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.
| Xero | Zoho Books | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $25 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | 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 | Not stated | Not stated |
| Covers | Accounting & Tax, Creator Finance | 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 |
Accounting a freelancer can run without help
Xero covers the parts of bookkeeping a creator actually meets: invoices, bank reconciliation, expenses and the reports an accountant asks for in January. Nothing in it assumes you have taken an accounting class. There is no free plan, and the cheapest tier stops at twenty invoices a month, which a busy freelancer clears by the third week.
Our note
Pick Xero over Wave when you have contractors to pay and a real filing to make, and Wave over Xero when you mostly need invoices to look professional. The invoice cap on the entry plan is the thing people hit and get annoyed by, so count last year's invoices before choosing it.
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.