Best Invoice App for Freelancers: 10 Apps Compared (2026)

The best invoice app for freelancers is Wave, because its free plan includes unlimited invoices and you pay only when a client pays you online. This list isn’t for a business that needs inventory or payroll, since that takes a full accounting package. If your bigger problem is tracking who has paid and what each client owes, Freelancer Dashboard fits well. The right pick depends on how your clients pay. If you’re still setting up your freelance business, start with the complete beginner guide to freelancing.

Personal Profitability may earn a commission from partner links on this page, at no cost to you. Partners don’t decide what we recommend or where it ranks. Rates and terms are each vendor’s as of 2026-10-15. Confirm them on the vendor’s site before you sign up.

Ownership note: Eric Rosenberg, who runs Personal Profitability, also owns HSA Tracker (hsatracker.org) and Freelancer Dashboard, and Freelancer Dashboard is one of the apps below.

Our picks at a glance

App	Best for	Price	Fee when a client pays
1. Wave	free invoicing for a freelancer who sends many invoices	Free: unlimited invoices	Cards: 2.9% + 60¢
2. Invoice Ninja	for a freelancer with a small client list who likes control	Free up to 5 clients. Pro: $14 a month	Set by your gateway
3. FreshBooks	for a freelancer who wants automatic late fees and reminders	Lite: $23 a month	Cards: 2.9% + 30¢. ACH: 1%
4. PayPal Invoicing	for clients who already pay through PayPal	Free to create invoices	Cards: 2.99% + 49¢
5. Square Invoices	for a freelancer who also takes card payments in person	Free plan, or Plus at $49 a month	Cards: 3.3% + 30¢ on Free, 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus
6. Zoho Invoice	free tool for a freelancer who bills by the hour	Free: up to 500 invoices a year	Set by your gateway
7. Freelancer Dashboard	for a freelancer who wants invoices and client tracking in one cheap place	Free: 1 client. Pro: $10 a month	No online payments listed
8. Invoice Simple	for a freelancer who invoices from a phone	Essentials: $6.99 a month, 3 invoices	Not listed on pricing page
9. Bonsai	for a freelancer who needs contracts and proposals with invoices	Essentials: $25 a month	Varies by payment method
10. HoneyBook	for a creative freelancer who sells packages to clients	Starter: $29 a month billed yearly	ACH: 1.5%. Cards vary

Rates and terms verified 2026-10-15 from each vendor’s own pricing page.

Wave: best free invoicing for a freelancer who sends many invoices

Wave’s Starter plan costs $0 and still includes unlimited invoices, estimates, bills, and bookkeeping records. You pay only when a client pays you online, so a slow month costs you nothing.

Starter costs $0 and Pro runs $19 a month. On Starter, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover payments cost 2.9% + 60¢ each, and American Express costs 3.4% + 60¢. You can invoice from the mobile app too. Online payments need approval from Wave, which runs an identity check and a credit review.

That flat 60¢ stings on small invoices, since a $50 invoice paid by card costs you $2.05 in fees. Wave’s pricing page also lists no fee for bank payments, so ask before you count on a cheaper bank option.

Invoice Ninja: best for a freelancer with a small client list who likes control

With five clients or fewer, you get unlimited invoicing for $0 from Invoice Ninja, and the free plan still connects to online payment gateways. Clients see a Pay Now button on each invoice and can pay from a client portal.

Up to 5 clients fit on the free plan. Ninja Pro costs $14 a month, or $140 a year, and removes the client limit. You connect your own gateway, and the pricing page names Stripe, PayPal, Square, and GoCardless. Anyone who wants to run the software on their own server can follow its self-hosting link.

Your gateway charges the fees, not Invoice Ninja, so the cost depends on which gateway you pick. Add a sixth client and you’ll need a paid plan.

FreshBooks: best for a freelancer who wants automatic late fees and reminders

You earn back FreshBooks’ price when late payers cost you time, because every plan includes automated late payment reminders, scheduled late fees, recurring invoices, and deposits. iOS and Android apps sync with your account.

Lite lists at $23 a month and covers 5 billable clients. On the day we checked, FreshBooks offered 80% off for the first 4 months, which put Lite at $4.60 a month before it goes back to $23. Plus covers 50 clients at $43 a month, and Premium covers unlimited clients at $70. FreshBooks Payments charges 2.9% + 30¢ on cards and 1% on ACH bank transfers.

