Best Free Cash Flow Tools (Float and Pulse Alternatives)

Float and Pulse are solid cash flow tools. They are also $59-99 per month, which is hard to justify when you are trying to manage cash flow in the first place. Here are the best alternatives including completely free options.

Before comparing specific tools, it helps to know how to forecast cash flow so you can evaluate whether a given tool actually gives you what you need or just looks good in a feature list.

What to Look for in a Cash Flow Tool

A useful cash flow tool needs to cover a few core requirements: a forecast horizon of at least 6 months, visual charts rather than just spreadsheet grids, export options your accountant and bank will accept, the ability to save and compare scenarios, and a setup process simple enough that you will use it weekly rather than once a quarter.

A tool you use inconsistently is worse than no tool at all. It gives you false confidence in numbers that are months out of date. Ease of use is not a secondary consideration. It determines whether the tool actually changes how you make decisions.

Quick Comparison

Float — Best for Xero and QuickBooks Users

Float is one of the most capable cash flow forecasting tools available, and its strength is also its main constraint: it is built around accounting software integrations. If your business runs on Xero or QuickBooks, Float can pull your actuals automatically and update your forecast without manual data entry.

At $59 per month as a starting price, it is priced for businesses that are already investing in their financial infrastructure. That is reasonable for what it delivers. But for a small business that does not use accounting software, or one that wants a simple forward-looking forecast without syncing a full bookkeeping stack, the cost is hard to justify.

Float suits businesses past the early stage that already run on Xero or QuickBooks and want their forecasting tool to talk to their accounting system. For that specific use case, it is hard to beat.

Pulse — Best for Service Businesses

Pulse focuses on simplicity for small service-based businesses: consultants, agencies, freelancers, and small teams with predictable recurring revenue. It lets you model income streams and expenses without connecting accounting software, and the interface is cleaner than most enterprise tools.

At $29 per month, it is more accessible than Float, and the recurring income modeling works well for businesses where the same clients pay monthly retainers. The limitations are that export options are more restricted, there are no AI-powered insights, and the scenario comparison features are basic for the price.

Pulse suits service businesses with predictable monthly revenue that want a cleaner interface than a spreadsheet and can justify a monthly subscription.

Wave — Free but Not a Forecast Tool

Wave is a free bookkeeping and invoicing tool, and it does those things well. The important distinction is that Wave is not a cash flow forecasting tool. It tracks what has happened. It does not project what is going to happen.

If you want to forecast your cash position for the next 6 months, Wave does not have that feature. Its reports give you historical data and current account balances, which is useful context but not a forward projection.

Wave works well as a complement to a forecasting tool: use Wave for bookkeeping and invoicing, use FlowCast for the forward-looking projection. They solve different parts of the problem and both are free.

Spreadsheet Templates — Free but Manual

Google Sheets and Excel templates are free and functional starting points. For a business owner who is comfortable with spreadsheets and disciplined about updating them monthly, a template can work well for years.

The cost is time, not money. Every month you have to enter last month's actuals, update your forward estimates, and verify the formulas still work when your expense structure changes. One missed month and the forecast goes stale. Building a second scenario also takes twice as long because you are either duplicating the sheet or pasting values manually.

Avoiding common cash flow mistakes is much harder when the forecast is a manual spreadsheet that tends to get updated inconsistently.

FlowCast — Best Free Option

FlowCast is the only option on this list that is completely free and purpose-built for cash flow forecasting.

The 4-step wizard collects your business details, monthly income, and expenses, then generates a full 6-month projection with a visual chart, a monthly data table, and a runway indicator showing how many months your cash will last. The whole process takes under 5 minutes.

You can save multiple scenarios and compare them side by side. All export options are free: PDF, Excel, and CSV. The PDF output is clean enough to share with a bank or investor. The Excel export is a 4-sheet workbook structured for accountants to review. AI-powered insights generated by Google Gemini give you plain-English observations about your forecast, including which months look risky and what your runway indicates.

No accounting software required. No monthly subscription. No account needed to try FlowCast free.

Which Tool Should You Choose?

If you already run on Xero or QuickBooks and can justify a $59 monthly budget, Float is the right choice. The accounting integration pays for itself in time saved on manual updates.

If you run a service business with predictable recurring revenue and want a cleaner interface than a spreadsheet, Pulse is worth $29 per month.

If you need bookkeeping alongside a forecast, use Wave for the bookkeeping and FlowCast for the forward projection. Both are free and they cover different things.

If you want a free cash flow tool that works today without a subscription or accounting software, FlowCast is the most direct path to a usable forecast. Once it is set up, the guide on how to improve your cash flow covers the specific levers worth pulling to make the numbers move in the right direction.