Five Clients, Then Fifty: FreshBooks' Limit and Your Customer List
By Jeff Burt, founder of Invoice Goat.
Think about who you invoiced: a driveway in April, a water heater in June, a fence in August. FreshBooks counts those customers toward its plan limit, 5 on Lite and 50 on Plus, even after you archive them. Invoice Goat, a FreshBooks alternative for trades, has no customer limit: one plan, and quotes and invoices are unlimited too.
When most of your customers are people you see once, you'll hit FreshBooks' limit fast.
How FreshBooks Counts Your Customers
FreshBooks' pricing page sets a “billable client” limit on each plan: 5 on Lite, 50 on Plus, and no limit on Premium. Its help center says the limit “refers to both active and archived clients”. So the count is everyone in your account, not just who you billed this month. The 30-day trial lets you add as many clients as you need, so the limit shows up once you're on a paid plan.
Customer number 6 puts you past Lite. Number 51 puts you past Plus, and from there it's Premium.
The Plan Your Customer List Needs
FreshBooks users notice. One wrote in a Capterra review in September 2026: “Strict client limits on entry-level plans force quick upgrades.”
Can't You Just Delete Old Clients?
You can, and FreshBooks says so. Its help center says “Deleted clients do not count towards your client limit on all plans,” while archived ones do. The catch is in its pricing article: “you will not be able to invoice a client while they are deleted.”
In the trades, one-off customers come back. The water heater you put in two years ago needs a repair, and that customer calls you, not a stranger. You want their address and their last job right there when you write the quote. Deleting customers to stay under a limit means finding them and undeleting them before you can bill them again.
In Invoice Goat, every customer stays in your list. Open one and you see their quotes and invoices, so the repair quote starts from what you did last time.
Premium Removes the Limit, at $70 a Month
| Plan | Customers allowed | Price |
|---|---|---|
| FreshBooks Lite | 5 | $23 a month |
| FreshBooks Plus | 50 | $43 a month |
| FreshBooks Premium | Unlimited | $70 a month |
| Invoice Goat | Unlimited | $79 a month, or $69 a month billed yearly |
FreshBooks prices are its US list prices billed monthly, from its pricing page on October 26, 2026. New customers get 80% off for the first 4 months, and yearly billing takes another 10% off. Select, its top plan, has no public price.
Billed monthly, Premium is $9 less than Invoice Goat. A second person changes that: FreshBooks charges $11 a month for each team member, so Premium with one helper is $81 a month. On Invoice Goat, your crew signs in with your login at no extra cost.
The bigger difference is what you're paying for. FreshBooks calls itself “Invoice and Accounting Software for Small Businesses”, and Premium includes the accounting. Invoice Goat doesn't do your books. It does quotes, invoices and getting paid, keeps track of who paid you, and gives you year-end reports for tax time. If your accountant does the books, you're not paying for them twice.
When the Water Heater Customer Calls Back
You write the repair quote on your phone, right in their driveway. They draw their signature on their own phone, and the quote PDF shows it with the date, time and IP address. As of September 2026, 64% of quotes on Invoice Goat are approved in under 24 hours. When the work is done, Convert to Invoice turns the quote into an invoice and leaves the signed quote as it was. Add your after photos, send it, and they pay by card or bank transfer, or you log the cash or check.
Want to see what your customer gets first? Try the free quote maker or invoice maker, no account needed. Weighing other tools too? See how Invoice Goat compares with QuickBooks and Jobber, or check Invoice Goat pricing.
Moving Your Customers Off FreshBooks
FreshBooks lets you export your data: clients and invoices as CSV files, and estimates and proposals as PDFs. A CSV of estimates takes a request to its support team. Here's the order I'd do it in:
- Export your clients and your invoices from FreshBooks, and save PDFs of any open estimates and unpaid invoices.
- Book the $199 onboarding hour with me. I have scripts to bring your FreshBooks data across, so you don't start from scratch. Or start on your own with a free quote and a free invoice.
- Send your next quote from Invoice Goat, and let customers pay the invoices you already sent from FreshBooks in FreshBooks.
- Cancel FreshBooks in a web browser, under Billing and Upgrade. Your account stays open until the end of the billing cycle.
Quick Answers on Plans and Limits
Is there a free version of FreshBooks?
No. FreshBooks has no free plan. Its 30-day free trial needs no card, and after that you pick Lite, Plus, Premium or Select. On Invoice Goat, your first quote and first invoice are free, with no card and no time limit.
Does Invoice Goat limit customers, quotes or invoices?
No. Customers, quotes and invoices are unlimited on one plan with every feature, and we don't charge per customer or per invoice.
Do I need to download an app to use Invoice Goat?
No. Invoice Goat runs in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer, so there's nothing to install for you or your crew.
What does Invoice Goat charge to take payments online?
Online payments are optional. A card payment is typically 3% + $0.30, and a bank transfer is typically 1%, capped at $10. Cash, checks and Zelle you just log on the invoice.
If your customer list has outgrown your FreshBooks plan, send your next quote from Invoice Goat and keep every customer you've ever had.