Price is the drawback. At $23 a month the Lite plan costs more than every free option on this list, and the 5-client cap means a growing freelancer upgrades quickly.

PayPal Invoicing: best for clients who already pay through PayPal

Clients who already trust PayPal make it work best, because creating and sending invoices costs nothing and your client doesn’t need a PayPal account to pay. You can send an invoice by email, text message, or QR code, and you can see when the client opens it and pays it.

PayPal lists 3.49% + 49¢ for payments through PayPal or Venmo, 2.99% + 49¢ for debit and credit cards, and 1% (capped at $10) for Pay by Bank. Expect about $3.48 in fees on a $100 invoice paid by card. Recurring invoices, automatic reminders, and a QuickBooks or Xero sync round it out.

These are among the higher per-payment fees on this list, and the flat 49¢ adds up on small jobs. Nudge clients toward the bank option when the invoice is large.

Square Invoices: best for a freelancer who also takes card payments in person

Some freelancers collect payment in person now and then, and for them Square makes sense. You can run invoices, estimates, contracts, and card readers from one account, and Square includes its invoicing features on every plan, Free included.

On the Free plan an invoice paid by card costs 3.3% + 30¢, and on Plus it costs 2.9% + 30¢. ACH bank transfers cost 1% with a $1 minimum, and Plus caps that fee at $10. That works out to $3.60 on a $100 card invoice on Free and $3.20 on Plus.

Square makes its money on processing. Square charges $49 a month per location for Plus and takes 0.4 percentage points less on each card payment, so you need about $12,250 a month in card invoices just to break even.

Zoho Invoice: best free tool for a freelancer who bills by the hour

Hourly billers get the best free deal from Zoho Invoice, because it tracks billable hours, turns timesheets into invoices, and calculates the amount owed. Its pricing page lists one plan, and it costs $0.

Zoho’s free plan allows up to 2 users, 3 projects, and 500 invoices a year. Clients can view and pay invoices in a customer portal, and they pay online through the payment gateway you connect. Apps exist for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.

Zoho Invoice doesn’t set its own payment fees, so you pay the gateway’s. That 3-project cap bites if you juggle many small clients. Outgrow it and you move up to Zoho Books, which Zoho prices separately.

Freelancer Dashboard: best for a freelancer who wants invoices and client tracking in one cheap place

Freelancer Dashboard fits a freelancer who wants invoicing, client tracking, and a view of who owes what in one dashboard without paying for a full accounting suite. Eric owns it, so we ranked it on fit alone and put it seventh. You get strong tracking, but you can’t collect money inside the app, and every app above it can.

Basic is free for 1 client and allows 3 PDF invoices by email a month. Pro costs $10 a month, covers unlimited clients, and adds automated invoicing, scheduled invoice sends, and one-click resends of unpaid invoices. Pro Plus costs $20 a month and adds bookkeeping, profit and loss statements, and bank account connection. You can see every client and their rates in one place, plus revenue, outstanding invoices, and monthly trends. Both paid plans come with a 5-week free trial and no credit card.

Online payment processing doesn’t appear on the pricing page, so your clients pay you outside the app. Pick it for tracking and invoicing, and pair it with a bank transfer or a payment link when you need faster payment.

Invoice Simple: best for a freelancer who invoices from a phone

Invoicing from a phone between jobs is where Invoice Simple shines. You can use it on iOS, Android, and desktop, and the 14-day free trial on mobile gives you full access to the Premium plan.

Essentials runs $6.99 a month ($69.99 a year) for up to 3 invoices a month. Plus costs $14.99 a month ($149.99 a year) and allows up to 10. Premium costs $21.99 a month ($219.99 a year) for unlimited invoices. All three plans send estimates, invoices, and receipts and accept payments.

Pricing scales with invoice volume, so a busy freelancer pays more than on Wave or Invoice Ninja. Payment processing fees didn’t appear on the page checked, so confirm them before you rely on the app to collect.

