At the end of the day, the goal of every business is to win sales and earn revenue. But when people buy from you, you need a way to bill people for your services and accept payments.
That’s where invoicing software comes into play. On this page, we’ll be covering some of the best free invoicing apps. Of course, some of the free apps listed here include paid versions. But since most businesses prefer not to have to pay for this software, we’ll focus on the free plans.
Invoice software is a type of tool used to facilitate payments between a business and its customers or clients. The best invoicing apps let you automatically create and send out an invoice for each purchase. They also send out bills and process payments.
Benefits of using an invoicing app
The main benefit of using an invoicing app is simple—it saves you time and effort. Rather than having to put in the work of manually creating each invoice from scratch, you can let the app do it for you by auto-populating an existing template with the information about each purchase.
That means you can spend time focusing on things like marketing, sales, product innovation, and more. Plus, using an app can help eliminate human error when creating invoices. You can even help cut down on late payments by having the app send out automated reminders to clients.
Features to look for in a free invoicing app
You should expect to find several different features in the best free invoicing software. Those features include:
Inventory tracking
Sales analytics
Client portal
Integrations with other software
Access to a mobile app
Support team
Admittedly, free invoicing apps may not always have all those features—some tools limit certain features to the paid versions. Still, even the free versions should have most of those features. Keep that in mind as you’re looking into your options.
7 best free invoicing apps
Speaking of different options, let’s get into our list of the best free invoicing apps. We’ll look at seven tools, including:
First up on our list of the best free invoicing software options is PayPal. Odds are, you’ve already heard of this platform. It’s not just used by businesses—tons of individuals use PayPal to transfer or receive money, too. In fact, that’s one of its biggest advantages. If you sell to consumers, many of them will already know and trust PayPal.
On top of that, it’s great at handling invoices. You can create them fast —plug in a few pieces of info about your customer, and there you go. You can also customize your invoices for your business. That said, it doesn’t come with many advanced invoice-related features.
2. Square
Next up on our list is Square. This tool is super user-friendly, so you don’t have to be experienced with invoices to navigate it. A big plus is that it can process a wide variety of payment types, from cash to checks to Google Pay.
Like some of the other tools on this list, Square also sends out automated reminders about payments. It even lets users include a tip in their payment.
Square also integrates with Nutshell, so you can easily transfer your invoice and sales data between the two.
3. Invoice Ninja
Another of the best free invoicing apps is Invoice Ninja. This tool has all the typical features, but it also has some unique ones, including:
Open-source coding for high-level customization
Ability to manage invoices for multiple businesses
Payment gateway fee auto-matching
That second feature is particularly nice if you own multiple businesses (or use the software to manage invoicing for your clients, not yourself) because you can manage them all from one account.
4. Paymo
Invoicing isn’t the main feature of Paymo—it primarily exists to help with project management and time tracking. However, if your company charges clients based on time spent providing services, it’s just the kind of tool you need.
Since you’ve already used Paymo to track the time spent on each project, it makes sense to use that same tool to manage the invoicing for those projects. Of course, the free plan is limited, but you can always consider upgrading to the paid plan.
5. Wave
Perhaps the strongest feature of Wave is its user-friendliness. It has an intuitive interface, and it’s easily navigable on both desktop and mobile. That makes it an excellent choice for businesses that are new to the world of invoicing apps.
In terms of Wave’s capabilities, it offers several valuable features, including adjustable templates and income and expense tracking.
6. Invoicely
Invoicely’s free plan allows you to have up to three clients in your account and send up to five invoices per month. In that sense, it’s a fairly limited plan, but it does come with all the best features of an invoicing app—automated payment reminders, expense tracking, and more.
Another nice thing about Invoicely is that it’s compatible with PayPal. If you use PayPal to receive payments but don’t want to use it as your invoicing tool, Invoicely is a great alternative.
7. Invoice Home
Last on our list of free invoicing apps is Invoice Home. This tool is great if you want something super simple. To create and send out an invoice, you just fill out the necessary info, pick a template, and connect it to the payment gateway.
Beyond that, Invoice Home isn’t loaded down with features. For many businesses, this simplicity is a turn-off, but others may crave a straightforward and easy-to-use tool.
Learn about more helpful digital tools with Nutshell
Now that you know all the best invoicing apps, you may be looking for other helpful digital business tools. If so, you’re already in the right place. Check out some other helpful lists here on the Nutshell blog, or subscribe to our Sell to Win newsletter to get practical sales and marketing tips sent to your inbox!
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