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	Best for Small Businesses	Best for Freelancers	Best for Faster Payments	Best for Ease of Use	Best for Businesses with In-Person Component
	Zoho Invoice	Invoice Ninja	Wave	PayPal	Square
	Get Began	Get Began	Get Began	Get Began	Get Began
Company Highlight	Free accounting software for very small businesses	Voice Commands Open Source	Receives a commission immediately while you enroll for banking	Start with only a PayPal for Business Account	Get a free bank card reader while you enroll
Limitations	1,000 invoices per yr	20 clients	Must use Wave for payment processing	Must use PayPal for payment processing	Must use Square for payment processing; no invoice customization
Customer Service	Email and chat support	Email and community support	Self-service support only	Chat and phone support	Phone, email, and chat support

Should you’ve just began a business, you almost certainly need to spend as little money and time as possible on administrative tasks like invoicing and billing. And that’s exactly why it’s essential select the perfect free invoicing and billing software for you and your online business.

Counting on electronic message, a spreadsheet or sticky notes to trace your invoices and receivables isn’t going to chop it if you ought to maintain your money flow and make sure you receives a commission on time. The best invoicing and billing software offers you the tools to make sure your clients know the way much and when to pay you.

Now, in the event you’re in search of the perfect free invoicing and billing software, you could have several other options to select from. We’ve reviewed a few of the perfect free invoicing solutions and supply a guide to show you how to select the correct one on your current and potential future business needs.

Our Top Picks for Free Invoice and Billing Software

• Zoho – Best for Small Business
• Invoice Ninja – Best for Freelancers
• Wave – Best for Faster Payments
• PayPal – Best for Ease of Use
• Square – Best for Businesses With In-Person Component

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Best Free Invoice and Billing Software Reviews

The software picks included in our list were evaluated with freelancers, solopreneurs and small businesses in mind.

We weighed on a regular basis functionalities similar to recurring billing and dashboard reporting more heavily than features similar to multiple-user support and advanced integrations.

We also kept in mind how a selected solution could accommodate a business’ needs throughout its life cycle because we all know that small businesses don’t all the time stay small without end.

Why we selected it: From a strong, user-friendly dashboard to customizable invoices and a time tracking system, Zoho Invoice has all of the features that a small business might want in a free invoicing platform. It also offers a collection of paid integrations for while you’re able to scale.

Zoho is a terrific billing and invoicing option for small businesses, and it’s a platform that may proceed to be utilized — in paid format — because the business grows. One drawback of using Zoho Invoice, nonetheless, is that it’s limited to 1,000 invoices per yr, although that needs to be good enough for many small businesses.

If your online business’s revenue is lower than $50,000 annually, you possibly can upgrade your free Zoho Invoice account to a free plan with Zoho Books, which is Zoho’s accounting platform. The 1,000-invoice limit will remain even in the event you upgrade to Zoho Books’ free plan, though paid versions of Zoho Books support increased invoicing needs.

Once your small business’ revenue meets or exceeds $50,000 annually, you is likely to be able to upgrade to other services available within the Zoho suite, including:

• Zoho CRM (customer relationship management platform)

• Zoho Mail (email platform)

• Zoho Desk (customer support)

• Zoho Analytics (analytics platform)

Zoho is a platform you possibly can utilize while you’re just starting out free of charge invoicing and billing and likewise one that you may grow into for added software needs as your online business grows.

Highlights

• Free accounting software for some businesses: Businesses with lower than $50,000 in annual revenue get free access to Zoho Books at the side of Zoho Invoice.

• Full business suite for growing businesses: Zoho’s paid tools usually are not limited to the world of invoicing and accounting; it has a complete suite of tools starting from a CRM to an analytics platform. This implies you possibly can start with Zoho using Zoho Invoice’s free invoicing and billing software and add paid products as your online business grows.

• Comprehensive FAQ: Since Zoho has been around for some time, it has a library of incessantly asked questions for Zoho Invoice that address things similar to language options and even the right way to associate a sales person with a selected invoice.

Why we selected it: Invoice Ninja may give some other free invoicing and billing software a run for its money with regards to invoicing and billing features, with the possible exception of payment reminder emails, that are only available in Invoice Ninja’s paid plans. As functional because it is, though, its free version’s 20-client limit makes it more suitable for small freelance operations.

