Invoicing software is judged on whether you get paid faster, not on how the invoice looks.
This guide ranks on what the payment options cost per invoice, how the reminders behave without being embarrassing, and whether the VAT and e-invoicing rules of your country are handled or left to you.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry
says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a
vendor. How that works.
In short
What invoicing software does
Invoicing software creates and sends invoices, tracks what is unpaid, chases it, and hands the result to your accounting system.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each invoicing tool is built for. One rule sits on top of those tests:
Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Per month by plan, published; free plan limited to 2 invoices a month; part of QuickBooks Online
Yes
A business already on QuickBooks Online
A freelancer who only needs to send invoices
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Belgian Peppol e-invoicing and invoicing, priced by monthly document volume
Ranked #1 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Billit calls itself a pioneer of Belgian e-invoicing and the product reflects it: invoices go out as structured Peppol documents, incoming invoices and receipts are scanned and processed, and accountant and business work from the same records.
More than 300,000 businesses use it by the vendor's count. Pricing is by documents per month, published, with every feature in every plan. It stops at the ledger, so bookkeeping remains in the accountant's own system.
What stands out
Peppol e-invoicing
Volume pricing
Accountant access
Where it costs you
Not a bookkeeping package; the ledger stays in your accountant's software
Document-volume tiers mean a busy month can push you into the next band
Right for
Belgian businesses and their accountants meeting the Peppol e-invoicing obligation from 2026
Wrong for
Businesses wanting invoicing and full bookkeeping in one subscription
BelgiumPer month by document volume, published; all features in every plan
Central European invoicing with dunning that works
Ranked #2 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Fakturoid does one job with unusual care: getting an invoice out and then getting it paid. The reminder sequences run on their own, the payment status comes back from the bank, and the plan that does both costs 211 CZK a month.
Local tax handling is correct for its home markets. The reservations are about size rather than quality: a small team behind the product, a modest set of integrations, and support and documentation that are noticeably better in Czech than in English.
What stands out
Automatic reminders
Czech and Slovak rules
Cheap
Where it costs you
Small vendor with a limited integration ecosystem
English documentation trails the Czech
Right for
A small business in Czechia or Slovakia that gets paid late
Wrong for
A company that needs deep accounting or many integrations
CzechiaFree plan for up to 5 clients; paid per month by plan, published, low
Italian invoicing and SdI e-invoicing for freelancers and small firms
Ranked #3 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Fatture in Cloud turns Italy's mandatory electronic invoicing into something a sole trader can do from a phone: invoices go through the SdI, quotes, orders and receipts sit alongside, bank statements are reconciled, and the accountant has direct access.
Plans are published and billed annually, with a first-year offer on the flat-rate plan. It is a TeamSystem product, which brings stability and the usual upsell into the wider suite. Outside Italy none of it applies.
What stands out
SdI e-invoicing
TeamSystem-owned
Italian market
Where it costs you
Billed annually with automatic renewal, and the flat-rate plan's first-year price doubles at renewal
Owned by TeamSystem, so the roadmap follows a larger suite
Right for
Italian freelancers, flat-rate taxpayers and small firms issuing SdI e-invoices
Wrong for
Any business invoicing mainly outside the Italian tax system
ItalyAnnual subscription by plan, published; first-year offer on the flat-rate plan only
Dutch invoicing and bookkeeping that stays out of the way
Ranked #4 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Moneybird is the nicest interface in Dutch bookkeeping and it does the boring parts properly: VAT returns, bank matching, and a clean handover to your accountant, all in language that matches Dutch practice.
For a freelancer or small business in the Netherlands or Belgium it removes an entire category of friction. Outside those two countries the compliance argument evaporates and it becomes an ordinary invoicing tool.
What stands out
NL/BE compliance
Clean interface
Accountant access
Where it costs you
Only compelling in the Netherlands and Belgium
Not built for complex inventory
Right for
A Dutch freelancer or SME that wants invoicing and books in one
Source-available, self-hostable, free to run yourself
Ranked #5 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Free tierOpen sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
Invoice Ninja is source-available under the Elastic License 2.0, self-hostable and supports more payment gateways than most commercial products, which means no per-invoice cost and no ceiling on volume.
For a technical freelancer or a small agency that is a genuinely free answer. Self-hosting is your responsibility including backups and updates, and the hosted tiers, while cheap, are plainer than the commercial competition.
