FRESHBOOKS ALTERNATIVE
Enlivy vs FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a genuinely good invoicing and time tracking tool for service businesses. It caps how many clients you can bill, charges per teammate, and has no EU e-invoicing or sales pipeline.
HOW THEY COMPARE
Enlivy vs FreshBooks, capability by capability
FreshBooks covers more of this list than most invoicing tools: a client portal, e-signatures, recurring billing and reconciliation all ship in the product. The gap is the deal in front of the invoice, and the compliance behind it.
| Capability | Enlivy This page | FreshBooks Invoicing & time tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Time tracking & timesheets | Partial | Strong |
| Sales pipeline / CRM | Strong | Absent |
| Proposals & contracts with e-signature | Strong | Partial |
| Invoicing & payment collection | Strong | Strong |
| Recurring billing / subscriptions | Strong | Strong |
| EU e-invoicing (PEPPOL / ANAF eFactura) | Partial | Absent |
| Bank sync & reconciliation | Partial | Strong |
| Client self-service portal | Strong | Strong |
| Payroll records (no payroll runs) | Partial | Partial |
| Unlimited billable clients on the entry plan | Strong | Absent |
STRENGTHS ON BOTH SIDES
Where each one actually wins
FreshBooks earned its reputation on the parts of this that freelancers touch daily. The limits show up as the business grows.
Where FreshBooks wins
Time tracking goes deeper in FreshBooks than anything Enlivy offers: one-click timers, timesheets, and project profitability built from logged hours, so an agency that bills by the hour can tell whether a project made money. That sits alongside expenses, a client portal, e-signatures from the Plus tier, recurring billing and bank reconciliation in the same product.
With the Reports pack, Enlivy can collect hours as a timesheet field on a daily report, which works as an attendance log, but it has no timers and no link between an hour and a project's profitability.
Where Enlivy wins
FreshBooks has no sales pipeline, so the deal lives in a separate CRM until it becomes an invoice, and it has no ANAF eFactura or PEPPOL support, which is a hard requirement for invoicing into Romania and increasingly across the EU.
Its plans also cap billable clients: five on Lite, fifty on Plus, and every teammate costs 11 dollars a month on top. In Enlivy the pipeline, the signed contract and the invoice stay linked, with no client cap; additional Helpdesk seats are priced separately.
THE DEAL BEFORE THE INVOICE
FreshBooks bills the client. Enlivy wins them first.
The pipeline, the signed contract, the recurring plan with the Billing Schedules pack and an invoice with the right EU VAT, linked to each other, without a cap on how many clients you can bill.
Free plan, no card needed · Packs priced per organization · Tasks included
PRICING
Capped clients and paid seats versus feature packs
FreshBooks charges on two axes at once, and both of them move as you grow.
FreshBooks: per client and per seat
Lite runs 23 dollars a month and allows five billable clients. Plus is 43 dollars for fifty. Unlimited clients only arrive at Premium, 70 dollars a month, and Select is quote-only. On top of any tier, each extra team member costs 11 dollars a month, and payroll is a separate add-on at 40 dollars plus 6 dollars per person.
Enlivy: choose the packs you need
Enlivy prices per feature pack: invoicing, contracts, and the sales pipeline are separate packs; payroll is a separate pack and the customer portal is included, plus add-ons for extra bank connections.
There is no cap on billable clients; Helpdesk seats beyond the included seat are charged separately. See plans and pricing.
WHO IT FITS
Who each one actually fits
A quick way to self-select before you read the rest of the page.
FreshBooks fits you if
- You bill by the hour and need time tracking and project profitability more than a pipeline.
- Your client list fits comfortably inside a tier, and your team is small enough that 11 dollars a seat doesn't add up.
- You invoice inside North America and don't need EU e-invoicing.
Enlivy fits you if
- You sell project work, retainers or subscriptions and want the deal, contract and invoice connected end to end.
- You invoice from a Romanian company and need ANAF eFactura, or PEPPOL BIS 3.0 files.
- You are adding clients and teammates and don't want either of them to move the price.
SWITCHING
Switching from FreshBooks
Most people move once the client cap starts shaping decisions, or once an EU client asks for a compliant e-invoice.
What you run today
- FreshBooks Invoicing and time tracking, capped by billable clients
- A separate CRM Where the deal lives until it becomes an invoice
- Nothing for EU compliance No PEPPOL, no ANAF eFactura
- Per-seat charges 11 dollars a month for every teammate
What it becomes
Enlivy
- Pipeline, proposal and signed contract kept connected
- Billing schedules for retainers and subscriptions
- Romanian ANAF connection and supported invoice file exports
- No client cap; additional Helpdesk seats are priced separately
What stays where it is
- A time tracking tool billable hours, project profitability
- Your accountant the general ledger
Enlivy's Reports pack can collect hours as a timesheet on a daily report, which covers attendance, but it does not run timers or tie hours to project profitability. If you bill by the hour, keep whatever logs it.
How the move works
- 1
Export your clients
Clients come out of FreshBooks as a spreadsheet; open invoices stay there until paid.
- 2
Import your clients
Clients import from a spreadsheet; you add contracts and schedules in Enlivy.
- 3
Bill every client
Add every client you have, with no client cap and eFactura for Romanian clients.
TRY IT ON ONE CLIENT
You can test this without migrating anything
Create an organization, run a single client from proposal to paid invoice, and see what the pipeline adds before you move the rest.
Free plan, no card needed · Packs priced per organization · Tasks included
FRESHBOOKS ALTERNATIVE
Enlivy vs FreshBooks: common questions
Is Enlivy a replacement for FreshBooks, or does it work alongside it?
For most service businesses it replaces it. Invoicing, recurring billing, the client portal and bank reconciliation exist in both, and Enlivy adds the sales pipeline, ANAF eFactura and EU e-invoice files FreshBooks doesn't have. The exception is time tracking: if you bill by the hour, keep a tool that logs hours, because Enlivy has no timer and no project hours.
Can Enlivy send an EU e-invoice or ANAF eFactura that FreshBooks can't?
Yes, for Romania. Enlivy sends a Romanian organization's invoices to Romanian clients through ANAF eFactura, manually or on a schedule you set, and for other EU markets it can export a PEPPOL BIS 3.0 file you submit yourself. FreshBooks has no PEPPOL or eFactura support, which makes it unusable on its own for a Romanian business, and increasingly across the EU.
Why does FreshBooks limit how many clients I can bill?
Billable clients are how FreshBooks tiers its plans: five on Lite, fifty on Plus, unlimited only from Premium at 70 dollars a month. Every extra team member is another 11 dollars a month on top. Enlivy has no client cap. Helpdesk seats beyond the included seat are priced separately.
Does Enlivy do time tracking and project profitability?
Only partly. Enlivy's Reports pack lets you add a timesheet field to a report scheduled daily for a given role, so hours are submitted and reviewed in Enlivy. That works as a pontaj or attendance record.
It stops short of what FreshBooks does: no one-click timers, no hours attached to a project to show whether it made money, and no route from a logged hour to a billable line on an invoice. If hours are how you price work, FreshBooks still covers ground Enlivy does not.
What happens to my clients and invoices if I switch?
Clients export from FreshBooks as a spreadsheet and import into Enlivy; open invoices stay in FreshBooks until they are paid, and you add contracts and billing schedules in Enlivy. Invoices you already issued stay in your records as they are, and your accountant keeps working from the same documents.