[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":460},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Fcompare\u002Fvs-kimai":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"competitor":43,"date":448,"description":449,"extension":450,"logo":451,"meta":452,"navigation":453,"path":454,"pricingChecked":455,"seo":456,"stem":457,"updated":458,"__hash__":459},"comparisons\u002Fcompare\u002Fvs-kimai.md","Billebly vs Kimai: time tracking or invoicing and payments?",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":427},"minimark",[9,13,21,26,144,148,151,166,170,173,177,180,183,187,307,315,319,322,333,336,339,343,346,350,357,361,364,367,371,374,378,381,385,388,392,395,399,402,406,409,413,417,420],[10,11,12],"p",{},"Kimai is an open-source time-tracking platform, either self-hosted for\nfree or run as Kimai Cloud starting at roughly €4\u002Fuser\u002Fmonth, built\naround accurately recording and reporting billable hours. Billebly is a\nfree invoicing and payments tool built around getting an invoice out and\ncollecting payment on it. This comparison exists because the two tools\nsolve genuinely different problems, and the honest answer to \"which is\nbetter\" depends entirely on which problem you actually have.",[10,14,15,16,20],{},"The one fact that should drive this decision more than any other:\n",[17,18,19],"strong",{},"Kimai has no way to collect online payment on an invoice."," Its only\npayment integration is for customers paying Kimai itself for a Cloud\nsubscription, not for a Kimai user's own clients to pay them.",[22,23,25],"h2",{"id":24},"quick-comparison","Quick comparison",[27,28,29,44],"table",{},[30,31,32],"thead",{},[33,34,35,38,41],"tr",{},[36,37],"th",{},[36,39,40],{},"Billebly",[36,42,43],{},"Kimai",[45,46,47,59,70,81,92,103,112,123,133],"tbody",{},[33,48,49,53,56],{},[50,51,52],"td",{},"Starting price",[50,54,55],{},"Free",[50,57,58],{},"Free (self-hosted) or ~€4\u002Fuser\u002Fmo (Cloud)",[33,60,61,64,67],{},[50,62,63],{},"Pricing model",[50,65,66],{},"Free plan with no subscription and a 0.5% fee on payments processed; optional Premium at €9\u002Fmonth (0.2% fee)",[50,68,69],{},"Free open source, or per-user cloud subscription",[33,71,72,75,78],{},[50,73,74],{},"Time tracking depth",[50,76,77],{},"Basic, feeds invoices",[50,79,80],{},"Extensive: multi-timer, kiosk mode, LDAP\u002FSAML, approval workflows",[33,82,83,86,89],{},[50,84,85],{},"Online payment collection",[50,87,88],{},"Yes, via Stripe",[50,90,91],{},"Not available at all",[33,93,94,97,100],{},[50,95,96],{},"Recurring invoices",[50,98,99],{},"Yes",[50,101,102],{},"No",[33,104,105,108,110],{},[50,106,107],{},"Quotes\u002Festimates",[50,109,99],{},[50,111,102],{},[33,113,114,117,120],{},[50,115,116],{},"Access control",[50,118,119],{},"Not stated",[50,121,122],{},"LDAP, SAML SSO, 2FA",[33,124,125,128,130],{},[50,126,127],{},"Self-hosting option",[50,129,102],{},[50,131,132],{},"Yes, free and open source",[33,134,135,138,141],{},[50,136,137],{},"Best for",[50,139,140],{},"Getting invoices paid online",[50,142,143],{},"Accurate, auditable time tracking for teams",[22,145,147],{"id":146},"what-is-kimai","What is Kimai?",[10,149,150],{},"Kimai is open-source (AGPL-3.0) time-tracking software, self-hostable for\nfree or available as a managed Kimai Cloud service (roughly €4-5 per\nuser\u002Fmonth). It's built for freelancers, agencies, and teams whose core\nneed is recording billable hours accurately: multi-timer or single-timer\ntracking, a punch-in\u002Fpunch-out kiosk mode, enterprise-grade access\ncontrol (LDAP\u002FActive Directory, SAML SSO, two-factor authentication), and\nreporting broken down by user, client, project, or activity.",[10,152,153,154,157,158,161,162,165],{},"Kimai does include invoicing, generated from tracked billable time, but\nit's