Invoice Ninja vs. Qonto

At a glance

Best for

Best for freelancers and small businesses that want open-source invoicing with a free or self-hosted option and a wide choice of payment gateways.

Freelancers
Small and mid-sized

Qonto

Best for

Best for European freelancers and small companies that want banking, invoicing and receipt collection in one account.

Freelancers
Small and mid-sized

Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.

Full Comparison

Criterion	Invoice Ninja	Qonto
Starting price	Free; Ninja Pro from $14 / month The free plan covers up to five clients with unlimited invoicing. Ninja Pro is $14 / month billed monthly ($140 / year) and adds a REST API, custom templates, US sales tax and financial reports. A free self-hosted option is also available. US pricing.	From €9 / month Basic for the self-employed, excl. VAT and billed annually at €108; monthly billing is also available. Team plans start at €49 a month (Essential). Transfers and cards beyond the plan allowance, international transfers and card payments taken are charged per transaction.
Free trial	Not stated	1 month
API	Yes, a full REST API on the Pro and Enterprise plans, plus Zapier, Make and n8n	Yes, API and EBICS connections, plus an official MCP server
Hosting	Cloud (SaaS) or self-hosted	Cloud (web and mobile apps)
Made in	Not stated	France (founded 2017)
Invoicing and quotes	Yes, invoices and quotes with real-time PDF preview, a product library, deposits and partial payments, multiple currencies and languages, and e-signature approval that auto-converts a quote to an invoice	Yes, unlimited quotes and invoices with deposit and balance invoices, credit notes, automatic numbering, payment matching and payment links, and electronic invoicing through Qonto's government-approved platform. Supplier invoices are imported, read by OCR and paid by transfer. Automated reminders, recurring invoices and e-signed quotes are a paid add-on
Bookkeeping and bank feeds	Bank transaction import via Yodlee or GoCardless on the Enterprise plan	Pre-accounting rather than a general ledger: transactions, receipts and invoices are matched automatically and AI generates accounting entries for approval. The accountant gets read-only access from the Smart plan, or the data goes to Pennylane, Sage, Cegid, DATEV and other tools. Other bank accounts can be synced in
Expenses and receipts	Yes, log and categorize expenses, manage vendors and purchase orders, and mark expenses billable to re-invoice clients	Yes, physical and virtual Mastercards, receipts matched from a photo or a forwarded email and digitized and legally certified from Smart, expense reports for out-of-pocket costs, missing-receipt reminders and team budgets
Tax and compliance	US sales tax calculation by state on the Pro plan, with tax rates set per line item or per invoice	A real-time VAT estimate from invoices and transactions, rules that set funds aside for tax, and electronic invoicing ready for the French requirement to receive e-invoices from 1 September 2026. No tax return of its own is listed; that stays with the accountant
Payroll	No, the product covers invoicing, expenses, time tracking, payments and taxes; there is no payroll module	No pay-run calculation is listed. Salaries and freelancer payments can be sent as one batch at month-end, which the AI agents can prepare
Reports and exports	Yes, profit and loss, invoice, payment and expense reports and client statements, with CSV export	A dashboard with inflow and outflow charts, an advanced dashboard on higher plans, cash-flow tracking and forecasting with scenarios from Smart, CSV exports and a live Google Sheets and Excel connection
Integrations and API	Yes, a full REST API on the Pro and Enterprise plans, plus Zapier, Make and n8n	Yes, API and EBICS connections to ERP and accounting systems, more than 2,000 listed integrations and an official MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Notion
AI features	No	stated Yes
MCP-ready	No	stated Yes
Deployment	more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support	Email helpdesk, Community forum	more entries Chat, Phone, Email helpdesk
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials	Not stated
Company size	Freelancers, Small and mid-sized	Freelancers, Small and mid-sized
Integrations	Stripe, PayPal, Square, GoCardless, Zapier	more entries DATEV, Pennylane, Sage, Cegid, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Google Drive, Gmail, Notion, Zapier, Make, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor

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Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.

The short version

Key Differences

Starting price Invoice Ninja Free; Ninja Pro from $14 / month Qonto From €9 / month
Deployment Invoice Ninja Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise Qonto Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Hosting Invoice Ninja Cloud (SaaS) or self-hosted Qonto Cloud (web and mobile apps)
Support Invoice Ninja Email helpdesk, Community forum Qonto Chat, Phone, Email helpdesk
AI features Invoice Ninja No Qonto Yes

Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.

The trade-offs

Strengths and Limitations

Invoice Ninja

Strengths

Open source with a free self-hosted option
Free cloud plan for up to five clients with unlimited invoicing
More than 20 payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, Square and GoCardless
Client portal with online quote approval by e-signature

Limitations

Bank transaction import is limited to the Enterprise plan
The REST API and custom templates begin on the paid Pro plan
Automatic sales tax calculation is US-focused

Qonto

Strengths

Business account, cards, invoicing and pre-accounting in one place
Electronic invoicing through a government-approved platform, no third-party tool needed
AI drafts transfers, invoices and accounting entries for approval
Official MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor
One-month free trial

Limitations

No general ledger, so an accountant or accounting software is still needed
Each plan caps included transfers and cards, with fees beyond the allowance
Invoice reminders and recurring invoices cost extra as an add-on
Accountant access starts on the Smart plan
No payroll calculation

Plans

Pricing

Invoice Ninja

Free $0 Up to five clients with unlimited invoicing, four templates, online payments, recurring invoices, expenses and the client portal.
Ninja Pro $14 / month Billed monthly ($140 / year). Unlimited clients, removes branding, 11 templates, a REST API, US sales tax, financial reports and custom email.
Enterprise $18 / month From $18 / month for one to two users, scaling to $300 / month for 51 to 100 users. Adds account users with permissions, bank account sync, file attachments and e-invoicing.
Premium Business Not stated From $280 / year. Adds a developer concierge, priority support, an invoice design service, data migration help and custom reports.

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Qonto

Basic €9 Per month excl. VAT, billed annually at €108. For the self-employed: 30 transfers a month, 1 physical and 2 virtual cards, electronic invoicing and 24/7 support.
Smart €19 Per month excl. VAT, billed annually at €228. Adds account remuneration, 1 sub-account, 100 transfers, 50 virtual cards, cash-flow forecasting and accountant access.
Premium €39 Per month excl. VAT, billed annually at €468. Adds 4 sub-accounts, 200 transfers, lower international transfer fees, priority support and subscription tracking.
Essential €49 Per month excl. VAT, billed annually at €588. For small teams: 250 transfers, 5 physical and 50 virtual cards, unlimited team members with roles, expense reports and full invoice management.
Business €109 Per month excl. VAT, billed annually at €1,308. Adds 500 transfers, unlimited virtual cards, dedicated support, auto-sync to accounting tools and EBICS.
Enterprise €199 Per month excl. VAT, billed annually at €2,388. Adds 10,000 transfers and the full cash-flow management suite; custom plans on request.

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What users say

Review Scores · opens after launch

Invoice Ninja

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.

Qonto

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.

How we check reviews

Reviews are not published yet. The form on a tool's page works and reaches us, but nothing from it appears on this site, so no score here is based on a review. The rules below are the ones that will apply once reviews go live.

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What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on what they tell us, plus the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.

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Where this comes from

Invoice Ninja https://invoiceninja.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-08

Qonto https://qonto.com/en · no check date recorded yet

This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.