How we wrote this: GlassJar publishes this comparison, and GlassJar is one of the tools in it. Every tool is judged on the same points, pricing and features come from each vendor’s public pages, and we say plainly where GlassJar falls short.
If tax time is your main problem, QuickBooks Solopreneur or FreshBooks is the better buy. Wave is the best free option. GlassJar has no tax tools at all and fits only freelancers who have outgrown solo work.
That goes first because this is the buying decision where GlassJar is the weaker product. GlassJar is accounting software for small businesses, bookkeepers and firms, with no quarterly estimated tax calculation, no Schedule C expense categories, no mileage tracking and no 1099 form generation. If your accounting year is really one scramble in March, the tools below beat it.
Freelance tax work has four moving parts. You pay estimated tax four times a year instead of once. You report income and expenses on Schedule C with your Form 1040, and net profit flows to Schedule SE for self-employment tax at 15.3 percent of net earnings. You need a defensible mileage log if you drive for work. And if you pay contractors, you may owe them a 1099-NEC. Software earns its price by handling those four things.
Comparison at a glance
| Tool | Starting price | Users included | Best at | Worst at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Solopreneur | Pricing starts at (see QuickBooks pricing) | 1 | Estimated tax, Schedule C categories, mileage | Hard ceiling, so growth means migrating |
| QuickBooks Online | $0 (Free), $38/mo (Simple Start) | 1 user on both | Room to grow to Advanced at $340 | More tool than a solo freelancer needs |
| FreshBooks | $23/mo (Lite) | 5 billable clients, $11 per extra member | Invoicing and chasing late payers | Client caps on Lite; weak accounts payable |
| Wave | $0 (Starter), $19/mo (Pro) | 1 | Real invoicing and books at no cost | Starter has no bank connections, no tax planning |
| Zoho Books | $0 (Free), $20/mo (Standard) | 1 user plus 1 accountant on Free | Most features per dollar, multi-currency | Global product, thin on US tax specifics |
| Bonsai | $15 per user (Basic), $25 (Essentials) | priced per user | Contracts, proposals and invoices in one flow | Not a ledger, no US tax engine |
| GlassJar | $59/mo (Foundation) | 1 | Payables, budgets and a real period close | No estimated tax, Schedule C or mileage |
Competitor prices are regular monthly list prices as of October 15, 2026, not promotional rates.
QuickBooks Solopreneur
Solopreneur is Intuit’s product for exactly this reader, and it is built around the tax calendar rather than around bookkeeping theory. It separates business from personal spend, maps categories to Schedule C lines, tracks mileage from your phone, and gives a running estimated tax figure so the quarterly payment is not a guess. Pricing starts at the figure published on the QuickBooks pricing page. No number is stated here because we could not verify one from the vendor page today.
The trade is reach. Solopreneur is single entry by design, with no accounts payable and no second user. The day you hire a subcontractor or want a vendor aging report, you are moving to QuickBooks Online and redoing setup.
Best for: solo freelancers with no employees whose single biggest accounting cost is tax preparation.
QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is the full product, and it matters here for one reason. It is where you land when Solopreneur runs out, and starting on it avoids a migration later. There is a Free tier at $0 for one user, Simple Start at $38, also one user, then Essentials at $85 for three, Plus at $140 for five and Advanced at $340 for twenty five.
Simple Start covers invoicing, expense tracking, mileage, bank connections and a proper profit and loss statement, and it hands your accountant a file they already know. Estimated tax guidance is lighter than in Solopreneur, which was purpose built for it, and for a freelancer billing a handful of clients, double entry books are more machinery than the job needs.
Best for: freelancers who expect to hire, add a partner or incorporate within a year or two.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is the best pick when your real problem is getting paid rather than filing. Invoices look professional with almost no setup, late payment reminders and fees are automatic, retainers and recurring billing work properly, and expense capture plus a mileage tracker feed a tax summary your accountant can use. Lite is $23 a month for five billable clients, Plus is $43 for fifty, Premium is $70 for unlimited, and Select is quote only with two team members included. Below Select, extra team members are $11 per user.
The client cap on Lite catches people out, since it counts clients rather than invoices. FreshBooks is also built around money coming in, so a growing stack of bills to pay will find its limits first.
Best for: freelancers with a few steady clients who want invoicing, expenses and tax-ready books in one subscription.
Wave
Wave is the honest free answer. Starter at $0 gives unlimited invoicing and genuine double entry bookkeeping, which is more than most free tiers deliver. Pro at $19 a month adds bank connections, automatic categorization and receipt capture, and that jump is worth paying for, because manual entry is where free plans quietly cost you a weekend. Wave Advisors starts from $149 a month for a bookkeeper.
What you do not get is tax planning. Wave reports what happened, cleanly, and leaves the estimated payment math to you or your preparer. There is no Schedule C mapping or mileage tracker in the accounting product.
