Invoice Ninja is a free open-source billing and invoicing solution that allows you to create and send invoices, set up vendors and track expenses, and manage projects. Its paid version provides fully customizable invoices and has enhanced invoicing features, like bulk email invoicing and automatic sales tax calculations. You can use the cloud-based Invoice Ninja program or the self-hosted desktop-based program.
The main downside to using Invoice Ninja is that it isn’t a complete bookkeeping system, although it integrates with accounting software like QuickBooks Online through Zapier. Also, the free plan is a bit limited, as it only supports up to 20 clients and invoices are not as customizable as those in the paid plans.
Many users appreciate that the platform is easy to use and that it has a free version, though some mentioned that its customer support is not that responsive. We recommend checking it out yourself after reading our detailed Invoice Ninja review, which is focused mainly on the cloud-based program.
Our invoicing software reviews are meticulously developed based on first-hand experience with the platforms. We carefully study the features of each one, observe how they function in real-world scenarios, and assess their strengths and weaknesses. This allows us to provide you with unbiased and accurate insights and recommendations, aligning with the Fit Small Business Editorial Policy—which is to provide the best answers to small business questions.
Pros
- Includes unlimited invoices in all its plans
- Has a self-hosted version that is ideal for businesses with in-house developers
- Includes real-time PDF creation feature so that you can view your actual invoice as you set it up
- Lets you convert quotes to invoices
- Has ample payment gateway integrations
Cons
- Requires development skills for enhanced invoice customization (self-hosted version)
- Is not a complete accounting solution
- Supports only one user in the Free and Pro plans
- Doesn’t allow you to remove its watermark in the Free tier
- Requires the manual creation of Zaps to enable QuickBooks Online integration through Zapier
Is Invoice Ninja Right for You?
Is Invoice Ninja The Best Invoicing Software for You?
Invoice Ninja Alternatives & Comparison
Pricing (Cost per Month) | Number of Users Included | Maximum Number of Billable Clients | Overall Invoicing Capability | Is a Complete Bookkeeping System | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0 to $44 per month | 1 to 20 | 20 to unlimited | ★★★★ | ✕ |
 | Custom-priced | 1 | Unlimited | ★★★★ | ✕ |
 | Free | Unlimited | Unlimited | ★★★★ | ✓ |
 | $30 to $200 | 3 to 25 | Unlimited | ★★★★★ | ✓ |
Rating Explanation: ★★★★★: Excellent ★★★★: Very good ★★★: Good ★★: Fair ★: Poor | |||||
Best For | Use Cases | |
|---|---|---|
| Professional service firms that need to track billing realization rates: If you bill your clients based on time and services rendered and need to track utilization and realization rates, which is a common practice among professional service firms, then BQE Core is a great alternative. | See our best invoicing software to learn more about BQE Core |
| Businesses looking for a free invoicing solution that accommodates unlimited users: Invoice Ninja’s free plan includes only one user. If you have multiple accounting users and you’re on a tight budget, Wave is a great free alternative that allows unlimited user access. | |
| Companies that require a complete bookkeeping and invoicing solution: If you want complete bookkeeping features in addition to invoicing, then QuickBooks Online is our top recommendation. It has excellent invoicing features and includes many accounting tools, such as bank reconciliation, advanced financial reporting, and enhanced inventory management. |
| Users Like | Users Dislike |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Inefficient customer support |
| Ease of use | Migration to latest version of the self-hosted program isn’t that smooth |
| Self-hosted version | |
Many satisfied users appreciate that Invoice Ninja offers a free plan that is adequate for simple invoicing needs. One user who gave a positive Invoice Ninja review likes that it’s easy to use and that it has a self-hosted version. I recommend the self-hosted version for businesses with unique or complex invoicing workflows, although you need to have some coding skills to customize the software.
Unfortunately, a reviewer complained that Invoice Ninja’s customer support is not that efficient, which isn’t surprising given that it doesn’t offer live chat and phone support. Also, one self-hosted version user shared that they often encounter problems when upgrading to the latest version of the software. They added that there’s no phone support that they could contact to fix such issues.
Nonetheless, Invoice Ninja has excellent ratings on popular review websites:
Invoice Ninja vs Competitors
We compared Invoice Ninja to QuickBooks Online and BQE Core to see which has the advantage in various categories. Here’s how the program stacks up with our recommended Invoice Ninja alternatives:
Invoice Ninja vs. Competitors FSB Case Study
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Invoice Ninja Has a free version; paid plans start at $10 monthly
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QuickBooks Online From $30 per month
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BQE Core Custom-priced
Invoice beats QuickBooks Online and BQE Core in pricing due to its free plan and affordable paid subscription options. It also did well in terms of invoicing features but trails behind QuickBooks Online, which came out on top because it has more enhanced tools, like the ability to automatically calculate sales tax rates based on the specific location of your customer.
