Invoicing · Issue #1
At a glance
The problem
invoices that sit unpaid for weeks | |
Our pick
Wave |
Free option
Wave — Yes, free plan |
You're a freelancer. You finished the project, you sent the invoice, and three weeks later — nothing. Your client isn't ignoring you on purpose. Your invoice just didn't have a firm due date, or an easy way to pay you on the spot.
What can help?
Wave★ Our pickFree
Wave lets you build and send professional invoices for free. You can add every required field, a clickable payment link, and automatic payment reminders — all without paying a monthly fee.
Honest take: Invoicing and bookkeeping are completely free. You only pay a small per-transaction fee when a client pays you by card — Wave takes its cut at that moment, not before. The invoices look clean and get the job done. The card fees are real, so if a client pays a large invoice by card, do the math first. Worth it for most freelancers from day one — you pay nothing until money actually comes in.
Free plan available
FreshBooksPaid
FreshBooks is a paid invoicing and accounting tool with automatic payment reminders, late fee settings, and expense tracking built in.
Honest take: It's more polished than Wave and the automatic late-fee reminders are a step up. But it only offers a 30-day trial — that is not a free plan. After the trial, you pay a monthly fee. If invoicing is already working for you with a free tool, this is hard to justify. Worth looking at once you're juggling several clients and want everything — invoicing, expenses, and time tracking — in one place. Skip it if you're just starting out or if Wave is already getting your invoices paid.
30-day free trial
What can I do right now, without signing up?
Fill in the highlighted bits, then paste this into a free chatbot (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini):
You're helping a freelancer write professional invoice line items and payment terms. I am a freelancer who does [type of work] under the name [Your Business Name]. Write me: (1) three example invoice line items in this format — 'Service description (quantity × rate) — total' — based on my work type, and (2) a two-sentence payment terms note I can paste into the footer of every invoice that includes a specific due date placeholder, a late fee of 1.5% per month, and a reminder to click the payment link. Keep it direct and professional, no legal jargon. Under 80 words total.
