Accept Bitcoin on FreshBooks Invoices: 14 Wallets

Can FreshBooks accept Bitcoin?

Not on its own. FreshBooks gives you three ways to collect an invoice online: FreshBooks Payments powered by Stripe, Stripe Standard, and PayPal. All three move card and bank money. None of them move Bitcoin, and FreshBooks has never shipped a crypto payment option despite requests from its users going back years. payinbtc.me is how FreshBooks users add one without waiting.

The cost of those built-in options is the part most freelancers feel. FreshBooks Payments starts at 2.9% plus $0.30 per card transaction, and ACH bank transfers run 1% and are only available for US clients. On a $3,000 project invoice, the card route takes roughly $87 before you have done anything differently. That is a meaningful cut of a solo consultant's month.

payinbtc.me is an integration layer between FreshBooks and the Bitcoin payment provider you choose. You connect both accounts once. The connection to FreshBooks is read-only: we read invoice amounts, currency and invoice numbers so we can build the right payment, and we cannot write to or change anything in your books. From then on, the invoices you send carry a Bitcoin payment option next to whatever you already offer. Clients who want to pay in Bitcoin can. Everyone else pays exactly as before.

When a client opens the Bitcoin payment link, we pull the invoice total from FreshBooks and convert it to BTC at that moment's exchange rate, then show a payment page with a QR code. They pay from any Bitcoin wallet, over the Lightning Network for near-instant settlement or on-chain for larger amounts. The Bitcoin lands directly in your wallet or provider account. We never hold your funds, and there is no percentage of the invoice taken anywhere in the flow.

FreshBooks is built for people who bill by project and by hour: freelancers, consultants, agencies, creative studios. That audience often works with clients in another country, which is where the built-in options get thin. FreshBooks Payments powered by Stripe is only available to businesses in Canada and the United States, so a designer in Lisbon billing a client in Toronto is already routing money through Stripe Standard or PayPal and absorbing the FX spread. A Bitcoin payment does not care where either party is. It settles in seconds, on a Saturday, for a fee measured in cents. You still record the payment in FreshBooks yourself: we email you the moment it clears, and you mark the invoice paid. Automatic reconciliation is on our roadmap, not something we claim today.

Which Bitcoin provider works best with FreshBooks?

All 14 providers connect to FreshBooks. But FreshBooks users are mostly independent professionals and small agencies in North America billing project-sized invoices, often across borders, so these four are the sensible starting points:

Our pick for most FreshBooks users

Strike

Getting paid over Lightning, fast and low-cost

Strike is built on the Lightning Network, so a FreshBooks invoice gets paid the moment the client scans the QR code, with fees measured in cents rather than the 2.9% a card takes. For a freelancer chasing payment terms, that speed is the point: the money clears in seconds, from a client who may be anywhere, and lands in your Strike account. It also makes swapping the received Bitcoin to fiat straightforward, so you keep the Lightning speed on the way in and can still settle to your own currency rather than hold BTC. A solid default when you want Lightning settlement without running your own node. Check Strike's current country coverage and terms before you commit, since availability changes.

See FreshBooks + Strike setup →

OpenNode

The fastest route to a first Bitcoin payment

A well-established Bitcoin payment gateway with Lightning support and a plain dashboard. If your goal is to send one FreshBooks invoice this week with a Bitcoin option on it and see what happens, OpenNode gets you there with the least setup. You can move to another provider later without touching the FreshBooks side of the connection.

See FreshBooks + OpenNode setup →

BTCPay Server

Consultants who want to keep what they earn in Bitcoin

Open-source and fully self-custodial: payments go straight to keys you hold, with no third party in the money flow and no KYC. Independent professionals who already own Bitcoin and want part of their revenue to stay in it tend to end up here. If you do not want to run a server yourself, our hosted BTCPay add-on gives you the same self-custody for 2,500 sats a month, fully managed.

See FreshBooks + BTCPay Server setup →

Coingate

European FreshBooks users who want euros in the end

FreshBooks has plenty of users outside North America, and they are the ones locked out of FreshBooks Payments. Coingate is an established EU gateway that can settle part or all of a payment in fiat, so a client pays in Bitcoin and you receive euros. Settlement currencies and supported countries vary, so confirm yours on Coingate's own terms first.

See FreshBooks + Coingate setup →

Undecided? Start with our hosted BTCPay option. It is the only choice that needs no third-party account at all, and switching providers later does not disturb your FreshBooks connection.

