Head to head · Accounting ledger · October 2026 research run
Apideck Accounting API + MCP vs FreeAgent API
Apideck Accounting API + MCP has a score of 73.2 (BB) against FreeAgent API's 57.6 (C). Both do accounting ledger. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 42 points.
Which one, for what
Pick Apideck Accounting API + MCP for
- schema & documentation (+42)
- agent ergonomics (+33)
- security & auth (+22)
- maintenance & community (+20)
Pick FreeAgent API for
- reliability (+10)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Apideck Accounting API + MCP | FreeAgent API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 75 | 85 | FreeAgent API +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 92 | 50 | Apideck Accounting API + MCP +42 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 88 | 55 | Apideck Accounting API + MCP +33 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 66 | 44 | Apideck Accounting API + MCP +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 80 | 60 | Apideck Accounting API + MCP +20 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 76 | 78 | FreeAgent API +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 73.2 · BB | 57.6 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Apideck Accounting API + MCP | FreeAgent API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apideck | FreeAgent |
| Hosted endpoint | https://unify.apideck.com/accounting | https://api.freeagent.com/v2 |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 362 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | com.apideck/mcp | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-01 |
| Popularity | 15 stars, 42k npm/wk, 14k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Apideck Accounting API + MCP
56 accounting connectors, including European ledgers such as DATEV, Exact Online, Fortnox and Twinfield. No published rate limits of Apideck's own, only connector limits mirrored in headers.
FreeAgent API
Published limits of 120 requests a minute and 3,600 an hour per user, with Retry-After on 429. No OAuth scopes, so a token can do anything the authorising user can.
Before you call either
Apideck Accounting API + MCP
- Stay in dynamic mode and search for tools. Static mode loads all 362 schemas
- Start the MCP with --lock-identity (or ?lock_identity=true) when one agent serves one customer
- Read x-downstream-ratelimit-remaining before fanning out, and wait until x-downstream-ratelimit-reset after a 429
- List before you retry a create that timed out. Writes aren't idempotent and there's no idempotency key
- Pass fields= on list calls to cut the response to the columns you need
FreeAgent API
- Store the new refresh token from every refresh response. The old one stops working
- Create the invoice, then PUT /v2/invoices/:id/transitions/mark_as_sent. A draft isn't visible to the customer
- Record a customer payment by explaining the bank transaction against the invoice. There's no invoice payments endpoint
- Send X-RateLimit-Test: true in the sandbox to see the 429 and Retry-After path before production does it to you
- Use view= and updated_since= on list calls and per_page up to 100 to stay under 120 requests a minute
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