Comparison
A Zoho Invoice alternative for people who don't want an account
Zoho Invoice is one of the genuinely good free products on the internet. It is not a stripped-down trial or a bait-and-switch — Zoho made its invoicing app free and kept it properly featured. If you need recurring invoices, a client portal where customers can view and pay, built-in time and expense tracking, payment gateway integrations, or solid iOS and Android apps, Zoho Invoice does all of that and does it well. For a growing freelance business with repeat retainer clients, it is a sensible default and there is no shame in choosing it.
But "free and full-featured" and "right for you" are different questions. Zoho Invoice requires you to create a Zoho account, your invoice and client data lives on Zoho's servers, the free plan has caps on how many customers and invoices you can handle in a year, and the product is a doorway into the wider Zoho ecosystem — Books, CRM, One. If what you actually need is to produce a compliant invoice in the next four minutes and never think about it again, that is a lot of surface area. Crossbill exists for that second case: it runs entirely in your browser, asks for nothing, and stores nothing on a server.
Create a compliant invoice free — no signup
Crossbill builds the correct tax fields and wording for your country in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Open the free invoice generator →What Zoho Invoice is genuinely better at
Be clear-eyed about this before you switch. Zoho Invoice has a real backend, and a backend buys you things a browser-only tool structurally cannot provide.
Recurring invoices that fire on a schedule without you being present. Automatic payment reminders to late clients. A hosted client portal where a customer can log in, see their invoice history and pay by card or direct debit through an integrated gateway. Time tracking with timers and timesheets that convert into billable lines. Expense capture with receipt photos. Multi-user access if you ever hire a bookkeeper. Real-time sync between your laptop and your phone. Reporting on aged receivables.
If two or more of those matter to your week, use Zoho Invoice. Crossbill does not do any of them and is not trying to. A tool with no server cannot email your client on Tuesday morning while your laptop is shut.
Where the free plan stops, and what an account actually costs you
Zoho publishes limits on the free tier — historically framed around a maximum number of customers and a maximum number of invoices per year — and those limits do move over time as the product changes. Check Zoho's current pricing page rather than trusting any comparison article, including this one, on the exact numbers. The pattern that matters is simply this: there is a ceiling, and past the ceiling you are on a paid monthly plan.
The non-price cost is the account itself. To send one invoice you create a Zoho identity, verify an email, accept terms, and place your client list and revenue history on a third party's infrastructure. For most people that is a perfectly acceptable trade. For some it isn't: contractors under NDA, anyone invoicing in a sensitive sector, people who simply don't want another SaaS login, or someone who invoices four times a year and resents onboarding for it.
Crossbill's position is narrow and honest — no account exists to create, because there is no server to hold one. Everything is computed in the page. Your client's name and your line items never leave the device you typed them on.
Jurisdiction tax presets versus general-purpose tax settings
This is the practical difference most people notice first. Zoho Invoice gives you a flexible tax engine: you define tax rates, name them, and apply them per line. That is powerful and it is also work — you have to already know what your invoice legally needs to say.
Crossbill ships preconfigured jurisdiction presets that set the right fields and the right wording for a specific situation: UK VAT for a registered business, and the separate case of a UK sole trader who is not VAT registered; EU cross-border B2B reverse charge with the Article 196 reference; Australian GST for a registered business, and for a sole trader below the registration threshold; Canadian GST/HST; the United States both generally and for 1099 contractor work; and the German Kleinunternehmer case under §19 UStG, where you must not charge VAT and should say why.
That gets a non-accountant to a document that looks right. It does not replace advice — thresholds, rates and place-of-supply rules change, and cross-border VAT in particular has real edge cases. Verify anything unusual with your accountant or your national tax authority before you send.
Pricing models: monthly ceiling versus one-time unlock
Zoho Invoice is free up to its caps and then becomes a monthly subscription, priced by plan tier. If you invoice continuously and use the automation, that subscription is straightforwardly worth it.
Crossbill is free with no invoice cap and no quote cap at all — unlimited invoices, unlimited quotes, all jurisdiction presets, 25+ currencies, unlimited PDF export. The only two limits on the free tier are a small "Made with Crossbill" line in the footer, and a maximum of three invoices saved locally in your browser.
Crossbill Pro is A$29.99 once. Not per month, not per year — a lifetime unlock. It removes the footer line, lets you add your logo and brand colour, opens up premium templates, removes the saved-invoice limit, adds multiple company profiles for people who bill under more than one entity, and gives you JSON backup so you can move your data yourself. It is built and maintained by one person, hosted as a static site, which is exactly why it can be priced that way.
How to decide in thirty seconds
Choose Zoho Invoice if you have recurring clients, want automatic reminders and a payment portal, need mobile apps that sync, or already use other Zoho products. It is the more capable business system and it is free to a genuine and useful extent.
Choose Crossbill if you want an invoice or quote right now with no signup, if you care that your client data stays on your machine, if you need a specific VAT or GST format handled for you without configuring a tax engine, or if you would rather pay once than carry another subscription. You can also use both — Crossbill for one-off and cross-border invoices, Zoho for the recurring book of business.
This page is general information, not tax or legal advice. Invoice requirements and tax rates differ by country and change over time; confirm your obligations with a qualified adviser or your tax authority.
Templates and tax presets are provided for convenience and are not tax or legal advice. Verify the correct fields, rates and wording for your situation before sending.