The best invoicing software in 2024

Work's done, time to get paid. But that's not as easy as sending an email to your clients titled "pay me, please." You need to send a professional-looking invoice with all the information about you, your client, and the services you provided or the products you delivered.

You can do that with a Google Docs template, for sure. But do you really want to keep copying that template, entering all the details every time, and then having to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the cash totals? Let an invoice app do that for you.

There are a lot of invoicing apps out there. This year, I considered over 80 apps in this category and did in-depth testing before finally landing on the eight best that made it to the final list.

The best invoicing software

• PayPal for brand recognition

• Square for selling on social media

• Billdu for generating your own sales page

• InvoiceQuick for beautiful invoices

• Invoice2go for sending invoices by mobile messaging apps

• InvoiceBerry for payment processing options (including crypto)

• Zoho Invoice for a free option

• Bookipi for sending invoices from Gmail

What makes the best invoicing software?

Invoicing apps let you save your business details and those of your clients, so you can reuse them every time you create a new document. The simpler ones let you put together invoices quickly and keep track of everything you've invoiced in the past. More advanced apps let you collect payments online, set up payment reminders, and customize the way your invoices look to let your professional identity shine.

Here's what I looked for in the best invoicing software.

• Speed and ease of use. Your invoice maker app has to be faster than filling out a document template, and I needed to be able to figure out how to use it in five minutes or less. If it's only for invoicing, it better be simple to use.

• Design. Beautiful invoices aren't a necessity, but having options lets you differentiate yourself from the competition and be consistent with your brand.

• Ability to receive payments online. I chose apps that have online payment platform integrations, letting your clients pay you online. If you don't need this functionality, you can just use an invoice generator instead of a dedicated invoicing app.

• Unique features. I looked at things not strictly tied to invoicing but that can help you save even more time or open up interesting options for you. Examples are sales features, handy integrations with other platforms, or unique ways to send your invoices.

• Focus on invoicing. All the apps on this list have their invoicing features front and center, even if they offer a wider range of possibilities. I don't want you to be digging around complex menus to find that Create invoice button.

To test these invoice apps, I signed up for each of them, added fictional business details, created invoices, and played around with the templates and sending options. Whenever there were unique features, I also dove in to see if they were worth using. On average, I spent about an hour in each invoices app, investing more time in those that had special features, and less in others that had a more straightforward user experience. I've also used most of the apps on this list in the past, whether for previous versions of this article or for personal use, so I revisited any features to see what had changed since I'd last logged in.

Before we get into it: if you're already using an accounting app, it may have invoicing features embedded in it. While it's pretty obvious in most cases, a couple of well-known solutions have invoices disabled by default, which means you have to search for and activate the feature in the settings section. Take a quick look at your own accounting app to see if that's the case.

The best invoicing software at a glance

Best invoicing software for brand recognition

PayPal (Web, iOS, Android)

PayPal launched in 1999. Back then, moving money online wasn't as mainstream as it is today, so PayPal has had a lot of time to grow into a powerful platform with quite a reputation.

Invoicing is one of the many possibilities it offers. To get there, log in to your account, click Send and Request on the top menu, and then select Invoices. You'll be able to see all your info and create invoices without using any of the other features if you don't need them. The invoice creation screen is simple, helping you focus on what you need to do. It feels like a banking app—serious vibe and all—which makes it pretty intuitive if you do most of your banking online.

When it comes to invoice design, PayPal only lets you add your logo—that's it. It's a bit disappointing if you want to customize the looks of your invoice, but consider this: when you invoice via PayPal, you're also taking advantage of the platform's reputation by using its base design template and branding. People know what PayPal is, and they trust it. That's huge when you're trying to get people to send you money.

All online payments are handled by PayPal. When you create an invoice and send it to a client that has a PayPal account, they'll receive a notification on their app, making it easier to pay you in a couple of taps. If that's not the case, your clients can still pay by entering their credit card details. If you do business in person, there's an option to pay with a QR code too: create an invoice on the PayPal mobile app, show the QR code to your customer, and they can pay it with their smartphone right there and then. There's a lot of flexibility here, so if you do more than selling online, it's worth checking it out.

