Guides · Comparison · Facts checked 2026-09-05
Free invoicing apps that don't need a monthly plan to send an invoice
A fair roundup of the apps where the free tier is a real plan, not a trial — what each one includes, what a card payment costs, and who each is right for.
"Free" means three different things in this category. Some apps are free for a trial period. Some are free for a small number of invoices. And a few are free as a standing plan, where the company makes money some other way — a processing fee, an upsell, a larger suite. This page is only about the third kind, because that is what people mean when they search for it.
The four that qualify
| App | Free plan includes | Card payment cost on free | How they make money |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pocket Business | Unlimited invoices and estimates, customers, PDF and share link, cash till, QR payments | Your Stripe rate + 0.5% (cap $25) | The 0.5%, and Starter/Pro plans for metered extras |
| Wave | Unlimited invoices, bookkeeping, bank connections | 2.9% + $0.60 | Payments fee, Pro plan ($19/mo), payroll |
| Zoho Invoice | Invoicing with a stated yearly allowance, a small number of users — check their page | Your gateway's rate | The wider Zoho suite |
| Square Invoices | Unlimited invoices, basic templates | 3.3% + 30¢ for invoices on the free plan | Processing, Plus plan, hardware |
Read from each vendor's pricing page on the date at the top of this page. Prices move; confirm on the vendor's page.
Ones that are commonly listed as free but are not a standing free plan
- Invoice Simple — no free plan; Essentials is $6.99/mo for 3 invoices a month.
- FreshBooks — 30-day trial, then from $23/mo.
- Invoice2go — one-month trial with a card on file, then a plan with a yearly invoice allowance.
- Jobber, Housecall Pro — 14-day trials, then $49/mo and $79/mo respectively; these are field-service suites with scheduling and dispatch, not invoicing apps.
- PayPal Invoicing — free to send, but its card and wallet fees are higher than the four above.
How to choose
- If you want accounting in the same app: Wave.
- If you already live in Zoho, or want a suite: Zoho Invoice.
- If you run a shop counter and want free hardware: Square.
- If you get paid on the job, at a stall or at a pop-up, want to write an invoice before you have an account, and want estimates that turn into invoices: Pocket Business.
- If your average invoice is over about $120 and every customer pays by card, Wave's flat 60¢ fee beats a percentage — see the arithmetic.
What every free plan gates, and what we don't
Custom branding — your logo on the invoice — is a paid feature on most of these, including ours (it is storage we pay for). Emailing from the app's own domain is paid here too; the share link and the PDF are the free way to send. What we do not gate, on any plan: the number of invoices, the number of estimates, the number of customers, the PDF, the share link, the cash till and the QR page. If it costs us nothing, it is free.
Common questions
Is there a catch to free invoicing?
Usually the catch is the card processing fee, which is how most free apps earn. Read that line on the pricing page, not the headline. Ours is your Stripe rate plus 0.5%, and it only happens when a customer actually pays by card.
Do free invoicing apps put their branding on the invoice?
Most do on the free tier, ours included — a small 'sent with Pocket Business' line on the customer's page. Your own logo is a paid feature on most of these apps.