Looking for an invoice system replacement + a rant about Harvest

Software
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I need invoicing software. I really want something that works with Stripe on the back end, and I’m not opposed to paying a reasonable fee. I do need it to not charge me for the CC/ACH processing, above and beyond what Stripe charges obviously.

I don’t want some new whizbang fintech startup thing. Ideally, I’d like a nice, stable Mac app of some sort. Second-to-ideally, I could self-host something that runs on *NIX. Third-to-ideally, I’d like a web service that has an established business model where they’re actually able to be profitable.

Recurring invoices are important.

Anybody have any recommendations?

And of course, rant below. :slight_smile:

[rant]
As noted here A profile of Bending Spoons, the company that owns Evernote and a bunch of other once-trendy services - #32 by WayneG, Bending Spoons has acquired Harvest. All of a sudden, I got hit with a $50 charge on an (admittedly large) ACH invoice - when previously it had been capped at $5. They wanted me to sub to a $16/month plan, which would cap that $50 charge at more like $25.

I inquired about the possibility of a credit, since I couldn’t find any notice I’d gotten - no dice. I asked about future invoice fees to clarify. Their support’s command of English was either sub-par, or they weren’t sure. I couldn’t tell which.

I upgraded to the $16/month plan, as I have a ton of recurring invoices in there that would be a pain to migrate, to see if it would solve my issue.

Now my ACH fee per invoice is, no joke, listed as “~0.8%”. “Around 0.8%”. This is on the screen where it shows my invoice total, and they can’t tell me an exact amount. And somehow in this process I’m paying $18/month.

Basically, with the recent-ish price hikes, I’m being charged what I was before I upgraded my plan, even though the upgrade (less than 6 months ago, I believe) promised that paying for a plan would mean I’d be paying less per transaction.

I need a different option.
[/rant]

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I shared a link to an article about the incredible Harvest price increases a few days ago:

Too bad you’re one of those affected by this.

Hope you find a better solution!

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As I recall, FreshBooks was a frequent sponsor on tech podcasts some years ago. I’ve never used it myself but thought it might be worth a look.

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Definitely share the Harvest bewilderment. I’m a Bending Spoons apologist, but the scale of these price increases just doesn’t work when you’re doing it to freelancers and agencies, many of whom are not enjoying growth right now. Very motivated to switch (and so many of them are able to make their own solutions or modify a cheap solution.)

If you go the Mac or self-hosted route, how were you wanting to send your invoices and what would you want them to do to set up ACH?

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Unfortunately, so was Harvest. :slight_smile: All kidding aside, thanks for the recommendation. I just checked, and they want $70/month to be able to invoice unlimited clients, plus marking up the ACH payment processing as much or more than Harvest.

I do all my invoices via email. If it’s self-hosted, I can dovetail onto some other mail server setups I have available. If it’s on my Mac, I would imagine I’d either send them manually or the software could connect to SMTP credentials I give it.

Stripe handles ACH and credit card payments with no intervention on my part. The user just has to key in their info. Invoicing software could either create the invoice in Stripe (I realize that’s API stuff, so it would require updates over time), or I have a Stripe link where people can just pay me whatever amount they need to. I’d just note the payments against their account.

2 Likes
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Sounds like we have somewhat similar approaches to communicating billing. I do mine with a sqlite database, a local API and MCP, and Typst to render PDFs with the formatting I like and the payment links/options.

I can manually edit sqlite (TablePlus) and manually call the CLI just fine, but usually I let an LLM figure it out, e.g. claude -p "/bill 1.5 ClientName ProjectCorp analytics discussion" or claude -p "/bill invoice ClientName". Claude maps to about 60 MCP endpoints. You could make the CLI app with anything; I used rust since I’ve done a lot with it. Code generation obviously speeds it up.

It wouldn’t be hard to run a little local webserver off the sqlite database or bake Stripe invoices into the invoices.

It’s not the route for everyone, but I really like it, and it sounds like something you could also set up quickly.

(I can also run it and develop the database on an iPhone, but that’s a long journey and not recommended, haha.)

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I mean, I wouldn’t even need a PDF. Most of my clients are fine with an email - it just has to LOOK LIKE an invoice.

That’s a really interesting idea. Sending you a DM.

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I used FreshBooks years ago and it was a good as far as it went. In the end, we needed full-blown accounting software and that always includes invoicing.

FWIW I assume you could do the whole thing in Stripe.

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This is what I do. I only generate a few invoices per month and am able to create and send them from my basic Stripe account.

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Do you do anything with recurring invoices? That’s the one feature that really has me looking for a different solution. I don’t mind having to open the invoice software a couple of times per week - but I have a number of invoices that recur every month, every year, etc.

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I have previously used QuickFIle for a very small business. It’s no frills, reasonable pricing (it was free for my level of usage) and has clear documentation. I ended up moving to just making invoices manually because it was so low volume (an average of 2-4 per year), but I’d definitely use them again if I needed more. Their documentation suggests they support Stripe integration and recurring invoices, although I’ve never used those features.

The main caveat is that they are UK-based and therefore some features are focussed on that e.g. submitting tax returns. The documentation does talk about invoicing in any currency you want. I assume, given your use of the dollar symbol, that you are looking to invoice in something other than GBP!

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I don’t have recurring invoices so have never tried to figure out if Stripe can do it.