The short answer: there is no single best invoice maker, because the tools split by use case. For a one-off invoice with no account, use Fast Invoice Maker (free with a watermark, USD 0.99 to remove it once). For a genuinely free full invoicing suite, Zoho Invoice is the most generous, if you accept an account and its 500-invoices-per-year cap. For invoicing plus bookkeeping in the US or Canada, Wave's free plan is hard to beat. And if you bill many customers at once from a spreadsheet, almost nothing else does it simply, which is the gap Fast Invoice Maker's bulk generator exists to fill.
Below is what we found comparing 11 tools in July 2026. Prices are the advertised US prices at the time of writing; vendors change them often, so treat them as a snapshot.
The quick comparison
| Tool | Free tier | Cheapest clean output | Sign-up to create? | Bulk from spreadsheet | Word export |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Invoice Maker | Unlimited, watermarked | $0.99 once, or $4/wk | No | Yes, up to 100/batch | Yes (paid) |
| Zoho Invoice | 500 invoices/yr, "Powered by Zoho" branding | $0 | Yes | No (paid Zoho Books only) | No |
| Wave | Unlimited, Wave branding, US/Canada only | Pro $19/mo | Yes | Not natively | No |
| Invoice Simple | Limited | $4.99/mo for 3 invoices/mo; unlimited $19.99/mo | Not for its web generator | No | No |
| Invoice Ninja | Hosted: 5 clients, branded. Self-hosted: unlimited | Self-host $0; hosted Pro $14/mo | Yes | CSV import (migration-style) | No |
| Square Invoices | Unlimited, needs Square account | $0 + 3.3% + 30¢ processing | Yes, with ID verification | No | No |
| PayPal Invoicing | Free to send | $0 + ~3% + 49¢ when paid | Yes | Very limited | No |
| Invoice Home | $1,000 billed per 30 days, small watermark | $5/mo unlimited | Yes | No | No |
| FreshBooks | None (30-day trial) | From $23/mo (5 clients) | Yes | No | No |
| QuickBooks | None (trial); free template generator | From ~$20/mo | Yes for the real product | Gated; batch tools on the $275/mo plan | No |
| Canva | Free templates | Pro $15/mo | Yes | Bulk Create (Pro), no calculations | No |
Best for a one-off invoice: Fast Invoice Maker
Full disclosure: this is our product, so judge the claim by the mechanics. The form at fastinvoicemaker.com/new-invoice needs no account, renders the PDF in your browser (your customer data never touches a server on the free tier), supports 160+ currencies, per-invoice tax, logos and signatures, and downloads instantly. Free PDFs carry a background watermark. Removing it costs USD 0.99 one time, which as far as we can tell no mainstream competitor offers; everyone else sells watermark removal as a monthly subscription. If you invoice occasionally, paying a dollar per polished invoice beats paying $19.99 a month for three of them.
The honest trade-off: if you refuse both watermarks and payment entirely, anonymous micro-generators like invoice-generator.com produce unbranded PDFs for free, with fewer fields and no bulk, Word, or saved profiles.
Best genuinely free suite: Zoho Invoice
Zoho Invoice has no paid tiers at all: recurring invoices, estimates, payment reminders, a customer portal and mobile apps, free, up to 500 invoices per year and 2 users. Zoho funds it as an on-ramp to its paid ecosystem. The catches are the account requirement, "Powered by Zoho" branding on the free plan, an inactivity deletion policy, and the learning curve of a full suite when you only wanted an invoice. If you send 10 to 40 invoices a month and do not mind living inside Zoho, it is the best zero-dollar deal in invoicing.
Best free invoicing plus bookkeeping (US/Canada): Wave
Wave's Starter plan includes unlimited invoices and estimates plus basic bookkeeping for free. Since its February 2024 repricing, the useful automation moved to Pro ($19/mo): automatic bank imports, receipt scanning, late-payment reminders, and removing the "Powered by Wave" branding. Recurring invoices are also gated unless you enable Wave's payment processing. Two hard limits: new sign-ups are US and Canada only, and support quality is the most common complaint. Inside those constraints it remains excellent value.
