Most people who search "Stintly vs FreshBooks" are in the same spot. They've been freelancing for a while, they track hours in one place and send invoices from another, and they're starting to wonder whether they really need a monthly accounting subscription. FreshBooks often comes up first because it's well known, well designed, and built with freelancers in mind. The renewal email gets people thinking, though: am I using enough of this to justify $200–$700 a year?
This comparison tries to answer that honestly. FreshBooks is a good product, and for some businesses it's the right call. Stintly takes a different approach. It's free, it works entirely offline on your iPhone, and you don't need an account. Which one fits depends on how you work, how many clients you have, and whether you need full double-entry accounting or just a clean way to track time, bill clients, and see what you're earning.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Stintly | FreshBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $19–$60/month (Lite, Plus, Premium); custom pricing for Select |
| Works Offline | Yes, 100% offline | No, needs an internet connection |
| Account Required | No | Yes, email signup and a cloud account |
| Best For | Solo freelancers and small operators who want simple time, invoice, and income tracking | Service businesses that need full accounting, online payments, and team or accountant access |
| Platform | iPhone (App Store) | Web, iOS, Android |
| Key Features | Time tracking, invoicing, expense logging, client tracking, earnings overview | Invoicing, online payments, double-entry accounting, bank sync, proposals, projects, payroll integrations |
| Data Privacy | Data stays on your device | Data stored on FreshBooks' cloud servers |
Pricing
FreshBooks uses tiered subscription pricing. The Lite plan starts at about $19/month and caps you at a small number of billable clients. Plus is around $33/month and adds more clients, recurring invoices, proposals, and some accounting reports. Premium runs about $60/month and adds unlimited clients plus deeper project and expense tools. There's also a custom-priced Select tier for larger operations. Extra team members cost about $11 per user per month, and features like advanced payments or payroll can add more.
To be fair, FreshBooks often runs introductory discounts, sometimes 50–90% off for the first few months, and a 30-day free trial is standard. Those promotions end, though, and the full price is what you'll pay over the long run. Card and ACH payment processing fees are also charged on top of the subscription when clients pay online.
Stintly is free. There's no tier ladder, no per-client cap, and no renewal date. You download it from the App Store and start tracking.
Here's what that looks like over time, using FreshBooks' standard list prices before promotions and add-ons:
| Plan | Monthly | 1 Year | 3 Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stintly | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| FreshBooks Lite | $19 | $228 | $684 |
| FreshBooks Plus | $33 | $396 | $1,188 |
| FreshBooks Premium | $60 | $720 | $2,160 |
For a solo freelancer earning $50,000 a year, Plus at $396 annually is close to 0.8% of gross revenue spent on one tool. That isn't outrageous, but it's the kind of line item that shows up in a software subscription audit next to five other tools you barely open. If you only use the time tracker and the invoice template, you're paying for a lot of software you don't touch.
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Features
Where FreshBooks is strong:
- Professional invoicing with online payments. Clients can pay by card or bank transfer straight from the invoice. That speeds up collection, and that matters if you deal with late-paying clients.
- Automatic payment reminders and recurring invoices. Set it once and FreshBooks chases overdue invoices for you. This works well for retainer clients.
- Real double-entry accounting. Balance sheets, general ledger, journal entries, and accountant access. If you have a bookkeeper or CPA who wants to log in directly, this counts for a lot.
- Bank and card sync. Transactions import automatically, so you categorize instead of typing.
- Proposals, estimates, and project collaboration. Useful for agencies or freelancers who bring in collaborators and want clients to approve scope inside the platform.
- Integrations. FreshBooks connects to payment processors, CRMs, payroll services, and many other apps.
Where Stintly is strong:
- Fast time tracking. Start a timer for a client or project in a couple of taps, or log hours after the fact. Stintly is built around the stint, a block of focused work, so tracking feels like part of your day instead of extra admin.
- Simple invoicing from tracked time. Turn logged hours into an invoice without re-entering anything.
- Expense logging. Record business costs as they happen so you have a clean record at tax time.
- Earnings and client overview. See which clients bring in the most money and how your month is going. It's a quick way to spot client concentration risk or an underpriced project.
- No setup friction. There's no chart of accounts to configure and no onboarding wizard. Open it and start working.
The honest summary: FreshBooks does more. It's a full accounting system. Stintly does less on purpose, because most solo operators don't need a general ledger. They need to know how many hours they worked, what they billed, what they spent, and who still owes them. If that's you, the extra features in FreshBooks are mostly overhead.
