Is Cushion a direct Float replacement?

For an ecommerce or Shopify brand that holds stock, yes: Cushion does the cashflow forecast Float does, and adds the inventory and sales-forecast model Float doesn't have. For a service business with no stock, Float is the cheaper and perfectly good choice.

Does Cushion work with Xero and QuickBooks like Float does?

Yes, and also Sage, FreeAgent and NetSuite. All connections are read-only. Cushion additionally connects to your store platform and your bank, which is where the stock and cash picture comes from.

Why is Cushion more expensive than Float?

Float starts at £99 a month for the cashflow third of the problem. Cushion is £299 a month for cashflow, inventory and sales forecasting joined in one model. If you'd otherwise run Float plus an inventory planner plus a forecast spreadsheet, one joined tool is usually cheaper and always more coherent than three disconnected ones.

Blog / Comparisons

Float alternative: cash flow forecasting that can see your stock

By Rory McLaughlan, Shopify store owner · 8 September 2026 · Pricing verified September 2026

The honest version first: Float is a good product. It's been doing cashflow forecasting on top of Xero and QuickBooks for over a decade, accountants like it, and from £99 a month it's fairly priced. If your business holds no stock, you can stop reading here, Float will do the job.

This page is for the business Float wasn't built for: a brand that buys inventory. If stock purchases are your biggest cash movements, Float's forecast has a blind spot exactly where your risk lives.

What Float does well

Clean cashflow forecasting with live Xero and QuickBooks Online sync.
Scenario planning (8 scenarios on every plan) and a 13-week rolling view.
Unlimited users on all plans, 14-day free trial, no card required.
Pricing from £99 a month (Essentials, under £2m revenue) to £295 a month (Scale, multi-entity), as of September 2026.

The gap if you hold stock

Float has no inventory model. None of its plans mention stock, purchase orders, lead times or reorder points, because it's positioned at finance teams and service businesses, not at brands.

For an ecommerce operator that means the single biggest number in your future cashflow, the next stock order, lives outside the tool. You type it in as a manual budget line, it goes stale the moment a supplier's lead time slips, and the forecast quietly stops being true. Your inventory planner and your cashflow forecast disagree, and you're the one reconciling them at 11pm.

Float vs Cushion

	Float	Cushion
Built for	Finance teams, service businesses	Shopify and ecommerce brands that hold stock
Cashflow forecast	Yes, its core job	Yes
Inventory and reorder model	No	Yes: stock, lead times, weeks of cover
Sales forecast driving both	No	Yes
Accounting integrations	Xero, QuickBooks Online	Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, NetSuite
Store and bank connections	No	Yes, read-only
Price (Sept 2026)	From £99 to £295 a month	£299 a month flat
Trial	14 days free	14 days free

Prices move; check Float's pricing page for the current numbers.

Who should pick which

Stay on Float if you're a service business, an agency, or a finance team that just needs a clean forecast on top of the ledger. It's cheaper and it's proven.

Look at Cushion if you place stock orders and you've ever placed one without knowing what it would do to your bank balance in week six. That join is the entire product: the cash view knows what stock is coming, the stock view knows what cash you'll have, and the sales forecast drives both.

See all three numbers before you commit to either

Cushion joins your cashflow, your stock and your sales forecast on one screen, with read-only connections to your store, your books and your bank. 14 days free, then £299 a month, cancel any time.

Try Cushion free for 14 days