A side-by-side, no-marketing-fluff comparison of every major invoicing app for Australian tradies. We installed them, timed them, tested them on real job-site conditions.
We tested every major option on speed, offline reliability, GST compliance, price and tradie-fit. Here's the short list.
| App | Best For | Offline | 30s Invoice | Formula Pricing | Privacy | Starts At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invoice Better | Sole-trader tradies, freelancers | Yes (sending needs signal) | Yes | Yes (visual) | On-Device | A$7.99/mo · A$59.99/yr · A$79.99 lifetime |
| Tradify | Multi-staff trade businesses | No | ~3 min | Flat lists | Cloud | $48/mo ex GST |
| ServiceM8 | Job dispatch + invoicing | Limited | ~5 min | Flat lists | Cloud | $29/mo + per-job |
| Billdu | Generic small business | Limited | ~2 min | No | Cloud | $9.99/mo |
| Sole | Sole traders, basic books | No | ~2 min | No | Cloud | $10/mo |
| Xero | Full accounting | No | ~5 min | No | Cloud | $35/mo |
| MYOB | Full accounting | No | ~6 min | No | Cloud | $29/mo |
Pricing as listed on each provider's Australian site, April 2026. Tradify re-checked 22 Oct 2026: Lite is $48 AUD per user/month ex GST. Speed measured as time to send a 3-line GST invoice from cold app open.
Pick Invoice Better. You don't need job dispatch or staff timesheets. You need to invoice fast, get paid, keep it simple, and not pay $48 per user/month (ex GST) for features you'll never touch.
Tradify or ServiceM8. Job scheduling, GPS tracking, multi-user — at that scale you need a job-management suite, and the monthly fee earns its keep.
Xero or MYOB. Heavyweight accounting. Ugly for invoicing on the run, but unbeatable for end-of-quarter compliance once you have a bookkeeper.
Most Australian tradies fall into the first bucket — and overpay because they think they need the second.
Tradify is the dominant Aussie/NZ tradie suite — job tracking, quoting, scheduling, invoicing, all bundled. It's good. It's also $48 AUD per user/month ex GST (Tradify Lite) and built for businesses with multiple staff. If you're solo, you're paying for dispatch features you don't use, and you can't create an invoice without internet. Invoice Better wins on speed, offline, and price for sole-trader use cases.
ServiceM8 is a job-card platform. It's powerful for dispatch-heavy work — plumbing call-outs, electrical maintenance contracts, HVAC — but the invoicing flow is buried inside a job workflow. If invoicing is your bottleneck (not job management), ServiceM8 is overkill. Invoice Better is a focused tool that does one thing exceptionally fast.
Billdu is a generic global invoicing app. It works in Australia but isn't built for it — the GST handling, BSB fields and ABN flow feel bolted on. Invoice Better is Australian-first: ABN, BSB, GST 10%, "Tax Invoice" header, AUD currency are the defaults, not options.
Sole targets sole traders with basic invoicing plus light bookkeeping. It's a reasonable choice if you want a simple cloud product. The trade-off: it's cloud-only, account-required, and slower to send a single invoice. If you're job-site mobile and don't need bookkeeping inside the same app, Invoice Better is faster and free for low volume.
EziQuote is a newer iPhone app for Australian tradies. It wasn't part of our April 2026 speed test, so this comparison uses each app's Australian App Store listing, checked 22 October 2026.
| Invoice Better | EziQuote | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Up to 3 clients, 5 invoices sent a month and 3 saved price-list items (starter packs don't count) | Up to 10 quotes, 10 invoices and 10 saved customers (the listing doesn't say if that's monthly) |
| Paid plans | A$7.99/month, A$59.99/year or A$79.99 once | EziQuote Pro: $9.99/month in its description, with $7.99 shown in its in-app purchase list. No one-off option listed |
| Make invoices with no signal | Yes (sending needs a connection) | Not stated in its listing |
| Devices | iPhone and iPad, iOS 17 or later | Listed as only for iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later |
| Free page where customers send you work | Yes (Australia and New Zealand) | Not stated in its listing |
| Also listed | Quote to invoice in one tap, deposits, PayID and BSB, CSV export | Quote to invoice in one tap, AI receipt scanning (Pro), BAS-ready tax reports |
| App Store rating | 5.0 from 6 ratings | 5.0 from 3 ratings |
Pick EziQuote if you want a bigger free allowance, or receipt scanning and tax reports in your invoicing app. Pick Invoice Better if you want to quote with no signal, pay once instead of monthly, use an iPad, or have a free page where customers send you work.
