Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover accounting & tax. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Invoicely | Zoho Books | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $9.99 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Not stated |
| Covers | Accounting & Tax | 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 |
Invoicing with a free plan that stays free
Invoicely sends invoices, estimates and recurring statements, and tracks time, expenses and mileage against them. The free plan is capped at five invoices a month rather than at a trial period, so a freelancer billing one or two clients never has to pay. Billing in any currency is on every paid tier, which matters if your clients are not all in one country.
Our note
Worth choosing when invoicing is the only accounting job you have. The moment somebody says the word reconciliation, you have outgrown it, and paying $9.99 here plus a real ledger somewhere else costs more than starting on Wave.
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.
Only on this side
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.