explicitly a secondary feature. There's ",[17,155,156],{},"no recurring invoicing",",\n",[17,159,160],{},"no quotes or estimates",", and, most importantly for anything billing-\nrelated, ",[17,163,164],{},"no way for a client to pay an invoice online through the\nplatform",". Kimai's own documentation confirms its Stripe integration\nexists solely so a Kimai user can pay for their own Cloud subscription,\nnot to collect payment from that user's clients. Reviewers also describe\nthe UI as dated and reporting as light on visuals, though the underlying\ntime data and access control are consistently rated as strong.",[22,167,169],{"id":168},"what-is-billebly","What is Billebly?",[10,171,172],{},"Billebly is a free invoicing and payments tool for freelancers, coaches,\nand consultants: a client list, one-off and recurring invoices, time\ntracking that feeds directly into invoice line items, and a dashboard\nshowing paid, pending, and overdue amounts. Clients pay through a hosted\nStripe-powered link, no account required, the one piece Kimai can't offer\nat any price. Time tracking is deliberately simple: log hours against a\nclient, bill them, done. There's no kiosk mode, LDAP, or team reporting\nlayered on top, because Billebly is built for one operator getting paid\nquickly, not a team logging shift hours across departments.",[22,174,176],{"id":175},"billebly-vs-kimai-key-differences","Billebly vs Kimai: key differences",[10,178,179],{},"The single most important difference is structural, not a matter of\npreference: Kimai tracks time and can generate a basic invoice from it,\nbut has no mechanism to collect payment on that invoice. Billebly does\nthe opposite: it treats time tracking as a feeder into billing, and\npayment collection is the core of the product.",[10,181,182],{},"If your bottleneck is turning tracked hours into a paid invoice without a\nseparate step to collect the money, Billebly does that natively, and\nKimai structurally cannot, no matter how it's configured. If your\nbottleneck is accurately tracking hours across a team, with proper\naccess control and audit-friendly reporting, that's a narrower, team-\nspecific need Kimai was purpose-built for, and Billebly focuses its\neffort elsewhere instead of trying to match it.",[22,184,186],{"id":185},"features-comparison","Features comparison",[27,188,189,200],{},[30,190,191],{},[33,192,193,196,198],{},[36,194,195],{},"Feature",[36,197,40],{},[36,199,43],{},[45,201,202,211,220,229,239,249,258,267,277,288,297],{},[33,203,204,207,209],{},[50,205,206],{},"Multi-timer \u002F kiosk time tracking",[50,208,102],{},[50,210,99],{},[33,212,213,216,218],{},[50,214,215],{},"Time entries → invoice line items",[50,217,99],{},[50,219,99],{},[33,221,222,225,227],{},[50,223,224],{},"LDAP \u002F SAML \u002F 2FA access control",[50,226,102],{},[50,228,99],{},[33,230,231,234,236],{},[50,232,233],{},"Approval workflows for timesheets",[50,235,102],{},[50,237,238],{},"Yes, via plugin",[33,240,241,244,246],{},[50,242,243],{},"One-off invoices",[50,245,99],{},[50,247,248],{},"Yes, basic",[33,250,251,254,256],{},[50,252,253],{},"Recurring \u002F subscription billing",[50,255,99],{},[50,257,102],{},[33,259,260,263,265],{},[50,261,262],{},"Quotes \u002F estimates",[50,264,99],{},[50,266,102],{},[33,268,269,272,274],{},[50,270,271],{},"Online payment collection on invoices",[50,273,88],{},[50,275,276],{},"Not available",[33,278,279,282,285],{},[50,280,281],{},"Client & prospect tracking",[50,283,284],{},"Basic client list",[50,286,287],{},"Customer records tied to projects",[33,289,290,293,295],{},[50,291,292],{},"Self-hosting",[50,294,102],{},[50,296,132],{},[33,298,299,302,304],{},[50,300,301],{},"Accounting integrations",[50,303,102],{},[50,305,306],{},"None found (no QuickBooks\u002FXero)",[308,309,312],"callout",{"title":310,"type":311},"One