InvoiceAdept vs InvoiceFree: which UK invoicing app should you pick?

The short answer

Pick InvoiceFree if you send more than five invoices a month and most customers pay by bank transfer: core invoicing is unlimited at £0 and CIS sits on the free plan. Pick InvoiceAdept if five invoices a month is enough while you test it, or you want card payments without an extra 1% on top of Stripe and WhatsApp delivery on the £7.99 Pro plan.

How are InvoiceAdept and InvoiceFree built?

InvoiceFree, at invoicefree.uk, is a Leeds-built invoicing and record-keeping tool. The homepage is blunt about what it is not: it is not accounting software. You create invoices, put your logo on them, send them, mark them paid, and export records. CIS at 0%, 20% or 30%, plus VAT reverse charge, sits on the free plan. Quotes, expense tracking and automatic payment chasing sit on Plus.

InvoiceAdept is invoicing software aimed at the same trades, with a free trial of paid features and a clearer split between plans. Free is a trial-sized invoicing tool. Pro is the get-paid-faster plan: unlimited invoices, WhatsApp delivery, Stripe links, reminders, branding, quotes and expenses. Pro+ adds CIS, bank reconciliation, cashflow forecasting, advanced reports, an audit log and extra users.

That packaging difference matters more than the brand names. InvoiceFree's free plan is the product. InvoiceAdept's free plan is a way in.

What does each plan cost?

InvoiceAdept prices are listed excluding VAT, with annual billing advertised as a 20% saving. InvoiceFree lists Plus at £7.99 a month and does not advertise VAT on that page. Always read the checkout screen before you pay.

	InvoiceAdept Free	InvoiceAdept Pro	InvoiceAdept Pro+	InvoiceFree	InvoiceFree Plus
Monthly price	£0	£7.99 excl. VAT	£12.99 excl. VAT	£0	£7.99
Invoice limit	5 per month	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Users	1	Up to 3	Unlimited	Not a team product	Not a team product
CIS invoices	No, CIS is on Pro+	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Send invoice via WhatsApp	No	Yes	Yes	No native send	Same
Card payments	Not on the Free plan	Stripe, no extra platform fee	Same as Pro	Optional Stripe, 1% platform fee plus Stripe	Same 1%
Bank transfer	Your details / portal	Same	Same	Details on invoice, no fee	Same
Quotes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Expense tracking	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Automatic reminders	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Recurring invoices	No	Yes	Yes	Not advertised	Not advertised
Custom branding	Basic templates	Yes	Yes	Logo on invoices	Logo on invoices
Bank reconciliation	No	No	Yes	No, not accounting software	No
MTD	Digital records, no HMRC filing	Same	Same	Digital records, no HMRC filing	Same
Trial	Free plan, no card	14-day trial	14-day trial	Core invoicing is free	Optional upgrade

Sources: InvoiceAdept pricing and InvoiceFree. The invoicing features page shows where each plan lands in the app.

Two numbers on that table do most of the work: 5 invoices versus unlimited and 0% extra on cards versus 1%. Everything else is a preference.

How much does the 1% card fee actually cost?

Stripe's UK standard rate, published at stripe.com/gb/pricing on 28 August 2026, is 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards. Premium UK cards and EEA or international cards cost more. InvoiceAdept's pricing FAQ says it does not add a platform fee on top of Stripe. InvoiceFree's homepage and terms say it charges 1% on payments collected through its Stripe links, with Stripe's own fee on top. Bank transfer is free on InvoiceFree.

Take a £1,200 bathroom invoice, paid by a standard UK card:

• Stripe processing: 1.5% of £1,200 is £18.00, plus 20p, so £18.20.

• InvoiceAdept Pro or Pro+: you pay Stripe's £18.20. No extra 1%.

• InvoiceFree with a payment link: Stripe's £18.20 plus InvoiceFree's 1% (£12.00) equals £30.20.

That £12 is not a fine. It is how InvoiceFree funds a free invoicing product. If the same customer pays by bank transfer, InvoiceFree's extra cost is £0 and InvoiceAdept Pro is still £7.99 that month, plus VAT.

A rough crossover, using only the 1% and ignoring Stripe because both products pass Stripe on:

• £800 of card take-home through InvoiceFree links costs £8 in platform fees, already around InvoiceAdept Pro's £7.99 list price.