One note: the payment processing fees are a bit complicated to figure out, as they vary depending on the payment method, type, and currency. As a rule, you can expect that there's a fixed cost per transaction (usually cents) and a percentage over the total amount. Be sure you understand all the fees before you dive in.

As for extra features, PayPal lets you generate payment links you can share with your clients, which leads them to a beautiful page inviting them to pay. You can allow tipping, accept partial payments, and create estimates as well. And if your clients are in a financial tight spot, they can take advantage of PayPal's buy now, pay later services.

Once you finish that invoice, you can add it to a Google Sheet or sync your client roster to your email marketing tool. Integrate PayPal with Zapier to connect PayPal to all the other apps you use for your business. Learn more about how to automate PayPal, or try one of these pre-built workflows.

PayPal price: Commission-based; fees start at $0.49 + 1.5% to 3.49% per transaction.

Best invoicing software for selling on social media

Square (Web, iOS, Android)

Like PayPal, Square is a payment platform with invoicing features. The main selling point for invoices: you can integrate it with Facebook and Instagram and manage your sales in a centralized place. 

This means you can add your products and manage your inventory in Square, and that information syncs automatically to your profiles. You can chat with your customers without leaving Square using the Messenger integration it offers. The setup process is a bit lengthy and requires attention to detail, but the time you'll save with it in the future pays off. Take your time to familiarize yourself with it, and tackle it when you feel ready.

If you're not selling on social media, Square still has the features to help you create all the invoices you need. The interface is polished, functional, fast, and easy to use. The invoicing page has lots of options you can configure, such as invoice frequency, when to send it to your client, and which payment methods you'll accept. All the features are on the page—no hidden menus—so you won't forget anything.

To edit the design of your invoices, click Settings and then Customization. There, you can choose from one of three layouts, add your logo, set the invoice colors, and hide or show specific fields. It's not as much as others on this list, but pretty generous considering it's actually a payment platform. 

Online payments are processed by Square. It accepts online credit card payments, ACH bank transfers, and gift cards. But it also has a lot of extras, like buy now, pay later support; contract creation; multi-package estimates; milestone-based payment schedules; tipping options; in-person sales; and loads of integrations with restaurant and eCommerce software.

You can take Square's inclination toward integration even further. By connecting Square with Zapier, you'll be able to automate business-critical tasks. Here are popular ways to automate Square, plus some pre-made workflows to get you started:

Square price: Commission-based; online card payments at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. The Plus plan unlocks more invoicing features for $20/month.

Best invoice app for generating your own sales page

Billdu (Web, iOS, Android)

When you land on Billdu's home page, you're greeted by a beaver standing up with a can-do attitude, and once you create your account, the interface lives up to the branding. There's an onboarding checklist with tasks to help you get set up. The app is fast, and it has plenty of settings to help you do more with your invoices.

You can customize your invoice design with five available layouts to choose from, all leaning on minimalism. You can add your logo or signature, customize fonts, and hide or show invoice fields. The end result is clean and professional. When you're done customizing the looks, head over to the Settings section and click Payment options. There, you can add your bank details to your invoices and integrate Stripe or PayPal to receive payments online.

But the most interesting feature Billdu offers is the sales page. You can create a public page with your business hours and contact details, a profile, and a header image. On that page, you'll also be able to handle online booking, letting your clients schedule discovery calls with you; set up an online store, where you can sell your products and services; let your clients request quotes; and even integrate a live chat feature.

Once you fill out all the details, you can publish it to what Billdu calls an "Instant Website." You'll get a short link you can share wherever you want, with all the information your clients need to do business with you. Already have a website? You can embed the page as a widget there instead.

When a client requests a quote through this page, you get a notification on the platform and via email. You can convert that request into an estimate and send it to the client's email address. The client can then see it online and approve it with a click. And once they do, you can convert that to an invoice with one click too.

Another nice touch is the Inbox section of the app, which helps you keep track of the whole back and forth. You'll see the interaction in a chat window, and you can even compose emails from there. I was honestly amazed by all these options—including how easy they were to put together and use. 