specific job Kimai does that Billebly doesn't try to","warning",[10,313,314],{},"If you're running a team that needs multi-user time tracking with real\naccess control, meaning LDAP\u002FSAML SSO, approval workflows, or a\npunch-clock kiosk, Kimai has genuinely deep tooling for that and Billebly\ndoesn't attempt to match it. It's a narrow, team-scale need though: most\nfreelancers, coaches, and consultants working solo, or with a contractor\nor two, don't need SSO or approval chains, they need hours logged and\ninvoices paid. Billebly covers that part, including the one thing Kimai\nstructurally can't do at all: actually collecting the payment.",[22,316,318],{"id":317},"pricing-comparison","Pricing comparison",[10,320,321],{},"Kimai self-hosted: free and open source, unlimited users, but you host\nand maintain the server yourself (PHP, MySQL\u002FMariaDB, Docker or manual\nsetup). Kimai Cloud: €3.99\u002Fuser\u002Fmonth (Standard) or €4.99\u002Fuser\u002Fmonth\n(Professional), or €2.99 and €3.99 per user per month billed annually,\nwith a 30-day free trial and no card required. Expense tracking is a\nProfessional-tier add-on; an invoicing add-on (Invoice+) unlocks\ne-invoice formats but not recurring billing or quotes.",[10,323,324,325,332],{},"Source: ",[326,327,331],"a",{"href":328,"rel":329},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.kimai.org\u002Fen\u002Fpricing",[330],"nofollow","Kimai's pricing page",".",[10,334,335],{},"Billebly: free plan, no subscription. A 0.5% platform fee on payments\nactually processed, plus Stripe's standard rate (roughly 1.5% + €0.25 for\ncards, less for bank methods). There's no per-user cost, since Billebly is\npriced for a single operator rather than a per-seat team plan. An optional\nPremium plan costs €9\u002Fmonth (excl. VAT) and lowers the platform fee to\n0.2%.",[10,337,338],{},"For a team of five tracking time, Kimai Cloud runs roughly €20-25\u002Fmonth\nregardless of billing volume, which is reasonable if time tracking and\naccess control are the actual need. For a single freelancer whose main\ncost driver is what gets billed and collected, Billebly's free plan\ncharges an activity-based fee with no fixed floor and no per-seat cost to\nplan around, which fits a one-person or small-team billing workflow far\nbetter than a per-user subscription built for larger teams.",[22,340,342],{"id":341},"invoicing-and-billing","Invoicing and billing",[10,344,345],{},"This is where the two tools diverge most. Kimai generates invoices from\nbillable timesheet entries using a configurable template, with\nsequential numbering and PDF\u002FDOCX export. It's functional, but built\naround a one-off document, not a payment process. There are no recurring invoices\nand no quotes\u002Festimates in the core product. Billebly supports recurring\ninvoices that charge automatically until stopped, with alerts on failed\npayments, and has a quotes feature that converts an accepted quote\ndirectly into an invoice; both are missing entirely from Kimai. Both\ntools convert tracked time into invoice line items automatically.",[22,347,349],{"id":348},"payments","Payments",[10,351,352,353,356],{},"This is the deciding factor for most people comparing these two tools.\n",[17,354,355],{},"Kimai has no payment gateway for collecting money from a user's own\nclients."," This is confirmed directly from Kimai's documentation, where\nthe only payment-related feature is Stripe billing for Kimai's own Cloud\nsubscription. Getting paid on a Kimai-generated invoice means sending it\nand waiting for a bank transfer, with no online payment link at all.