Best if you already take card payments: Square Invoices
Square's free plan includes unlimited invoices, estimates and recurring billing; you pay through processing fees (3.3% + 30¢ online as of its October 2025 repricing). If your customers pay by card and you already use Square, it is the natural pick. Watch for the well-documented complaints about account holds, and note there is no way to import distinct invoices from a CSV; batch sending only clones one identical invoice to many customers.
Best payer familiarity: PayPal Invoicing
Sending PayPal invoices is free and every client on earth knows how to pay one. The costs are the fees when you get paid (roughly 3% to 3.5% plus 49 cents, more internationally) and PayPal's notorious holds for new sellers. Fine for occasional international billing; expensive as your standard rail.
Best for the self-hosting crowd: Invoice Ninja
Self-hosted Invoice Ninja is free, open source and unlimited, with 45+ payment gateway integrations and real CSV import. That makes it the most capable truly free option anywhere, if you are comfortable running your own server. The hosted free plan caps you at 5 clients with non-removable branding; hosted Pro at $14/mo is among the cheapest unlimited plans going.
The subscription suites: FreshBooks and QuickBooks
Both are real accounting products where invoicing is one feature. FreshBooks (from $23/mo for only 5 billable clients) is pleasant for hourly-billing freelancers but has a history of price increases and no free tier. QuickBooks (from about $20/mo, with its useful batch invoicing reserved for the $275/mo Advanced plan) makes sense when you need actual accounting, payroll and bank feeds; it is overkill if you just need invoices, and its uncapped 1% ACH fee deserves a close look. Both run free invoice-template generators as lead magnets, which are fine for a single quick document.
The niche picks: Invoice Home and Canva
Invoice Home sells template variety: 100+ designs, quotes and receipts, $5/mo for unlimited use, which is the cheapest unlimited subscription we found. Its free tier caps total billing at $1,000 per rolling 30 days and reviewers frequently report hitting that wall by surprise. Canva is a design tool with invoice templates, not an invoice tool: nothing calculates, so every subtotal, tax figure and total is typed by hand. Its Pro Bulk Create can mail-merge a CSV into designs, but it will not do the math either. Choose it only when the invoice's look matters more than its arithmetic.
The bulk question almost nobody answers
If you bill many customers at once (a tutoring studio, an agency's monthly retainers, a landlord, a club), you want to upload a spreadsheet and get distinct, correct PDFs back. In July 2026, among mainstream simple tools, that workflow barely exists: Square and Wave have open feature requests for it, PayPal's old batch tool handled only one identical line item and appears quietly degraded, QuickBooks gates comfortable batch invoicing behind $275/mo, and Canva merges text without calculating. The realistic options are accounting-suite import workflows, low-polish micro-tools, or Fast Invoice Maker's bulk generator: one row per line item, rows grouped by invoice number, up to 100 invoices per zip, free with a watermark, and one $0.99 unlock covers an entire clean batch. Our bulk how-to guide shows the spreadsheet layout.
How to choose in 30 seconds
- One invoice, right now, no account: Fast Invoice Maker, or an anonymous micro-generator if you cannot accept a watermark or a dollar.
- Regular invoicing, zero budget, account is fine: Zoho Invoice.
- Free invoicing plus bookkeeping in the US/Canada: Wave.
- Clients pay by card already: Square.
- Bulk billing from a spreadsheet: Fast Invoice Maker; nothing mainstream does it more simply.
- You need real accounting, not just invoices: QuickBooks or FreshBooks, budget permitting.
- You run your own servers for fun: Invoice Ninja, self-hosted.
Whichever you pick, make sure the invoice itself is right: our field-by-field checklist covers the nine things every invoice needs.