FreeAgent

FreeAgent is the closest thing the UK has to accounting software designed around one specific customer: the single director limited company contractor. It was built in Edinburgh, it was bought by NatWest in 2018, and that ownership produced the single most important fact about it. If you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Ulster Bank, or hold a Mettle account with at least one transaction a month, FreeAgent costs nothing.

What it does well

The free route changes the entire comparison. A contractor paying £33 a month excluding VAT for a limited company plan elsewhere can move their banking and pay zero. Over three years that is more than a thousand pounds, and the product is not a stripped back version. It is the full thing.

Contractor specific work is where it earns its keep. It tracks Corporation Tax as you go, handles dividend documentation, produces the Self Assessment figures for a director, and shows a running tax timeline of what is owed and when. Most rivals treat a one person limited company as a small version of a bigger business. FreeAgent treats it as the main event.

The tax timeline deserves a specific mention. It shows VAT, PAYE, Corporation Tax and Self Assessment deadlines with the amounts against them, which for a contractor without an in house finance function is genuinely the difference between a planned payment and a surprise.

Pricing is also honest by business type rather than by feature gating. Sole traders pay £19 a month, limited companies £33, with landlord and partnership plans in between.

Where it falls short

It does not scale. There is no inventory, no meaningful stock control, no multi entity consolidation and no depth of management reporting. A business growing past ten or fifteen staff will outgrow it, and the migration to Xero or QuickBooks is a job rather than a click.

The app ecosystem is much smaller than Xero's. If you need your accounting to connect to a specialist trade or ecommerce system, check that the integration exists before you commit.

The free tier is also tied to a banking relationship, which is a commercial decision as much as a financial one. Moving your business banking to secure free software is a reasonable trade for many contractors and a poor one for anyone who values their current bank.

The UK detail that matters

This is a UK product built for UK taxes and it shows. Making Tax Digital for VAT and for Income Tax, CIS, Corporation Tax estimation, dividend vouchers and the Self Assessment position for directors are all handled natively rather than approximated. Support is UK based. There is a 30 day free trial and all prices exclude VAT at 20 percent.

Who should buy it

UK contractors, freelancers and single director limited companies, particularly anyone already banking with NatWest, RBS, Ulster or Mettle, where the answer is close to automatic. Businesses with stock, several employees or growth ambitions should look at Xero or QuickBooks instead.