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Bokeping vs FreshBooks: an honest comparison.
FreshBooks is a much-loved invoicing tool for people who sell their time. Bokeping is accounting software that talks in plain English. Here’s a fair look at where each one wins — no spin, no cherry-picking.
The honest version
Two good tools, drawn around different work
FreshBooks is genuinely excellent at the client-facing half of a service business: proposals, contracts, retainers, time tracking and an invoice experience your customers enjoy paying. Its fence is the number of billable clients — five on Lite, fifty on Plus — which is a fine trade if you have a short client list and a long relationship with each name on it. Bokeping is built around the books instead: real double-entry from the first plan, bank feeds doing the typing, inventory and multi-currency when you need them, and a product that tells you the next step. If you sell hours to a few clients, FreshBooks probably wins. If you sell to many customers and the accounting is the hard part, that’s our side of the line.
At a glance
Bokeping
- No billable-client fence — bill 3 customers or 300
- Real double-entry, audit trail and period lock on every plan
- Accountant seat free on every plan, including Free
At a glance
FreshBooks
- A polished client-facing experience
- Proposals, contracts, retainers and time tracking built in
- Payroll available as an add-on ($40/mo + $6/employee)
| What matters | Bokeping | FreshBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free — paid plans from $29/mo | Lite $23/mo |
| Entry-plan cap | 20 invoices & estimates a month | 5 billable clients on Lite |
| Users included | 1 on Free & Starter · 5 on Growth · unlimited on Scale | Extra team members $11/user/mo |
| Bank feeds | Plaid, read-only, from Starter ($29) | Varies by plan — check FreshBooks |
| Plain-English interface | “Cash, coming in, going out” | Friendly, invoice-first wording |
| Tells you what to do next | Action list with direct links | Dashboards & overdue reminders |
| Real double-entry ledger | Every plan, including Free | Varies by plan — check FreshBooks |
| Project profitability | Not offered | Varies by plan — check FreshBooks |
| Payroll | Not offered — integrate a specialist | Add-on, $40/mo + $6/employee |
| Inventory & cost of goods | Growth plan ($59) | Varies by plan — check FreshBooks |
| Multi-currency | Growth plan ($59) | Varies by plan — check FreshBooks |
| Accountant seat | Free on every plan, incl. Free | Varies by plan — check FreshBooks |
| Import & migration | CSV + QBO import, free on every plan | CSV import |
| Card processing fees | Stripe’s standard rates — no Bokeping markup | FreshBooks Payments — check current rates |
| Data export | CSV export of your books, any time | CSV exports supported |
Competitor pricing as of July 2026 — plans and promotions change often, so check FreshBooks before you buy. US list pricing, billed monthly, in USD; above Lite ($23, 5 billable clients) sit Plus ($43, 50 billable clients) and Premium ($70, unlimited billable clients). FreshBooks is a trademark of 2ndSite Inc., used here for identification only. Bokeping is not affiliated with or endorsed by 2ndSite Inc.
Who should choose what
The recommendation we’d give a friend
Choose FreshBooks if…
- You bill your time. Proposals, contracts, retainers, timers and the client portal are FreshBooks’ home turf, and it does them better than we do — we don’t ship time tracking at all.
- You have a handful of long-running clients. If five names cover your whole book, the billable-client fence never touches you and Lite is a tidy, cheap fit.
- You want payroll and project profitability under one login. FreshBooks sells both; Bokeping deliberately does neither and points you at a payroll specialist instead.
Choose Bokeping if…
- You have many customers and few of them are retainers. Bokeping meters documents, not people, so a 30-customer month costs exactly what a 3-customer month does.
- You want the real ledger from day one — balanced double-entry, a full audit trail and period lock on every plan, not from the middle tier up.
- You carry stock or bill in more than one currency. Inventory with true cost of goods sold and multi-currency arrive on Growth, and the statements tie out to the penny.
Plenty of service businesses run FreshBooks for client work and never need anything else — that is a perfectly good answer. If you want the fuller picture of what we do and don’t build, readwhy Bokeping existsor theprofessional serviceswalk-through.
Coming from FreshBooks? CSV brings the clients.
Export your clients, invoices and expenses from FreshBooks as CSV and import them straight into Bokeping — duplicates skipped, free on every plan, including Free.
FAQs
Fair questions about switching
Yes, via CSV. FreshBooks exports clients, invoices and expenses as CSV, and Bokeping imports them directly — duplicates are detected and skipped. Import is free on every plan, including Free, and the step-by-step lives at /solutions/switching.
No. The two products draw the fence in different places: FreshBooks meters billable clients, so client number six is an upgrade. Bokeping meters documents — the Free plan covers 20 invoices and estimates a month, and every paid plan removes the cap entirely. Your customer list is never the thing that costs money.
No, and that’s a real gap rather than a roadmap tease. If billable hours, signed proposals and recurring retainers are the spine of how you sell, FreshBooks is built around that and we are not. Bokeping is accounting: invoicing, bills, banking, inventory and statements on a double-entry ledger.
Yes, and it costs nothing. Accountant access is free on every Bokeping plan — including Free — and underneath the plain English they get a true general ledger, statements on cash or accrual basis, and clean exports. On FreshBooks, accountant access depends on the plan — worth checking before you move.
Also comparing:Bokeping vs QuickBooks ·Bokeping vs Xero ·Bokeping vs Zoho Books ·All comparisons
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