Head to head
FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Online
FreshBooks started as invoicing for service businesses and grew into accounting. QuickBooks Online started as accounting and does invoicing too. For a consultant, an agency or a trade, the choice usually comes down to how many clients you bill, how many people need access, and whether you need inventory or bills.
Who each one is for
Choose FreshBooks if
You sell your time: you bill clients, track hours, send proposals and take retainers, and you mostly work alone or with a small team.
Choose QuickBooks Online if
You buy and sell stock, pay suppliers on terms, need several users with set permissions, or want payroll from the same vendor.
FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online, side by side
Checked against both vendors' own pricing and product pages on October 22, 2026. Prices exclude tax and promotions. Plans change often: confirm the details on each vendor's site before you decide.
- Plans and price (CAD a month)
- FreshBooks: Lite $26, Plus $42, Premium $72; Select on request
- QuickBooks Online: Lite $20, EasyStart $30, Plus $110, Advanced $220
- Billable clients
- FreshBooks: 5 on Lite, 50 on Plus, unlimited on Premium and Select
- QuickBooks Online: No client limit
- Users
- FreshBooks: Team members $13 a month each; 2 included on Select
- QuickBooks Online: 1 on Lite and EasyStart, up to 5 on Plus, up to 25 on Advanced
- Invoicing
- FreshBooks: Recurring invoices on all plans; proposals and retainers from Plus
- QuickBooks Online: Included on every plan
- Time tracking and projects
- FreshBooks: Unlimited time tracking and project billing on all plans; project profitability from Premium
- QuickBooks Online: Projects on Plus and Advanced
- Receipt capture
- FreshBooks: Automatic expense receipt capture from Plus; bill receipts from Premium
- QuickBooks Online: Receipt capture from EasyStart
- Bills
- FreshBooks: Bill receipts from Premium
- QuickBooks Online: From Plus
- Double-entry reports and bank reconciliation
- FreshBooks: From Plus
- QuickBooks Online: Included
- Inventory
- FreshBooks: Not part of the plans listed
- QuickBooks Online: Included on Plus and Advanced
- Mileage
- FreshBooks: On every plan
- QuickBooks Online: On every plan
- Payroll
- FreshBooks: PaymentEvolution Payroll, through a FreshBooks consultant
- QuickBooks Online: QuickBooks Payroll add-on, from $30 a month plus $5 per employee
The differences that decide it
Clients versus users
FreshBooks limits how many clients you can bill on Lite and Plus and charges $13 a month for each extra team member. QuickBooks has no client limit and caps users by plan instead. A solo consultant with a handful of clients pays less on FreshBooks; a business with many customers and a small team usually doesn't.
Built around billable work
Time tracking, project billing, proposals and retainers are what FreshBooks does best, and time tracking is unlimited on every plan. QuickBooks has projects from Plus but isn't built around the billable hour.
Stock and suppliers
QuickBooks Plus includes inventory and bills. FreshBooks doesn't list inventory and captures bill receipts only from Premium. A business that buys and resells goods tends to need QuickBooks.
Accounting depth on the entry plan
FreshBooks Lite has no bank reconciliation, double-entry reports or accountant access; they start at Plus. QuickBooks is double-entry accounting with bank reconciliation from its entry plans. If your accountant will work in the file, compare FreshBooks Plus, not Lite.
How to choose
Count clients, people and bills
Three numbers decide most of this. How many clients do you bill in a year? FreshBooks Plus covers 50. How many people need to log in? Each extra one is $13 a month on FreshBooks, and QuickBooks Plus covers five. Do you pay supplier bills? QuickBooks starts bills at Plus, FreshBooks at Premium.
For a solo consultant with under 50 clients, FreshBooks Plus at $42 a month is hard to beat. For a five-person firm paying suppliers, QuickBooks Plus at $110 often costs less than FreshBooks Premium plus four team members.
Introductory offers
FreshBooks advertised 80% off for four months when we checked, and QuickBooks 90% off for six months. Both return to the regular price afterwards. Build your budget on that.
Receipts and expenses
FreshBooks captures expense receipts automatically from Plus and bill receipts from Premium, with multi-line items on Select. QuickBooks includes receipt capture from EasyStart. Both read a photo of the receipt; neither gets the itemized receipt from the store.
Switching later
Moving from FreshBooks to QuickBooks is a common path once a business takes on stock or staff. Switch at year-end with your accountant, bring clients and open invoices across, and keep the old records for the CRA's retention period.
Projects and profitability
FreshBooks tracks time without limits on every plan and bills it against project budgets. Premium and Select add project profitability, which shows what each project earned after the time and expenses behind it.
QuickBooks has projects from Plus, along with budgeting and class tracking, up to 40 classes on Plus and unlimited on Advanced. A firm that reports by department or location as well as by project usually finds QuickBooks Plus fits better.
Getting paid
FreshBooks sells Advanced Payments as a $25 a month add-on, included on Select, which also lists lower card fees and phone support. QuickBooks takes payments through QuickBooks Payments. Compare the fees on your own invoice volume.
Where Smartbills fits
Smartbills isn't accounting software. It's where the receipts come from: itemized receipts sent through Smartbills, receipts found in your email, bills fetched from supplier portals and photos read down to each tax line. Expenses you bill back to a client can be rebilled with the supplier's receipt attached, and everything posts to QuickBooks Online with GST, HST and QST split out. We've written our own comparison against each.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Where these facts come from
Get started
Compare on your own data, not ours.
Connect a card feed and your ledger, run it for a month and count the transactions that ended up with an itemized document attached. That number is the comparison that matters.