Invoice Ninja was founded in 2014 and is subsequently the most recent service on our list, but its list of features runs long. It provides automatic billing and invoicing, invoice viewing, payment alerts, currency conversions and more. Its one major drawback is that its free plan is proscribed to twenty clients.

As an open source program, you can even adjust Invoice Ninja to your online business needs in the event you or someone in your team has basic development skills.

Highlights

• Feature-rich: Has just as many billing and invoicing features as some other software on our list.

• Open source: Invoice Ninja’s software is open source, meaning that it may well be customized as users see fit.

Why we selected it: Wave doesn’t just offer a free invoicing service, but free accounting and banking platforms as well. And in the event you enroll for Wave Banking, you possibly can get free fast payouts as an alternative of getting to pay the usual 1% fee. Square also offers an analogous program through its Square Checking account, but Wave Banking gets an additional star since it offers a network of surcharge-free ATMs — something Square Checking doesn’t.

Most other free invoice and billing software don’t also include full accounting functionality free of charge — assuming they’ve any accounting software in any respect. For instance, Zoho offers the lightest version of its accounting platform, Zoho Books, free of charge to businesses with an annual revenue of lower than $50,000. But businesses with larger revenue streams need to pay. Wave, alternatively, gives all of it away free of charge, irrespective of the scale of your online business.

While your typical billing and invoicing software may give you a report of total payments and outstanding invoices, Wave helps you to sync your online business bank and bank card accounts, categorize transactions, and create the financial statements and accounting reports it’s essential keep a pulse on your online business’s financial health. This is kind of a boon for many who need to accurately prepare their tax returns without drowning in spreadsheets. And in the event you use Wave’s banking platform, you can even get fast payouts with none fees.

Wave can offer its invoicing and accounting services free of charge since it makes money by selling additional services and features. These include a payment processing service, payroll software (for while you recruit your first worker) and bookkeeping services.

One possible drawback of using Wave is that, much like PayPal, you might be beholden to using it for payment processing in the event you use it for invoicing. This can be a double-edged sword because when you don’t need to get arrange with a separate payment gateway, you furthermore mght can’t shop around for the lowest-priced payment processor for your online business.

Highlights

• Not only free invoicing: Wave offers free accounting software and a free business banking platform along with its free invoicing and billing software.

• Easy payouts with banking integration: Payouts on Wave invoices may be immediately deposited to a Wave business checking account with no fee.

• All-in-one payments: There’s no have to get a separate payment gateway for your online business because Wave is its own payment processor.

Why we selected it: PayPal is easy and familiar, and in the event you just need a straightforward platform to send skilled invoices to your clients, it stands out as the most suitable choice for you.

PayPal offers freelancers and other small businesses a simple approach to send and manage invoices. Once you could have a PayPal for Business account arrange, just click “Pay & Get Paid,” then “Create Invoice,” and also you’re in your way.

That said, PayPal has its share of drawbacks with regards to invoicing. For one thing, you won’t get fancy dashboards or features like time tracking that you just would get with a few of the other software on this list.

Also, while it’s convenient that PayPal itself is a payment processor you are limited to using PayPal as your processor when invoicing through PayPal. Which means that you might be stuck paying higher fees through the use of PayPal as an alternative of a less expensive option.

All in all, if you could have relatively easy invoicing needs and need a straightforward solution, PayPal gets the job done.

Highlights

• Native payment processing: Invoicing through PayPal utilizes PayPal’s native payment processing, so there’s no have to get arrange with one other payment gateway. That is one less thing to fret about for those with easy invoicing needs.

• Easy: While PayPal doesn’t offer as many features as other invoicing platforms, it gets the job done.

Why we selected it: Square offers a free mobile bank card reader to be used at your brick-and-mortar office in addition to a basic free invoicing and billing platform.

Many businesses service each in-person and distant clients. A retailer with a brick-and-mortar storefront may ship products nationwide along with charging customers in store. Or a tax preparer might arrange a pop-up tax prep shop during tax season, charging clients within the office while also serving others remotely. Should you even have a hybrid business model, Square stands out as the best free invoicing software for you.

In your in-person customers, Square will send you a free mobile bank card reader that you may arrange easily on a mobile device using the Square Point of Sale app, which is offered for each iOS and Android.

