Float Alternatives for Cash Flow Forecasting With a Budget

The best Float alternative depends on what you need beyond cash. Float is a strong cash flow forecasting tool for QuickBooks Online and Xero, priced from $105 a month billed yearly for companies under £2 million in revenue (Float sets the line in pounds) and from $215 a month above it. If you also need an annual budget, budget vs actual by department and a hiring plan in the same place, Budgeter does all of it from $74 a month billed yearly. Cash Flow Frog, Fathom and LivePlan cover the other common cases.

Float earns its reputation. You connect QuickBooks Online or Xero, it pulls invoices and bills, and you get a visual cash forecast with a 13-week view and up to 8 scenarios on every plan. Teams that only want to know when cash gets tight, and want to drag a bar to test a hire, are usually happy with it. People start looking for a Float alternative for one of four reasons. Their revenue crossed the line into Growth pricing. They need a budget and monthly variance review, not only a cash line. They want the forecast drafted from their history instead of built line by line. Or they need more than the 12-month horizon on the Small Business plan.

Float pricing in 2026

Float prices by company revenue, read from the last full financial year in your accounting system when you connect. The Small Business plan, for companies under £2 million in revenue, costs $130 a month billed monthly or $105 a month billed yearly. It includes unlimited users, 8 scenarios, a 13-week cash view and monthly forecasts up to 12 months ahead, with optional guided onboarding at a one-off £99. Above that revenue line, Growth costs $265 a month or $215 billed yearly and extends the horizon to 36 months with onboarding included. Scale, for several entities with consolidation, is $389 a month or $315 billed yearly, plus $63 to $78 a month for each added entity up to five.

Put that in yearly terms for a 30-person services firm with $4 million in revenue. It sits above the revenue line, so it pays $2,580 a year for Growth billed yearly to get a cash forecast. That is a fair price for a good cash tool. The question is whether the same money should also buy the budget and the plan.

Float alternatives compared

Prices are the ones each vendor publishes on its own pricing page. Directory sites often still show older Float tiers, so check the vendor page before you sign anything.

Budgeter, when you need the budget as well as the cash forecast

Budgeter is the closest replacement if Float covers half your month-end and a spreadsheet covers the other half. It connects read-only to QuickBooks Online or Xero, drafts next year's budget from 12 to 24 months of actuals, and tracks budget vs actual by department after every sync. The same model drives a 13-week cash view and a monthly forecast of 24 months on Small Business, 36 on Growth and 60 on Scale. Planned hires, a price change or a slow-paying client go in as saved scenarios, and you can ask the AI CFO a plain question such as what a March hire does to cash in July.

Small Business is $149 a month or $74 billed yearly with 5 saved scenarios. Growth, at $599 or $299 billed yearly, adds headcount and revenue planning, spend limits and the board pack, and every plan is listed on the Budgeter pricing page. Where Float wins: its drag-and-drop cash chart is quicker for a pure cash question, and it gives 8 scenarios on the entry plan. The detail for each ledger is on the QuickBooks forecasting software and Xero forecasting software pages.

Cash Flow Frog, for a simple cash tool at a lower price

Cash Flow Frog does one job: a cash flow forecast up to 36 months with scenarios, from QuickBooks Online or Desktop, Xero, Zoho Books, FreshBooks and a few others. Its Pro plan lists at $55 a month for companies up to $1 million in revenue, with up to 10 users, and the price rises with revenue. It suits an owner-run business that wants to see cash months ahead and does not need a budget or department owners. It is a sideways move from Float rather than a step up.

A closer look at its tiers and how it compares with Budgeter, Fathom and LivePlan is in the Cash Flow Frog alternatives comparison.

Fathom, when you report on many companies

Fathom is a reporting product first. Portfolio costs $67 a month for 100 companies with summary reports and no forecasting. Pro, at $450 a month for 25 companies, adds three-way forecasting and consolidation. For an accounting firm that already uses Float for a handful of clients, moving to Fathom Pro can lower the cost per client and add management reports. For a single company it is expensive, which we cover in more detail in our Fathom alternatives comparison.

LivePlan, when the plan is for a lender

LivePlan is a business plan writer with a forecast and dashboards attached, at $15 a month for Standard and $30 for Premium billed yearly. It connects to QuickBooks Online and Xero for basic budget vs actual. Pick it when the main deliverable is a written plan for an SBA loan or an investor. Once the company runs payroll across departments, owners usually move on, as the LivePlan alternatives post explains.

Reach Reporting, when you want to design the reports

Reach Reporting charges by connection: $149 a month for one, $290 for 10 and $550 for 25, with three-way forecasting and consolidation on every plan. Advisors pick it for report layouts they control. For one company that mainly wants a cash forecast, it costs more than Float and asks you to build more.

How to choose a Float alternative

Start from the job you do each month, not the feature list. If the only question is whether payroll is covered for the next quarter, stay on Float or try Cash Flow Frog. If you rebuild a budget spreadsheet every year and paste actuals into it every month, pick a tool that holds the budget, budget vs actual and the cash forecast in one model. If you are an accountant, price the tool per client across your whole book.

Then check four things before you sign. First, the horizon: 12 months is enough for cash, but too short for a budget plus a loan or lease decision. Second, how the forecast starts: drafted from your history, or built by you. Third, who else uses it: department heads who need their own lines, or only the owner. Fourth, how the price moves when revenue grows, since revenue-based pricing can double the bill after a good year.

A cash forecast is only as good as the bills and invoices in the ledger. If supplier bills sit in an inbox for two weeks before anyone enters them, the forecast misses them too, and accounts payable automation that captures bills the day they arrive fixes that at the source, whichever forecasting tool you choose.

Switching from Float without losing a month

Moving off Float is lighter than most software changes, because the source of truth stays in QuickBooks Online or Xero. Before you cancel, export your current Float forecast and the scenarios you actually use, so you can compare the first forecast in the new tool line by line. Connect the ledger to the new tool in the same week and let it build its baseline from your history. Then rebuild only the two or three scenarios that drive real decisions, usually the hiring plan, a slow-collections case and a funding or credit line case. Run both tools side by side through one month close. If the closing cash in each lands within a few percent of the other, cancel Float before the next renewal date, and keep the exported file for the board or lender history.

A worked comparison for a 30-person firm

Take a hypothetical engineering consultancy with 30 people, $4.2 million in revenue and books in Xero. Today it pays for Float Growth at $215 a month billed yearly, and the controller still keeps the annual budget and the monthly variance review in Excel, which takes about a day and a half each month.

Moving to Budgeter Growth at $299 a month billed yearly costs $1,008 more a year. In exchange the budget is drafted from two years of Xero actuals, department heads get their own budget vs actual after each sync, and the hiring plan sits in the same model as cash. If that gives back even half of the day and a half each month, the difference pays for itself. If the controller has no budget work to take off the plate, Float stays the cheaper answer. Run your own numbers through the runway calculator first, then connect the ledger and compare against what you have today. The full picture of the category is on the cash flow forecasting software page.