Xero and MYOB aren't really invoicing apps — they're accounting platforms with invoicing as a feature. Once you have a bookkeeper or an accountant doing your BAS, you'll likely use one of them. But for the actual act of sending an invoice from the ute, both are slow, login-heavy and not designed for one-handed phone use. Many tradies use Invoice Better daily for invoicing and Xero monthly for reconciliation — they're complementary, not competing.
We're not the right tool if:
If you're a sole-trader Australian tradie and your phone is your office, Invoice Better is built to get a GST invoice out of the ute fast, for a one-off A$79.99 if you want Premium for good.
We installed each app on a stock iPhone 15, set up a single test client (Henderson Builders), pre-loaded a 3-line saved price list where supported, and timed how long it took from cold app launch to "invoice sent" via email. Every test was run 5 times and averaged. Competitor pricing reflects each provider's listed AU plans as of April 2026, except Tradify, re-checked on 22 Oct 2026 (Lite, $48 AUD per user/month ex GST). Invoice Better prices are the live Australian App Store in-app purchases: A$7.99/month, A$59.99/year, or A$79.99 lifetime. Official speed band and method: Invoice app speed test 2026.
Real questions Australian tradies and sole traders ask before switching invoicing apps.
For sole-trader and small-crew Australian tradies, Invoice Better is a strong pick: it's built for one person — quick invoices on a saved client, GST invoices with no signal (sending needs a connection), ATO-compliant by default, A$79.99 lifetime. For larger operations with 5+ staff and dispatch needs, Tradify or ServiceM8 are stronger. For businesses needing full accounting, Xero or MYOB.
Yes. Free: up to 3 clients, 5 invoices sent a month and 3 saved price-list items. Starter packs are free and don't count toward the 3 items. Premium is A$7.99/month, A$59.99/year, or A$79.99 once for a lifetime licence, as listed on the Australian App Store. Tradify starts at $48 AUD per user/month ex GST (Tradify Lite, AU pricing page, checked 22 Oct 2026), with no lifetime option.
Tradify requires an active internet connection to create or send invoices. You can view some cached information offline, but not generate new ones. With Invoice Better you can make GST invoices with no signal; sending needs a connection.
ServiceM8 is better if you run a multi-tradie plumbing business with daily dispatch, GPS routing and ongoing service contracts. For a solo plumber who just wants to invoice fast on the job, Invoice Better is faster, cheaper and works underground/in basements where ServiceM8 needs signal.
Yes — many tradies use Invoice Better as their day-to-day invoice sending tool and continue using Xero/MYOB for monthly reconciliation. Export your client list as CSV from Xero/MYOB and import into Invoice Better in seconds.
We chose iOS to ship a faster, more polished, more secure product. iOS gives us SwiftData, native PDF rendering, and Face ID security out of the box. Android-equivalent infrastructure isn't there yet for our offline-first model.
Export a CSV from your current app (every cloud invoicing tool supports CSV export) and import into Invoice Better via Settings → Import → CSV. Clients, ABNs, BSBs and contact details map automatically.
Not directly. Invoice Better keeps invoices on your phone and doesn't sync to Xero. However, you can export your invoices as a single CSV and import into Xero monthly for BAS reconciliation. Most users find this is simpler than continuous sync.
It depends on what you pay now. Tradify Lite is $48 per user a month ex GST (checked 22 Oct 2026); Invoice Better Premium is A$7.99 a month or A$79.99 once. If you're solo and only need quotes and invoices, the yearly difference can be a few hundred dollars.
No monthly fee. Pay A$79.99 once, use it forever, including all future updates. Invoicing is on-device, so we don't run invoice servers. An optional account powers your public page on invoicebetter.app.
Free: up to 3 clients, 5 invoices sent a month and 3 saved price-list items. No card. No account needed to invoice.
Premium A$7.99/mo · A$59.99/yr · A$79.99 lifetime