QuickBooks vs FreeAgent UK 2026: MTD Costs for Sole Traders

2026-10-28·The AI Ledger editorial team

QuickBooks vs FreeAgent for UK sole traders and landlords comes down to your bank, your VAT status and your volume. As of 28 October 2026, QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus lists at £10 a month against £19 for FreeAgent's sole trader plan, but FreeAgent costs nothing for customers of NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank and Mettle. Both submit MTD for Income Tax updates.

TL;DR:

At list price QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus is £120 a year ex VAT; FreeAgent's sole trader plan is £228 billed monthly or £190 billed annually, and its landlord plan is £10 a month.

FreeAgent is free with a business current account at NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank, or with Mettle if you make at least one transaction a month.

QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus cannot submit VAT returns; FreeAgent's sole trader plan includes VAT, so a VAT-registered sole trader compares FreeAgent £228 with QuickBooks Simple Start £192.

The next quarterly update deadline is 7 November 2026, and HMRC applies no penalty points to late quarterly updates in the 2026 to 2027 tax year.

A practice with 100 sole trader clients pays £12,000 a year at QuickBooks list price against £22,800 at FreeAgent list price, unless over 47% of clients bank with a qualifying bank.

Which is cheaper, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, for a sole trader or landlord?
What does each cost over 12 months for a sole trader, a landlord and a VAT-registered trader?
How is FreeAgent free with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank, or Mettle?
Which handles MTD for Income Tax quarterly updates better?
What does each include, and where does each fall short?
How do client data, hosting and AI compare?
What does it cost a practice at 10, 30 and 100 sole trader clients?
Should you choose QuickBooks or FreeAgent?
How do you test the choice before committing?
Why does independent evidence matter when choosing accounting software?
Realistic expectations: the cheapest plan is rarely the cheapest year
Find your next accounting software tool through The AI Ledger
Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, for a sole trader or landlord?

QuickBooks is cheaper at list price for most sole traders; FreeAgent wins when a qualifying bank makes it free. FreeAgent's pricing page, read on 28 October 2026, states that all prices exclude 20% VAT. It lists the sole trader plan at £19 a month or £190 a year, the landlord plan at £10 or £100, and the limited company plan at £33 or £330.

Intuit's UK pricing page showed only "Loading live prices" on 28 October 2026. The QuickBooks figures below therefore use the £10 Sole Trader Plus price in the Whito price tracker (20 October 2026) and the other prices we read on 24 October 2026 in our QuickBooks pricing guide. Check the live page before you sign.

Plan	Price ex VAT	Billing	Submits VAT returns
QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus	£10 a month	Monthly	No
QuickBooks Simple Start	£16 a month	Monthly	Yes
FreeAgent landlord	£10 a month or £100 a year	Monthly or annual	Listed as included
FreeAgent sole trader	£19 a month or £190 a year	Monthly or annual	Listed as included
FreeAgent with a qualifying bank	£0	While the bank condition holds	Listed as included

FreeAgent takes 50% off the first six months on monthly billing or the first year on annual billing. QuickBooks advertises 90% off for six months to new customers; Intuit's terms say it cannot be combined with the 30-day free trial, and the price then reverts to "the then-current monthly price".

Pro Tip: Compare the price in month seven, not month one. The second year is the one you are really buying.

What does each cost over 12 months for a sole trader, a landlord and a VAT-registered trader?

Over 12 months a non-VAT sole trader pays £120 on QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus at list price against £228 on FreeAgent billed monthly, while a landlord pays £120 on either. All sums exclude VAT and use the list prices above; the offer column applies each vendor's introductory discount to the base plan only.

Worked example 1: a non-VAT sole trader, MTD for Income Tax only.

Option	List price, 12 months	With introductory offer
QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus	£10 × 12 = £120	(£1 × 6) + (£10 × 6) = £66
FreeAgent sole trader, monthly billing	£19 × 12 = £228	(£9.50 × 6) + (£19 × 6) = £171
FreeAgent sole trader, annual billing	£190	£190 × 50% = £95 for the first year
FreeAgent via a qualifying bank	£0	£0

Worked example 2: a landlord with property income only. FreeAgent's landlord plan is £10 × 12 = £120 monthly, or £100 annually, £20 less than QuickBooks at list price. With the offer it costs (£5 × 6) + (£10 × 6) = £90 monthly, against £66 on QuickBooks. Intuit's sole trader page says it helps "self-employed businesses and landlords" prepare for MTD for Income Tax but does not describe property-specific features, so test the property workflow in a trial.

