Quickbooks and FreshBooks are undoubtedly two of the most popular online accounting software. Deciding between them can be tricky if you haven’t used both but fortunately, we have. We’re going to do a deep dive into QuickBooks and FreshBooks, explaining why you may want to use one over the other and ultimately crowning a winner.
Who is the Target Market of QuickBooks and FreshBooks?
While QuickBooks and FreshBooks may seem like two similar accounting software choices, they actually don’t go after the exact same business owner. FreshBooks is as simple and easy as it gets. Essentially they are looking for new entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs with little to some accounting knowledge. These users may have 1-10 employees and a low to moderately complex business.
QuickBooks compete with FreshBooks by offering a few different levels for their accounting software but at the end of the day, their platform is for a more developed and robust business. While they regularly have new entrepreneurs join and use their software for their bookkeeping, many established businesses with a lot of employees and millions in revenue each year, use QuickBooks.
Why Use An Online Accounting Software?
Long gone are the days with desktop accounting software. Everything is moving to the cloud and the big companies know that. From multiple team members being able to log on remotely to quick snapshots of your books, online accounting software is here to stay.
Imagine using desktop software where each employee needs a company on their computers. To transfer files, you used to have to send the QuickBooks files to other computers. Believe us, no one wants to do that!
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A Look at the Features of Each Software
QuickBooks is best known for its add-ons. If you need to account for inventory then there is an add-on app that can streamline it for your business. Want to plug and play with TurboTax around tax time? QuickBooks can do that as well. While QuickBooks covers all of the basics of a good accounting software, they excel when it comes to flexibility and ability to customize.
While the out of the box version so to say is great for 85% of small businesses, it’s having that ability to tailor the accounting platform to your business’s needs that makes it such an attractive platform.
QuickBooks Features 8.1/10
FreshBooks Features Compared
At a basic level, there’s nothing on QuickBooks that isn’t offered on FreshBooks. It can accommodate your income, expenses, payroll and inventory tracking if needed.
A lot of people ask the question if FreshBooks can support a growing business. For most businesses, the features will be plenty. You can go from a few staff to a lot of staff and there isn’t an issue with FreshBooks. Your inventory can expand greatly and you still won’t run into an issue with FreshBooks. If anything, new users find the FreshBooks system and features to be a bit more straightforward than QuickBooks.
FreshBooks Features 7.7/10
Cost of QuickBooks Vs FreshBooks
Depending on what stage your business is in and how big it is, depends on how much you may want to spend on a bookkeeping software. It’s no surprise that both companies offer initial discount periods to hook you in and then your prices go up from there.
It’s not uncommon to see 50% discounts for the first 3 months of new joiners to QuickBooks and FreshBooks.
While FreshBooks generally wins on price, they cap the number of billable clients you can have. For example, on their lite plan, you can only send unlimited invoices to 5 clients. At the plus level, this bumps up to 50 clients and works for most small to medium-sized businesses. At that stage, you are pretty much at the base price of simple start QuickBooks.
| FreshBooks | |
| Lite | $17/mo |
| Plus | $30/mo |
| Premium | $55/mo |
| Select | Custom Pricing |
| QuickBooks | |
| Simple Start | $30/mo |
| Essentials | $55/mo |
| Plus | $85/mo |
| Advanced | $200/mo |
QuickBooks Pricing 7.7/10
FreshBooks Pricing 8.2/10
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Customer Support of FreshBooks vs QuickBooks
If you’ve ever used QuickBooks then you’ll probably be able to vouch for how good their customer support is. Generally, you can get in touch with their support over chat, email or the phone. The wait times are rather minimal and often the support individuals have a high knowledge of the QuickBooks product suite.
One additional area that makes QuickBooks support so great is the ability to get in touch with a CPA. QuickBooks makes it easy and rather affordable to speak to a CPA if needed and answer your accounting questions.
QuickBooks Support 9.2/10
FreshBooks also makes it easy to get in touch with their support but it is a little harder to get hold of a real person over at FreshBooks. They look to field all initial queries with the FreshBooks Freshbot. If you need more then they will connect you to a support specialist.
FreshBooks Support 8.6/10
QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: The Winner
Rounding it all up. There has to be a winner right? A winner in one person’s book isn’t always the same winner for others. While QuickBooks mainly edges it out on support, FreshBooks comes in an extremely close second. FreshBooks is great for the newer entrepreneur or small business while if you need more features then QuickBooks is a little bit more well-rounded.
| Features | Cost | Support | Total | |
| QuickBooks | 8.1 | 7.7 | 9.2 | 8.3 |
| FreshBooks | 7.6 | 8.2 | 8.6 | 8.1 |
Final Thoughts on Which Bookkeeping Software is Right for You
There is a discounted period to these software generally for a reason. To hook you on but if you don’t like it, you can switch. You need to think about where your business is now and where it is going. If you are just getting started, FreshBooks is a terrific option to save a few dollars. Otherwise, if you want one of the best bookkeeping software on the market then QuickBooks can be the place to start.