\nBillebly processes payments through Stripe, with a 0.5% platform fee (0.2%\non Premium) plus Stripe's rate, supporting cards, iDEAL, SEPA, Klarna,\nAmazon Pay, and bank transfers depending on the client's location.",[22,358,360],{"id":359},"ease-of-use","Ease of use",[10,362,363],{},"Kimai Cloud is straightforward to start (30-day trial, no card needed),\nbut reviewers describe the interface as dated and reporting as light on\nvisual charts; exporting to Excel is the suggested workaround for deeper\nanalysis. Self-hosting requires real technical competence: Linux, PHP,\nand database administration, which is a genuine barrier for non-technical\nfreelancers.",[10,365,366],{},"Billebly's setup has no equivalent technical barrier: add a client, build\nan invoice, send a link, check the dashboard.",[22,368,370],{"id":369},"which-is-better-for-freelancers","Which is better for freelancers?",[10,372,373],{},"A freelancer who bills primarily by the hour and wants precise,\nauditable time records, particularly across multiple ongoing clients or\nprojects, will get real value from Kimai's tracking depth, as long as\nthey're comfortable generating a basic invoice and collecting payment\nmanually or through a separate tool. A freelancer whose priority is\ngetting an invoice paid quickly and automatically, with time tracking as\na secondary convenience, is better served by Billebly.",[22,375,377],{"id":376},"which-is-better-for-small-businesses","Which is better for small businesses?",[10,379,380],{},"A small team that needs shared time tracking with proper access control\n(who can see what, approval workflows, SSO) is well served by Kimai,\nwhich was built with exactly that in mind. Billebly is built around a\ndifferent kind of small business: the solo operator or very small outfit\nwhose priority is sending invoices and getting paid, not managing shared\ntimesheets across staff. That focus is deliberate, not an oversight, and\nit's why Billebly stays free and simple instead of carrying the overhead\nof team permissions and SSO that most solo businesses never touch.",[22,382,384],{"id":383},"who-should-choose-kimai","Who should choose Kimai?",[10,386,387],{},"A team or agency whose core operational need is accurate, auditable time\ntracking across multiple users, with proper access control and\nreporting, and who either already have a separate way to collect\npayment, or don't need to collect payment through the same tool at all.",[22,389,391],{"id":390},"who-should-choose-billebly","Who should choose Billebly?",[10,393,394],{},"A freelancer or small operation whose priority is turning billable work\ninto a paid invoice, with time tracking as a useful but secondary\nfeature, and who wants clients to be able to pay online without a\nseparate payment step.",[22,396,398],{"id":397},"is-billebly-a-good-kimai-alternative","Is Billebly a good Kimai alternative?",[10,400,401],{},"For deep time tracking (access control, kiosk mode, team-scale\nreporting), no. Billebly's time tracking is intentionally basic and isn't\ntrying to replace what Kimai does for teams. For getting paid, yes,\nunambiguously: Kimai has no online payment collection at all, so anyone\nusing Kimai specifically to bill clients and hoping to collect payment\nthrough the platform will hit a wall Billebly doesn't have. If payment\ncollection matters to you at all, Billebly (or a payment-capable tool\ngenerally) is worth adding alongside or instead of Kimai.",[22,403,405],{"id":404},"kimai-alternatives","Kimai alternatives",[10,407,408],{},"Within time tracking specifically, Kimai competes with Toggl Track,\nClockify, and Harvest. Each has its own balance of price, integrations,\nand polish, and Kimai's own comparison content positions itself as the\ncheapest of that group. None of those alternatives solve the payment-\ncollection gap either; they're time trackers, not billing tools. If the\nactual goal is getting invoices paid rather than tracking hours more\nprecisely, a dedicated invoicing and payments tool like Billebly is a\ndifferent category entirely, not a like-for-like swap.",[410,411],"faq-block",{":faqs":412},"[{\"question\":\"Can Kimai collect online payments from clients?