The best free invoice generators for a small business

A free invoice generator lets you make and send professional invoices without paying for accounting software. For most very small businesses, Wave or Zoho Invoice is the place to start: both give invoicing free with generous limits. Invoice Ninja is free for up to five clients, QuickBooks has a very small free tier, and a plain template is enough if you send only a few invoices a month.

Prices checked on each vendor's own page on 31 October 2026: Zoho Invoice, Wave, Invoice Ninja, QuickBooks, Square. Fees depend on your country, so confirm on the page.

The free options side by side

Zoho Invoice

Zoho lists one free forever plan with up to 500 invoices a year, two users and three projects. Invoices carry a "Powered by Zoho Invoice" line, and accounts inactive for 180 days may be deleted. We could not confirm payment fees from its page.

Good for: a freelancer or small shop with a steady, modest volume of invoices.

Falls short: the cap of 500 invoices a year matters once you grow.

Wave

Wave's Starter plan is $0 and covers unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping. Card payments cost 2.9% plus $0.60 (Amex 3.4% plus $0.60). Pro at $19 a month adds automation such as bank import, and the first ten card payments each month are charged 2.9% with no fixed $0.60. Wave's page still showed an old promotion when we read it, so check the current terms.

Good for: unlimited invoicing for free, with bookkeeping in the same place.

Falls short: you must enter bank transactions by hand on the free plan, and payment fees apply.

Invoice Ninja

Invoice Ninja is free for up to five clients, with unlimited invoices and 11 templates. Pro is $14 a month or $140 a year for unlimited clients. You connect your own payment gateway, such as Stripe or PayPal, and their fees apply.

Good for: a small, stable group of clients, and people who like open source tools.

Falls short: the free plan has no reminders, bank sync or API.

QuickBooks

QuickBooks lists a free tier for one user with two invoices a month. The paid plans are full accounting software: Simple Start at $38 a month, Essentials $85, Plus $140 and Advanced $340, each often at half price for the first three months. It has no invoicing only plan on its pricing page.

Good for: businesses that will soon need full accounting and an accountant who uses it.

Falls short: the free tier is tiny and the paid price is high for invoicing alone.

Square Invoices

Square says its free plan starts at $0 and includes invoices, recurring invoices, estimates and contracts, and its invoices page says you can send unlimited invoices. Plus is marked best value, with lower card fees and a $10 cap on ACH bank transfer fees; Premium lists the lowest processing fees and 24/7 phone support. On 31 October 2026 the pages we could read (squareup.com invoices and pricing) did not show the monthly price of Plus or Premium or the per-payment fee rates, so we do not quote them. Read the fee table for your country on Square's own page.

Good for: shops that already take card payments with Square.

Falls short: the details we could confirm are thin, so read the fee table for your country.

Paying for payments

An invoice you send is free. Getting paid by card is not. PayPal lists 2.99% plus $0.49 for cards and 3.49% plus $0.49 for PayPal and Venmo. FreshBooks, a paid tool with a 30 day trial and plans from $23 a month, lists 2.9% plus $0.30 for cards. Stripe Invoicing adds 0.4% or 0.5% per paid invoice on top of its card rates. Bank transfer is usually cheapest, so print your bank details on every invoice.

Or use a template

If you send fewer than ten invoices a month, a template is enough. Our free invoice template downloads as Word or PDF, no account needed. Keep a simple list of invoice numbers, dates, amounts and paid dates, for example in a sheet. Move to a generator when you chase payments by hand every week.

How to choose

1. How many invoices and clients? Under five clients, Invoice Ninja's free plan fits. Up to a few hundred invoices a year, Zoho fits. Higher, Wave.
2. Do you take card payments? Add the fee to your price, or pay by bank transfer.
3. Do you need accounting too? Wave and QuickBooks include it. The others do not.
4. Does your country need special invoices? Tax numbers, e-invoicing and sequential numbering are national rules. Check the tool supports yours.

What a good invoice looks like

Whatever tool you use, the invoice itself decides how fast you are paid. Keep these habits:

1. A clear subject. Put what the invoice is for at the top, with the project or order name the customer knows.
2. One due date, in words and numbers. "Due 30 November 2026" is better than "net 30".
3. Payment details that work. Bank account name, number and a reference. A payment link if you accept cards.
4. Late payment terms. State any interest or fee your contract and local law allow.
5. A person to contact. An email and phone for questions, so a query does not delay payment.
6. Send it promptly. Invoice on the day the work is done or at the milestone, not at the end of the month.

If a payment is late, send a friendly reminder on the due date and a firmer one a week later. Our guide to payment reminder emails that get paid has wording for each stage.

Getting paid on time

The tool matters less than the habits around it. Send the invoice the day the work is done, not at the end of the month. Put the due date and the payment details on the first page, and name the late payment terms you actually agreed, for example "payment within 14 days". Rules on late fees and interest differ by country, so check yours before you add a charge.

Number invoices in one unbroken sequence and never reuse a number; many countries expect this, and it makes your books easier to check. Show the tax rate and amount separately if you charge tax, and keep your tax number on the invoice where the law asks for it.

A short polite reminder a few days before the due date, and another the day after, collects more than a long letter a month late. Free plans often leave out automatic reminders (Wave and Invoice Ninja do, as the table shows), so put a weekly reminder in your calendar to look at what is unpaid. Keep a PDF copy of every invoice you send, whichever tool made it, so you can leave the tool later without losing your history.

Moving later

Free tools are easier to leave if you keep your data portable. Before you pick one, check that you can export customers and invoices as CSV or PDF. Keep your invoice numbers in one unbroken series, even if you change tools, because many tax offices expect numbers without gaps. If you must switch mid year, start the new tool at the next number and write down the change date.

Also think about records. Tax rules in most countries require you to keep invoices for several years. A free account that is deleted after a period of inactivity, as Zoho warns for accounts unused for 180 days, is not a safe archive. Download a PDF copy of every invoice, or export once a quarter, and store it with your other business documents.

The short version

Free invoicing is real, but the limits differ: Zoho caps invoices, Invoice Ninja caps clients, QuickBooks caps both tightly, and Wave caps neither. Pick on your volume, expect to pay card fees, and use a template while you are small.