What stands out
Source available
Self-hostable
Many payment gateways
Where it costs you
Self-hosting is your problem
Hosted tiers are plain
Right for
A technical team that wants no per-invoice cost
Wrong for
A business with no server capability
United StatesFree self-hosted; hosted free plan for 5 clients, paid hosted plans published
Ranked #6 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Harvest is the right shape when the invoice is essentially a timesheet: time tracking that people actually use, project profitability visible before the project ends, and invoices generated from tracked hours.
Agencies and consultancies adopt it and keep it for years. As pure invoicing it is basic, and it expects a real accounting package behind it rather than replacing one. The product now belongs to Bending Spoons, the Italian company that buys established software.
What stands out
Best time tracking
Project profitability
Simple invoicing
Where it costs you
Basic as pure invoicing
Expects an accounting package behind it
Right for
An agency where the invoice is the timesheet
Wrong for
A product business with stock
United StatesFree tier for one seat and two projects; paid per seat per month, published
Ranked #7 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Bonsai covers the whole freelance paperwork chain: proposal, contract with e-signature, time tracking, invoice, and expense and income tracking, which removes three separate subscriptions for an independent consultant. Bonsai is now a Zoom company.
The templates are legally sensible starting points rather than boilerplate. Once you have a bookkeeper and a proper accounting package, most of what Bonsai does becomes redundant and the per-user pricing stops making sense.
What stands out
Contracts included
Proposals
Freelance-focused
Where it costs you
Priced per user
Unnecessary once you have a bookkeeper
Right for
A freelancer who wants proposal, contract and invoice in one
Wrong for
An established company with a finance function
United StatesPer user per month by plan, published; 7-day trial
Ranked #8 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
The right answer when the problem is subscriptions, proration and failed-payment recovery rather than sending documents. Overbuilt and overpriced for one-off invoicing.
What stands out
Subscription logic
Dunning
Usage billing
Where it costs you
Overbuilt and overpriced for one-off invoicing
Takes a percentage of invoicing volume; revenue recognition is a separate product
Right for
A subscription business with proration and dunning to manage
Wrong for
A company sending occasional invoices
United StatesPercentage of invoicing volume, published: $0 plus 0.80%, or $99 a month plus 0.65%
Ranked #9 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
sevdesk covers the specific German requirements — the invoice format, the e-invoicing mandate, the DATEV export the tax adviser will ask for — and does it at a published monthly price. For the buyer it is written for, that combination removes both a compliance worry and a subscription.
It is not a general product: the interface, the templates and the exports are all built for one country, and a business that starts selling across borders will outgrow the reason it chose it.
What stands out
German e-invoicing
Bookkeeping included
Published price
Where it costs you
Germany-focused compliance and language
Reporting is basic once the business grows
Right for
A German freelancer or small company that must issue compliant invoices
Wrong for
A company invoicing across several countries
GermanyFree plan for three invoices a month; paid per month by plan, published
German invoicing software with e-invoices and automation for online sellers
Ranked #10 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
easybill, from Kaarst near Düsseldorf, covers quotes, invoices, e-invoices, delivery notes, recurring invoices and payment matching, and hands the result to the tax adviser through a DATEV export. Its distinctive part is automation for online retail: from the Professional plan, orders from shops and marketplaces such as Amazon become invoices without anyone typing them.
A free tier covers fifty documents a month for three contacts, and automated dunning needs Premium. It deliberately stops before bookkeeping, and everything about it, from language to tax logic, is German.
What stands out
E-Rechnung
Marketplace automation
Free tier
Where it costs you
Invoicing only; bookkeeping needs a tax adviser or separate software
German-language product built for German tax rules
Right for
German online sellers automating invoices from shop and marketplace orders
Wrong for
Businesses outside Germany or wanting bookkeeping included in the subscription
GermanyFree tier for 50 documents a month and 3 contacts; paid per month by plan, published; annual discount
Invoicing and time tracking for people who bill hours
Ranked #11 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
FreshBooks is built around the service business: timers, projects, expenses to rebill, and a client portal that shows what is outstanding. Turning a month of tracked hours into an invoice takes one step, and the estimate-to-invoice path is clean.
Two things to check before buying. Plans are tiered by number of billable clients, so an agency with many small accounts moves up the price list quickly, and anything involving inventory or purchase orders is outside what the product does.
What stands out
Time to invoice
Client portal
Published price
Where it costs you
Billable client limits on lower plans
Weak for product or inventory businesses
Right for
A consultancy or agency that invoices tracked time
Wrong for
A product business with stock and purchase orders
CanadaPer month by plan, published; charged per client tier
Ranked #12 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingAsia-Pacific
Zoho Invoice is free and includes a client portal, time tracking and expenses, the kind of package that usually costs twenty euros a month. The limits are 500 invoices a year, two users, three projects and Zoho branding on the documents, which a freelancer rarely reaches.