Our evaluation reveals that Invoice Ninja’s biggest setback is customer support, which is an important component of our ease of use score. However, I want to point out that Invoice Ninja is generally easy to use, and the reason it lost to QuickBooks and BQE Core is its limited customer support options. More details will be discussed in our Ease of Use and Customer Support section below.
The Invoice Ninja pricing scheme did well in our evaluation because it has a free plan and affordable paid subscriptions. The only reason it didn’t get a perfect score is that the free and entry-level paid plans support only one user. If you need multiple users, you have to purchase Enterprise and pay an additional fee.
The free plan supports up to 20 billable clients and includes standard features, such as:
- Unlimited invoicing
- Real-time invoice PDF creation
- Auto-billing and recurring invoices
- Inventory management
- Expense tracking
- Client portal
- Invoice email delivery stats
Meanwhile, the paid plans include advanced features, as outlined in the Invoice Ninja pricing table below.
Pricing & Features | Free | Ninja Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly Plans (Cost per Month) | $0 | $10 | $14 for 1 to 2 users $26 for 3 to 5 users $26 for 6 to 10 users $44 for 11 to 20 users |
Annual Plans (Cost per Month) | $0 | $100 | $140 for 1 to 2 users $260 for 3 to 5 users $360 for 6 to 10 users $440 for 11 to 20 users |
Maximum Number of Billable Clients | 20 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Option to Remove Invoice Ninja Watermark | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Custom URL | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Advanced Invoice Customization | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Automatic Reminder Emails | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Bulk Email for Invoices, Quotes, and Credits | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Automatic Sales Tax Calculation (United States States) | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Customized User Permissions | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Fully Branded Client Portal | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Financial Account Integration | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
You may visit Invoice Ninja’s website to see the complete breakdown of pricing and accompanying features.
I’m impressed with the level of invoice customization in Invoice Ninja’s paid plans. You can upload your logo, change invoice colors, and add a personalized message for your clients. One of the best features is that Invoice Ninja uses a live PDF that allows you to view any changes as you make them.
The only reason it didn’t get a perfect score is that invoices are not that customizable in the free plan. There’s a limit to the number of templates you can choose from, and you can’t change the invoice color.
Below is a PDF version of a sample invoice created in Invoice Ninja.
Sample invoice in Invoice Ninja
Another feature I like is the ability to add custom fields to different sales forms, including invoices. Every industry is unique, so it’s helpful to have the option to create specialized fields needed for your invoicing needs. For instance, if you’re a law firm, you may need to add a field for legal case number to your invoice. If you have a nonprofit, you may need to add a donor ID somewhere in your invoice.
Custom field creation page in Invoice Ninja
Invoice Ninja has excellent invoicing features, such as the ability to create recurring invoices and email invoices in bulk. However, just like the other invoicing software I’ve reviewed, a minor issue I found is that Invoice Ninja doesn’t allow you to automatically calculate the applicable sales tax rates to apply to an invoice based on your customer’s location. This feature, which you’ll find in QuickBooks Online, is useful for businesses dealing with customers in different locations that have varying sales tax rates.
If you have multiple clients that you charge on a weekly or monthly basis, then you can benefit from Invoice Ninja’s recurring invoices. It allows you to create invoices for ongoing jobs or services automatically and send the current invoice to your client on a predefined basis.
To create a recurring invoice, you need to provide the starting date, remaining cycles, and the frequency, whether it’s weekly, biweekly, monthly, or something else.
Setting up recurring invoices in Invoice Ninja
This is one of my favorite invoicing features of Invoice Ninja because it allows you to see how exactly the final PDF version looks as you set up your invoice. This is a rare feature because in other invoicing software I’ve reviewed, you have to click a separate preview button to see the final version of your invoice. In Invoice Ninja, you’ll find the real-time PDF view of your invoice below the invoice creation screen.
Real-time PDF invoice creation in Invoice Ninja
Invoice Ninja lets you select multiple invoices and send them out in a single email together. This helps you save a lot of time as opposed to individually sending out each invoice to each email address one by one. This feature is only available for Ninja Pro and Enterprise users.
When a quote is approved by your client, you can convert that quote into an invoice easily with a single click of a button. Alternatively, you can also set up auto-conversion from client approval so that every time a quote is approved, the program turns it into an invoice automatically.
When you subscribe to the Ninja Pro plan, you can create up to three invoice email reminders to alert your client of an invoice due. You can select the timing schedules, you can customize the email reminders, including the subject line and body text, and add a personalized message. You can create auto-reminder emails from the Advanced Settings menu, under the Templates and Reminders section.
If you have clients struggling to pay their overdue invoices, you can use the Invoice Ninja partial payment feature to invoice them for advanced deposits. After a client makes a deposit, the invoice is updated automatically to reflect the partial payment and show the outstanding amount. This feature is helpful for contractors since long projects are invoiced multiple times throughout the project until the final invoice is issued. Invoice Ninja’s partial payment feature is available for free users.
Invoice Ninja supports approximately 50 currencies and 20 different languages. It enables you to customize a host of settings based on your language, primary currency, and your location. You can also modify time zone data, time and date formatting, and more.
