Invoicing apps for small businesses

July 27th, 2010 | View Comments

I went around hunting for an invoicing app to suit our needs at iTasveer, and the number of options is quite overwhelming. I ended up registering and trying about 7-8 different services, did not try many others as the pricing structure was not suitable. Many of the common features are available in most apps, but you might want to check up for any specific needs.

One particular need that I have is the option to select different taxes on different line items, a lot of apps miss out on this. Also, at iTasveer we need a large number of clients, but can do with limited invoices monthly as we raise ‘external invoices’ only for offline orders or some other services. Most of our orders are online and invoicing is built into iTasveer to handle those.

So here’s a quick pricing comparison amongst some of the prominent services -

1. Unlimited invoices per month, Limited clients, monthly charges increase with number of clients. Popular apps in this category

Unlimited Invoices, Limited Clients  
service name $ per month no of clients invoices per month
http://www.freshbooks.com/ 0 3 unlimited
  19.95 25 unlimited
  29.95 unlimited unlimited
       
http://www.invoicera.com 0 3 unlimited
  9.95 25 unlimited
  19.95 unlimited unlimited
       
http://www.roninapp.com 0 2 unlimited
  15 30 unlimited
  29 unlimited unlimited
       
http://www.cannybill.com 0 3 unlimited
  7 20 unlimited
  19 500 unlimited
  29 unlimited unlimited

* Invoicera seems to be a good offering, met all my needs, has reasonably good UI. Although I’ll have to go for their highest plan, in case I decide to use it, as I definitely need more than 25 clients.

2. Unlimited clients, Limited invoices per month. Monthly charges increase with

Unlimited Clients, Limited Invoices      
service name $ per month no of clients invoices per month
http://www.zoho.com/invoice 0 unlimited 5
  8 unlimited 25
  15 unlimited 150
  25 unlimited 500
  35 unlimited 1500
       
http://invoicemachine.com 0 unlimited 3
  12 unlimited 30
  24 unlimited 300
  48 unlimited 3000
       
http://www.winkbill.com 0 unlimited 3
  9.95 unlimited 50
  19.95 unlimited 500
  39.95 unlimited 5000
       
http://www.simplybill.com 0 10 3
  5 unlimited 25
  15 unlimited 100
  25 unlimited unlimited
       
http://www.getballpark.com 6 unlimited 10
  24 unlimited 25
  49 unlimited 50
  99 unlimited unlimited
       
http://www.blinksale.com/ 6 unlimited 6
  12 unlimited 50
  24 unlimited 250

* In this case, Zoho was the only one that met my needs. Liked Zoho’s user experience even better. It is faster to work with as compared to Invoicera.

** Ballpark is outrageously priced. A dollar for an invoice.. c’mon guys!

3. Free or opensource

hosted and free – http://www.billingboss.com/ 

There are a few opensource alternatives too (one can self host these)

I may have missed out on some prominent services, but the competition is intense in the invoicing space and I had trouble differentiating one service from the other. Only trying them out for the particular features I needed gave me the knowledge to select/reject one.

For my needs only Zoho and Invoicera seem to fit the bill. If anyone knows of anything better.. do let me know in the comments.

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