• £2,000 of card take-home costs £20 in InvoiceFree platform fees.

• £5,000 of card take-home costs £50.

If almost nobody pays by card, the 1% barely shows up and InvoiceFree's unlimited free invoices are the cheaper way to bill. If you push card and Apple Pay because homeowners actually tap the button, the 1% becomes the price of no monthly fee. InvoiceAdept Pro also has to earn its £7.99 in other ways: WhatsApp send, automatic reminders, recurring invoices, quotes and expenses. If you would not use those, do not pay for them.

Why does InvoiceAdept cap the free plan at five invoices?

Because the free plan is a trial of the product, not the whole product given away. Pro is £7.99 a month excluding VAT for unlimited invoices and the payment tools. If you need unlimited invoices at £0, InvoiceFree is the honest match.

Be honest with yourself about volume. A domestic plumber who invoices completed jobs once or twice a week is already past five invoices. A kitchen fitter who bills a deposit, a stage payment and a final on each job can burn the free cap on a single contract. A CIS subcontractor on a busy site, raising weekly applications, will blow through five invoices in a fortnight.

InvoiceAdept Free is useful if you are testing the template, you only bill a couple of retained customers, or you are between jobs. It is not a free forever plan for a working trade. InvoiceFree's free plan has no invoice cap and no client cap. That is a genuine difference, not a slogan. If your only requirement is raise unlimited invoices, PDF them, and get paid by BACS, InvoiceFree does that without a subscription. InvoiceAdept does not.

The catch on InvoiceFree is not a hidden invoice limit. It is that quotes, expenses and the payment chaser are Plus features, and card collection carries the 1%. If those extras are what you wanted from free invoicing, read the Plus column, not the homepage headline.

Is CIS free, or does it need a paid plan?

Under the Construction Industry Scheme, contractors deduct money from a subcontractor's labour and pass it to HMRC. Those deductions count as advance payments towards the subcontractor's tax and National Insurance. HMRC's subcontractor guidance is the bit that should sit on the invoice. If you are registered you are normally paid under deduction at 20%. If you are not registered, contractors must deduct 30%. Gross payment status means no deduction, if HMRC has granted it.

A CIS invoice that mixed labour and materials into one lump, then deducted 20% off the lot, is how subcontractors give money away. Materials should not be in the deduction. The invoice needs to show gross labour, the deduction rate, the amount withheld, materials, and the net payable. Both products know that.

Where they differ is the plan:

• InvoiceFree calculates 0%, 20% or 30% CIS, and VAT reverse charge, on the free plan.

• InvoiceAdept puts CIS on Pro+ at £12.99 a month excluding VAT. Pro at £7.99 does not include it. The pricing page is explicit: Pro+ includes CIS deduction tracking and monthly return assistance.

If CIS is the reason you are shopping, InvoiceFree is the cheaper way to get a correct invoice out of the door. InvoiceAdept is the more expensive way, and you only take it if you also want Pro+'s other tools (bank reconciliation, cashflow, extra users, audit log) or you already live in InvoiceAdept for WhatsApp and card collection. Our CIS invoices page walks through how the deduction appears on the invoice.

Neither product is your CIS monthly return. Contractors still verify subcontractors and file CIS returns with HMRC. Subcontractors still register, or accept 30%. Software that prints the right numbers on a PDF does not replace that.

Can I send invoices on WhatsApp with both?

UK trades already close jobs in WhatsApp. The homeowner who approved the extra work in a voice note is not sitting in front of Outlook. Sending the invoice in the same thread is not a gimmick. It is matching the way the job was sold.

InvoiceAdept Pro and Pro+ send the invoice through WhatsApp from the app, with the payment link attached. You are not screenshotting a PDF and hoping the numbers are readable on a phone. InvoiceFree sends by email and lets you share payment links. You can paste that link into WhatsApp yourself. That works. It is also an extra step, and there is no in-app WhatsApp delivery to log against the invoice.

For contractor accounts teams, email still wins. A limited company paying 30-day terms wants INV-0142 in the inbox, not a chat bubble on a site manager's personal phone. Use WhatsApp for domestic and small commercial customers who already message you. Use email for anyone with a purchase-order process. There is a longer, standalone walkthrough in our WhatsApp invoicing guide.

