FreshBooks vs TradesTimer
What FreshBooks is
A cloud-based accounting and invoicing platform designed for self-employed individuals and small teams to manage billing and expenses.
Best for: Small business owners who need to send professional invoices, track business expenses, and manage client communications from a centralized, desk-oriented workflow.
Pricing at a glance
$19 FLAT / MO
Lite plan roughly $19/mo (client cap); higher tiers scale up. Often discounted — verify.
Verified 2026-06-08
$0 FREE — FULL APP
Where FreshBooks is strong
- Comprehensive invoicing and expense management
- Centralized platform for small team billing and client communication
Where FreshBooks falls short for trades
- Requires manually starting and stopping timers for every individual task
- Requires manual entry of trip distances or odometer readings for tax records
FreshBooks problems, in users' own words
These aren't our words — they're from public threads written by people using FreshBooks (or shopping for a way out). Each quote links to the original discussion.
I've been using Freshbooks for years but have yet to find a good alternative that offers the really nice extras included with it, aside from just regular invoicing.
Bundles are sticky — that's the point of them. But FreshBooks' time tracking is still a start/stop timer; if the tracking half is what fails you on jobsites, swap that half for automatic capture and keep invoicing where you're happy.
Why I built a FreshBooks alternative
FreshBooks is accounting software with a timer attached — great if your work happens where your laptop is. Mine didn't. A painter's or framer's day is five addresses, a supply run, and no moment where starting a timer is the natural next move.
From my invoicing years at the electrical contractor: the books were only ever as good as the hours coming in from the field. TradesTimer fixes the field half for free and exports hours you can bill from FreshBooks or anywhere else.
What TradesTimer does differently
- Automatically detects jobsite stops and travel trips via background GPS
- Provides an automatic, exportable mileage log for tax time without manual input
The verdict
FreshBooks is a robust accounting and invoicing suite for managing a complete business's finances, whereas TradesTimer is a free, specialized tool for solo tradespeople to automatically capture billable hours and mileage.
Page last verified 2026-06-08. If FreshBooks has changed pricing or features since then and this page is stale, email support@tradestimer.com and we'll fix it.
Free. The whole app.
The whole time-tracking app is free — no trial, no feature gate, no ads, no per-user fees. (Encrypted cloud backup is on the roadmap.)
- Automatic day reconstruction from background GPS
- Unlimited stops, drives, and days
- Review and edit any block
- Rounded billable-hours summary, shareable as plain text
- Automatic mileage log, exportable for taxes
- 7-day summary view
- All location data stays on your device
Your location history stays on your phone.
There is no TradesTimer server storing your location trails. No account. No sign-up. Your GPS history lives on the device that recorded it — for as long as you want it. The only time anything leaves your phone is when you choose to share your billable-hours summary yourself.
The app does not talk to any third-party service with your location. Nothing about where you've been is uploaded anywhere. See the privacy policy for the full detail.