How To Get Paid As A Freelancer: The 7 Best Apps For Freelance Payments

Square is best known for its credit card processing and mobile POS system. However, freelancers should know that Square also offers a free service called Square Invoices. Your free Square Invoices account comes with the following:

• Square dashboard
• Online payment processing
• Recurring invoices
• Estimates
• Sales tracking and analytics
• Contact management
• Appointments

Square Invoices does have some weaknesses — no multicurrency support and limited sales tax functionality. There’s also no project management at the free level, so if you tend to have complex multistage projects where you bill by milestone, you’ll need to spring for the paid version of the software, Square Invoices Plus. For $20/month, this package allows you to create milestone-based payment schedules and offers some basic project management features.

For online invoice payments, the Square fee is 2.9% + $0.30 per invoice or 3.5% + $0.15 to charge a card stored on file. The fee is the same for all cards processed online, and there is no charge for customers who pay invoices via cash or check. For in-person transactions with a card reader, businesses pay only 2.6% + $0.10. You can cancel your account at any time (but Square can unilaterally cancel your account too).

Square prohibits high-risk transactions, so be sure your industry is accepted before creating an account, lest you find your account terminated later. You could look specifically for the best merchant providers for high-risk businesses. Also, Square is not ideal for users with large processing amounts. If you regularly process more than $10,000/month, you might want to look somewhere else.

If your business does a lot of quotes/proposals, FreshBooks might be the invoicing software you need. Technically, FreshBooks is accounting software, but it lacks accounts payable, budgeting, and tax support capabilities, so it might not work as well as the various versions of QuickBooks. FreshBooks does have project management capabilities, so if this functionality is important to your business, you might want to take a closer look at FreshBooks.

Each of FreshBooks’ pricing plans only supports one user by default (additional users cost $10/month each), and the software does not support multiple businesses. FreshBooks has a three-tiered plan, from the Lite ($15/month) to the Plus ($30/month) to the Premium ($55/month). You may also get a promotional discount for the first three months of service.

The Plus plan at $10/month probably makes the most sense as a freelancer. For payments made through FreshBooks, each invoice costs 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for most credit cards (American Express is 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction). ACH transfers cost 1% of the transferred amount.

FreshBooks offers two basic invoice templates that are customizable. Multilingual and multinational currency support is also offered, and with FreshBooks’ project management feature, you can create and keep track of hourly or flat-rate projects. To learn even more about the software, read our guide to using Freshbooks Payments.

Like Square, PayPal is a third-party processor that provides a free invoicing feature with no monthly fee. The difference is that PayPal Invoicing has international capabilities with multicurrency support, which is great if you tend to freelance overseas (or if you’re overseas and have clients in the US). And like Square, PayPal suits freelancers making under $10K/month.

PayPal Invoicing lets you start an invoice with various customizable templates where you can add your logo, contact information, and other custom items.

You can use the app to send an estimate, and if the client accepts the price, you can convert the estimate to an invoice with one tap of a button. The invoice can be sent via email or an accessible shared link. You can schedule an invoice to be sent out at a future time or set up recurring invoices. If the client doesn’t pay on time, the app can send follow-up reminders.

Unfortunately, PayPal recently raised its processing rates and now charges 3.49% + $0.49 per invoiced transaction inside the US (more than you’ll pay with most alternatives), taken out when the customer pays. This is the same fee PayPal charges for online credit card processing, so variations on cross-border/international charges also apply.

There’s also a tipping option, and you can set up installment payments. An API is available for integrating the invoicing function into custom billing software.

There are several flavors of QuickBooks, both online and for desktop, and each flavor is geared to fit the special needs of businesses from large to small. There’s even one specifically designed for freelancers. Fortunately, invoicing is such a basic function that all versions of QuickBooks have this feature. Because this article focuses on freelancers’ needs, we’ll focus more on QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE) here.