And for distant clients, Square offers a free, basic invoicing and billing platform that features automatic payment reminders, standard invoicing reports and no limits on variety of clients or invoices. Unlike another free platforms, nonetheless, Square’s free invoicing plan doesn’t offer invoice customization.

Much like Wave, you possibly can get free fast transfers to your Square Checking account in the event you enroll for Square Checking. Nevertheless, unlike Wave, Square doesn’t have a network of surcharge-free ATMs to select from.

Highlights

• Strong support for in-person businesses: Square sends brick-and-mortar businesses a free mobile bank card reader that easily integrates with the Square Point of Sale app on any mobile device.

• Quick payouts: You’ll be able to get your Square payouts deposited to your Square Checking account immediately somewhat than having to attend the usual two to 3 business days.

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Other corporations we considered

Listed below are just a few free invoicing and billing software products that, while still worthy of mention, have some limitations that we felt were slightly too strict for the typical user.

Hiveage

Hiveage is a basic billing and invoicing software that supports multiple currencies and unlimited invoices. Along with its free version, it has three paid versions starting from $16 monthly to $42 monthly. Nevertheless, we didn’t include Hiveage in our top picks because its free version is proscribed to invoicing only five saved clients, which is prohibitive even for a modest freelancing enterprise.

Invoicely

Invoicely is one other free billing and invoicing software that we excluded from our quick reviews because its free version is severely limited, allowing only five monthly invoices and three saved clients. Moreover, the free version only supports PayPal as a payment gateway. Besides its free plan, Invoicely has three paid plans ranging in price from $9.99 monthly to $29.99 monthly.

Free Invoice and Billing Software Guide

Invoicing and billing software is arguably one of the crucial vital tools you could have in your small business owner’s toolshed. Logistically, it is the mechanism by which your online business receives money out of your clients.

With no streamlined, automated system for communicating to clients how much they owe you and when they need to pay you, your online business will struggle to remain on top of collections. That’s why it’s vital that you just pick the perfect invoice and billing software that meets your online business needs.

On this quick guide we provide you with a greater understanding of what to search for with regards to making that selection.

Major things to know before selecting free invoice and billing software

Listed below are a few of the foremost things to know when selecting a free invoice and billing software.

Selecting a payment gateway

One thing to take note is that software similar to PayPal, Wave and Square require you to make use of their very own payment processing services to just accept online payments.

Other free invoicing and billing software — like Zoho and Invoice Ninja — are only invoicing and billing tools, and you will want to establish an account with a separate payment gateway to really charge clients.

Should you really need to chop costs when choosing a payment gateway, it could possibly be a very good idea to have a look at your most up-to-date sales and compare how much each payment processor would charge you in fees.

There are other things to contemplate besides fees, in fact, but in the event you’re going to be significantly more processing fees through the use of a selected payment processor, you might need to select a free invoice and billing software that supports integration with that processor as an alternative.

Invoicing limitations

One other thing to take note when selecting a free invoicing and billing software is the software’s own invoicing limitations.

For instance, some software limits you to a certain variety of invoices per yr, and others limit you to a certain variety of stored clients.

Anticipate your online business needs — and growth — to make sure that any software limitations are suitable to your organization now and within the near future.

Future needs

Speaking of growth, take note that if your online business scales beyond its current needs, you might eventually have to upgrade to a paid invoicing and billing service.

Obviously, it’s easier to upgrade the paid version of an invoicing software than it’s to transition your online business to a completely recent software. With this in mind, you might need to reference your three-, five- and even ten-year business goals to find out if the free invoicing and billing software you are considering has paid plans you possibly can upgrade to as your online business grows.

Other things to take note

While these are the universal aspects to take note before selecting a free invoice and billing software, you need to also consider aspects which might be specific to your online business as you make your selection.

For instance, do you could have clients from around the globe? In that case, the software you select should support multilingual and potentially multicurrency billing and invoicing. And if your online business uses particular branding like a signature font or colours, you almost certainly want software that means that you can easily customize the feel and look of your invoices.

For the reason that software products we’ve covered are all free, testing them out before committing to at least one will only cost you a little bit of time. And in the event you decide to test out multiple products, consider sending invoices to your personal email address so you possibly can experience exactly what your clients might be seeing while you invoice them.

