Invoice Ninja
6.8/10Source-available invoicing, quoting, payments, expense and time-tracking software for freelancers and small businesses. You can use the hosted cloud service or run it on your own server.
Data last updated November 2026 · Our methodology
Overview
Invoice Ninja is an invoicing and billing platform. It covers quotes with e-signature approval, one-off and recurring invoices with auto-billing, deposits and partial payments, a client portal, vendor and expense tracking, purchase orders, and projects with billable time and Kanban boards. The code is published on GitHub under the Elastic License, so technical teams can self-host it with Docker or on a standard PHP server. Everyone else can use the hosted service. It suits freelancers, consultants, agencies and small firms that bill clients and want card or bank payments collected straight from the invoice. It connects to roughly twenty gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, Square, GoCardless, Authorize.net, Mollie, Braintree and LawPay. Pricing is flat rather than per seat at the lower tiers. The Free plan allows up to 5 clients. Ninja Pro costs $14 a month or $140 a year for unlimited clients, the API, reminders and reports. Enterprise starts at $18 a month for 1 to 2 users and rises to $300 a month for 51 to 100 users. It adds user permissions, bank sync through Yodlee or GoCardless, and PEPPOL e-invoicing with 250 credits included. Extra PEPPOL credits cost $50 per 500. Premium Business starts at $280 a year and adds hands-on services. Integrations run mainly through Zapier, Make, n8n and Pabbly, and expenses can sync to QuickBooks or Xero. The main limitation is that it is not an accounting system. It has no general ledger, balance sheet or payroll, so most businesses still need separate bookkeeping software. Reviewers also say invoice design customisation takes JSON or CSS work, and self-hosting needs technical skill.
Our Rating
Who Invoice Ninja is best for
Best software for FreelancersGood fit
The free plan, flat-priced Pro tier, time-to-invoice tools and client portal are built around solo billers.
Quotes with e-signature, project time tracking and expense rebilling fit consultants who bill by the hour.
Source-available Laravel code, Docker self-hosting, a REST API and SDKs let technical teams run and extend it.
Unlimited clients, recurring billing, many payment gateways and up to 10 linked companies suit small firms at low cost.
Projects, Kanban tasks, client portal and multi-user permissions on Enterprise support small agency billing.
Less suited
- Legal5/10
LawPay is a supported gateway, but the product has no legal-specific trust accounting.
User caps of 100, no ledger and a very small vendor team make it a poor fit for large organisations.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- The Free plan includes online payments, recurring billing, expenses, projects and a client portal, and Pro is only $140 a year.
- Supports about 20 payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, Square, GoCardless, Mollie, Braintree, LawPay and Bitcoin options, and can pass gateway fees on to clients.
- The code is published on GitHub, with Docker and other self-hosting options, so teams can keep their data on their own infrastructure.
- Supports PEPPOL, XRechnung, ZUGFeRD and Facturae e-invoicing, which helps European sellers meet mandates.
- The hosted service reports SOC 2, PCI-DSS, AES-256 encryption at rest and MFA on all accounts.
- Reviewers on G2 and SpotSaaS praise the frequent feature releases, roughly every two months.
Cons
- It is not full accounting: there is no general ledger, balance sheet or payroll, so bookkeeping software is still needed.
- Bank sync, user permissions and e-invoicing require the Enterprise plan, and the Free and Pro plans are limited to a single user.
- Reviewers say custom invoice and portal designs need JSON or CSS knowledge.
- Self-hosted setup and upgrades take technical skill, and forum users have reported bugs and gaps in the documentation after major version changes.
- Reporting is limited to invoice, expense and P&L-style reports, and G2 reviewers call the interface dated.
Key Features
Invoice Ninja Pricing
Free
- Client portal
- Up to 5 clients
- Community support
- Unlimited invoicing
- Vendor and expense tracking
- Deposits and partial payments
- 11 invoice templates with logo
- Zapier, Make and n8n integrations
- Products, inventory, projects and Kanban
- Online payments, recurring and auto-billing
Ninja Pro
or $140/year (save 17%)
- REST API access
- Automatic US sales tax
- Priority direct support
- Branded URL on invoicing.co
- Removes Invoice Ninja branding
- Unlimited clients and invoices
- Automatic late-payment reminders
- Invoice, expense and P&L reports
- Fully customisable invoice designs
- Up to 10 companies under one login
- Bulk emailing of invoices and quotes
- Gmail, Microsoft or custom SMTP sending
Enterprise
- Lock documents until paid
- Per-user access permissions
- Annual billing gives 2 months free
- Client and vendor document uploads
- Branded client portal on your own domain
- Bank account sync via Yodlee or GoCardless
- File attachments on emails and in the portal
- e-Invoicing and PEPPOL access with 250 credits included
- $18 a month for 1-2 users, rising by user tier to $300 a month for 51-100 users
Premium Business
- Developer concierge
- Invoice design service
- Data migration assistance
- Custom reports built for you
- All Pro and Enterprise features
- Custom pricing from $280 a year
- Direct priority support and feature request priority
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The Free plan costs nothing indefinitely and supports up to 5 clients. Paid plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee rather than a separate trial.
Yes. The code is on GitHub under the Elastic License and can be installed on a server, with Docker, or through Cloudron, Softaculous, Elestio or YunoHost. A $40 a year white-label license removes branding from client-facing pages.
Supported gateways include Stripe, PayPal and Venmo, Square, GoCardless, Authorize.net, Mollie, Checkout.com, Braintree, PayTrace, Razorpay, Helcim, LawPay, Rotessa, BTCPay Server and others. You can connect several at once, and Invoice Ninja itself charges no payment fees.
Yes, on the Enterprise plan. It supports PEPPOL BIS 3.0, XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, Facturae and EN 16931, and reaches 37+ countries over PEPPOL. Enterprise includes 250 credits, and extra packs cost $50 for 500 or $100 for 1,000.
Yes, on Enterprise. Bank sync uses Yodlee globally or GoCardless open banking in the UK and EU. Imported deposits can be matched to invoices and withdrawals to vendors or expenses, with rules to automate the matching.
Invoice Ninja says the hosted platform has a SOC 2 examination renewed every year and is PCI-DSS compliant. It uses TLS 1.2+ and AES-256 encryption, offers MFA on all accounts and is GDPR compliant. The SOC 2 report is available under NDA, and it does not cover self-hosted installs.
No. It handles invoicing, payments, expenses and basic reports. Expenses can sync to QuickBooks or Xero, but it has no double-entry ledger or balance sheet.
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