FreeAgent
👤 Roan Lavery (They built accounting UK banks trusted, so RBS first resold FreeAgent, then bought it and gave it away free.)🌐 site𝕏LinkedIn
A niche books app for UK freelancers that a bank bought for 53m pounds, then bundled free to its business customers.
Will it work? · our read
Distribution, not features. A mid-tier accounting app most people would overlook, until a bank bought it and made it free to its whole SME base. The lesson isn't the product, it's the channel.
01How the money moves
UK freelancer needs tax-ready books
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Subscribes at 19-33 pounds/mo, or gets it free via NatWest
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Recurring subs plus a bank that bundles it at scale
02The numbers
150,000+Estimatebusinesses on FreeAgent
2026
NatWest, RBS, Ulster and Mettle account holders pay nothing; other users pay £19-33/mo (about $24-42). NatWest
Free for NatWest business accounts; direct plans £19-33/mo (about $24-42). Turnover is filed at Companies House but the latest accounts are an unreadable scan.
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NatWest Group — FreeAgent brand page: "Over 150,000 customers"; acquired 2018; £1m crowdfunding plus AIM listing.FreeAgent pricing: £19/£27/£33 per month; free for NatWest, RBS, Ulster and Mettle business accounts.Wikipedia — FreeAgent: founders Molyneux, Headey, Lavery; 2007 Edinburgh; 2016 AIM IPO; RBS bought it for £53m in 2018.Companies House — FreeAgent Holdings: full accounts to 31 Dec 2024 filed (scanned PDF; turnover not machine-readable).FreeAgent product timeline: history from the 2007 beta.
Headline is FreeAgent's own customer count — 'Over 150,000 customers', stated by owner NatWest on its live brand page (natwestgroup.com), so verified first-party (STATED). I deliberately did NOT headline revenue: FreeAgent's turnover is filed at Companies House (FreeAgent Holdings, SC541036), but the latest full accounts — year to 31 Dec 2024 — is a scanned/image PDF I could not machine-read, so I refuse to assert a figure from it. A 2018 trade article (insider.co.uk) reportedly put FY2017 sales near £8m, but it is paywalled (HTTP 402) and I could not open it; third-party aggregators (Craft/Growjo) estimate recent turnover around £20m (EST). Neither is used. The £53m RBS/NatWest acquisition is from Wikipedia; all prices and the free-for-bank tier are from FreeAgent's live pricing page. No documented drama — FreeAgent won on distribution and timing (cloud accounting plus Making Tax Digital), then a bank acquisition that turned a reseller relationship into free mass distribution. Co-founders: Ed Molyneux (founding CEO), Roan Lavery (now CEO), Olly Headey. We never score you.