Best free invoicing software for Canadian small businesses (GST/HST ready)

You have landed your first client, or the business is finally picking up. The last thing you want is another monthly subscription just to send an invoice.

Good news: you can invoice clients in Canada without paying a monthly fee. The catch is that free rarely means no cost at all. Pick the wrong tool and you can end up with higher card fees, a missing feature you need, or extra admin later. We compared the free plans of Wave, Zoho Invoice and Square Invoices using each company's published pricing and features. Here is what each does well, where it falls short, and which one fits which kind of business.

The short answer

For most Canadian small businesses, three invoicing tools have a genuinely free plan worth using: Wave Starter, Zoho Invoice and Square Invoices Free. All three let you add GST/HST to an invoice. None of them charges a monthly fee on the free plan. What you pay instead is a card processing fee when a customer pays an invoice online, and that fee is where the real cost hides.

Pick Wave if you also want free bookkeeping in the same place. Pick Zoho Invoice if you want recurring invoices and automatic payment reminders at no cost and you send fewer than 500 invoices a year. Pick Square if you already take card payments in person with Square, or you want unlimited invoices plus deposits and late fees without paying for a plan.

What a Canadian invoice has to show

Before choosing software, it helps to know what the invoice must contain. If you are registered for GST/HST, your business customers need certain details on your invoice to claim input tax credits. The Canada Revenue Agency sets the list by the total amount of the sale:

• Under $100: your business or trading name, the invoice date and the total amount paid or payable.
• $100 to $499.99: all of the above, plus the total GST/HST charged (or a note that the price includes it), the status of each item when the invoice mixes taxable and exempt supplies, and your GST/HST registration number.
• $500 or more: all of the above, plus the buyer's name, a brief description of what you sold and the terms of payment.

The simplest habit is to include everything on every invoice. Any of the tools below can hold these fields, but you have to set them up once: add your tax rate, your registration number and your default payment terms in the settings.

Not registered yet? Most businesses are small suppliers, and do not have to register, while their taxable sales stay at or under $30,000. The CRA applies two tests, and the timing differs:

• Over $30,000 in a single calendar quarter: you charge GST/HST starting with the sale that took you over.
• Over $30,000 across up to four consecutive calendar quarters, but not in one: you stop being a small supplier at the end of the month after the quarter in which you went over, and charge GST/HST on sales from that point.

In both cases the CRA's examples give you 29 days to register. One of its examples is a consultant with $2,000, $10,000 and then $38,000 in sales over three quarters, who must charge GST/HST from the sale that pushed the third quarter over $30,000. You can also register voluntarily. If you are not registered, do not charge GST/HST on your invoices.

The three free plans compared

What a card payment actually costs

Say a customer pays a $500 invoice online with a card issued in Canada. On Wave Starter the percentage part is 2.9%, or $14.50, plus a fixed $0.60. On Square Invoices Free the percentage part is 2.8%, or $14.00, plus a fixed 30¢. Square adds another 1.5% for cards issued outside Canada. On a $50 invoice the same percentages come to $1.45 and $1.40, so the fixed part becomes a much bigger share of what you pay.

Neither Wave's pricing page nor its help centre fee table, nor Square's Canadian pricing pages, names the currency of the fixed fee; they show only a $ sign. Treat the fixed amounts as unconfirmed and check them inside your account before you rely on them. If customers pay by Interac e-Transfer or cheque instead, there is no card fee on that invoice, and Square says recording those payments against an invoice is free.

Wave Starter

Wave's free Starter plan lets you create unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, and send invoices from the mobile app. In Business settings you add a sales tax with its name, rate and your tax number, then tick a box to show that number on your invoices. That covers the CRA fields above.

The paid Pro plan costs $25 CAD a month or $250 CAD a year. It adds automated late payment reminders, bank transaction imports, receipt capture, and removes Wave branding from invoices. Pro also waives the fixed $0.60 on the first ten card transactions each month. See our Wave tool page for the full plan details.

Zoho Invoice

Zoho's Canadian pricing page describes Zoho Invoice as free for all businesses in Canada. The free plan lets you send up to 500 invoices per year, add up to two users and create up to three projects. It includes recurring invoices, automated payment reminders, quotes, expense tracking, time logging, a customer portal and sales tax on invoices.

The limit resets each year based on the date you created your organization, and you can see what is left under Settings, then Usage Stats. If you outgrow it, Zoho points you to its paid Zoho Billing product. For a freelancer billing a few dozen clients a month, 500 a year is plenty.

Square Invoices Free

Square's Canadian Free plan has no monthly fee and includes unlimited invoices, estimates and contracts, recurring invoices, saved cards, deposits, automatic reminders, late fees and reporting. Recording a cash or cheque payment against an invoice is free.

The Plus plan is listed at $30 per month (currency not stated on the page) and adds milestone payment schedules, batch invoicing, custom layouts and templates, and automatic conversion of accepted estimates into invoices. Most small service businesses will not need it at first.

Our take

We have not run these tools inside a business, so this is a judgment based on the published features and pricing, not a hands on test.

The trade off. Wave gives you bookkeeping for free but keeps automatic late payment reminders for Pro. Zoho gives you reminders and recurring invoices for free but caps you at 500 invoices a year. Square has no invoice cap and includes reminders, deposits and late fees, but its pricing page focuses on invoices and payments and does not list bookkeeping, so plan where your books will live.

When our pick would change. If you send more than about 40 invoices a month, Zoho's free cap stops fitting. If most customers pay large invoices by card, the percentage fee matters far more than the fixed part. If late payers are your biggest headache, reminders on a free plan beat free bookkeeping.

What we would do. Start on a free plan and stay there until one specific limit is clearly costing you time or money. Free is a good starting point; the right tool is the one that makes getting paid simpler.

How to choose in five minutes

1. Count your invoices. If you send more than about 40 a month, Zoho's 500 a year cap will bite. Wave and Square have no invoice cap.
2. Decide if you want books in the same tool. Wave includes free bookkeeping records. The other two focus on invoicing.
3. Check how customers pay you. If most pay by Interac e-Transfer or cheque, card fees barely matter. If most pay by card online, compare the fees for your typical invoice size.
4. Set up tax once. Add GST/HST or PST with the right rate for your province, your registration number and your payment terms, then send yourself a test invoice and compare it with the CRA list.

If you are still working out what you can afford to spend on software and marketing, our guide on setting a small business budget in Canada is a good next read.

Limits to know

• Free plans change. Prices and limits here were read on each company's page on October 19, 2026. Check the pricing page again before you commit.
• Invoicing software does not file your GST/HST return for you. You still report and remit through the CRA, or have a bookkeeper do it.

Sources

• Canada Revenue Agency: Input tax credits (invoice information requirements)
• Canada Revenue Agency: When to register for and start charging the GST/HST
• Wave pricing (official)
• Wave Help Centre: Add, edit, or delete a sales tax
• Wave Help Centre: Online payments processing fees and timelines
• Zoho Invoice pricing, Canada (official)
• Zoho Invoice Help: How many invoices can I create for free?
• Square Invoices pricing, Canada (official)