The catch is strategic: it exists to introduce you to Zoho Books, Zoho Billing and the rest, and the product assumes you will eventually go there.
What stands out
Genuinely free
Time tracking
Client portal
Where it costs you
It is a funnel into the wider Zoho suite
Support is thinner on the free product
Right for
A freelancer who needs free invoicing that is not crippled
Wrong for
A company that needs full bookkeeping
IndiaFree; up to 500 invoices a year and two users
Ranked #13 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
If money already moves through Stripe, invoicing on the same account gives you the best card acceptance rates in the business and no reconciliation between two systems. Hosted invoice pages, a customer portal and automatic retries are included.
Pricing is 0.4% per paid invoice on Starter or 0.5% on Plus, which adds quotes, with no monthly minimum, and that means the cost scales with volume in a way flat subscriptions do not, and the accounting side is deliberately minimal, this is a payment tool with invoices, not a ledger.
What stands out
Highest payment success
Global coverage
Developer API
Where it costs you
Per-invoice pricing gets expensive at volume
The accounting side is minimal
Right for
A business already taking payments through Stripe
Wrong for
A company that needs a ledger, not a payment link
United StatesPer paid invoice percentage, published: 0.4% on Starter, 0.5% on Plus
Ranked #14 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Strongest on the paying-out side, where approval routing and audit trails matter more than the invoice template. Effectively US-only, and priced per user.
What stands out
AP automation
Approval routing
US bank integration
Where it costs you
Effectively US-only
Priced per user
Right for
A US company automating approvals on money going out
Invoicing attached to the accounting most accountants know
Ranked #15 of 15 in Best Invoicing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
The invoicing inside QuickBooks Online is competent and, more importantly, joined up: the invoice, the payment and the ledger entry are one record, and the accountant sees it in the system they use for everyone else.
That removes the reconciliation problem that standalone invoicing tools create. The catch is that this is not sold as invoicing. You buy accounting, at accounting prices, and the 50% introductory discount lasts three months. The free plan stops at two invoices a month.
What stands out
Accountant familiarity
Payments built in
Part of a suite
Where it costs you
You are buying accounting to get invoicing
The 50% introductory discount lasts three months
Right for
A business already on QuickBooks Online
Wrong for
A freelancer who only needs to send invoices
United StatesPer month by plan, published; free plan limited to 2 invoices a month; part of QuickBooks Online
Invoicing software creates and sends invoices, tracks what is unpaid, chases it, and hands the result to your accounting system. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
15 of the 15 tools here publish what they cost; the other 0 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Billit, Fakturoid, Fatture in Cloud, Moneybird, Invoice Ninja, Harvest, Bonsai, Chargebee, sevdesk, easybill, FreshBooks Invoicing, Zoho Invoice, Stripe Invoicing, BILL, QuickBooks Invoicing.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 15 vendors are established in 8 countries across 3 regions (North America 8, Europe 6, Asia-Pacific 1). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
03
Consider whether you want the source
1 of these are open source: Invoice Ninja. Hosting one yourself trades a subscription for maintenance.
One-off invoices or recurring revenue: two different products
Moneybird, Fakturoid, sevdesk and Zoho Invoice are built for sending an invoice and chasing it. Chargebee and Stripe Invoicing are built for subscriptions: proration, dunning and failed-card retries, with revenue recognition sold by Chargebee as a separate product.
Buying a subscription billing engine for twenty invoices a month is expensive; running a subscription business on a simple invoicing tool means reconciling by hand every month.
Count your recurring invoices as a share of the total.
If anything renews automatically, check how failed payments are retried.
Ask what happens when a customer upgrades mid-period.
Percentage of revenue against a flat fee
Stripe Invoicing charges a percentage per paid invoice, 0.4% or 0.5% by plan, and Chargebee takes 0.80% of invoicing volume with no fixed fee, or $99 a month plus 0.65%.
That is cheap at low volume and becomes the largest line on the page as you grow. The flat-fee products, Moneybird and Fakturoid among the cheapest here, cost the same whether you bill five thousand or five hundred thousand.
Model both pricing shapes at your current and your projected volume.
Separate the billing fee from the payment processing fee. They are different charges.
Check whether the percentage applies to the invoice total or the amount collected.