Worked example 3: a VAT-registered sole trader. Intuit's page says VAT submission directly to HMRC is "not available" on the QuickBooks Sole Trader plan, so the cheapest QuickBooks route is Simple Start. FreeAgent's sole trader plan already lists VAT.

Option	List price, 12 months	With introductory offer
QuickBooks Simple Start	£16 × 12 = £192	(£1.60 × 6) + (£16 × 6) = £105.60
FreeAgent sole trader, monthly billing	£19 × 12 = £228	£171
FreeAgent sole trader, annual billing	£190	£95

Simple Start is £36 cheaper than FreeAgent on monthly billing but £2 dearer on annual billing (£192 against £190). That near tie means VAT-registered sole traders should decide on features and their accountant's preference.

How is FreeAgent free with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank, or Mettle?

FreeAgent is free if you hold a qualifying business account, and this is the biggest price swing in the comparison. FreeAgent's free accounting software page says the free account has "the same core features as a paid account", and its pricing page applies the offer to limited companies, partnerships, sole traders and landlords with those three banks, for as long as you keep the account.

Mettle works differently: FreeAgent says you must "make at least one transaction per month through your Mettle account", and the pricing page lists it for limited companies, sole traders and landlords but not partnerships. Add-ons can still cost money, such as Smart Capture Unlimited at £5 a month ex VAT. The page does not say what happens to your data if you close the bank account, so ask FreeAgent in writing.

Pro Tip: If you already bank with one of the four, FreeAgent costs £0 and QuickBooks cannot beat it. Do not open a new account just to get free software.

Which handles MTD for Income Tax quarterly updates better?

Neither has a clear compliance advantage: both say they support quarterly updates and the final declaration. GOV.UK's eligibility guidance, last updated 26 March 2026, sets the qualifying income thresholds at £50,000 (from 6 April 2026), £30,000 (from 6 April 2027) and £20,000 (from 6 April 2028). See our MTD threshold explainer.

FreeAgent's MTD page says you can "submit quarterly updates and file your final declaration directly to HMRC", that updates are auto-populated from your records, and that you can submit updates for all UK property income. Intuit says all QuickBooks plans are ready for MTD for Income Tax and that it "pulls all your records from QuickBooks Online" to prepare returns, without spelling out the steps. Whito's tracker records both plans as listed on HMRC's software finder on 20 October 2026.

GOV.UK's quarterly update guidance sets standard deadlines of 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. For 2026 to 2027 HMRC applies no penalty points to late quarterly updates; afterwards, four points trigger a £200 penalty. The update for 6 April to 5 October 2026 is due on 7 November, so a client yet to start has about ten days. See also MTD software cost per client.

What does each include, and where does each fall short?

QuickBooks offers more depth on higher plans, FreeAgent puts more into one plan, and each has gaps.

QuickBooks. The directory lists QuickBooks + Intuit Intelligence with an editor score of 4.3 out of 5, verified against Intuit's site on 27 October 2026. It has five plans from one user to 25 and payroll as an add-on. Its gaps: Sole Trader Plus is limited to one user and 250 accounts, has no VAT submission, and our listing says Intuit Intelligence is not available on it. Payroll Core costs £5 a month plus £1.50 per employee.

FreeAgent. One price covers invoicing, bank feeds, VAT and, on the sole trader plan, Self Assessment and payroll as listed. Its gaps: no user count is stated for any plan, partnerships get the full feature set only on the accruals basis, MTD for Income Tax is listed against the sole trader and landlord plans, not the company or partnership plans, and per-licence practice prices are unpublished. FreeAgent is not in the directory, so has no editor score.

Pro Tip: List the three features you cannot live without, such as VAT filing, a second user or payroll, and check each against the plan you intend to buy.

How do client data, hosting and AI compare?

Only FreeAgent states where its data sits. Its security pages say customer data is held in data centres in Ireland across multiple availability zones. We found nothing on either vendor's pages about AI model training on customer data, and Intuit's pricing and sole trader pages state no hosting location, so we record those as not stated. Read Intuit's privacy statement yourself before relying on either.

Question	QuickBooks	FreeAgent
Editor score (The AI Ledger)	4.3 out of 5	Not listed
Price for a non-VAT sole trader, 12 months	£120	£228 monthly, £190 annual, £0 via qualifying bank
Where client data is hosted	Not stated on pages read	Ireland, per FreeAgent's security pages
Vendor says it trains on client data	Not stated on pages read	Not stated on pages read
Reads or writes the ledger	It is the ledger, so it writes directly	It is the ledger, so it writes directly

What does it cost a practice at 10, 30 and 100 sole trader clients?

