Billebly vs Stripe Invoicing: do you need both?

Stripe is the payments infrastructure behind a huge share of the internet, and Stripe Invoicing is its built-in way to create invoices and collect payment on them from the Stripe Dashboard or API. Billebly also runs on Stripe: every payment a Billebly client makes is processed by Stripe and lands in a Stripe account in your name. So the honest question this page answers isn't "Billebly or Stripe?", it's "if Stripe already does invoicing, what does Billebly add on top?"

The headline difference: Stripe Invoicing is a payments platform's invoicing feature, designed to be flexible enough for SaaS companies, marketplaces, and developers billing through an API. Billebly is a billing workflow for freelancers, coaches, and consultants, with clients, time tracking, quotes, and EN 16931 e-invoices built in, and Stripe doing the money movement underneath.

Quick comparison

What is Stripe Invoicing?

Stripe Invoicing (stripe.com/invoicing) lets any Stripe account create one-off invoices, send them by email with a hosted payment page, and collect payment through any method Stripe supports in the customer's country. It includes automatic payment retries and reminder emails, a customer portal, invoice reconciliation for bank transfers, and reporting inside the Stripe Dashboard. Recurring invoices are handled by Stripe Billing, Stripe's subscription product, which is priced separately.

Stripe Invoicing has no subscription fee. On top of Stripe's normal payment processing fees, it charges a percentage of every paid invoice: 0.4% on the Starter tier and 0.5% on Plus, with Plus adding quotes. Larger businesses can negotiate custom pricing. Everything is also available through Stripe's API, which is a big reason developers and software companies choose it: invoices can be generated automatically from your own product.

What is Billebly?

Billebly is a free invoicing and payments tool for freelancers, coaches, and consultants. It covers the full loop of client work: a client list, quotes that turn into invoices once accepted, time tracking that becomes invoice line items automatically, one-off and recurring invoices, and a dashboard showing paid, pending, and overdue amounts. Every invoice also comes with an EN 16931 UBL 2.1 e-invoice, generated automatically and emailed alongside the PDF.

Payments run on Stripe Connect. When you set up payments in Billebly, Stripe's own onboarding creates a connected Stripe account in your name, verifies your business, and pays out to your bank account. You don't need an existing Stripe account, and you never need to open the Stripe Dashboard to send an invoice.

Billebly vs Stripe Invoicing: key differences

The clearest difference is who each tool is designed for. Stripe Invoicing is a general-purpose building block: it has to work for a SaaS company billing thousands of customers through an API, a marketplace, and a one-person agency, all at once. That flexibility shows in the Dashboard, which is built around payments, customers, products, and prices, with invoicing as one part of a much larger product.

Billebly is narrower on purpose. It's organized around the questions a freelancer actually asks: who is this invoice for, what work did I do, and has it been paid yet? Logged hours flow into an invoice as line items, a quote becomes an invoice with one click once the client accepts, and the dashboard shows money owed per client rather than a stream of transactions.

The second difference is e-invoicing. Stripe Invoicing generates PDF invoices; to produce EN 16931 e-invoices you need a third-party app from the Stripe App Marketplace or your own integration. Billebly generates a compliant UBL 2.1 e-invoice for every invoice automatically, at no extra cost. Neither tool transmits invoices over the Peppol network itself.

Features comparison

Pricing comparison

Both tools charge nothing up front and take a small percentage of what you get paid, on top of Stripe's standard processing fee (roughly 1.5% + €0.25 for European cards, less for bank methods like iDEAL and SEPA). That processing fee is the same either way, because it's Stripe processing the payment in both cases.

Stripe Invoicing: 0.4% per paid invoice on Starter, 0.5% on Plus (which adds quotes). Recurring invoices go through Stripe Billing, which charges 0.7% of recurring billing volume on pay-as-you-go pricing.

Source: Stripe Invoicing pricing (opens in a new tab) and Stripe Billing pricing (opens in a new tab).

Billebly: free, no tiers. A 0.5% platform fee on payments actually processed, the same for one-off and recurring invoices, and you choose whether you or the client absorbs it. Quotes, time tracking, and e-invoicing are included.

