard, click "Create New", then "Invoice". Click "Add a Client" and enter the client's name and the email address that should receive your invoices. Your client now shows on the invoice.
3. Set the "Date of Issue" and the "Due Date", the last day the client should pay. Both dates now show on your invoice.
4. Click "Add a Line" and add the work you did, with a description and a price. If you charge sales tax, click "Add Taxes" under the line's rate. You now see the subtotal and the total for your invoice.
5. Click "Send...", check the recipients, and personalize the message. This emails your real client, so check the amounts first. Then click "Send Invoice". Your first invoice is now on its way to your client.
6. Set automatic reminders for this client. In "Client Settings", click "Send Reminders" and tick "Automatically send payment reminders for this client's invoices". Under "Reminder #1" enter a number of days, choose before or after the due date, and click "Done". FreshBooks now emails that reminder to your client on its own.
7. For work you bill every month, click "Create New...", then "Recurring Template". Choose the client, add the work with "Add a Line", set "How Often?" to Monthly, pick a "Next Issue Date", and choose automatic sending under "Delivery Options". Click "Save...", pick the recipients in "To:", and click "Save". FreshBooks now emails this invoice to your client on every issue date.

When this works, your first invoice is with your client, and a payment reminder and a monthly invoice go out by themselves on your schedule.

Online payments, so your client can pay from the invoice: FreshBooks Payments is only available for businesses in the US and Canada, and its transaction fees are billed separately. Outside those two countries, use "Stripe Standard" instead. To set it up, go to "Settings" > "Online Payments" and click "Get Started with Online Payments". FreshBooks asks for the owner's address, date of birth and last 4 digits of a Social Security or Social Insurance Number, your bank details, and a code sent by text message. It then reviews your application and emails you the result. Once it is active, tick "Accept Online Payments" under Settings on an invoice, and your client can pay from it.

Strengths and limitations

The strength is the connected path from time and expenses to an invoice to a payment, inside one tool. For people who bill hours, that removes the most common source of billing mistakes, which is work that never made it onto an invoice. The automatic reminders are the second quiet win, because most late payments are not refusals, they are forgetting.

The limitations are real. Pricing by billable client punishes a long tail of small clients, which is exactly the shape many freelance businesses have. There is no free tier to test on live clients, only a money-back window. And if you want to compare it against a free option first, see FreshBooks vs Wave.