Bonsai: best for a freelancer who needs contracts and proposals with invoices

Pick Bonsai when you want proposals, contracts, and invoices tied together, because invoicing starts at the Essentials plan along with proposals and contracts. Unlimited invoices, online payments, retainer and subscription invoices, and time entries or expenses attached to each bill all come with it.

Essentials costs $25 a month, or $19 a month billed yearly, per user. Premium costs $39 monthly ($29 yearly) and adds QuickBooks and Xero integrations. Bonsai gives you 7 days of full access free, with no card needed to start, and asks for one when the trial ends.

Basic ($15 a month, $9 yearly) doesn’t list invoicing, so you pay the Essentials price to send an invoice. Bonsai publishes no fee percentages on its pricing page, only a note that fees vary by card or ACH.

HoneyBook: best for a creative freelancer who sells packages to clients

HoneyBook suits a creative freelancer, such as a photographer, designer, or planner, who runs client work from inquiry to final payment. HoneyBook lists autopay, reminders, late fees, payment plans, Apple Pay, and Google Pay among its payment features.

Billed yearly, pricing runs $29 a month on Starter, $49 on Essentials, and $109 on Premium. All plans start with a 30-day free trial and no credit card. ACH payments cost 1.5%, and an instant deposit adds 1%. HoneyBook lists card fees as starting at 2.9% + 25¢ in its pricing table, and a lower starting rate of 2.7% + 10¢ in another section of the page, so confirm your rate before you sign up.

HoneyBook costs the most on this list and does the most besides invoicing. Freelancers who only bill clients pay for features they won’t use.

How we picked the best invoice app for freelancers

This list ranks each app on fit for a working freelancer, not on fees and not on which vendor pays. Day one needs are simple. You want near-unlimited invoices, a way to collect by card or bank transfer, and a price that doesn’t punish a slow month. Every price and fee here comes from the vendor’s own pricing page, checked on 2026-10-15.

Free or cheap entry plans earn extra credit here, because earning more beats spending more on software. Before you pay $23 a month, ask whether the tool saves enough hours to beat a free one. Anything that charges fees without publishing them is out, as is any tool that exists only to lend money against your invoices, since that works like a loan and can cost far more than the invoice app does. Processing fees decide the true cost. Even a free tool takes a cut when a client pays by card.

Pick your invoicing app after you know your rates. If you haven’t set them yet, read how to price your freelance work first. An invoice only works as well as the number printed on it.

Fees per payment compared

Card fees differ more than subscription prices do. These are the standard US card rates each vendor lists today.

App	Card fee per payment
Wave (Starter)	2.9% + 60¢
FreshBooks Payments	2.9% + 30¢
PayPal (debit and credit cards)	2.99% + 49¢
Square (Plus plan)	2.9% + 30¢
Square (Free plan)	3.3% + 30¢
Stripe (standard, for reference)	2.9% + 30¢
HoneyBook	from 2.9% + 25¢ (see note above)

Invoice Ninja, Zoho Invoice, Bonsai, and Invoice Simple don’t charge a set card fee on the pages checked, because your gateway or payment method sets it. Stripe Invoicing adds 0.4% per paid invoice on its Starter plan and 0.5% on Plus, on top of Stripe’s 2.9% + 30¢ card rate and 0.8% ACH rate (capped at $5). Bank transfers beat cards on cost on almost every platform here, so offer them first on big invoices.

When none of these fit

If you send two invoices a year, a free template and a bank transfer will do the job. If you’ve started tracking mileage, deductions, and quarterly taxes, you need accounting software, and our companion list of the best accounting apps for freelancers covers that. An invoice app can’t tell you what you owe the IRS, so read self-employment tax explained and the 1099 contractor deductions guide before tax season.

One more fit check. When clients keep paying late, the app is rarely the problem. Payment terms, a deposit, and a business account that keeps freelance money apart from your own usually fix more than software does. Our post on whether you need a business bank account for your side hustle walks through that.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

Start with Wave if you want free unlimited invoicing, or Invoice Ninja if you have five clients or fewer. Choose Freelancer Dashboard when your main problem is keeping track of who owes you. Match your pick to how your clients pay, and move to accounting software once your income needs it, using our list of the best accounting apps for freelancers. For more ways to earn and keep more, browse the Side Hustle category or head back to the Personal Profitability homepage.