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FreshBooks bills your clients and keeps a real general ledger. Contha does not compete with that; it exists to do the return.
FreshBooks is invoicing-first small-business software: double-entry accounting with a customizable chart of accounts, credit card and ACH payment acceptance, project time tracking, and up to ten free accountant seats, used by more than 500,000 businesses. It is a mature product built to get an owner paid, not to compute what they owe. The table below is what its own pricing and feature pages do and do not cover.
| Capability | FreshBooks | Contha |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing and payment acceptance | Yes, the core product: credit card and ACH payments, estimates, proposals | No, on purpose. Contha sits on top of the bank |
| Double-entry general ledger | Yes, with a customizable chart of accounts | No. A transaction ledger with books and a worksheet, not a GL |
| Bank sync, named aggregator | Yes, links a bank account for reconciliation; the aggregator is not named and read-only is not stated | Yes, Plaid, read-only, stated |
| Personal net worth beside the business | Not published; a single-business tool with no personal-money model | Yes, every account, personal and business |
| Tax estimate and quarterly payment, computed | Not published; markets "tax-ready" reports for a preparer, not a computed number | Yes, computed: four payments as a schedule, past due and next |
| Mileage | Referenced on the homepage feature list; no dedicated page or GPS/IRS-rate claim could be verified | Yes, Pub. 463 substantiation per trip |
| Receipts | Yes, mobile scanning; automatic bill capture with line items on Premium | Yes, on the row, with the $75 line stated |
| Multi-entity, S-corp | Not published | Yes, wrapper and treatment as two axes |
| Accountant access | Yes, up to 10 accountant seats free on Plus and Premium, with edit access to journal entries and the chart of accounts | Yes, five files and a read-only link that needs no account |
| Payroll | Yes, $40 a month plus $6 a month per user | No, not a payroll product |
| Price | Lite $23 a month (promo $1 for the first year); Plus $43 a month; Premium $70 a month; Select custom-priced | A free week, then Personal $5, Solo $10, Owner $49 a month; two months free on annual billing |
Invoicing and payment acceptance
- FreshBooks
- Yes, the core product: credit card and ACH payments, estimates, proposals
- Contha
- No, on purpose. Contha sits on top of the bank
Double-entry general ledger
- FreshBooks
- Yes, with a customizable chart of accounts
- Contha
- No. A transaction ledger with books and a worksheet, not a GL
Bank sync, named aggregator
- FreshBooks
- Yes, links a bank account for reconciliation; the aggregator is not named and read-only is not stated
- Contha
- Yes, Plaid, read-only, stated
Personal net worth beside the business
- FreshBooks
- Not published; a single-business tool with no personal-money model
- Contha
- Yes, every account, personal and business
Tax estimate and quarterly payment, computed
- FreshBooks
- Not published; markets "tax-ready" reports for a preparer, not a computed number
- Contha
- Yes, computed: four payments as a schedule, past due and next
Mileage
- FreshBooks
- Referenced on the homepage feature list; no dedicated page or GPS/IRS-rate claim could be verified
- Contha
- Yes, Pub. 463 substantiation per trip
Receipts
- FreshBooks
- Yes, mobile scanning; automatic bill capture with line items on Premium
- Contha
- Yes, on the row, with the $75 line stated
Multi-entity, S-corp
- FreshBooks
- Not published
- Contha
- Yes, wrapper and treatment as two axes
Accountant access
- FreshBooks
- Yes, up to 10 accountant seats free on Plus and Premium, with edit access to journal entries and the chart of accounts
- Contha
- Yes, five files and a read-only link that needs no account
Payroll
- FreshBooks
- Yes, $40 a month plus $6 a month per user
- Contha
- No, not a payroll product
Price
- FreshBooks
- Lite $23 a month (promo $1 for the first year); Plus $43 a month; Premium $70 a month; Select custom-priced
- Contha
- A free week, then Personal $5, Solo $10, Owner $49 a month; two months free on annual billing
Checked 17 September 2026, against FreshBooks’s own published documentation: the FreshBooks pricing page, FreshBooks features, FreshBooks accounting. If a row is out of date, tell us and it will be corrected on the page, not deleted.
The honest read
If billing clients is the job, FreshBooks is the more mature tool. Contha reads the account it settles into.
FreshBooks is built to get an owner paid: invoices, payment acceptance, a real general ledger, project profitability, and now payroll, with a large existing base of small businesses on it. If sending invoices and running payroll is the daily job, keep it. If the question is what the year's numbers mean for the return, that is a different job, and it is the one Contha does.
Also against Monarch Plus, QuickBooks Solopreneur, Found, Keeper, Copilot Money, YNAB, Wave, Tiller, Collective, Lili, Hurdlr.
Keep FreshBooks if it is enough. If the tax is the reason you are here, start with Contha.
A free week, no card. Then Personal $5, Solo $10, Owner $49 a month. Read-only connections, cancel any time.