Found vs. Lili: Which Freelancer Bank Account Fits Solo Self-Employment?

Here is the bill nobody warns you about when you land your first big freelance client: if you expect to owe $1,000 or more in tax for the year, the IRS wants its cut four times a year, not once. Miss those quarterly estimated payments and you owe an underpayment penalty on top of the tax — a penalty the IRS can charge even if you end up due a refund when you file. The self-employment tax alone takes 15.3 percent off the top of your profit, and most new freelancers spend the tax money months before April because it sits in the same account as the grocery money.

That is the exact problem Found and Lili were built to solve. Both are business banking apps aimed at freelancers and solo self-employed workers, and both pair a checking account with automatic tax set-asides, expense categorization, and invoicing. But they solve it from opposite directions: Found gives away nearly every money-management tool free and charges for interest and perks, while Lili gives away the banking and charges for the bookkeeping. Which one fits you depends on what you need the account to do — so here is how they compare, feature by feature, on current published terms.

What Found and Lili Actually Are​

Neither company is a bank. Both are financial technology companies whose banking services run through a partner bank, which is where your FDIC insurance comes from.

Found's banking services are provided by Lead Bank, Member FDIC, with deposits insured up to $250,000 per depositor. Lili's banking services are provided by Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC, with coverage up to $3 million through a sweep network that spreads large balances across institutions. If you keep a six-figure operating balance — an agency holding client retainers, say — Lili's sweep coverage is a genuine structural advantage. If your balance never breaks five figures, both insure every dollar you have.

Both accounts open online with no minimum deposit, no monthly fee on the base plan, and no credit check standing between you and an account number. Both issue a business debit card — Mastercard on Found, Visa on Lili — and both support ACH transfers, mobile check deposit, and wires. The differentiation starts the moment money lands.

The Free Plans, Side by Side​

The shape of the table tells the story. Found's free tier is a working financial back office: invoicing, contractor payments, bookkeeping, and tax estimates cost nothing. Lili's free tier is a strong bank account — better interest, a bigger ATM footprint, wider FDIC coverage — with the management tools held for the paid tiers.

Tax Tools: Where Both Earn Their Keep​

Quarterly estimated taxes are the number-one cash-flow trap in solo self-employment. Income tax plus self-employment tax means setting aside 25 to 30 percent of every payment you receive, and the IRS penalty clock runs per quarter from each missed deadline. An account that moves that money out of sight the day you get paid is worth more than any interest rate.

Found attacks this hardest on the free tier. Every plan includes real-time tax estimates and save-as-you-go transfers that sweep a percentage of each deposit into a separate pocket before you can spend it. Step up to Found Plus at $35 per month and you can make your quarterly federal tax payments inside the app — though note that feature is limited to Schedule C filers, so S-corporation owners still pay through IRS Direct Pay or EFTPS like everyone else.

Lili's automatic tax allocation — its Tax Bucket — lives on the paid tiers, starting with Lili Pro at $15 per month. Pro also organizes expenses into tax categories, attaches receipts and notes, and generates quarterly and annual expense reports. What Lili does not offer at any tier is in-app tax payment or contractor tax forms; if you pay subcontractors $600 or more in a year and owe them 1099-NECs, Found files those free while Lili leaves the job to you or your accountant.

Neither app prepares or files your income tax return. Treat both as organizers and payment rails, not as a substitute for a tax professional at filing time.

Invoicing and Getting Paid​

This is the starkest free-tier gap between the two. Found includes unlimited invoicing on every plan, including free: create custom invoices, send them, and track them without paying a cent. For a freelancer whose entire revenue arrives as invoices, that single feature can replace a separate invoicing subscription.

Lili's unlimited invoicing — create, send, track status, send reminders, accept payments — requires Lili Smart at $35 per month or Premium at $55. On Core and Pro, you invoice from somewhere else. If you already pay for invoicing through another tool and like it, this gap may not matter. If you are starting from zero and want one app that bills clients and banks the proceeds, Found's free tier does the whole loop.