Your trade matters too. If you run a field service business rather than knowledge work, a purpose-built tool will usually beat both general options. Lawn care operators can look at LawnBook for route-based client and service tracking. Cleaning businesses have ShineBook for residential and commercial jobs. Landlords managing rentals and tenants will get more from KeyLoft. Contractors who need job costing and progress billing should try TrestleBook. Like Stintly, they're all free, offline-first, and built for operators rather than accountants.
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Offline & Privacy
This is the biggest structural difference between the two apps.
FreshBooks is cloud software. Your clients, invoices, rates, and financial history live on FreshBooks' servers, and you need a connection to work with them. For many people that's fine, and even a plus, since you get access from any browser and automatic backups. It does have consequences, though:
- On a flight, at a rural job site, or anywhere the Wi-Fi is bad, your workflow stalls.
- Your business financial data sits with a third party, under their security practices, their terms of service, and their pricing decisions.
- If you cancel, you need to export your data first. Your records are tied to a paid account.
Stintly works the other way. Everything is stored locally on your iPhone. There's no account, no login, and no server holding your client list. Timers run and invoices get created whether you're online or not. Nobody else is collecting or analyzing your income data, and no company can lock you out of your own records by changing its pricing.
If your clients are bound by NDAs, or you'd rather not have your full income history on someone else's server, local-only storage is a real benefit, not just a nice extra.
The trade-off is that you're responsible for your device. Keep your iPhone backed up and your data stays safe. There's no web dashboard, though, and no accountant login. For most solo operators that's a fair trade. For others it's a dealbreaker, and the next section covers who falls into that group.
Who Should Use FreshBooks
FreshBooks is worth the money if:
- You need clients to pay online from the invoice. If faster payment is a top priority and you invoice a lot, built-in card and ACH payments can pay for the subscription by shortening your collection cycle.
- You have a bookkeeper or CPA who wants direct access. Accountant collaboration and double-entry reports make tax season smoother for businesses with more complex books.
- You have a team. If contractors or employees log time against shared projects, FreshBooks' multi-user features are useful.
- You want bank feeds and automated reconciliation. With high transaction volume, automatic imports save real hours.
- You work mostly at a desk. If you're always connected and prefer a browser dashboard, the cloud model costs you little.
- You're moving toward an incorporated business with payroll. FreshBooks scales into that more easily than a lightweight tracker.
If three or more of these describe you, FreshBooks is probably the better tool, and the subscription is a reasonable business expense.
Who Should Use Stintly
Stintly is the better fit if:
- You're a solo freelancer or one-person business. You don't need team seats, approval workflows, or a general ledger.
- Your main job is tracking time and billing for it. Designers, developers, writers, consultants, coaches, and tutors who bill hourly or by project are the core audience.
- You work in places with unreliable internet. Client sites, coffee shops, travel days, and rural areas aren't a problem for an offline app.
- You care about privacy. Your income, rates, and client list stay on your phone.
- You're early in freelancing or between clients. Paying $33/month during a slow quarter hurts. Paying nothing doesn't.
- You already have a simple tax setup. If you're a sole proprietor who hands an annual summary to a tax preparer, or files yourself, organized time, income, and expense records cover most of what you need. Pair that with a quarterly tax routine and you're in good shape.
- You're tired of subscription creep. Every free tool that does the job well is one less recurring charge.
A practical pattern many freelancers use: run Stintly day to day for time, invoices, and expenses, then do a weekly money routine to review earnings and outstanding invoices. If your business grows to the point where you need payroll, multiple team members, or an accountant in the books every month, that's the time to look at a paid platform like FreshBooks. Upgrade when you need to, not in advance.
The Bottom Line
FreshBooks is one of the better cloud accounting tools for service businesses. Its invoicing is polished, online payments work well, and the accounting depth holds up as a business gets more complex. If you have a team, an accountant who needs access, or a high volume of invoices and transactions, it earns its price.
Most solo operators aren't running that kind of business. They need to track hours, send invoices, log expenses, and know what they've earned. For that, paying $228 to $720 a year for a cloud platform with features you won't use is hard to justify, especially when the app also needs an internet connection and keeps your financial data on someone else's servers.
Stintly covers the essentials for free. It works fully offline and keeps your data on your device. Our recommendation: if you're a solo freelancer, start with Stintly. If you outgrow it because you hire, incorporate, or need accountant collaboration, FreshBooks is a solid next step. Until then, keep the subscription money.
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