Invoice Ninja

Invoice Ninja issues invoices, quotes and recurring bills, takes payment through a long list of gateways, and gives the whole thing away for up to five clients with no time limit and no invoice cap. The application is open source, so anybody who would rather hold their own data can run it on their own server instead of paying for the hosted version. Paying lifts the client limit and adds the branding and automation a business wants. Five clients is the ceiling that decides it, and it arrives sooner than most people expect.

Free is described as forever free and covers up to five clients with unlimited invoicing. Pro is $14 a month billed monthly and lifts the client limit while adding branding and automation. Enterprise starts at $18 a month for one or two users and rises to $300 a month for 51 to 100, priced on user count rather than on features, with an annual option from $280. The application is open source and can be self-hosted instead.

A freelancer with a handful of regular clients, where five is a real ceiling rather than a token one and the free plan can carry a whole practice. Self-hosting suits anybody who would rather not put client financials on somebody else's server. A business adding clients steadily will hit the limit within months, so treat the free tier as a starting point rather than a permanent answer.