FreeAgent alternatives for a one-person trade
FreeAgent is free if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, and £19 plus VAT if you do not, which makes this a question about your bank before it is a question about software. Go and check which account you have, because free accounting software you already qualify for beats every paid recommendation on the internet including ours. This page is for the people paying, and for anyone who wanted quoting and scheduling from a tool built for the books.
We make one of the alternatives, so read this knowing that. If you finish the page and stay put, it did its job.
Why people look for a FreeAgent alternative
Mostly a change of bank. The free tier is tied to a NatWest, RBS, Ulster or Mettle account, so moving your business banking turns a free tool into a £19 plus VAT subscription overnight, and that is when people look around. The other reason is scope: FreeAgent is built for the books, so anyone who wanted job scheduling and doorstep quoting was always going to find it does a different job well rather than their job badly.
What FreeAgent costs one person
Zero, if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, for as long as that account stays open. Check which of those you have before you read another word of this, because free accounting software you are already entitled to beats every paid recommendation on the internet including ours. If you bank elsewhere, the Sole Trader plan is £19 a month excluding VAT, which is £22.80 paid, and a 50% introductory discount was running when we checked. So the honest version of this page's question is not what FreeAgent costs, it is which bank your business account is with.
FreeAgent's pricing page, read August 2026. Every plan and the full side-by-side is on SoloDesks vs FreeAgent.
Who should stay on FreeAgent
Anyone banking with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, without qualification. It is free, it is real accounting software, and no page selling you something should talk you out of that. Stay too if you are filing Making Tax Digital through it, because SoloDesks makes no submissions to HMRC. The only readers this page is really for are the ones paying £19 plus VAT for a tool they use to send five invoices a month.
FreeAgent is accounting software for sole traders and small companies, free with some UK business bank accounts.
What you would be giving up
Bookkeeping and Self Assessment, and possibly a subscription that costs you nothing. That second one has no equivalent anywhere else on this site: no feature we could build would beat free, and if you qualify through your bank then leaving FreeAgent to save money is arithmetic that does not work. The only readers with something real to weigh here are the ones paying £22.80 a month to send a handful of invoices, and even they should keep it if anything is being filed through it.
The options, with prices
The realistic options, including staying where you are. Prices as published by each company, read on the dates shown.
SoloDesks
£12/month, flat
If you're leaving over the price for one person. Priced per business rather than per seat or per job, with a free plan that has no card and no expiry. Quotes, invoices, payment chasing and a job calendar, and nothing else. That is the trade-off. No team seats, no dispatch, no timesheets.
QuickBooks
From £10/mo (plus VAT)
QuickBooks is accounting software built around bookkeeping and Self Assessment, with invoicing attached. The nearest like-for-like swap, which is also the risk: check its pricing model is genuinely different before you move, because paying the same money through a new interface solves nothing.
Xero
From £16/mo (ex VAT, 20 invoices/mo)
Xero is full accounting software, sold in tiers, with a hard invoice cap on the entry plan. The nearest like-for-like swap, which is also the risk: check its pricing model is genuinely different before you move, because paying the same money through a new interface solves nothing.
Zoho Invoice
From £0 (500 invoices/year, 2 users)
Zoho Invoice is a genuinely free invoicing tool, capped at 500 invoices a year, with Zoho branding on the documents. A different shape of tool from FreeAgent, so this is a change of approach rather than a swap. Worth it only if the product was the problem, not the price.
Stay where you are
If it works and the price doesn't hurt. Migrating costs you an evening of exporting, a week of muscle-memory, and the small risk of losing a client record you only notice needing in eight months. That's a real cost. If FreeAgent is doing the job and the bill isn't the thing that brought you here, the honest advice is to close the tab.
Before you switch anything
The order you do it in matters more than which one you pick, and getting it wrong costs more than any subscription you are leaving.
How to switch invoicing software without losing your records
Questions people ask
- What is the best FreeAgent alternative for a sole trader?
- It depends why you're leaving. If it's the price for one person, a flat-priced one-person tool like SoloDesks (£12/month, free plan below it) is the direct answer. If it's a missing feature, one of the other products listed above is likelier to have it than we are. And if you file Making Tax Digital for Income Tax through FreeAgent, what you need is another accounting package, not us: SoloDesks makes no submissions to HMRC at all.
- Is there a free FreeAgent alternative?
- Several, with different catches. Zoho Invoice is free for up to 500 invoices a year, though your documents carry a Powered by Zoho Invoice line. ServiceM8's free tier covers 30 jobs a month. Our own free plan needs no card and never expires, covering 10 quotes, 10 invoices and 10 emailed PDFs a month with unlimited clients and jobs. Pick on whichever limit you'd hit first, and check your bank before you pay anyone: FreeAgent being free is worth more than any discount on this page.
- Who shouldn't switch away from FreeAgent?
- Anyone banking with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, without qualification. It is free, it is real accounting software, and no page selling you something should talk you out of that. Stay too if you are filing Making Tax Digital through it, because SoloDesks makes no submissions to HMRC. The only readers this page is really for are the ones paying £19 plus VAT for a tool they use to send five invoices a month.
- How much is FreeAgent for one person?
- Zero, if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, for as long as that account stays open. Check which of those you have before you read another word of this, because free accounting software you are already entitled to beats every paid recommendation on the internet including ours. If you bank elsewhere, the Sole Trader plan is £19 a month excluding VAT, which is £22.80 paid, and a 50% introductory discount was running when we checked. So the honest version of this page's question is not what FreeAgent costs, it is which bank your business account is with. Figures from FreeAgent's pricing page, read August 2026.
Want the whole field rather than one swap? We keep a comparison of eight invoicing apps for UK tradespeople, with every price read off the vendor's own page and dated.
If the price for one person is the problem
That's the one we were built to solve. Start on the free plan, no card, and see whether a month of your own work fits.
Pricing shown for FreeAgent and other named products is as of August 2026, taken from each company's own published pricing page, linked above. Plans and prices change. Verify before you buy. All product names are trademarks of their owners; SoloDesks isn't affiliated with or endorsed by any of them, this comparison is our own, and we make one of the products listed.