# FreshBooks API vs Xero API + MCP

> Xero API + MCP has a score of 67.4 (B) against FreshBooks API's 45.6 (E). Both do accounting ledger. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 62 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freshbooks-vs-xero
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- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freshbooks-vs-xero.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freshbooks-vs-xero.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

Xero API + MCP has a score of 67.4 (B) against FreshBooks API's 45.6 (E). Both do accounting ledger. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 62 points.

- 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
- Xero API + MCP: grade B, 67.4/100, rank #143 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/xero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/xero.json

## Which one, for what

Pick FreshBooks API for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Xero API + MCP for reliability (+33), schema & documentation (+31), agent ergonomics (+14), security & auth (+7), payments & pricing (+5), maintenance & community (+62), transparency & trust (+7).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | FreshBooks API | Xero API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 68 | Xero API + MCP +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 48 | 79 | Xero API + MCP +31 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 75 | Xero API + MCP +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 64 | Xero API + MCP +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 35 | Xero API + MCP +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 14 | 76 | Xero API + MCP +62 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 75 | Xero API + MCP +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **45.6 · E** | **67.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | FreshBooks API | Xero API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | FreshBooks | Xero |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.freshbooks.com` | `https://api.xero.com/api.xro/2.0` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth |
| Pricing | Your plan | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 51 |
| 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 | 2024-09-11 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | 11 stars, 685 npm/wk, 415 PyPI/wk | 350 stars, 395k npm/wk, 64k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

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

**Xero API + MCP.** Granular OAuth scopes, such as accounting.reports.profitandloss.read, required for apps created from 29 April 2026. Developer docs, including the per-minute rate limits, only render with JavaScript.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Xero API + MCP

1. Send xero-tenant-id on every call. The token alone doesn't name the organisation
2. A bill is an Invoice with Type ACCPAY, a sales invoice is ACCREC. There's no separate bills endpoint
3. Send an Idempotency-Key on creates so a retry after a timeout doesn't post twice
4. Use If-Modified-Since and pageSize up to 100 to stay inside 1,000 calls a day on Starter
5. Set XERO_SCOPES to read scopes only when the agent shouldn't write. The MCP still lists its write and delete tools

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