Ad / affiliate disclosure: Fizoral is funded by affiliate commission. When we are a member of a vendor’s affiliate programme, links to that vendor are affiliate links and we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Where we are not in a vendor’s programme, our links are ordinary links and we earn nothing. Commission never changes our recommendations, and we tell you below exactly where each product beats the ones we earn from. If you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, FreeAgent is free for you permanently and no one pays us anything — we still say so in the fourth section of this page. Read the full disclosure.
Xero is running 80% off for six months. FreeAgent is running 50% off for six months. Neither of those is a price — they are hooks, and they expire on your seventh bill. Here is what Xero and FreeAgent actually cost a UK business over two years, and the one question that can make the answer zero.
The short answer, before you scroll
If you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, stop reading and take FreeAgent. It is free for you, permanently, for as long as you hold the account. Not a trial — the full product. We earn nothing when you do this, and we are still putting it in the first thing you read, because nothing on this page beats free.
For everyone else, Xero is cheaper. On entry plans over 24 months you pay £307.20 for Xero Ignite against £399 for FreeAgent Sole Trader — Xero is £91.80 ahead. That flips if you are a landlord (FreeAgent £210) or a limited company needing payroll (FreeAgent £693 against Xero’s £960).
No email required. Nothing gated. We tell you where the free option is before we tell you where the commission is.
This one question changes the answer for a large minority of UK businesses, and it is the question affiliate comparisons leave until the footer. It is section four here for a reason.
Which business current account do you hold?
Pick the one your business banking sits with. If you hold more than one, pick the qualifying bank — one is enough.
If you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Ulster Bank: FreeAgent is included with your business current account at no cost, permanently, for as long as you hold the account. Over 24 months you pay £0 against £307.20 for Xero Ignite. Take it. We are paid no commission on this route.
If you bank with Mettle: the same deal, with one condition — Mettle asks for at least one transaction a month on the account to keep the FreeAgent subscription active. Over 24 months you pay £0. We are paid no commission on this route either.
If you bank anywhere else: you are choosing between paid plans, and for a sole trader Xero is cheaper — £307.20 against FreeAgent’s £399 over 24 months. Landlords and limited companies needing payroll should read on, because for them it goes the other way.
How to claim it: you sign up for FreeAgent from inside your bank’s online banking or app, not from FreeAgent’s own website — going direct will put you on a paid plan. The free licence is tied to holding the account, so it ends if you close it. Verified 31 July 2026; bank partnerships change, so confirm with your bank before you rely on it.
Solid bars are total spend over 24 months. The dashed line marks the end of year one — everything right of it is the real price, the one you pay for as long as you stay. Pick the row that describes you.
Which describes your business?
Ex VAT. Assumes the new-customer promotion running on 31 July 2026 — 80% off six months at Xero, 50% off six months at FreeAgent — then full list price from month seven. Promotions change monthly. Always confirm on the vendor’s own page before you commit. See the full arithmetic.
Amber marks the winner of each row, whichever side it falls on. Count them — FreeAgent takes more of them than Xero does, and we are paid more for Xero.
| Xero | FreeAgent | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price / month | £16 Ignite |
£19 Sole Trader — or £10 Landlord |
| Current intro offer | 80% off 6 months → £3.20/mo |
50% off 6 months → £9.50/mo |
| 24-month cost, entry plan | £307.20 £91.80 cheaper |
£399 |
| Free permanently with a bank account | No — no such route exists | Yes — £0 forever with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle the single biggest fact on this page, and we earn nothing from it |
| VAT returns (MTD for VAT) | Yes, from £16 Ignite upward | Yes, on every plan — including the £10 Landlord plan |
| MTD for Income Tax | Recognised by HMRC | Recognised by HMRC |
| Self Assessment filing | Bookkeeping only. Does not file the SA100 — you or your accountant file elsewhere | Files a complete return direct to HMRC, including self-employment and property pages |
| Payroll | Included for 5 people, but only from Comprehensive £50 | RTI payroll included in Limited Company at £33 £693 vs £960 over 24 months |
| Bank feeds | The strongest part of the product. Open Banking across the UK, and a reconciliation engine that learns your coding | Solid Open Banking feeds, and a first-party feed if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Mettle. Fewer smart-matching tools |
| Landlord features | No landlord product. You run Ignite at £16 and build property tracking out of tracking categories | Dedicated Landlord plan at £10 — property categories, rental income, property pages on the tax return |
| Multi-currency | Full multi-currency ledger and bank accounts from Comprehensive £50 | Foreign-currency invoicing only. No multi-currency bank accounts |
| Inventory / stock | Inventory tracking built in from Grow upward | None. If you hold stock, FreeAgent is the wrong product |
| Third-party app ecosystem | Largest in the UK — 1,000+ integrations, and the ones that matter are first-class | Around 50 integrations. Covers the essentials, and little beyond them |
| Support | Email / in-product, 24/7. No inbound phone line | Phone and email during UK hours, with a good reputation for it |
| Users included | Unlimited on every plan | Unlimited on every plan |
| Invoices on entry plan | 20/month on Ignite a real cap, and easy to hit |
Unlimited |
| UK accountant availability | Effectively universal. Xero is the default in UK practice | Well known, but a smaller practice base. Check with yours first |
| Free trial | 30 days + 1 month free | 30 days |
| Plan ladder | £16 → £37 → £50 → £65 | Priced by business type, not by size: £10 landlord, £19 sole trader, £27 partnership, £33 limited company |
| Best suited to | Sole traders who want the lowest two-year bill, growing businesses, anyone holding stock or invoicing abroad | Anyone banking with NatWest, RBS, Ulster or Mettle; landlords; small limited companies running payroll; sole traders who want their tax return filed for them |
All prices ex VAT, taken from Xero’s and FreeAgent’s own UK pricing pages on 31 July 2026. Promotional rates are for new customers only and do not renew. Counted honestly, FreeAgent takes more amber cells on this table than Xero does. Xero’s wins are concentrated where they matter most for a growing business — entry price, app ecosystem, multi-currency and inventory — which is why it is still the right answer for a lot of readers.