Pro plan users can customize the URL of their invoices. A custom domain not only adds a level of professionalism to your invoices but also boosts your presence as a brand.
Other Invoice Ninja Features
Here’s a list of other Invoice Ninja features that can help you streamline the other aspects of your business:
To add billable expenses to an invoice, import your expenses to Invoice Ninja by uploading your file of statements manually or by connecting to your bank or credit card account.
You can even convert your expenses into invoices easily. First, create a new expense from the Expense List page by completing the various fields and checkboxes, such as vendor, date, category, currency, amount, and client. The expense item you create will show up as an entry on the Expense List page, and the notes become your item description once the expense item is added to a client invoice.
Adding a new expense in Invoice Ninja
Invoice Ninja has basic inventory management features, including the ability to create inventory products, set quantities, and add items to invoices. However, a major drawback is that it doesn’t allow you to track the cost of inventory and calculate the cost of goods sold (COGS). This can be an issue for product-based businesses like retailers, especially those needing to track profitability by product.
If inventory tracking is crucial to your business, a good alternative is QuickBooks Online, which has excellent inventory management features. You can see if it fits the bill through our review of QuickBooks Online.
For time-based services, Invoice Ninja comes with a built-in time tracker to monitor your team’s work and invoice your clients by minutes or hours. You can use the downloadable desktop icon, or you can launch it from your online Invoice Ninja account.
Kanban boards provide you with an easy way to view multiple tasks in one place. These little note cards can be customized using color codes and can be edited, moved around, and slotted into different predetermined columns.
Your clients have their own dashboard where they can view their total invoices, outstanding balances, and payments. They can also view, download, approve, and print estimates as well as pay invoices. All plans include a client-side portal, but premium users have a higher level of security. For Pro users, client portals come with a password-protect feature. If you want a fully branded secure portal for your clients, you need the Enterprise plan.
The Invoice Ninja mobile application lets you create invoices and quotes, get paid online, and create tasks and track time whenever and wherever you are as long as you have an internet connection. You can download the app on Google Play, the App Store, and GitHub.
Pro users can access typical financial reports, including P&L, client statements, and aging reports. However, because Invoice Ninja isn’t a double-entry bookkeeping system, you cannot print a complete balance sheet showing your company’s assets and liabilities. The majority of reports are summaries of specific features, such as invoices, quotes, activities, clients, credits, documents, tax rates, tasks, and payments. You can export data as CSV, XLS, or PDF files.
The cloud-based version of Invoice Ninja is fairly easy to use, but it lost significant points due to its weak customer support. Unlike other invoicing software I’ve reviewed, Invoice Ninja doesn’t offer phone and live chat support. If you experience some issues, your best option is to contact them through email or an online form or browse through its self-help user guides.
Nevertheless, I want to give credit to Invoice Ninja’s simple invoicing form. I appreciate the real-time invoice PDF creation, as you create your invoice, you’ll see an immediate preview of how the finalized PDF version of the invoice will appear.
Meanwhile, Invoice Ninja’s self-hosted version may require a steeper learning curve, especially when customizing the software. That said, I recommend getting the self-hosted version if you have coding skills or have an in-house developer.
How We Evaluated Invoice Ninja
We evaluated Invoice Ninja and our other best invoicing software using a unique scoring rubric developed around five key accounting categories. We assign a certain weight to each category based on their importance to our invoicing software evaluation.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of our rubric:
20% of Overall Score
A fully customizable invoicing software allows you to upload your company logo, select from various invoice templates, change invoice colors, edit invoice fields, and add personalized messages to customers.
35% of Overall Score
We looked into essential invoicing features, such as the ability to create recurring invoices and set up automatic payment reminders.
25% of Overall Score
Along with subjective evaluation by our accounting expert, the ease-of-use score indicates whether the software is cloud-based. Other components include whether it requires a third-party bookkeeping software integration.
10% of Overall Score
We gathered average review ratings of all providers from leading user review sites.
10% of Overall Score
If a mobile app is available, we considered whether it’s possible to create and send invoices from your device.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
No, as it’s specially designed for invoicing and doesn’t track total income, expenses, assets, and liabilities. If you want complete accounting software with built-in invoicing features, our top recommendations are QuickBooks Online and Wave.
Yes, the open-source version is easy to use if you have coding experience. This makes Invoice Ninja’s desktop-based program a great choice for businesses with in-house developers.
Invoice Ninja helps you collect funds online easily through integrations with more than 40 payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, Verifone (formerly 2Checkout), and WePay.
Bottom Line
Invoice Ninja is a great invoicing solution as long as you don’t need full-fledged accounting software. The self-hosted version is ideal for businesses with experienced in-house developers. One of the best things about Invoice Ninja is that its Free plan offers plenty of features that you can’t find in many other invoicing software packages. It may have some weaknesses, such as limited invoice customization in the free plan, but it’s still ideal for businesses looking for an affordable yet full-featured invoicing solution.
