Miru vs FreshBooks: Stop Overpaying for Invoicing

FreshBooks built its reputation on beautiful invoices. And they are beautiful. But beautiful invoices don’t justify $17 to $55 per month — and that’s before you add team members at $11 each.

Let’s do some honest math.

---

The pricing problem

FreshBooks has three plans:

• Lite: $17/month (5 billable clients)
• Plus: $30/month (50 clients, adds time tracking)
• Premium: $55/month (unlimited clients)

Each additional team member costs $11/month. A 10-person team on Plus? That’s $140/month or $1,680/year.

Miru’s pricing:

• Free: Up to 5 users. All features. No client limits.
• Pro: $1/member/month. Unlimited everything.
• Enterprise: $1K+/year. Self-hosted with support.

That same 10-person team on Miru Pro? $10/month. $120/year. You save $1,560 per year. That’s real money.

FreshBooks gates features behind tiers

Here’s what gets people: FreshBooks doesn’t include time tracking on the Lite plan. You have to pay $30/month (Plus) just to use a timer. Expense tracking requires the Plus plan too.

Miru includes time tracking, invoicing, expenses, payments, team management, reports, and CLI access on every plan — including Free. We don’t gate features to upsell you.

What Miru does that FreshBooks can’t

CLI access. Track time from your terminal. Generate invoices from a script. Automate your entire billing workflow with shell commands. FreshBooks is browser-only.

Self-hosting. Miru is open source under the MIT license. Deploy it on your own servers. Own your data completely. FreshBooks is SaaS-only — your invoices and client data live on their servers, under their terms.

Dark mode. A small thing that makes a big difference when you’re reviewing invoices at 11pm.

Six report types. Time entries, revenue, accounts aging, outstanding invoices, payments, and client revenue. FreshBooks has basic financial reports, but they’re not as granular.

When FreshBooks makes sense

If you’re a solo freelancer who doesn’t track time and just needs pretty invoices with receipt scanning, FreshBooks Lite at $17/month is fine. Their mobile receipt scanning is genuinely good.

When Miru is the better choice

For everyone who tracks time AND sends invoices — which is most teams that bill by the hour — Miru is the obvious pick. You get:

• Time tracking + invoicing + expenses in one tool
• A CLI for developer workflows
• Open source code you can audit and self-host
• Pricing that doesn’t punish you for growing your team

Stop overpaying for invoicing. FreshBooks was great in 2010. In 2026, there’s a better option. Try Miru free — no credit card, no client limits, no catch.