Overview

InvoiceShelf combines branded invoices and estimates with payment tracking, recurring billing, expense management, and a customer portal. Unlimited invoices and customers on its free, AGPL-3.0 self-hosted plan make it a practical option for small businesses, agencies, and consultancies that can manage their own infrastructure. The trade-off is operational: it requires a compatible PHP and database environment, rather than simply signing up for a hosted service.

Key features

Invoicing and collections

Custom fields, tax rules, multi-currency support, and PDF templates give businesses room to adapt invoices and estimates to their workflows. Invoice tracking, overdue-balance reports, and payment reminders help follow collections; users can record partial or full payments, while Stripe checkout supports online card payments. Customers can review invoices, estimates, and payments through a private portal without setting up a separate account.

Recurring billing, expenses, and reporting

Recurring invoices cover retainers, subscriptions, and repeat customers, reducing the need to recreate routine billing. Expense tracking and reports for sales, taxes, overdue balances, and profit add useful financial visibility. These are meaningful small-business capabilities, although the product does not provide a published webhook path for teams that want event-driven integrations.

Integrations and administration

A REST API using Sanctum tokens and a module system provide ways to extend the application. Webhooks are marked as coming soon, so teams that depend on pushed billing events should plan around that limitation. Documentation for InvoiceShelf 3 describes MCP connections for Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, and Cursor, with read-only or read-and-write access; the server is available in version 3.0.0-alpha.5 and remains disabled until a super admin enables it. Remote storage drivers include Dropbox, Amazon S3, and DigitalOcean Spaces. Backups can be run from the UI for the full installation, database only, or files only.

Pricing

InvoiceShelf

The sole plan is 0.00 USD per free, free forever, open source under AGPL-3.0, and self-hosted. It includes unlimited invoices and customers, with no seats or subscription. That removes invoice and customer quotas as a constraint for a growing small operation, but the plan is not a hosted service: users need to supply and maintain a compatible server environment. There is no free trial because the plan is free, and no separate paid tier is described.

Platforms

InvoiceShelf is available as a web application and is self-hosted; an API is also part of its platform offering. The download requirements are PHP 8.3 or 8.4, Nginx or Apache, and MySQL 8+, MariaDB 10.4+, PostgreSQL 13+, or SQLite 3.35+. That combination offers deployment choice for teams with suitable infrastructure, but makes it a poor fit for those seeking a managed, no-maintenance invoicing tool. Community support is offered through Discord, with GitHub Discussions linked for installation help.

Who it's for

InvoiceShelf fits individuals and small businesses, especially agencies and consultancies with repeat billing, expenses, and customer payment follow-up to manage. It is most compelling for teams that value open-source software, self-hosting, and unmetered invoices and customers. Businesses that require webhooks for integrations, or do not want to operate a PHP and database stack, should look elsewhere.

Pros and cons

Pros: The free-forever AGPL-3.0 plan has unlimited invoices and customers and no seats or subscription, making its cost structure straightforward for small teams.
Pros: Recurring invoices, reminders, overdue reports, and a customer portal address ongoing billing and collections rather than just document creation.
Pros: Multiple database options, remote storage drivers, and UI backups give self-hosting teams practical deployment and administration choices.
Cons: PHP and database requirements place server setup and upkeep on the user, so teams wanting hosted convenience will find the model burdensome.
Cons: Webhooks are still coming soon, limiting its present suitability for workflows that need billing events pushed to other systems.
Cons: The MCP server is an alpha-version capability and must be enabled by a super admin, so it should not be treated as a default production integration.

Alternatives

For a broader set of billing options, compare Invoicing software and Accounts Receivable Software. Lago is another free, AGPLv3 open-source option with self-hosted deployment, and its Premium plan is available for cloud or self-hosted deployment with custom pricing; choose it when that billing platform is a closer fit. Hiveage offers a free plan with five clients and unlimited invoices, estimates, and time tracking, and supports Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, web, and API; choose it if client cap and platform coverage suit you better than self-hosting. BillingEngine has a free plan capped at three invoices, three quotes, three receipts, and one user per month, plus a Basic plan at 6.00 EUR per month; it may suit a very low-volume workflow that wants a smaller starting scope.

Billbooks offers a 30-day, no-credit-card trial, while InvoiceXpress has a 3.00 EUR per month X3 plan with three documents per month, unlimited users, API access, invoice scheduling, and multi-currency support; compare them if you prefer a trial or a low-cost plan with those limits. Zoho Invoice has a free plan for Indian businesses with up to two users, three projects, and 500 invoices per year, making it an option when those limits and regional availability fit. PayPal Invoicing lets users create and send invoices without setup or subscription fees, though transaction fees apply when customers pay; it is an alternative for teams prioritizing that payment flow. InvoiceOcean has a free plan capped at three invoices per month and one user, or a Basic plan at 9.00 USD per month; consider it if those smaller limits suit the workload.

Verdict

Choose InvoiceShelf if you want open-source invoicing with recurring billing, expense tracking, customer access, and no subscription or invoice cap—and have the infrastructure to self-host it. Its main advantage is a broad small-business billing toolkit on a genuinely unmetered free plan. Look elsewhere if you need a managed service or depend on webhooks for integrations.

	Express Invoice	InvoiceShelf
Free plan	No	Yes
Free trial	No	No
Paid from	—	Free
Open source	No	No
Platforms	Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android	api, self-hosted, Web
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Recurring invoices	Yes	Yes
Online payments	Yes	—
Payment reminders	Yes	—
Multi-currency invoicing	Yes	—

Express Invoice vs InvoiceShelf

Express Invoice

InvoiceShelf