Kiwili

Who Kiwili Is Right For

Kiwili fits Canadian and bilingual French-English freelancers, consultancies, and small service firms (1 to 25 staff) who want invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, CRM, and basic accounting in one Quebec-hosted subscription. Architects, engineers, marketing agencies, IT consultancies, and bookkeepers in Quebec and other French-speaking markets are the core base. It is a poor fit for product companies needing inventory at scale, for US firms wanting deep QuickBooks Online ecosystem coverage, and for enterprises needing multi-entity consolidation.

Kiwili 2026 Pricing

Annual prepay shaves 20% off the monthly list. Accounting+ unlocks journal entries, ledger, bank reconciliation, statements, and cheque printing and is sold as a bolt-on to the underlying plan, available only to Canadian and US customers.

Fees and Limits to Watch For

• Extra-user fees scale per plan: from $8/user/month on Invoicing to $20-25/user/month on Premium.
• Accounting+ add-on is North America-only; European customers cannot subscribe.
• No included payment gateway fees — Stripe and PayPal charges flow to your processor account.
• 30-day free trial on every paid tier with no credit-card required.
• Bilingual interface is included on every tier; tax engine handles QST, GST, HST, and US state-level rates.

Integrations

• Payments — Stripe and PayPal direct, with Square via Zapier.
• Bank feeds — limited Open Banking on Accounting+ for North American banks; manual CSV import for everyone else.
• Email — Gmail, Outlook, IMAP for sending invoices from your own domain.
• Automation — Zapier covers most outbound triggers; REST API for custom syncs.
• Calendar — Google Calendar two-way sync for project deadlines.

Security and Compliance Posture

Kiwili hosts customer data in Canadian data centres (Quebec), which appeals to provincial-government, professional-services, and education buyers operating under PIPEDA and Loi 25 (Quebec). Data-at-rest is encrypted, two-factor authentication is included on every paid plan, and the company publishes a privacy policy aligned with Loi 25 and PIPEDA. There is no published SOC 2 report; for regulated buyers needing a SOC 2 Type II letter, Wave Accounting or Xero may be a closer fit.

Customer Support and SLA

Support is bilingual — English and French — via email and in-app chat during Montreal business hours. The team is small (under 50 staff), so response times in the off-hours can stretch to a full business day. A self-serve knowledge base sits at help.kiwili.com in both languages. There is no published uptime SLA on standard plans.

Eligibility, Deployment Options, and Licensing

Kiwili is cloud SaaS only — there is no desktop client and no self-hosted option. Sign-up is web-based with a 30-day free trial. The subscription is per workspace; one workspace can host multiple users and operate in either French or English with per-user language preferences. Customers can change plans monthly with prorated upgrades and downgrades.

Mobile App and Client Portal

The mobile experience is a responsive web app rather than a native iOS or Android download — sufficient for invoice approval, expense capture (with phone-camera receipt upload), and time entry. A dedicated client portal lets your customers view estimates, approve change orders, pay invoices, and download project files. The portal is bilingual and supports custom subdomains on the Premium plan.

Pros and Cons

• Pros: bilingual French-English interface and tax engine, Canadian data residency, one subscription for invoicing + CRM + projects + accounting, 30-day no-card trial, transparent published pricing.
• Cons: small support team with limited weekend coverage, no native mobile app, Accounting+ restricted to North America, fewer third-party integrations than QuickBooks or Xero ecosystems.

2026 Updates

The 2026 roadmap focuses on a refreshed dashboard, a faster project Gantt view, deeper Stripe Tax integration for Canadian tax categories, and AI-assisted expense categorization. The Accounting+ module gained automated bank-statement matching for major Canadian banks (RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Desjardins). Bilingual document templates also expanded with more industry-specific estimate layouts for construction, marketing, and consulting.

What Real Buyers Say

French-speaking small-business operators on the r/quebec subreddit and r/EntrepreneurQuebec consistently call out the bilingual interface and Canadian tax handling as the main reasons they switched from QuickBooks Online. LinkedIn case studies feature Montreal marketing agencies and Quebec City IT consultancies. The recurring complaint is integration depth — "works perfectly for invoicing, but I still need a separate tool for proper inventory" is a fair summary of public reviews.

Kiwili Alternatives

Field Guide

How to Get Started With Kiwili

1. Open the Kiwili pricing page and click the 30-day free trial — no credit card required.
2. Choose your language (FR or EN) and tax region (Quebec, rest-of-Canada, US, Europe).
3. Import existing customer and product lists via CSV.
4. Connect Stripe or PayPal for online payments, set your invoice template, and configure your tax codes (QST/GST/HST for Canadian users).
5. Send your first three invoices, log expenses with phone receipts, and decide on Invoicing, Retail, Projects, or Premium before the trial ends.

How to Cancel or Pause Kiwili

Cancel from Account → Subscription → Cancel at any time during a monthly cycle; access continues until the end of the paid period. Annual prepay is refundable on a prorated basis up to 30 days from purchase. Customer data export covers customers, invoices, estimates, and expense records as CSV. There is no formal pause SKU; the cheapest workaround is downgrading to the $16/mo Invoicing plan while you decide.

Eligibility Checklist

• You bill in CAD, USD, or EUR and want French-English bilingual invoices and estimates.
• You issue between 10 and 500 invoices per month per workspace.
• Canadian buyers: you want PIPEDA and Loi 25 alignment with Canadian data residency.
• You need invoicing plus at least one of: CRM, projects, time tracking, or inventory in the same tool.
• You are comfortable with a small support team and limited weekend coverage.

Pricing FAQ

• Is there a free plan? No, but a 30-day free trial covers every paid tier without a credit card.
• What does Accounting+ cost? $25.20/mo annual or $31.50/mo monthly, as a bolt-on to any underlying plan (North America only).
• Are extra users billed by tier? Yes — extra-user pricing rises by plan: $8 on Invoicing, $12-15 on Retail, $16-20 on Projects, $20-25 on Premium.
• Can I switch from monthly to annual? Yes, mid-cycle; the system credits unused monthly time toward the annual prepay.

Bottom Line

For Quebec-rooted freelancers and small French-English bilingual service firms, Kiwili is the most opinionated all-in-one option in 2026: invoicing, CRM, projects, expense tracking, and basic accounting under one subscription, hosted in Canada, with native French support. The trade-off is a smaller integration ecosystem and a leaner support team than QuickBooks Online or Xero. Start on the Invoicing plan at $16/mo (annual prepay) for solo work, step up to Premium at $40/mo when projects and inventory become daily-driver workflows, and bolt on Accounting+ if you want to retire a separate accounting tool. For broader market context, see the related SaaSRat blog guide. Verified on 2026-06-22. Pricing verified from the official Kiwili pricing page.