Billdu price: Free plan available; paid plans start at $5.99/month for unlimited invoices; transaction fees depend on the payment processor you use.

Best invoicing app for creating beautiful invoices

InvoiceQuick (Web, iOS)

I know that invoices are meant to be functional—a document about a transaction. But it can also be an opportunity to express your business's identity. A beautiful invoice might be so memorable that it helps your clients remember to pay you earlier rather than later. If you're looking for that kind of effect, InvoiceQuick is your best bet.

There are 28 templates to choose from, from professional to full-blown creative. Pick the one you want, and it's ready to use with a single click. If you want to adapt it to your brand colors, you can change the color scheme, add your logo, and show or hide invoice fields.

The platform is intuitive: all the features you need are available as buttons on all the screens, without hiding much in settings menus. There's an onboarding checklist and tutorial, and it's enough to help you do everything you need to do. You won't have to spend a lot of time in the documentation section to leverage all the app's features.

You can let your clients pay your invoices online by integrating InvoiceQuick with Stripe or PayPal. Bonus: when your clients click the link to see the invoice, you get a notification telling you that they've viewed it. 

Some cool extras here include setting up payment reminders, creating estimates, and accessing a simple report dashboard that includes a cash flow graph, stats about your invoices, and a client activity feed. If you want to go deeper, you can click the Accounting tab and access basic accounting features as well. Despite these extra features, InvoiceQuick still feels focused on invoices, so there's nothing to distract you from the main course.

InvoiceQuick price: Free plan available; paid plans for unlimited customers and more advanced features start at $12/month; transaction fees depend on the payment processor you use. 

Best invoicing software for sending invoices by mobile messaging apps

Invoice2go (Web, iOS, Android)

When you log in to Invoice2go, you'll notice that the interface looks professional and polished, a straightforward approach to invoicing. There's a big, useful "Create" button where you can create anything from a new invoice to a new client. It has an onboarding checklist on the dashboard, and you'll get essential information about invoices, such as total sales volume in the current month and unpaid and overdue totals.

Its primary strength unlocks when you install the mobile app. When you're ready to send an invoice, you can send it via any messaging app you have on your phone. This is great for clients that are easier to reach via WhatsApp or the good old SMS. Once they get your invoice, they just have to click the link, and they'll see all the details.

Customizing the look of your invoices is easy, and there are plenty of options. You can pick one of eight layouts, add your own logo and set its alignment, or add a header image and watermarked elements for extra flair. It's quite flexible for the limited number of controls; if you spend some time here, you'll be able to craft something unique with a professional look.

As with most of the competition, Invoice2go integrates with Stripe and PayPal to let your clients pay online. You can also create projects to keep your invoices, estimates, and project notes in one place; add your expenses; and explore integrations with other apps. If one of your apps isn't on the native integrations list, you can connect Invoice2go to Zapier to access a library of thousands of available apps. Here are some examples.

Invoice2go price: Plans start at $5.99/month; transaction fees depend on the payment processor you use. 

Best invoice app for payment processor options (including crypto)

InvoiceBerry (Web)

If you're into Web3, work with Web3 companies, or would like to offer this kind of payment method to your clients, InvoiceBerry is the only one I tested that was both a solid invoicing app and integrated with cryptocurrency platforms Coinbase and CoinPayments. Doing so requires some technical expertise, but if you know how a blockchain works, then pasting an API key should be a piece of cake. 

InvoiceBerry has an appealing user interface—it's fast and intuitive all the way. During onboarding, the creator Uwe Dreiss sends you a personalized welcome video, with some tips on what you can do with his app and how to start exploring. You can't edit the layout of your invoices, but you can add your logo and change the color of the lines you see in the screenshot above. The base design is good enough that it didn't bother me much.

You can create invoices in BTC (Bitcoin) and USDT (Tether), but that's about it as far as the major ones go. Your clients can pay you with cryptocurrencies via Coinbase and CoinPayments, but there are other payment integrations as well: Stripe, PayPal, GoCardless, WePay, and Square.

InvoiceBerry also has some extra features like the ability to grant different permission levels, create quotes, log expenses, and run simple reports on your invoicing volume over time.

