Free invoicing software for freelancers

Wave

Wave is the closest thing here to a free accounting package: the Starter plan sends unlimited invoices, estimates and bills, and keeps income and expense bookkeeping behind the same login, so there is a real set of books to hand an accountant at tax time. You pay only when a client pays by card, at 2.9% + $0.60 a transaction, and the $19-a-month Pro plan mostly buys receipt capture, bank-feed imports and a discounted card rate. The gap for hourly billers is time tracking, which Wave does not do, so a timer has to live somewhere else.

Zoho Invoice

Zoho Invoice is the rare tool that is free at every level rather than free up to a paywall: there is no paid tier to upgrade to, and the limits are 500 invoices a year, two users and three projects. It covers more ground than most free plans, with timesheets that turn billable hours into invoices, billable expense tracking, scheduled recurring invoices, and apps on both phones. Invoices carry a small "Powered by Zoho Invoice" line, which is the price of the free ride. The ceiling is real, though: outgrowing 500 invoices or three projects means moving to a different, paid Zoho product.

Invoice Ninja

Invoice Ninja is open source and unusually generous where it counts: the free plan is capped at five clients but gives unlimited invoicing, recurring auto-billing, billable time tracking and expense tracking without paying anything. It connects to more payment gateways than anything else on this list, so you keep your own Stripe, PayPal or Authorize.net rates rather than a markup. The five-client ceiling is the constraint to watch, and $14 a month lifts it. Anyone who would rather not trust a vendor with their billing data can run the same software on their own server.

Square Invoices

Square Invoices costs nothing to use and has no invoice limit; the money comes out of the payment instead, at 3.3% + 30 cents when a client pays a card online, the steepest card rate in this table. What that buys is the least friction for the person paying, plus estimates, contracts and recurring schedules, and the same account takes cards in person if you ever sell face to face. The $20-a-month Invoices Plus tier adds payment schedules, custom templates and a cap on ACH fees. There is no bookkeeping or time tracking here: it is invoicing bolted to a payments company.

PayPal Invoicing

PayPal charges nothing to create or send an invoice and has no subscription at all: you pay a transaction fee only when a client actually pays. That makes it the least committal option here, and clients who already hold a PayPal account settle up in a couple of taps, which is worth real money in days-to-payment. Recurring invoices are built in and the whole thing runs from the standard PayPal phone app. It is invoicing and nothing more: no time tracking, no expense records, no books.

invoicely

invoicely has the most restrictive free plan on this list: five invoices a month, three saved clients, and PayPal as the only way to accept money online. It runs entirely in a browser with no phone app, which is fine on a laptop and awkward on a job site. Recurring invoices, card payments and time, expense and mileage tracking all sit behind the $9.99 Basic plan, so the free tier reads less like a product than a trial that never expires. Unlimited estimates are the one place it is genuinely open-handed.

Harvest

Harvest arrives at invoicing from the time-tracking side: the free plan is one person and two projects, with time tracking, expense tracking and invoicing built around them, so tracked hours become an invoice without retyping anything. The binding constraint is that project count, not the number of invoices, which makes it a strong fit for a freelancer with one or two long-running clients and a poor one for anybody juggling many small jobs. Clients pay through your own PayPal or Stripe account, so the processing rate is whatever you already negotiated. Apps cover both phones, and $11 per seat a month removes the project cap.

Paymo

Paymo is project management first with invoicing attached: the free plan allows one user, one client and two projects, but unlimited time tracking and unlimited invoices inside them. It suits a freelancer who wants tasks, a Kanban board and a timer in the same place as billing, and it is the wrong tool for anyone who needs more than a single client without paying. Card and ACH payments run through Paymo's own processing, which is currently US-only, so freelancers elsewhere are back to manual bank transfers. The Solo plan settles at about $9.90 a month once the introductory discount ends.

Hiveage

Hiveage gives its five free clients more capability than most of this list gives anyone: unlimited invoices, unlimited estimates, unlimited time tracking and unlimited expense tracking, all at no cost. It connects to more than a dozen payment gateways, so you keep your own processing rates, and there are native apps on both phones. The notable omission is recurring billing, which starts at the $16-a-month Basic plan, the priciest first upgrade in this table. Best suited to someone with a handful of long-term clients who is happy to send each invoice by hand.

Bookipi

Bookipi is a phone-first invoice app, and its free tier is the thinnest here: three invoices every 30 days, after which the $9.99-a-month Starter plan is the only way forward. It is aimed at tradespeople and one-person businesses who raise an invoice at the job rather than at a desk, and the apps are heavily reviewed on both stores. Card payments work by connecting your own Stripe account, so Stripe's rate is what you pay. Treat the free plan as a way to try the app rather than a way to run a year of billing.

SumUp Invoices

SumUp Invoices has no subscription and no invoice limit; the company earns on the payment instead, taking 2.9% + 15 cents when a client pays online through the invoice link and nothing at all on cash or check. That fee is the lowest built-in card rate in this table. Quotes sit alongside invoices, and the account is the same one SumUp uses for card readers, so it fits a freelancer who also takes payments in person. It stays deliberately plain: no time tracking, no expense records, nothing to grow into.