There is no universal winner here. There is only a winner for your specific circumstances, and in three of these four cases it is not the product we earn most from.
Sole trader, banking elsewhere
Over 24 months Xero Ignite costs £307.20 against £399 for FreeAgent Sole Trader. Both file VAT, both are MTD-recognised, both give you unlimited users. The honest counter-argument is Self Assessment: FreeAgent files your return and Xero does not, so if you are unrepresented and want one product end to end, that £91.80 buys something real. If you have an accountant, it does not.
Verdict Xero Ignite, £16/mo
Landlord
FreeAgent sells a £10 Landlord plan — £210 over 24 months — with property categories, rental income tracking and the property pages of the tax return filed for you. Xero has no landlord product; you would run Ignite at £307.20 and build it yourself out of tracking categories. That is £97.20 more for less. There is no version of this where Xero is the right buy for a small portfolio.
Verdict FreeAgent Landlord, £10/mo
Limited company needing payroll
FreeAgent’s Limited Company plan includes RTI payroll at £33/month — £693 over 24 months. Xero only bundles payroll from Comprehensive at £50, which is £960. Even Xero Grow at £37 (£710.40) is more expensive than FreeAgent and has no payroll at all. Xero’s payroll is the better product once you are paying real headcount; for a director-only or two-person company it is simply more money.
Verdict FreeAgent Limited Company, £33/mo
You bank with NatWest, RBS, Ulster or Mettle
No commission to us FreeAgent is included with your business current account at £0 permanently — the full product, MTD-recognised, for as long as you hold the account. Mettle asks for one transaction a month; the others ask for nothing. Sign up from inside your banking app rather than FreeAgent’s website, or you will land on a paid plan. Nothing on this page beats free, including the product we are paid more to sell you.
Verdict FreeAgent via your bank, £0/mo
We have run a VAT-registered limited company on Xero for four years and kept a FreeAgent subscription alongside it for two. The complaints below are ours, not a competitor’s marketing.
We are paid more when you choose Xero, and paid nothing at all in the first case below. Here are the five situations where you should not buy it.
Weighing Xero against a different rival? We ran the same two-year arithmetic on Xero vs QuickBooks.
Every figure on this page comes from the same three-step sum: six months at the promotional rate, then list price for the rest. Nothing is rounded, nothing is estimated.
| Plan | Months 1–6 | Months 7–12 | Year one | Months 13–24 | 24-month total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xero Ignite £16 | 6 × £3.20 = £19.20 | 6 × £16 = £96 | £115.20 | 12 × £16 = £192 | £307.20 |
| Xero Grow £37 | 6 × £7.40 = £44.40 | 6 × £37 = £222 | £266.40 | 12 × £37 = £444 | £710.40 |
| Xero Comprehensive £50 | 6 × £10 = £60 | 6 × £50 = £300 | £360 | 12 × £50 = £600 | £960 |
| Xero Ultimate £65 | 6 × £13 = £78 | 6 × £65 = £390 | £468 | 12 × £65 = £780 | £1,248 |
| FreeAgent Sole Trader £19 | 6 × £9.50 = £57 | 6 × £19 = £114 | £171 | 12 × £19 = £228 | £399 |
| FreeAgent Landlord £10 | 6 × £5 = £30 | 6 × £10 = £60 | £90 | 12 × £10 = £120 | £210 |
| FreeAgent Partnership £27 | 6 × £13.50 = £81 | 6 × £27 = £162 | £243 | 12 × £27 = £324 | £567 |
| FreeAgent Limited Company £33 | 6 × £16.50 = £99 | 6 × £33 = £198 | £297 | 12 × £33 = £396 | £693 |
| FreeAgent via your bank | 6 × £0 = £0 | 6 × £0 = £0 | £0 | 12 × £0 = £0 | £0 |
Assumptions, stated plainly. All figures ex VAT and in GBP. Monthly billing, no annual prepayment discount applied. The 80% (Xero) and 50% (FreeAgent) six-month new-customer discounts are verified on the entry plans and applied at the same percentage to higher tiers for illustration — confirm the offer on the tier you actually want before you buy. Free-trial months are excluded from every total, which makes both products look slightly more expensive than they will be in your first year, Xero more so because its trial is longer. The £0 FreeAgent row assumes you hold a qualifying NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle business current account for the full 24 months, and at Mettle that you transact at least once a month. Promotions are for new customers only, do not renew, and change monthly. Everything here was checked against Xero’s and FreeAgent’s own UK pricing pages on 31 July 2026.