To put numbers on it: on a €1,000 invoice, Stripe Invoicing Starter costs €4 on top of processing, Plus costs €5, and Billebly costs €5. On a €1,000 monthly retainer, Stripe Billing costs €7 a month and Billebly costs €5. So for one-off invoices without quotes, Stripe Invoicing Starter is slightly cheaper; with quotes, it's the same; for recurring billing, Billebly is cheaper. The real difference isn't the fee, it's what you get for it.

Invoicing and billing

Stripe Invoicing is very capable. Invoices can carry line items, taxes, discounts, custom fields, and memo text, and Stripe Tax can calculate VAT if you pay for it. Hosted invoice pages, automatic reminders, and smart payment retries are good, and Stripe Billing handles almost any subscription model you can think of.

What Stripe doesn't know about is your work. There's no time tracking, so hourly work has to be totalled somewhere else and typed in. Quotes need the Plus tier. And because Stripe Billing is built for product subscriptions, a simple monthly retainer means setting up a product and a price before you can bill for it. In Billebly, a recurring invoice is just an invoice that repeats, and logged hours land on the next invoice automatically.

Payments

This is where the two tools are closest, because Billebly payments are Stripe payments. Your clients pay on a Stripe-hosted checkout, money goes into a Stripe account in your name, and Stripe handles fraud checks, disputes, and payouts to your bank. Stripe Invoicing gives you access to every payment method Stripe supports; Billebly focuses on the ones freelance and consulting clients actually use: cards, iDEAL, SEPA, Klarna, Amazon Pay, and bank transfer, depending on the client's location.

Ease of use

The Stripe Dashboard is powerful and deliberately general. Before sending a first invoice you'll create a Stripe account, set up business details, add customers, and, for recurring work, define products and prices. It's easy for anyone comfortable with software, but there's a lot of screen that has nothing to do with invoicing a client.

Billebly's setup is shorter: add a client, build or convert an invoice, send it, and watch the dashboard. Stripe's onboarding still runs once to verify your business, but it's embedded in Billebly, so you never have to learn the Stripe Dashboard.

Which is better for freelancers?

For a freelancer, coach, or consultant who bills clients for their time and work, Billebly is the closer fit: time tracking, quotes, and e-invoices are included, recurring retainers are simpler and cheaper, and you still get Stripe's payment infrastructure underneath. Stripe Invoicing makes sense for a freelancer who already runs their business through the Stripe Dashboard, sends only occasional one-off invoices, and doesn't need quotes, time tracking, or e-invoices.

Which is better for small businesses?

A software company, online store, or any business that wants invoices created automatically from its own systems should use Stripe directly. The API, webhooks, Stripe Billing's subscription models, and the wider Stripe ecosystem are the point. Billebly is built for a single operator sending invoices to their own clients, so it doesn't try to compete there.

Who should choose Stripe Invoicing?

Developers, SaaS businesses, and anyone who needs invoices generated through an API, wants every payment method Stripe offers, or already manages their whole business inside the Stripe Dashboard and only sends the occasional one-off invoice.

Who should choose Billebly?

A freelancer, coach, or consultant who wants clients, quotes, time tracking, recurring invoices, and EN 16931 e-invoices in one simple tool, with Stripe's payment infrastructure underneath but without having to learn or configure the Stripe Dashboard.

Is Billebly a good Stripe Invoicing alternative?

It's less an alternative than a layer on top: Billebly uses Stripe for every payment, so you keep Stripe's reliability, checkout, and payouts. What changes is everything around the payment. If you invoice clients for your work, Billebly adds time tracking, quotes, e-invoicing, and a client-centered dashboard for the same 0.5% that Stripe Invoicing Plus charges, and less than Stripe Billing for recurring work. If you need an API or automated billing from your own software, stay with Stripe directly.

Stripe Invoicing alternatives

Other payments companies with invoicing built in include Mollie, PayPal, and Square, each with invoicing layered on top of payment processing. Freelancer-focused tools like Bonsai and Moxie add client management, proposals, and contracts, but charge a monthly subscription. Billebly sits in between: a freelancer-focused workflow with no subscription and Stripe underneath.

Final verdict

Stripe Invoicing is excellent infrastructure, and it's the right choice if you're a developer, a software business, or someone who already lives in the Stripe Dashboard. For freelancers, coaches, and consultants who bill clients for their work, Billebly gives you the same Stripe payments with the parts Stripe doesn't cover: time tracking, quotes, e-invoices, simple retainers, and a dashboard built around clients, for a fee that's equal to or lower than Stripe's own in most cases.