# FreeAgent API vs FreshBooks API

> FreeAgent API has a score of 57.6 (C) against FreshBooks API's 45.6 (E). Both do accounting ledger. The largest gap is reliability, 50 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freeagent-vs-freshbooks.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-04

FreeAgent API has a score of 57.6 (C) against FreshBooks API's 45.6 (E). Both do accounting ledger. The largest gap is reliability, 50 points.

- FreeAgent API: grade C, 57.6/100, rank #291 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/freeagent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/freeagent.json
- FreshBooks API: grade E, 45.6/100, rank #397 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/freshbooks.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/freshbooks.json

## Which one, for what

Pick FreeAgent API for reliability (+50), maintenance & community (+46), transparency & trust (+10).

Pick FreshBooks API for agent ergonomics (+6), security & auth (+13).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | FreeAgent API | FreshBooks API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 35 | FreeAgent API +50 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 48 | FreeAgent API +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 61 | FreshBooks API +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 57 | FreshBooks API +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 14 | FreeAgent API +46 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 68 | FreeAgent API +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57.6 · C** | **45.6 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | FreeAgent API | FreshBooks API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | FreeAgent | FreshBooks |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.freeagent.com/v2` | `https://api.freshbooks.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth |
| Pricing | Your plan | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 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 | no | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-01 | 2024-09-11 |
| Popularity | none | 11 stars, 685 npm/wk, 415 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**FreshBooks API.** OAuth scopes split read and write per resource, such as user:invoices:read. Rate limits have no numbers, status code or headers.

## Before you call either

### FreeAgent API

1. Store the new refresh token from every refresh response. The old one stops working
2. Create the invoice, then PUT /v2/invoices/:id/transitions/mark_as_sent. A draft isn't visible to the customer
3. Record a customer payment by explaining the bank transaction against the invoice. There's no invoice payments endpoint
4. Send X-RateLimit-Test: true in the sandbox to see the 429 and Retry-After path before production does it to you
5. Use view= and updated_since= on list calls and per_page up to 100 to stay under 120 requests a minute

### FreshBooks API

1. Call /auth/api/v1/users/me first and keep both ids. Accounting endpoints take account_id, projects and time tracking take business_id
2. Serialise token refreshes. Issuing a new refresh token kills the old one at once
3. Mark an invoice as sent (action_mark_as_sent) or email it. Reports ignore drafts
4. Send x-api-version: 2023-09-25 on journal entry calls
5. Back off on any throttling response yourself. There's no Retry-After to read and no published limit

## Other comparisons with FreeAgent API or FreshBooks API

- [Apideck Accounting API + MCP vs FreeAgent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apideck-accounting-vs-freeagent.md)
- [Apideck Accounting API + MCP vs FreshBooks API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apideck-accounting-vs-freshbooks.md)
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- [FreshBooks API vs QuickBooks Online API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freshbooks-vs-quickbooks-online.md)
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