Free invoicing software in Australia: what “free” actually means

Updated 20 August 2026 · By the Badger team

Search for free invoicing software and you'll find a lot of things wearing the word "free" — trials that expire, plans capped at five invoices a month, apps funded by ads or by selling your data. This guide is the checklist for telling genuinely free apart from free-for-now, and for making sure a free tool still does the things an Australian business legally needs.

The four flavours of "free"

• The free trial. Full product, ticking clock. Fine if you were going to pay anyway; not free.
• The capped free plan. Free until you send your sixth invoice a month, or add a second customer, or want a PDF without the vendor's logo on it. The cap is placed exactly where a real business will hit it.
• The teaser. Invoicing is free but the things that get you paid — card payments, quotes, recurring invoices, reminders — sit behind the paid tier.
• Genuinely free. The whole invoicing job, uncapped, indefinitely — funded by something other than your invoicing. The honest vendors tell you what that something is.

None of these models is wicked, but only one of them is what the search term means. Before you import your customers, find the pricing page and read what happens at invoice fifty.

What a free tool still has to do (the Australian checklist)

Free doesn't excuse an app from Australian invoicing rules. Whatever you pick should handle all of this:

• Proper tax invoices. If you're registered for GST, invoices must go out as compliant tax invoices — headed "Tax invoice", ABN shown, GST itemised. If you're not registered, the app should send a plain invoice with no GST at all. An app that can't tell the difference will get the paperwork wrong in one direction or the other.
• Your ABN on every invoice. Without it, business customers can be required to withhold tax from your payment.
• Sequential invoice numbers and sent copies kept. Your records need to survive BAS time and the odd dispute.
• Real delivery. The invoice should be emailed from your business with a PDF attached, not just generated for you to forward — and ideally you can see when it's been opened.
• Ways to pay on the invoice. Bank details and PayID at minimum; card payments if your customers pay that way. Watch who takes the card fee and where the money settles — it should be your bank account, not a wallet inside the app.
• Quotes. If you quote before you work, a quote your customer can accept online — which then becomes the invoice — saves retyping and starts the paper trail.

The question to ask: how is it funded?

Every free product is paid for somehow. Ads mean your invoicing screen is a billboard; data-funded means your customer list is the product; hard caps mean the free plan is a lead form. The model worth trusting is the one the vendor will explain in a sentence.

Here's ours, for the record. Badger Invoices is free forever — no card at signup, no ads, no invoice cap, no data sold. It's funded by a separate, entirely optional paid product: Badger, which chases overdue invoices for businesses that want the follow-up done for them. If your invoices always get paid on time, you'll never pay us a cent, and that's fine — every invoice the free app sends is its own small advertisement.

What Badger Invoices includes, free

• GST-correct tax invoices — or plain invoices if you're not registered — with your ABN and logo, emailed for you with a PDF attached, opens tracked.
• Quotes your customers accept online, converting straight into invoices with your trading terms agreed along the way.
• Card payments through Stripe settled to your own bank account — Badger adds no fee on top — plus bank transfer and PayID details on every invoice.
• Recurring invoices for regular work: weekly, fortnightly or monthly, sent automatically or drafted for a once-over.
• Receipts when money lands, and running totals ready for BAS time.
• iPhone app plus the web app on any device — same account everywhere.

Compare that against the checklist above for anything else you're considering; whichever tool wins, you'll have chosen with your eyes open.