An Invoicely alternative without the monthly subscription

What Invoicely genuinely does well

Invoicely is not a weak product and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. Its dashboard is clean and easy to learn. It handles multiple businesses under one login, which is unusual at its price point and useful if you run a couple of side ventures. It tracks expenses, time and mileage alongside invoices, so you get a rough picture of a job's profitability rather than just what you billed.

Its strongest feature is payment collection. On paid plans Invoicely integrates with several online payment gateways, so a client can click through from the invoice and pay by card. It also supports recurring invoices and automated payment reminders — genuinely valuable if you have retainer clients or a chronic chasing problem. Crossbill does none of that, and if getting paid online from inside the invoice is your bottleneck, Invoicely solves a problem Crossbill does not.

The free plan cap and what it means in practice

Invoicely's free plan allows five invoices per month. That is fine if you have two or three clients on monthly retainer. It stops working the moment you have a busy month, or you invoice per project, or you send a batch at the end of a quarter — you hit the ceiling and the choice becomes upgrade or wait.

Above free, Invoicely's plans are recurring monthly subscriptions. That is a normal SaaS model and it funds ongoing hosting and gateway integrations, so it is defensible. But it does mean the cost accrues indefinitely regardless of how many invoices you actually send, which is a poor fit for freelancers with lumpy workloads or anyone who invoices a few times a month.

Check Invoicely's current pricing page before deciding — plan structures and limits change, and the five-invoice free cap is the figure to verify first.

How Crossbill's pricing works instead

Crossbill is free with no invoice limit. Unlimited invoices and quotes, all jurisdiction presets, 25+ currencies and unlimited PDF export, with no signup and no account. The free tier's trade-offs are a small "Made with Crossbill" line in the footer and a maximum of three invoices saved locally.

Pro is A$29.99 paid once — a lifetime licence, not a subscription. It removes the footer line, adds your logo and brand colour, unlocks premium templates, lifts the saved-invoice limit, allows multiple company profiles, and adds JSON backup so you can export and restore your data.

The comparison worth making is over time rather than at the moment of purchase. A one-time payment stops costing you money; a monthly plan does not. Whether that favours Crossbill depends entirely on whether you need what the subscription buys — hosted storage, payment gateways, automated reminders. If you do, pay for it. If you just need correct invoices out the door, you are paying rent on features you never open.

Where your data lives

This is the structural difference between the two. Invoicely is a hosted service: your invoices, clients and figures live on its servers, which is what makes the dashboard, sync across devices and payment links possible. That is a reasonable trade and most cloud invoicing works this way.

Crossbill has no backend. It is a static site, everything runs in your browser, and your invoice data never leaves your device — no accounts, no tracking, no server holding your client list. For consultants under NDA, or anyone who would rather not have their rate card sitting in a third party's database, that is the point.

Be clear about the cost of that choice. No server means no cross-device sync, no client-facing payment link, and no recovery if you clear your browser storage. Pro's JSON backup exists precisely because you, not a provider, are responsible for your data.

Tax compliance, which neither price tier changes

Crossbill ships jurisdiction presets that shape the invoice to what your tax authority expects: UK VAT registered and UK sole trader not registered, EU cross-border reverse charge (Article 196), Australia GST registered and Australia sole trader not registered, Canada GST/HST, US general and US 1099 contractor, and Germany Kleinunternehmer under §19 UStG. These are available on the free tier — compliance is not paywalled.

What that means concretely is the form asks for the right identifiers (VAT number, ABN, GST/HST number) and places the required wording on the document — for example the explicit reverse-charge statement on an EU B2B services invoice, or the fact that no VAT is charged under §19 for a German Kleinunternehmer. It does not decide your registration status or whether a particular supply is standard-rated, zero-rated or exempt. Rules and thresholds change and depend on your circumstances; this is general information, not tax or legal advice, so verify with your tax authority or accountant.