Best for: new or part time freelancers with low volume who need clean records at the lowest possible cost.
Zoho Books
Zoho Books gives more software per dollar than anything else here. The Free plan covers one user plus one accountant, Standard is $20 a month for three users, Professional is $50 for five, Premium is $70 for ten, Elite is $150 and Ultimate is $275. Even the cheap tiers include recurring invoices, expense tracking, project time, multi-currency and sales approvals.
Zoho Books is a global product, and that cuts both ways. Multi-currency billing to overseas clients is excellent. US specifics like Schedule C categorization and quarterly estimated tax are not where the product spends its attention, so expect to configure more yourself and lean harder on your accountant at filing time.
Best for: freelancers billing international clients, or anyone who wants the widest feature set for roughly $20 a month.
Bonsai
Bonsai is a freelance business in a box rather than accounting software. Proposals become contracts, contracts become projects, tracked time becomes an invoice, and expense and income tracking sit alongside. Basic is $15 per user and is time tracking only. Essentials at $25 per user is the real entry point, Premium at $39 adds QuickBooks, Xero, Zapier, Calendly and Google connections, and Elite at $59 per user with a three user minimum adds expense markup and timesheet locking.
It is thin as a ledger and has no US tax engine, which is why Premium exists to push data into QuickBooks or Xero. Buy Bonsai for the front office, not for filing.
Best for: freelancers who win work through proposals and contracts and want one tool from pitch to payment.
GlassJar
GlassJar is new, launching in January 2027, and it does not compete on freelance tax features. There is no estimated tax calculator, no Schedule C mapping, no mileage tracking and no 1099-NEC generation, and no plan adds them. There is no payroll or sales tax filing either. Use QuickBooks Solopreneur or FreshBooks for the tax side.
What GlassJar does is the part solo tools skip. Every transaction type, bills, invoices, checks and journal entries, is entered on one screen. One contact record can be a customer, a vendor and a contractor at once, which matters when the designer you subcontract is also a client. You also get accounts payable, bank reconciliation, budgeting and a real period close. Foundation is $59 a month for one user, Core $99 for two and Advanced $299 for five, all 50 percent off for three months at launch, with a 14 day trial and no card required.
Best for: a freelancer who has become a small business, with vendors to pay and a chart of accounts worth maintaining.
What to compare, and why
Estimated tax support. You generally owe quarterly payments if you expect to owe $1,000 or more for the year, with deadlines in April, June, September and the following January. A running estimate prevents the worst freelance cash flow failure, which is spending money that was already the government’s. If your software will not do it, our free budget and cash flow workbook has a cash flow tab for setting money aside each month.
Schedule C categories. Expenses are only as useful as their mapping to the form, and tools that categorize to Schedule C lines directly save your preparer hours.
Mileage. The IRS standard rate changes every year, so check the current figure rather than carrying one forward. What software can do is capture the log, and a phone tracker beats a notebook that reconstructs January in April.
Contractor reporting. The 1099-NEC threshold rose to $2,000 for payments made in 2026 under 2025 legislation, up from $600, and is indexed for inflation after 2026. Ask whether your tool files the forms or only tracks the payments.
An exit. Whatever you pick, you should be able to produce a clean profit and loss statement on demand. Our profit and loss statement generator is free and needs no account if you want one before committing to a subscription.
Weighing GlassJar against one tool? See our one-on-one comparisons with QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, Wave and Zoho Books.
FAQ
What is the best accounting software for freelancers for taxes?
QuickBooks Solopreneur, because it is built around the tax calendar rather than around bookkeeping. It maps spend to Schedule C categories, tracks mileage from your phone and keeps a running estimated tax number. FreshBooks is a close second if getting paid matters as much as filing.
Can accounting software calculate my quarterly estimated taxes?
Some can estimate them, and none can file them for you. QuickBooks Solopreneur gives a running estimate from your categorized income and expenses, and FreshBooks produces a tax summary your preparer works from. Treat any figure as a planning number and confirm it with a CPA before you pay.
Do I need accounting software to file a Schedule C?
No. A spreadsheet and clean bank records are enough at low volume, which is why Wave at $0 suits a part time freelancer. Software earns its cost once you are chasing receipts, invoicing regularly or paying contractors.
Does GlassJar handle freelance taxes or generate 1099s?
No on both. GlassJar has no quarterly estimated tax calculation, no Schedule C categorization, no mileage tracking and no 1099 form generation. For those, use QuickBooks Solopreneur or FreshBooks. GlassJar fits the later stage, when you are paying vendors and want payables, reconciliation and a period close.
How much should a freelancer pay for accounting software?
Most freelancers should be between $0 and $45 a month. Wave Starter at $0 and Zoho Books Free are genuinely usable at low volume, Wave Pro at $19 and FreshBooks Lite at $23 cover the common cases, and Zoho Books Standard at $20 covers international billing. Spending more only makes sense once you have contractors, real payables or a second person in the books.