Our method · verified 31 July 2026
Every price on this page was read off Xero’s and FreeAgent’s own UK pricing pages — not a press release, not a review-site database, not another comparison article. Figures are ex VAT unless this page says otherwise, cover the plans named in the tables above, and were verified on 31 July 2026. Promotional rates in this category are revised roughly monthly and are almost always for new customers only, so we re-check every figure on this page monthly and move the verification date when we do.
The 24-month totals are arithmetic rather than opinion: promotional months at the promotional rate, then full list price through to month twenty-four, with the multiplication printed beside each total so you can redo it on your phone.
We publish our method instead of a byline. A named author is easy to invent and impossible for you to check; a named source, a stated date and printed arithmetic are not. This page is written and maintained by Fizoral as a publication. If a number here is wrong it is checkable against the vendor’s own page in under a minute — and we would rather you did that than took our word for it. Read how we research, or tell us about a figure that looks wrong.
Xero, for most businesses, but not for all of them. Over 24 months on entry plans you pay £307.20 for Xero Ignite against £399 for FreeAgent Sole Trader, so Xero is £91.80 cheaper. That reverses in two common cases. If you are a landlord, FreeAgent’s £10 Landlord plan costs £210 over two years against Xero’s £307.20. If you run a limited company and need payroll, FreeAgent includes it at £33 a month — £693 over 24 months — where Xero needs Comprehensive at £50, which is £960. And if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, FreeAgent costs you nothing at all.
Yes, and permanently — it is not a trial. FreeAgent is included at no cost for as long as you hold a business current account with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle. It is the full product rather than a cut-down edition, and it is recognised by HMRC for Making Tax Digital. Mettle asks for at least one transaction a month to keep the subscription active; NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank do not. We earn no commission when you take this route. We are telling you about it anyway, because nothing on this page beats free.
You lose the free subscription and FreeAgent moves you onto a paid plan. The free licence is tied to holding the bank account, not to your FreeAgent login, so closing that account — or, at Mettle, going a month without a transaction — ends it. Your data is not deleted; you are asked to start paying the standard rate for your business type, which is £19 a month for a sole trader or £33 for a limited company. If your banking is likely to move within the next two years, price FreeAgent at its list rate rather than at zero when you compare.
FreeAgent, clearly, and this is its strongest feature argument. FreeAgent prepares and files a complete Self Assessment return directly to HMRC from inside the software, including the self-employment pages and, on the Landlord plan, property income. Xero does the bookkeeping that feeds a return but does not file the SA100 itself — you, or your accountant, complete the return somewhere else or bolt on a third-party tool. If you are an unrepresented sole trader who wants one product to take you from receipt to filed return, that is a genuine reason to pay FreeAgent’s £91.80 premium over two years.
FreeAgent, and on price it is not close. FreeAgent sells a dedicated Landlord plan at £10 a month — £210 over 24 months once the six-month half-price offer is included — with property-specific categories, rental income tracking and Self Assessment filing that covers the property pages. Xero has no landlord product at all. You would run Ignite at £16 a month, which is £307.20 over the same period, and build the property tracking yourself out of tracking categories. For a landlord with a handful of properties and no other trade, FreeAgent is both £97.20 cheaper and better fitted to the job.
Both do, at very different prices. FreeAgent includes RTI payroll in its Limited Company plan at £33 a month, so payroll adds nothing to the bill. Xero includes payroll for up to five people only from Comprehensive at £50 a month — neither the £16 Ignite plan nor the £37 Grow plan includes it. Over 24 months that is £693 for FreeAgent against £960 for Xero, a difference of £267 for a director-only or very small payroll. Xero’s payroll is the more capable product once you are running real headcount; FreeAgent’s is the better value for a company paying one or two people.
Thirty days is enough to reconcile a full VAT quarter and find out whether the bank feed actually handles your account — the only test that really matters. Both links below are affiliate links, and we have given you the case for each. If you bank with NatWest, RBS, Ulster or Mettle, ignore both and go through your banking app instead.
Both are affiliate links. We earn a commission if you subscribe and you pay exactly the same either way. We earn nothing from the free bank route and recommend it first regardless. Prices ex VAT, verified 31 July 2026; promotions change monthly, so confirm on the vendor’s page before you commit.