E-invoicing mandates are arriving on a schedule
Structured e-invoicing is becoming compulsory across Europe on staggered national timetables, and a PDF attached to an email will stop being an invoice in the legal sense.
The local products are ahead here because they have to be: sevdesk and easybill for Germany, Fakturoid for Czechia, Moneybird for the Netherlands, Billit for Belgium, Fatture in Cloud for Italy. Ask about your country and the date, not about the feature in general.
Find out the mandate date for your country and your company size.
Ask which structured format the product emits and whether it is certified.
Check that inbound e-invoices can be received, not only sent.
What happens after the invoice is sent
Creating an invoice is the easy half. Chasing it is the half that pays for the software: automatic reminders on a schedule, a payment link that works on a phone, and a clean handover into the ledger. Harvest and Bonsai bundle time tracking because for their buyers the invoice starts as hours.
Set up the reminder schedule in the trial and send yourself the sequence.
Check which payment methods your customers actually use are supported.
Confirm the export into your accounting system is a real integration, not a CSV.
What goes wrong most often when buying invoicing software
Paying a percentage of revenue for what a flat-fee tool does, because the percentage was invisible at launch volume.
Ignoring the e-invoicing mandate until the quarter it applies.
Choosing an invoicing tool your accounting system cannot read, and reconciling by hand forever.
Buying subscription billing for a business that does not have subscriptions.
07
Frequently asked questions
8 answers
What is the best invoicing in 2026?
Billit leads our ranking of 15. Built in Ghent around structured e-invoicing, which in Belgium stopped being optional for business-to-business invoices at the start of 2026. It sends and receives over Peppol, processes purchase invoices and receipts, and gives the accountant the same view.
Pricing follows documents per month with every feature included. It is not bookkeeping software, so the ledger still lives elsewhere, and its case is weakest where Peppol is not required.
Which invoicing tools publish their pricing?
15 of the 15, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Billit: Per month by document volume, published; all features in every plan.
Fakturoid: Free plan for up to 5 clients; paid per month by plan, published, low.
Fatture in Cloud: Annual subscription by plan, published; first-year offer on the flat-rate plan only.
Moneybird: Per month, published.
Invoice Ninja: Free self-hosted; hosted free plan for 5 clients, paid hosted plans published.
Harvest: Free tier for one seat and two projects; paid per seat per month, published.
Bonsai: Per user per month by plan, published; 7-day trial.
Chargebee: Percentage of invoicing volume, published: $0 plus 0.80%, or $99 a month plus 0.65%.
sevdesk: Free plan for three invoices a month; paid per month by plan, published.
easybill: Free tier for 50 documents a month and 3 contacts; paid per month by plan, published; annual discount.
FreshBooks Invoicing: Per month by plan, published; charged per client tier.
Zoho Invoice: Free; up to 500 invoices a year and two users.
Stripe Invoicing: Per paid invoice percentage, published: 0.4% on Starter, 0.5% on Plus.
BILL: Per user per month, published.
QuickBooks Invoicing: Per month by plan, published; free plan limited to 2 invoices a month; part of QuickBooks Online.
The other 0 quote per organisation.
Is there a free invoicing tool?
Fakturoid, Invoice Ninja, Harvest, sevdesk, easybill, Zoho Invoice, QuickBooks Invoicing offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these invoicing vendors established?
In 8 countries across 3 regions: North America 8, Europe 6, Asia-Pacific 1.
Billit: Belgium.
Fakturoid: Czechia.
Fatture in Cloud: Italy.
Moneybird: Netherlands.
Invoice Ninja: United States.
Harvest: United States.
Bonsai: United States.
Chargebee: United States.
sevdesk: Germany.
easybill: Germany.
FreshBooks Invoicing: Canada.
Zoho Invoice: India.
Stripe Invoicing: United States.
BILL: United States.
QuickBooks Invoicing: United States.
Which invoicing tools are open source?
Invoice Ninja.
Which invoicing tools can you host yourself?
Invoice Ninja. The other 14 are hosted by the vendor only.
What should you use instead of Billit?
Fakturoid and Fatture in Cloud are the next two on this page. Fakturoid is for a small business in Czechia or Slovakia that gets paid late; Fatture in Cloud is for Italian freelancers, flat-rate taxpayers and small firms issuing SdI e-invoices.
Who should not buy Billit?
Businesses wanting invoicing and full bookkeeping in one subscription. Not a bookkeeping package; the ledger stays in your accountant's software.
If your invoicing product belongs among these 15, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
