Which CRM can actually send your invoices?

Zoho CRM keeps quotes, sales orders and invoices in its inventory module, starting with the Professional plan. The Free plan (up to 3 users) and Standard don't have them. Professional costs $23 per user per month billed yearly, or $35 month to month, and adds a quote builder that applies your price rules.

The invoice your accountant cares about lives in Zoho Books, the sister app. Books has a free plan (1 user plus your accountant, 1,000 invoices a year), then Standard at $15 per organization per month billed yearly ($20 monthly) with 3 users and 5,000 invoices a year, and Professional at $40 with multi-currency. Payment reminders run on every Books plan, the free one included. That's rare at this price.

The weak spot is the sync between the two apps. On Zoho's own community forum, users report invoices visible in Books that never show up in the CRM. Our fix: decide on day one that invoices are born in Books, turn off invoice creation on the CRM side, and let the CRM show the status only. For five sales reps, CRM Professional plus Books Standard comes to about $130 a month billed yearly.

HubSpot has an Invoices tool on every plan, free included. You create the invoice from the contact, the company or the deal, or you turn a published quote into an invoice with "Convert to invoice". The prefix and starting number are configurable, so switching from another tool doesn't leave a gap in your numbering. Clients pay online through HubSpot Payments, which needs a Starter plan (from $7 per seat per month billed yearly for new customers, $20 month to month), or through Stripe, available on every plan.

The 4.2 score is for the whole CRM, the same as in our full review. On invoicing itself, HubSpot has gaps. Invoices created in HubSpot aren't created in Stripe, and a partial payment isn't matched to line items. The QuickBooks sync can't add taxes to invoices. The setup we see most often: keep HubSpot to sell, and let QuickBooks Online or Xero hold the books, with the sync running one way so nobody creates the same invoice twice.

Odoo splits the CRM and invoicing into two apps that share one database. The won opportunity becomes a quote in the Sales app, then an order, then an invoice, with no export. When you invoice, Odoo offers a regular invoice, a down payment as a percentage or a down payment as a fixed amount, and the invoice lands as a draft so you can check it. It's the most complete chain in this ranking, because the same flow can later touch stock, subscriptions and accounting.

The pricing trap: the free plan gives you one app with unlimited users. The Invoicing app alone won't let you invoice from the CRM. To get both, you need the Standard plan, paid per user, with a discount that only covers the first 12 months for your initial users. Ask for the year-two price before you sign.

The other reality is setup. You can start alone, but set your invoicing policy (ordered quantities or delivered quantities) before the first invoice, or you'll fix it on live data. Bigger projects usually go to an Odoo partner.

HoneyBook isn't a sales CRM in the Pipedrive sense. It's a client file where the proposal, the contract and the invoice travel together, and that's exactly why freelancers love invoicing from it. You set a payment schedule (one-time, recurring or custom), the client signs and pays in the same flow, and autopay, payment reminders, late fees and payment plans take care of the chasing.

Pricing is simple on paper: Starter at $29 a month billed yearly, Essentials at $49 (about $59 month to month) with up to 2 team members, Premium at $109 with unlimited team members. The QuickBooks Online integration starts at Essentials. The real cost is the processing fee. Card payments cost around 3% per payment, and ACH bank transfers 1.5%, so a $5,000 project paid by card leaves roughly $150 on the table. Push ACH for big invoices.

Limits: the pipeline is light for a team that prospects every day, and integrations are few beyond QuickBooks. If you need deal stages and sequences, HubSpot fits better.

Keap combines a CRM, marketing automation and invoicing. A prospect accepts a quote online, the quote turns into an invoice, and recurring invoices and subscriptions run on their own. Automated past-due reminders and card-expiry reminders cut the chasing. Payments go through Keap Pay (US only), PayPal, Stripe or Eway.

The price is the highest of this page. Keap sells one plan at $299 a month, or $2,988 a year (about $249 a month), with 2 users included and $39 per extra user. Contacts are priced in tiers on top. Onboarding services are required, and an annual contract carries a $299 early termination fee. For five people billed yearly, count about $366 a month before contact tiers.

Our advice: pick Keap only if you'll actually use the automation. If you only need quotes and invoices, Zoho or HoneyBook do the job for a fraction of the price.

Bitrix24 prices per company, not per user. That changes the math for a growing team. Estimates, invoices and e-signature come with the Standard plan, at $99 a month billed yearly ($144 month to month) for up to 50 users. The Basic plan ($49 a month billed yearly, 5 users) has online payments and sales pipelines, and the free plan (1 to 2 users) only has a basic CRM.

The trade-off is the interface. Bitrix24 packs tasks, chat, a drive, a website builder and HR tools into the same screen, and new users often get lost. Our tip: during the trial, hide every module you won't use before you invite the team, and build one invoice template with your tax rate and numbering before the first real invoice.

Dubsado works like HoneyBook, with more control and a steeper learning curve. Proposals, contracts, invoices and payment plans are in both plans, and workflows send the next document on their own: the contract once the proposal is accepted, the invoice once the contract is signed, the reminder when a payment is late.

The pricing is yearly: Starter at $335 a year, Premier at $525 a year (public proposals you can share and track are in Premier). The first three extra users are free, then $25 a month for 4 to 10 users. That's cheaper than HoneyBook for a solo business. The trial gives you Premier for 21 days without a card.

Our tip: build one workflow for your most common project before you import clients. Limit: forms and workflows take a few evenings to set up, and the pipeline is thin for active prospecting.

Pipedrive shows up in many "CRM with invoicing" lists, but it creates no invoice itself. The QuickBooks Online integration does the work: from the deal, you open the Invoice tab, details fill in from the organization, contact and deal, and the invoice is created in QuickBooks. The status comes back to the deal (open, paid, voided, overdue, partially paid), and you can copy a payment link if online payments are on in QuickBooks.

Know the limits before you rely on it. It works with QuickBooks Online only, not Desktop. Products aren't kept in sync, so a price change in one tool doesn't reach the other. Multi-currency must be switched on in QuickBooks first. A voided invoice can't be restored, and deleting an invoice removes it from both tools. The Xero integration isn't open to new users.

Do the math for three reps: about $42 of Pipedrive Lite a month, plus QuickBooks Online. Quotes go through Smart Docs, an add-on listed from $32.50: ask whether that's per company or per user. Details in our Pipedrive pricing guide.

Dolibarr is open source: install it on your own server for free, or take the hosted version from DoliCloud, from €14 per user per month, with a 30-day trial. It manages third parties (clients and suppliers), proposals, orders and invoices in one database, with modules you switch on for your trade.

Our take: it's the only truly free option with a CRM and invoices and no quota, but you pay in time. The interface feels dated, support comes from the community or a paid partner, and every module needs configuring. If nobody on your team can install and update it, the hosted version is safer.