All 14 Bitcoin providers that connect to FreshBooks

BTCPay Server Strike Blink OpenNode Swiss Bitcoin Pay Coingate Lightning Checkout LNbits Speed Aqua Coinsnap MoneyBadger Nostr Wallet Connect XPUB

How to add Bitcoin payments to FreshBooks: step by step

Estimated time: 5 minutes

Create your payinbtc.me account

Connect FreshBooks via OAuth

Choose FreshBooks as your accounting software and approve the connection on FreshBooks' own authorization screen. You stay signed in to FreshBooks and no password is shared with us. We request read access to your invoice data: amounts, currency, invoice numbers, client name. We cannot create, edit or delete anything in your FreshBooks account.

Connect your Bitcoin provider

Link an account with any of the 14 supported wallets and payment providers. If you do not have one, add our hosted BTCPay Server and receive payments straight to your own wallet.

Send your FreshBooks invoices as usual

Build the invoice in FreshBooks the way you always do, hourly items, project fees, retainers, expenses, then send it. A Bitcoin payment link rides along with it, next to whatever online payment options you already have switched on. Your invoice template, numbering and client portal stay as they are.

Get paid and notified

Your client clicks the link, sees the invoice total converted to BTC in real time, and pays by scanning a QR code. Lightning payments settle in seconds. You get an email the moment it clears, and the Bitcoin arrives in your wallet or provider account.

Full FreshBooks setup guide in our docs →

Why FreshBooks users add Bitcoin

Keep the 2.9% you currently hand to card processing

FreshBooks Payments starts at 2.9% plus $0.30 per card transaction. On $60,000 of invoices paid by card in a year, that is around $1,750. Bitcoin network fees are a rounding error by comparison, and payinbtc.me charges a flat 2,500 sats a month for unlimited invoices, never a share of what you bill.

Get paid by international clients without the FX detour

FreshBooks Payments powered by Stripe is limited to businesses in Canada and the US, which leaves freelancers elsewhere on PayPal or Stripe Standard, paying conversion spreads on every foreign invoice. Bitcoin has no country of origin. A client in Singapore pays a Berlin consultant's invoice in seconds, at the same cost as a client next door.

No chargebacks on work you already delivered

Independent professionals are exposed to card disputes on finished projects, where the money comes back out of the account months later. A confirmed Bitcoin payment is final. For a solo operator without a disputes team, that removes a real category of risk.

Nothing in your FreshBooks setup changes

Time tracking, project profitability, retainers, recurring invoices, the client portal, your accountant's access: all untouched. The connection is read-only, and Bitcoin is added alongside your existing payment options rather than in place of them.

FreshBooks + Bitcoin: common questions

Does FreshBooks accept Bitcoin payments natively?

No. FreshBooks' online payment options are FreshBooks Payments powered by Stripe, Stripe Standard and PayPal, all of which handle cards and bank transfers only. There is no built-in crypto option, and requests for one have been around in the FreshBooks user community for years. payinbtc.me adds a Bitcoin payment option to your FreshBooks invoices without changing anything inside FreshBooks.

Can payinbtc.me change anything in my FreshBooks account?

No. The connection is made through FreshBooks' own OAuth authorization and is read-only. We read invoice amounts, currency and invoice numbers so the payment page shows the right total. We cannot create, edit or delete invoices, clients, expenses or anything else in your account.

What happens if the Bitcoin price moves between sending the invoice and getting paid?

Nothing, from your side. The conversion happens when your client opens the payment page, not when you send the invoice. They see your invoice total, say $3,000, converted to BTC at that moment's rate, with a short validity window on the quote. You receive the full invoice value.

Are Bitcoin payments marked as paid automatically in FreshBooks?

Not today. You get an email the moment a payment clears, and you record the payment against the invoice in FreshBooks yourself. Because our connection is read-only, we do not write to your books. Automatic reconciliation is on our roadmap, and we will not claim it before it ships.

What does it cost?

Pay per invoice at 1,500 sats, roughly $1.50, charged only when a client actually pays in Bitcoin. Or take unlimited invoices for 2,500 sats a month, about $2.50, or 25,000 sats a year. Your first month is free, with three free invoices on the pay-per-use plan. We never take a percentage of what you bill.

Do my clients need to know anything about Bitcoin?

They need a Bitcoin wallet and nothing else. The payment page shows the amount and a QR code, they scan it, and the payment is done. Clients who prefer to pay by card or bank transfer keep doing exactly that: the Bitcoin option sits alongside your existing methods, it does not replace them.

I run an agency outside the US and Canada. Does this work for me?

Yes, and it is arguably more useful to you. FreshBooks Payments powered by Stripe is only available to businesses in Canada and the United States, so FreshBooks users elsewhere fall back to Stripe Standard or PayPal. The payinbtc.me connection has no geographic restriction. Your Bitcoin provider might: check the country coverage of the provider you pick before you rely on it.

More questions? See our full FAQ →

Accept Bitcoin on Your FreshBooks Invoices