Made for South African buyers. Every price in rand, read from the vendor.
In depth review
FreshBooks · Accounting software
A friendly invoicing product built for freelancers and small service businesses, with plans limited by the number of clients you bill.
FreshBooks is an invoicing and accounting product for freelancers and small service businesses. Its Lite plan is about R380 a month for five billable clients, Plus about R720 for fifty, and Premium about R1 170 for unlimited clients, all at the day's rate. It offers a 30 day free trial with no card, proposals, retainers and project profitability on the higher plans, and team members cost extra.
Lite
About R380 a month
Five billable clients
Plus
About R720 a month
Fifty billable clients
Premium
About R1 170 a month
Unlimited billable clients
Team member
About R184 a month
Each, extra
Free trial
30 days
No credit card
Refund
30 days
Full refund within 30 days of purchase
Founded
2003
FreshBooks
Figures marked as a vendor's own are that vendor's claims about itself and are not tested here.
Every plan FreshBooks lists, in rand, with a button to its own pricing page.
Plan
R380
a month
Five billable clients.
Plan
R711
a month
Fifty billable clients, proposals and retainers.
Plan
R1 157
a month
Unlimited billable clients and project profitability.
Quoted by the vendor
The Select plan is priced through a consultant.
Each button opens the vendor's own page in a new tab, where you buy or sign up. Prices are the vendor's, shown in rand.
FreshBooks lists 3 priced plans: Lite at R380, Plus at R711, Premium at R1 157. Every figure is shown in rand, converted from the vendor's own price at the day's reference rate.
The vendor does not say whether VAT is in these figures, so ask before you set them beside a price that does. South African VAT is 15 percent.
Team members are about R184 a month each and Advanced Payments about R335 a month. FreshBooks refunds in full within 30 days of purchase.
Read from freshbooks.com/pricing on 11 October 2026.
A plan priced per user or per employee shows the price of one. Both VAT footings are shown where the vendor states its basis.
Added to the plan price. A bill with several extras can be a multiple of the headline.
All prices are in rand. Where a vendor lists in dollars, pounds or euros we convert at R16.53 per US dollar, R21.86 per pound and R18.53 per euro (European Central Bank reference rates, via Frankfurter, 9 OCT 2026).
Amounts written out in the text of this review are at the reference rate of 2 October 2026. The charts and the calculator use the rates above, so a figure can differ by a rand or two.
Pick a plan, your team size and any extras. It adds FreshBooks's own prices in rand and shows the month and the year, with VAT in and out where the vendor states its basis.
Your bill
R380.29
a month, as the vendor lists it
The vendor does not say whether VAT is in its price, so none is added or taken out.
Opens the vendor's own page in a new tab. Nothing is bought on this site.
From R380 /mo
Starting prices of the priced products in the same category, cheapest first. This is a price sort, not a ranking: the cheapest product is not the best one, and some are priced per user, some per month and some excluding VAT.
Bar lengths use a square root scale, so a very high price does not flatten the rest. The figures are exact.
The middle starting price of the paid products here is R415.
Positions use a square root scale, so a very high price does not flatten the rest. The figures are exact.
A dot is one plan. Free plans and plans on request have no price to place. A per user price is the price of one user.
A founding year says how long a company has existed. It says nothing about how good the product is.
An official video from FreshBooks on YouTube. Software Register did not make or edit them. They are the vendor's own account of the product, so read them beside the prices and limits on this page.
How to get started
How to, 1:04, published 14 January 2022. From the FreshBooks channel on YouTube.
A video loads from YouTube only when you press play. The still picture before that comes from YouTube's image servers.
FreshBooks began as invoicing software for freelancers and has grown into a light accounting product. It is organised around clients rather than around a general ledger, which suits a consultant or agency more than a trading business with stock and suppliers.
Lite covers unlimited invoices, expense tracking, estimates, payment acceptance and tax reports. Plus adds proposals, client retainers, accounting reports, expense receipt scanning, accountant access and double entry accounting. Premium adds project profitability, customised email templates and automatic bill receipt capture.
Strengths
Limits
Best for
Think twice if
In short
A pleasant tool for a freelancer who bills a few clients and does not need local compliance features. For a VAT registered South African business, a product with VAT returns and a named bank feed is the safer starting point.
Start where the vendor sells it, and keep this page open beside you for the limits.
From R380 /mo
The pricing page makes no claim about VAT returns or South African tax. A VAT registered business should confirm what it needs before it chooses.
FreshBooks starts at R380 a month. It lists 3 priced plans, from R380 to R1 157.
The vendor's page does not say whether VAT is included, so we show the plain figure and do not guess. Ask before you compare it with a price that states its basis.
Yes: FreshBooks offers a free trial.
Available to South African businesses online, with the price shown here in rand.
On this register the closest are QuickBooks Online, Sage 50cloud Pastel, Sage Accounting, Sage Intacct, Wave Accounting. Each has its own page, and the compare tool sets any two side by side.
South African guides that help you weigh FreshBooks: what the rules ask, what to test and what to put in writing.
Six products, one checklist
Most advice on accounting software is written for America or Britain. These are the six questions that decide whether a product works for a South African business, with the register's own tables to check each one against.
Read the guideWhere a full tax invoice starts to need more detail
R5 000
A customer who is registered for VAT can only claim back the VAT on an invoice that meets the law. Your software should produce one every time, and you should know what to look for.
Read the guidePrepared by your software, filed on SARS eFiling
VAT201
The VAT201 is the return a registered vendor submits to SARS. Accounting software can prepare it, and some can transfer it into eFiling. Those are different things.
Read the guideEvery price and fact on this page was read from the vendor's own pages, researched on 11 October 2026. A figure the vendor states about itself is marked as the vendor's. This review gives no score and no rank, and a vendor cannot pay to change it. Read how the register works.
Something wrong on this page? Suggest a correction, with a link to the vendor's page that shows it.
FreshBooks is priced as above. Go to the vendor to buy or to ask, or compare it with another product first.
From R380 /mo
Use FreshBooks? Tell other South African buyers what it does well, where it falls short and who it suits. An editor reads each review before it appears, and it is published as written.
FreshBooks
From R380 /mo