Both accounts accept the usual inbound rails — ACH, check deposit, card payments through their invoicing — and both support fast outbound options for a fee. Found charges 1.75 percent for an instant payment and 1 percent for an express transfer; Lili charges for express ACH and wires as well. Price these per use before you lean on them; a weekly instant transfer habit quietly becomes a second subscription.

Bookkeeping and Records​

Clean books are what turn a profitable year into a defensible tax return, and the two apps take different philosophies.

Found's bookkeeping is free on every plan and refreshingly manual in the good way: unlimited category rules, unlimited custom categories and tags, receipt capture, and the ability to connect outside bank and credit card accounts so transactions from everywhere land in one categorized ledger. You can download all of it — categories, notes, receipts — at any time, which matters the day you outgrow the app or hand the books to a CPA.

Lili's bookkeeping automation starts at Smart ($35 per month): predictive AI categorization, receipt capture, on-demand profit-and-loss and cash-flow statements, bill scanning with instant bill pay, and syncing of external bank and credit card transactions. Pro ($15) gets the lighter version — tax categories, receipts, and expense reports, but no P&L or AI categorization. Core gets none of it.

The honest summary: Found trusts you to build your own category system and charges nothing for it; Lili sells you automation and reporting. If you enjoy a well-organized chart of accounts, Found's free tools plus your own discipline go a long way. If you want the app to categorize and report with minimal input, that is exactly what Lili Smart bills you for.

Savings, Interest, and Where Idle Cash Sits​

Here the advantage flips decisively. Lili pays interest on savings at every tier, including free: 2.25% APY on balances up to $500,000, rising to 4.00% APY on the portion between $500,000 and $1 million. (Checking itself earns nothing; the yield lives in savings.) Found pays no interest on its free plan at all. Found Plus earns 1.50% APY on balances up to $20,000, and Found Pro earns 2.50% APY on all balances with no cap — but those cost $35 and $80 per month respectively.

Do the arithmetic before chasing yield through a subscription. At 1.50% APY capped at $20,000, Found Plus pays at most $300 a year in interest against a $315 annual subscription — the interest alone never pays for the plan, so buy Plus for the tax payments and perks, not the APY. Lili's yield, by contrast, is free money on cash you would hold anyway: $10,000 of idle retainer cash earns roughly $225 a year at 2.25% with no monthly fee attached.

One more structural note: Lili's $3 million FDIC sweep coverage versus Found's $250,000 standard limit. Below the limit the difference is trivia; above it, it decides the account for you.

The Fees That Actually Bite​

Both apps advertise "no monthly fee" prominently, so read the fee schedules for where the money really goes.

Cash handling costs real money on both. Found charges $2 per cash deposit. Lili routes cash deposits through Green Dot retail locations at up to $4.95 per deposit, with daily, weekly, and monthly caps. If clients pay you in cash regularly, neither app is your friend — keep a local credit union account for deposits and transfer electronically.

ATM access favors Lili clearly: free withdrawals at 40,000-plus MoneyPass machines, with $2.50 plus operator fees outside the network. Found has no free ATM network — any Mastercard-accepting ATM works, but the owner surcharge is yours. Occasional cash users will not feel this; weekly cash users will.

Wires and checks are close to a wash. Outgoing domestic wires cost $15 on both (discounted to $12 on Found Plus and $8 on Found Pro). Found charges $1 per mailed check, free on its paid tiers; Lili charges $3 per mailed check. Incoming wires are free on both.

The Paid Tiers, Decoded​

Found keeps it simple with two upgrades over free. Found Plus costs $35 per month or $315 per year: 1.50% APY up to $20,000, in-app quarterly federal tax payments for Schedule C filers, free mailed checks, discounted wires, business credit building through reported subscription payments, and priority support. Found Pro costs $80 per month or $720 per year and adds 2.50% APY on all balances, 1% cash back on eligible card purchases, a metal card, and a dedicated account manager. Both carry a 30-day free trial, and both subscriptions are ordinary tax-deductible business expenses.