Do card payments cost extra on either platform?

Both products can put bank details on the invoice. Faster Payments into your own account costs you nothing in platform fees. That should be the default for any customer who will actually open a banking app and type a reference. Card, Apple Pay and Google Pay exist because some customers will not do that. They will tap a button. You pay Stripe for the privilege, on both platforms.

InvoiceAdept's own wording: funds from card payments land in your account within about two working days, and the invoice can be marked paid automatically. InvoiceFree's wording: when Stripe links are enabled, Stripe processes the payment and InvoiceFree does not hold the funds. Same idea. You are not waiting for a platform to release your money.

InvoiceAdept does not charge an extra platform percentage. InvoiceFree does, at 1%, only on those Stripe-collected payments. If you never connect Stripe on InvoiceFree, you never pay that 1%. Do not connect Stripe just in case if your customers always pay BACS. Do connect it if you invoice homeowners who pay on the van, or if you are tired of sitting on 14-day terms for a £400 call-out.

What do the paid plans include?

Once you leave pure invoicing, the paid plans look more alike than the homepages suggest. InvoiceAdept Pro (£7.99 excl. VAT) includes quotes and estimates, expense tracking, automatic payment reminders, recurring invoices and custom branding. InvoiceFree Plus (£7.99) includes quotes, expense tracking with receipts, and the automated payment chaser.

So at the same headline price you are not comparing features versus no features. You are comparing extras around a different core. InvoiceAdept's paid core is unlimited invoices plus WhatsApp plus Stripe without a 1% platform fee. InvoiceFree's paid extras sit on top of a core that is already unlimited and already CIS-capable.

Recurring invoices are the sleeper feature. If you bill a landlord every month for a boiler service contract, InvoiceAdept Pro will raise that invoice on a schedule. InvoiceFree does not advertise recurring invoices. For one-off jobs it does not matter. For retainers it does. Reminders are similar. InvoiceAdept Pro sets a schedule (before, on, after the due date) and stops when the invoice is paid. InvoiceFree Plus will chase. On the free InvoiceFree plan you chase yourself.

Do either of them handle VAT and MTD filing?

The VAT registration threshold is £90,000 of taxable turnover. You must register if your total taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over that figure, or if you expect it to go over in the next 30 days. That is GOV.UK, not a software vendor. If you are VAT-registered, invoices need the VAT shown properly. HMRC's invoicing guidance is the legal baseline. Both products can put VAT on an invoice. Neither of them is your VAT return.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is a separate mess of language. GOV.UK's MTD for Income Tax guidance says you need to use it if you are a sole trader or landlord on Self Assessment, you have self-employment or property income, and your qualifying income is over the threshold for the relevant year. From 6 April 2026 that meant qualifying income over £50,000 for the 2024 to 2025 tax year. Later years use lower thresholds; check the same GOV.UK page rather than a blog that may be sitting on last year's figure.

HMRC is also clear about what compatible software must do. It must create digital records, send quarterly updates, and submit your tax return. HMRC's software finder lists the tools that can do all three. Neither InvoiceAdept nor InvoiceFree is on it as a filing tool. InvoiceAdept keeps digital records and exports. It does not file those quarterly updates or the return to HMRC. InvoiceFree says the same thing in plainer English: it is not accounting software; for tax filing you still need an accountant or HMRC-recognised software.

If a comparison site tells you either app "does MTD" without that split, they are selling the phrase. Records are necessary. Filing is a different product. FreeAgent and QuickBooks sit in that second group. There is a separate guide on MTD invoicing software for UK trades.

Which should a UK tradesperson pick?

Choose InvoiceFree if: you send more than five invoices a month and you do not want a subscription for the privilege; you are a CIS subcontractor who wants the deduction calculated without paying £12.99; customers pay you by bank transfer most of the time, so the 1% rarely appears; you are fine sending by email, or pasting a payment link into WhatsApp yourself; or you might add Plus later for quotes and chasing, at £7.99, without being forced off free invoicing.

Choose InvoiceAdept if: five invoices a month is a fair start, or you already know you will pay for Pro; you want to send the invoice in WhatsApp from the app, not as a DIY paste; you collect cards often enough that InvoiceFree's 1% would cost more than Pro; you want reminders, recurring invoices and branding without moving to a full accounts package; or you need CIS and the rest of Pro+ (reconciliation, extra users, reports), and you accept that CIS is not on the cheaper plan.