At list price a practice pays about half as much for QuickBooks as for FreeAgent across 10, 30 and 100 non-VAT sole trader clients, unless many clients bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank, or Mettle. The sums below are ex VAT and use the sole trader list prices: QuickBooks £10 × 12 = £120 per client, FreeAgent £228 on monthly billing, or £190 on annual billing.

Clients	QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus	FreeAgent, monthly billing	FreeAgent, annual billing
10	10 × £120 = £1,200	10 × £228 = £2,280	10 × £190 = £1,900
30	30 × £120 = £3,600	30 × £228 = £6,840	30 × £190 = £5,700
100	100 × £120 = £12,000	100 × £228 = £22,800	100 × £190 = £19,000

These are ceilings, not quotes. Intuit offers up to 50% off client subscriptions when the firm manages billing, and FreeAgent says practice discounts rise with active licences without publishing rates, so ask each vendor for your rate.

Free-bank clients change the maths. Break-even against QuickBooks at £120 is where the paying share of clients equals £120 divided by the FreeAgent price:

On annual billing, £120 ÷ £190 = 63%, so FreeAgent wins if more than 37% of clients qualify for free.
On monthly billing, £120 ÷ £228 = 53%, so FreeAgent wins if more than 47% of clients qualify.

Example: if 50 of 100 clients qualify, FreeAgent on monthly billing costs 50 × £228 = £11,400, £600 less than QuickBooks at £12,000. With only 30 qualifying, it costs 70 × £228 = £15,960, £3,960 more.

Should you choose QuickBooks or FreeAgent?

Choose QuickBooks if cost at scale matters, and FreeAgent if a qualifying bank makes it free or you want one plan with everything in it.

Choose QuickBooks if:

you are a non-VAT sole trader who does not bank with a qualifying bank, so £120 a year beats £190 or £228;
you want more plans to grow into, or payroll and app integrations in one ecosystem;
you manage many clients and can use wholesale billing discounts.

Choose FreeAgent if:

you bank with one of the four qualifying banks;
you are VAT-registered, since £190 annual billing is close to Simple Start at £192;
you are a landlord who wants a £100 a year plan on annual billing.

Also price Xero, which many accountants default to: see our Xero vs QuickBooks UK 2026 guide, the Xero (XeroForce & JAX) listing (editor score 4.5 out of 5) and the compare tool.

Try QuickBooks ↗

The AI Ledger earns a commission if you sign up through the links on this page. It never changes an editor score. FreeAgent is the cheaper choice for anyone with a qualifying bank, and for a landlord on annual billing.

How do you test the choice before committing?

Run both trials on one real quarter of records. Intuit says taking its discount means forgoing the free trial, so trial first.

Import one quarter of bank transactions and count how many categorise correctly.
Create three invoices and one receipt expense.
Run the quarterly update to preview and check the totals.
Ask in writing how to export your records.
Write the 12-month cost with the sum shown, including add-ons, extra users and the price after the offer ends.

Why does independent evidence matter when choosing accounting software?

Independent evidence matters because vendors describe their own plans, and offers change faster than marketing pages. A dated editor score and last-verified date show when a listing was checked against the vendor's site. We have not tested either product hands-on: this article rests on published pricing, the vendors' own statements, GOV.UK and a third-party price tracker. Browse the directory for scores and verification dates.

Realistic expectations: the cheapest plan is rarely the cheapest year

Budget on the price after the offer ends and the features you will need by month seven. A £1 introductory rate or a bank-linked free plan is a bargain only if you would have bought it anyway.

Find your next accounting software tool through The AI Ledger

Start with the reporting and dashboards category, then use the finder to narrow by practice size and need.

Frequently asked questions

Is FreeAgent really free with NatWest?

Yes, if you keep a qualifying business current account. FreeAgent's pricing page says the free plan applies to customers of NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank for as long as they keep the account, with optional add-ons such as Smart Capture Unlimited at £5 a month still chargeable.

Is QuickBooks or FreeAgent better for MTD for Income Tax?

Neither is clearly better, because both say they submit quarterly updates and the final declaration, and both were recorded as listed on HMRC's software finder on 20 October 2026. Cost and your bank usually decide.

Does QuickBooks Sole Trader Plus file VAT returns?

No. Intuit's sole trader page says VAT submission directly to HMRC is not available on the QuickBooks Sole Trader plan. A VAT-registered business needs Simple Start, listed at £16 a month in our 24 October reading, or a higher plan. FreeAgent's sole trader plan at £19 a month lists VAT.

When is the next MTD for Income Tax quarterly update due?

On the standard periods, GOV.UK sets the update covering 6 April to 5 October 2026 for 7 November 2026, then 7 February and 7 May. HMRC applies no penalty points to late quarterly updates in the 2026 to 2027 tax year, but penalties start afterwards.

Sources

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