What features do I even have with the free version of invoice software?

Listed below are some features you’ll get with the free version of most invoice software:

• Saved client information
• Recurring billing and invoicing
• Tax calculations
• Multi-currency support

The free version of some invoice software may offer things like invoice customization, payment reminders and dashboard reporting.

Aspects that you’ll likely not get within the free version of an invoice software include additional users, accounting reports and project tracking.

How does a free invoice and billing software work?

Free invoice and billing software work by sending out an email to a client or customer that features an invoice for the services or products you provided. This communication will include a link for the client or customer to pay you online via bank card, debit card or ACH.

After you enroll for a free invoicing and billing software, you’ll enter your organization’s information in this system, including its legal name and address. Then, you possibly can input different services or products you offer together with their prices. This information will appear in your invoices.

In case your free invoice and billing software requires you to integrate with a payment gateway, you will even have to get arrange with the payment gateway of your selection.

Depending on the software you might be using, you might have the ability to customize the feel and look of your invoices through various templates. At this point, you ought to be able to send your first invoice.

What are the advantages of free invoice and billing software?

Listed below are some advantages of free invoice and billing software:

• Tracking and reporting: Without using an invoice and billing software, you’re stuck having to manually track your online business’s receivables and collections. Even in the event you own a comparatively small business, staying on top of unpaid invoices and payment dates and communicating with clients can take hours every month. A free invoice and billing software, nonetheless, tracks the collections process for you. You could even have the ability to view your online business’s invoices and outstanding receivables at a look from a tidy dashboard.

• Professionalism: As a substitute of choosing a more rudimentary approach to communicating to clients that they should pay you, using an invoice and billing software can show you how to seem more skilled within the eyes of your clients.

• Automation: Free invoice and billing software can even show you how to automate a few of your processes by sending automatic payment reminders to clients. And if you could have clients on a recurring payment schedule, the software can even charge them robotically on those dates.

• Free: Obviously, free invoice and billing software let you release more of your online business’s money flow so you possibly can spend money on other areas of the business.

How can I do know if my data is protected using invoice software?

The info about your organization that’s stored in your online invoicing software is proscribed to your basic company information and, depending on how your payment gateway is about up, perhaps your organization’s business checking account information as well.

While it will obviously be a threat if your organization’s information were exposed, the more significant security risk is the exposure of your customers’ sensitive information, particularly their credit and debit card information.

In accepting payments electronically, you or your customers might want to physically key of their credit or debit card into the invoice software, which is able to then communicate this information either to its native payment processing system or the third-party payment processing system you could have integrated along with your invoice software.

Each time you transmit data over the web, you run the chance of it being compromised, but there are advanced security mechanisms that may significantly reduce the possibilities of this happening.

Crucial security mechanism with regards to the web transmission of sensitive data is a process called encryption. On this context, encryption is the conversion of sensitive data — similar to credit or debit card numbers — right into a code that the recipient (on this case the payment processor) can decipher using a special key.

Modern encryption keys are either 128 or 256 keys long, so if you ought to make absolutely sure that sensitive data is protected, ask your invoice software what form of security and encryption measures it takes to safeguard your and your customers’ data.

How We Found the Best Free Invoice and Billing Software

We used the next aspects to select the perfect free invoice and billing software:

• Features: Although a free software may not have all of the features you’d get with a full-blown accounting platform, they often have some baseline characteristics. These include automatic recurring billing and invoicing, invoice tracking and reporting, the flexibility to send customized invoices and an easy-to-use interface. The software on our list have most of those features.

• Invoice limitations: Although a few of the software products on our list have limits with regard to the variety of invoices you possibly can send annually or the variety of clients you possibly can store within the system, their limitations didn’t seem too prohibitive for the everyday user we consider each product is best fitted to.

• Security: Each time you handle and transmit financial information online, security becomes a top concern. That’s why we researched the safety processes of our top picks and only included products which have encryption systems in place to make sure that sensitive data and other information is kept secure.

Summary of the Best Free Invoice and Billing Software of 2023

• Zoho – Best for Small Business
• Invoice Ninja – Best for Freelancers
• Wave – Best for Faster Payments
• PayPal – Best for Ease of Use
• Square – Best for Businesses With In-Person Component