Invoicing gets a broader toolbox

Stripe is expanding its invoicing product with a new set of features aimed at reducing the friction between sending an invoice and receiving payment. The company is positioning this as a deeper investment in the Invoicing platform, which it says is already used by more than 50,000 businesses, including Slack, Retool, Figma, and Divvy Homes.

The updates span both ends of the workflow: creating and customizing invoices with less code, and making the payment experience smoother for customers worldwide. There are also changes to how Stripe sells the product itself.

Two pricing tiers for new users

Going forward, new Stripe Invoicing customers will have two pricing plans to choose from, including an option that adds no extra cost beyond standard payment processing fees. Existing users will remain on their current pricing structure until January 2024.

A new editor and faster ways to send

For businesses that prefer not to code, Stripe is rolling out an updated Invoice editor in the Dashboard with real-time previews as you make changes. There are also two new shortcuts for getting an invoice out quickly: sending from the Stripe iOS app and typing invoice.new into any browser’s URL bar to jump straight to the invoice creation screen.

Lowering friction on the customer side

Stripe has redesigned the hosted invoice page—the page customers see when they click an invoice link. The new version is mobile-friendly, and, more importantly, can now automatically highlight the payment methods most relevant to a customer based on their geographic location. This is intended to improve conversion by not burying popular local options. Payment methods can still be manually enabled or disabled from the Dashboard.

Two delivery-related improvements from the last year are also worth noting. Invoices can be sent from your own email domain to improve deliverability and avoid SPF issues, and all Stripe invoice emails now include a PDF attachment of the invoice, making it simpler for customers to forward the document to their accounting systems or file it for record keeping.

A new beta feature allows invoicing a single customer in multiple currencies—useful for clients with several global offices that might pay from different bank accounts. Access is available by request for the beta program.

On the roadmap

Stripe says the next few months will bring better ACH debit support and partial payments. The company also points to its growing list of invoicing partners—including Freshbooks, Invoice2Go, Invoiced, Sage, and Xero—as a way to extend the platform’s reach.