Use both, in the boring way: keep InvoiceAdept or InvoiceFree for raising invoices and collecting payment, and keep a separate HMRC-recognised package, or an accountant with one, for MTD filing. Skip both if: you already have FreeAgent through a NatWest, RBS, Ulster Bank or Mettle business account, you like it, and invoicing inside that accounts tool is good enough. FreeAgent is a different category of product. It costs more when you pay for it yourself (£19 a month excl. VAT for sole traders on FreeAgent's pricing page, with a current introductory discount), and it can file. Do not pay twice for invoicing you will not use.

What are we not claiming?

InvoiceAdept is not unlimited on the free plan. CIS is not on Pro. WhatsApp send is not on Free. We do not file your MTD updates. We do not take a 1% cut of your Stripe payments, and we also do not pretend Stripe is free. Stripe publishes the card rate.

InvoiceFree is not the worse version. It is a coherent product: free invoices, CIS included, paid extras optional, monetised on card collection. For a subcontractor who bills weekly and gets paid on 30-day BACS, that can be the better deal. For a domestic engineer who invoices from the drive and gets paid on WhatsApp, Pro is usually the better deal. If your accountant already runs Xero or QuickBooks, ask them before you add a third system. Duplicate records are how VAT gets declared twice and CIS gets declared never.

Your customers can find you in our free trade directory while you decide, and you can start free in 30 seconds when you are ready to send your next invoice.

FAQs

Is InvoiceFree really free?

For invoicing, yes, as checked on 28 August 2026. Unlimited invoices, unlimited clients, PDFs, bank-transfer details and record export sit on the free plan. Plus is £7.99 a month for quotes, expenses and the chaser. Card payments through InvoiceFree's Stripe links cost an extra 1% platform fee plus Stripe's own processing fee. That is all on their homepage.

Why does InvoiceAdept limit free users to 5 invoices?

Because the free plan is a trial of the product, not the whole product given away. Pro is £7.99 a month excluding VAT for unlimited invoices and the payment tools. If you need unlimited invoices at £0, InvoiceFree is the honest match.

Which one is cheaper if I take card payments?

Add it up for your own card volume. Stripe's standard UK rate is 1.5% + 20p on both, because both use Stripe. InvoiceFree then adds 1%. InvoiceAdept Pro adds £7.99 (excl. VAT) a month and no extra percentage. A few large card payments a month can make Pro cheaper. No card payments at all makes InvoiceFree cheaper, especially if you also need CIS.

Can I send invoices on WhatsApp with InvoiceFree?

You can send a customer anything in WhatsApp, including a PDF or a copied payment link. InvoiceFree does not offer in-app WhatsApp invoice delivery. InvoiceAdept does, on Pro and Pro+.

I am a CIS subcontractor. Do I need Pro+?

On InvoiceAdept, yes, if you want CIS calculated in the product. On InvoiceFree, no, CIS is on the free plan. If you only need the deduction on the invoice and you are paid by BACS, start with InvoiceFree. If you want CIS plus WhatsApp, reminders and no 1% card fee, look at InvoiceAdept Pro+ and price both against your actual month.

Do either of them submit my tax return?

No. InvoiceAdept exports records. InvoiceFree exports records. HMRC's MTD for Income Tax rules need software that can also send quarterly updates and the return. Check HMRC's software list or talk to your accountant.

Can I switch later?

Yes. There is no law that says your invoice history must live in one app forever. Export PDFs as you go. If you do switch, do it at a month-end, not halfway through a CIS period, and tell your accountant which system is now the source of truth.

Are the prices including VAT?

InvoiceAdept states that all prices exclude VAT. InvoiceFree lists Plus at £7.99 on the public page without a VAT line. Confirm at checkout. Stripe fees are separate from either subscription.

The bottom line

InvoiceFree wins on free volume and free CIS. InvoiceAdept wins on card fees, WhatsApp delivery and the extras that sit behind a paid plan. If five invoices a month is enough while you try it, the free InvoiceAdept plan needs no card and lets you send five invoices this month. If those five disappear before the 20th, you already have your answer about which billing model you need. Start free in 30 seconds.