\",\"answer\":\"No. Kimai's only payment integration is for customers paying Kimai for their own Cloud subscription. There's no Stripe, PayPal, or payment-link feature for a Kimai user to collect money from their own clients.\"},{\"question\":\"Does Kimai support recurring invoices?\",\"answer\":\"No, not natively. Kimai can trigger invoice generation on a schedule via cron automation, but this creates new invoices rather than automatically charging a saved payment method the way a subscription-billing tool does.\"},{\"question\":\"Is Kimai really free?\",\"answer\":\"The self-hosted, open-source version is fully free with unlimited users, but you have to host and maintain the server yourself. Kimai Cloud, the managed version, starts at roughly €4\u002Fuser\u002Fmonth.\"},{\"question\":\"Does Billebly have time tracking as good as Kimai's?\",\"answer\":\"No, and it isn't trying to be. Kimai's time tracking is built for teams, with multi-timer support, kiosk mode, and access control like LDAP and SAML SSO. Billebly's time tracking is simpler by design: log hours against a client and bill them, so the hours you log turn straight into a paid invoice without extra setup.\"},{\"question\":\"Should I use Kimai and Billebly together?\",\"answer\":\"It's possible in principle, but there's no built-in integration between them, so time entries wouldn't transfer automatically. For most freelancers, it's simpler to pick the tool that matches the bigger need: Kimai for team time-tracking depth, Billebly for getting invoices paid online.\"}]",[22,414,416],{"id":415},"final-verdict","Final verdict",[10,418,419],{},"For most freelancers, coaches, and consultants, this comes down to one\nquestion: do you need clients to be able to pay you online? Kimai can't\ndo that at all, full stop, so if getting paid through the platform\nmatters, Billebly is the right call, and it's free with no setup\nrequired. If your core need is instead accurate, auditable time tracking\nacross a team, such as access control, approval workflows, or kiosk\nmode, that's a specific, narrower job Kimai was built for, and Billebly\ndoesn't try to compete there.",[421,422],"cta-banner",{"button-label":423,"description":424,"href":425,"title":426},"Start for free","Kimai can't collect payment on an invoice. Billebly logs time, builds the invoice, and gets it paid through a hosted link, with no subscription on the free plan.","https:\u002F\u002Fapp.billebly.com\u002Fregister","Need clients to actually pay online?",{"title":428,"searchDepth":429,"depth":430,"links":431},"",2,3,[432,433,434,435,436,437,438,439,440,441,442,443,444,445,446,447],{"id":24,"depth":429,"text":25},{"id":146,"depth":429,"text":147},{"id":168,"depth":429,"text":169},{"id":175,"depth":429,"text":176},{"id":185,"depth":429,"text":186},{"id":317,"depth":429,"text":318},{"id":341,"depth":429,"text":342},{"id":348,"depth":429,"text":349},{"id":359,"depth":429,"text":360},{"id":369,"depth":429,"text":370},{"id":376,"depth":429,"text":377},{"id":383,"depth":429,"text":384},{"id":390,"depth":429,"text":391},{"id":397,"depth":429,"text":398},{"id":404,"depth":429,"text":405},{"id":415,"depth":429,"text":416},"2026-08-26","A comparison of Billebly and Kimai for freelancers and teams deciding between deep time-tracking software and a tool built around invoicing and getting paid.","md","\u002Fimages\u002Fcompare\u002Fkimai.png",{},true,"\u002Fcompare\u002Fvs-kimai","2026-09",{"title":5,"description":449},"compare\u002Fvs-kimai","2026-09-28","KKICkuasbvtJfNG7eRRjX5FF2SZgOlGVGk9fZHH_yb8",1792840628912]