Lili climbs a four-rung ladder. Pro at $15 per month unlocks tax categories, receipts, expense reports, and automatic tax allocation — the minimum viable upgrade for a freelancer who wants the tax bucket without the accounting suite. Smart at $35 per month adds the full accounting software: AI categorization, P&L and cash-flow statements, unlimited invoicing, bill management, and external account sync. Premium at $55 per month adds a metal card and a dedicated specialist on top of everything Smart has. Lili also sells a BusinessBuild credit-building add-on, free for the first month, then $18 monthly for three months and $30 after that, in partnership with Dun and Bradstreet.

Notice the crossover: Lili Pro at $15 is the cheapest way to get automatic tax set-asides at Lili, while Found includes them free. And Lili Smart at $35 is the cheapest way to get invoicing at Lili, while Found includes that free too. Lili's paid tiers buy automation and reporting depth; Found's paid tiers buy yield, tax payments, and white-glove service.

Modeling the Tax Set-Aside in Your Own Ledger​

Whichever app you choose, keep your own books outside of it. An app's categories are convenient until the day you switch banks, get audited, or hand everything to an accountant — and a plain-text ledger you control survives all three. Here is how the core habit both apps automate looks as double-entry bookkeeping: income arrives, 30 percent moves to a walled-off tax reserve the same day, and the quarterly payment draws from that reserve. The Beancount documentation walks through this style of accounting if you want to adopt it.

2026-01-05 open Assets:Bank:Checking USD
2026-01-05 open Assets:Bank:Tax-Reserve USD
2026-01-05 open Equity:Draw:Estimated-Taxes USD
2026-01-05 open Income:Freelance:Design USD
 
2026-03-20 * "Client invoice #1042 paid"
  Assets:Bank:Checking  5000.00 USD
  Income:Freelance:Design  -5000.00 USD
 
2026-03-20 * "Auto set-aside 30 percent for taxes"
  Assets:Bank:Tax-Reserve  1500.00 USD
  Assets:Bank:Checking  -1500.00 USD
 
2026-04-15 * "Q1 estimated tax payment via IRS Direct Pay"
  Equity:Draw:Estimated-Taxes  1500.00 USD
  Assets:Bank:Tax-Reserve  -1500.00 USD

Two details worth noticing. First, the set-aside is a transfer between two asset accounts, not an expense — no money has left your hands, so your profit is unchanged and your checking balance simply stops lying to you about what is spendable. Second, the estimated payment posts to an equity draw account, not an expense: for a sole proprietor, federal income tax is a personal obligation, not a Schedule C deduction, so booking it as an expense would understate your real profit. Reconcile the tax reserve against the app's pocket or bucket monthly and the two systems check each other.

Which One Fits You​

Choose Found if your priority is getting the back office free. Unlimited invoicing, contractor payments with W-9 collection and 1099 e-filing, full bookkeeping with external account sync, and real-time tax estimates cost nothing — a combination no other free freelancer account matches. The trade-offs are no interest on the free plan, no free ATM network, standard FDIC limits, and in-app tax payments that only Schedule C filers on the $35 plan can use.

Choose Lili if your priority is the banking itself plus automation you pay for deliberately. Free savings at 2.25% APY, 40,000-plus free ATMs, $3 million in sweep FDIC coverage, and seven-day support make Core the stronger pure bank account; Pro at $15 adds the tax bucket and expense reports, and Smart at $35 adds AI bookkeeping, P&L statements, and invoicing. The trade-off is that the tools Found gives away — invoicing, contractor forms, full bookkeeping — cost $35 a month here.

Either way, open the account before the next client payment lands, turn on the automatic tax set-aside the same day, and keep an independent ledger alongside the app. The account that fits you is the one whose free tier covers the habits you will actually keep — because the penalty for skipping quarterly estimates does not care which logo is on your debit card.