QBSE is a cloud-based app designed for the self-employed, including freelancers, independent contractors, and eCommerce merchants. QBSE isn’t full accounting software, but it has the features freelancers need most to manage federal taxes, track deductions, and separate personal and business expenses.

There are three tiers of service, with the basic tier costing $15/month (new users can get a 50% discount for the first 3 months). You’ll pay 2.9% + $0.25 per invoice when paid by credit card, and ACH transfers will cost 1% per transaction (capped at $10). All three tiers have the same invoicing capability.

QBSE provides very basic invoices. You can invoice by the hour, by the item, or by a flat rate. There is no contact management or inventory tracking, but the software will remember past invoice information and let you select previous contacts and items from within the invoice. There are no invoice customizations, sales tax support, or estimates. However, you can add your logo to your invoices, send payment reminders, and accept payments online using Intuit’s credit card processor, QuickBooks Payments.

If you bill by project milestone and wish to stick with QuickBooks for your invoicing needs, you can upgrade to QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop. Both are better known as powerful accounting software, so the invoicing feature is just an add-on for convenience. You can integrate your existing processor to one of these versions of QuickBooks and send invoices that way, or you can use QuickBooks Payments by default.

Every accounting software with invoicing functionalities we’ve listed so far is fee-based. Wave is the exception. The full version of the software is completely free. Wave makes money through payments processed through it, commissions on loans, payroll processing, and professional bookkeeping services.

There are no artificial limits on invoicing, contacts, items, or other features with Wave. The software supports multiple companies and offers personal accounting as well. Wave charges 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction (Amex is 3.4% + $0.60) with a processing time of two days. Wave charges 1% per transaction for ACH payments with a processing time of two to seven days. It also supports 160+ currencies, and exchange rates are updated daily. Wave is ad-free, and you can cancel your account at any time.

There are only three invoice templates, but they are attractive, modern, and customizable. Once an invoice is sent, Wave prompts you to schedule reminders, record payments, and send receipts. Wave offers recurring invoices as well. Wave also has a nice invoice dashboard where you can see overdue invoices, outstanding invoices, the average number of days it takes your invoice to get paid, and your next payout.

The only downside about Wave’s invoicing is that you have to add sales tax on each item, and you can’t add discounts (you have to calculate them manually using a new item line).

For an even more detailed look at how to use Wave, read our guide to using Wave to process payments.

Wise (formerly TransferWise) offers freelancers a transparent, low-cost way to accept payments across borders. Wise can charge such low fees by having bank accounts in the countries in which it operates — when someone in another country pays you, their payment goes to the Wise bank account in that country. The Wise account then pays you in your country. As the payment doesn’t cross borders, currency conversion charges and other associated fees are eliminated.

Wise’s fees generally range between 0.4 and 1.4% of the amount transferred, based on the type of currency being sent and received. Thankfully, the online calculator will do the math for you.

Along with its money transfer services, TransferWise offers features for freelancers and businesses that need to provide payroll support to overseas employees. Particularly noteworthy is a batch payment tool that can process up to 1,000 payments at a time.

In most cases, payments should arrive within one to two days, making this option faster than the normal timeframe for individual users.

Just like its contemporaries Square and PayPal, third-party processor Stripe offers invoicing and billing services that are generally well-suited to freelancers and other small businesses.

Stripe Billing features flexible billing logic that allows for various billing models to be used. As for invoices, you can use the invoice template or the API to customize your invoices, email receipts, invoice PDFs, and more. As for Stripe Invoicing, the Starter plan offers 25 fee-free invoices per month with a 0.4% charge per subsequent invoice, while the Plus plan charges 0.5% for all invoices and comes with added features such as recurring transactions. Neither plan charges a monthly fee.

The Starter plan offers a hosted invoice page and analytics, while the Plus plan throws in the automatic collection, invoice auto-reconciliation, and the ability to send quotes.

While Stripe doesn’t quite offer the range of freelancer-friendly features that Square and PayPal offer, it’s a compelling solution in its own right.