When you integrate InvoiceBerry with Zapier, you can connect InvoiceBerry to all the other apps you use at work, to be sure your business-critical workflows keep running while you focus on the human side. 

InvoiceBerry price: Plans start at $15/month for unlimited invoices and 35 clients; transaction fees depend on the payment processor you use. 

Best free invoice app

Zoho Invoice (Web, iOS, Android, Windows)

Zoho Invoice is a powerful and complete invoicing tool, with an attractive price tag on top: free forever. It has everything an invoice app needs without transitioning into the realm of accounting platforms.

Inspired by the enterprise vibe of other Zoho software, Invoice's user interface doesn't dazzle—and that's a good thing. The app is intuitive, offering a lot of information and actions on each screen, so you know what you can do right away.

When creating an invoice, you'll have access to plenty of input fields to add everything, no matter if you're selling products or services. You can customize your invoice with a small selection of visual templates and tweak the layout on a dedicated screen. If you work with clients in multiple countries, it can handle multi-currency, and you can add new invoice templates for each different language.

If you want to explore the extras, click the cogwheel icon on the top-right to open the settings. While there, head to General Preferences and activate the other available modules. The major ones include estimates, expense tracking, and a payment link generator for one-time payments.

Zoho Invoice integrates with a great range of payment processing platforms, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square—and the integration process is easy. A new range of icons pop up both in the online invoice view and in your invoice PDFs. When your clients click on either, they'll be taken to the online payment page, where they'll be able to securely settle that invoice.

As if all of this wasn't enough, Zoho Invoice integrates with Zapier, so you can connect your invoicing with your other apps easily. Here are a few pre-made workflows to help you get started, but you can connect Zoho Invoice with thousands of other apps using Zapier.

Zoho Invoice price: Free

Best invoice app for sending invoices from Gmail

Bookipi (Web, iOS, Android, Gmail extension)

If Gmail is where you are most of the day, why tab out? Bookipi will help you send invoices straight from your inbox out to all your clients—no need to open anything else. Let's walk through the process.

To send a new invoice, open the conversation with the target client. With the Bookipi sidebar open on the right side, you'll notice it'll update with the details about the current conversation. You'll be able to quickly add an invoice tag, items, and prices. When you click Send, a pre-formatted email fires out with a big green Pay Now button (via Stripe or PayPal), a polite message, and the attached invoice. Easy.

To make this possible, Bookipi acts as a Gmail extension, not an actual Chrome extension. It lives on the right sidebar in the Gmail app, not on your browser's Extensions section. This makes the setup process less intuitive than usual, but you won't have trouble getting it done.

The extension is great for sending invoices, but not for much else. To tap into the rest of Bookipi's features, you'll have to head to the web app. You'll have access to all the documents you sent along with reports of your total income—plus a few extra features:

• Proposals lets you pitch new products or services to your clients. Design the cover on Canva, set the timeline, and add the terms of the agreement. You can enable card payments too, so your client can instantly accept and pay.

• eSign is great for quickly signing contracts.

• Instant Website is a relatively impressive AI-powered website generator. Simply add your business name and description of services: it creates a good-looking landing page with hero section, description sections, and even a FAQ, all with images included.

I'm hoping these features get integrated into the Gmail extension at some point. Running an entire freelance toolkit within a Gmail sidebar sounds like productivity heaven to me.

Bookipi price: Free plan available; Scale Up plan starts at $9.99/month.

What's the best invoice management software?

Ready to leave those word processing templates behind? With the options you've seen here, you can take a good step forward in your business by keeping it all in one place, with consistent design and easy ways for your clients to pay you.

All the apps in this list either have free plans or free trials to help you check out their features. If you didn't fall for one at first sight, take the most interesting ones out for a spin and see how they adapt to your needs. Whatever you pick, make sure you automate your invoicing app, so you can focus on moving your work forward, faster.

Looking for other options? We can help:

• The best free invoicing software

• The best self-employed accounting software

• The best accounting software for small business

• The best PayPal alternatives for businesses

Originally published in July 2017 by Matthew Guay, this article has also had contributions from Jessica Greene and Emily Esposito. The most recent update was in November 2023.