Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover accounting & tax and creator finance. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Harvest | Zoho Books | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $9 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 30 days | None |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web, macOS, iOS | Not stated |
| Covers | Accounting & Tax, Creator Finance, Project Management | Accounting & Tax, Creator Finance |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Time tracking that turns into an invoice
Harvest counts hours against a project and then bills them, which removes the worst half hour of any freelance month: reading a timesheet back and typing it into an invoice. Expenses and receipts attach to the same project. The free plan covers one person and two projects, and for a solo creator that is often where it stops.
Our note
Harvest is the pick when the hours are the invoice. If work is billed as a fixed project fee, Moxie or Bonsai cover more of the job for similar money and the time tracking is the smaller part of what you need.
Only on this side
Free accounting for a one person business
Zoho Books gives a solo business a genuinely free plan with invoices, expenses, bank reconciliation and 1099 tracking on it, which is more than most vendors put behind their cheapest paid tier. It is worth the trade if you already use anything else Zoho makes. On its own it is a heavier, more form-driven thing to learn than the tools built for freelancers first.
Our note
This is the strongest free accounting product a solo creator can get, and the catch is not the features but the interface: it is built by a company that sells fifty products and it feels like it. If you already resent bookkeeping, Wave will annoy you less.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.