How does it compare to https://invoice-generator.com/ ? It’s free and it stores invoices in the browser. It’s so simple that I wonder how this solution is simpler.
Also, this is a SUPER edge case, since you don't control third party plugins. But I thought you should be aware what your page looks like with the Dark Reader plugin (it more or less inverts a pages colors. It's a tool to make all pages have a dark theme, figured it might be helpful. Mostly because it seems like a fairly popular plugin.
link: https://i.imgur.com/YKIzVjl.png)
This looks good. I use invoiceninja bet I don't love it.
The 14 day trial doesn't really make sense to me though. if you want a limited trial, just limit the number of invoices you can download or send, say to 5. But a freemium model would make more sense to me.
That trial is the blocker for me even trying it. What I would like to do is try it with just one client for a few months to see if i like it, then switch everything if I do.
One small thing. On IPad iOS the Pricing link at the top doesn’t do anything. I was expecting it to zoom me to the pricing part of the page at the bottom.
Awesome work, I ended up building a custom invoice builder as part of a larger custom SaaS for my wife & my local business, so this product resonates big time.
My random internet person's opinion: Instead of a 14-day trial, I think freemium is better where you can use it for up to X # of clients and if you want to go beyond some usage then you have to pay (e.g. Vercel, GitHub, etc. model).
For $9/mo, I would also expect React/Angular/Vue libraries to implement this into a larger project or other back office workflow - just my 2 cents!
Simply said I expect there to be an npm to use in case I don't want to use the hosted UI. Very common, almost everyone does it. I would even expect that of free-to-use SaaS.
Not to mention it's pretty low effort to build to a dist and npm publish - it would be very worth it to get more people using the product. That's why it's so common.
Unless you are consulting local IP and corporate lawyers, than you are almost certainly making mistakes.
There are a few areas one really needs to watch:
1. Dependent contractor status: Unless contracts state otherwise, a business could be hit with a massive tax bill at year end for things like pension contributions for a disgruntled contractor.
2. Comprehensive copyright transfer agreements that prevent edge-cases like disgruntled family suing your firm for ownership after someone passes.
3. Implicit/Explicit ownership of IP generated at/outside a firm depends on contract signing location, and on the nature of external projects. In some places a company can sue workers for ownership of whatever they build outside company hours unless explicitly given an exemption in the contract.
4. You don't necessarily own something just because you paid somebody outside your jurisdictional context. This is a deep copyright/trademark/patent rabbit-hole, and the answer is always "it depends"...
I am not saying you are necessarily exposing people to potential liabilities, but one should at least have legal folks take a cursory glance at your business plan for the service locations.
But it’s not. I don’t appreciate this kind of deceiving language.
I’m just sharing this as a “free” feedback from somebody who has no need or interest in this product.
there isnt any way i would submit anything to this company after reading their privacy policy. going to use my content in perpetuity? like what? my invoices, my clients? my name? every single thing that has to do with my freelance business AND my invoices is pretty personal. no thanks. ill self host invoice ninja. easy peasy.
You need more information on the "What makes Onigiri unique?" section because I don't see any features that aren't already in (or are better than) other invoicing solutions. Hone in on the pain point because saying you're indie is a nice-to-have, not a pressing desire for most I'd say.
everything I found for my contracting was way too expensive for what it did. hope someone can tackle payroll next!
doesn't seem like competition is really working out here, but not for any real reason except some fragmentation amongst how contractors need to make invoices
Fellow freelancer here. Sorry, but can't understand the business model. Cross-border money transfer fees are sometimes upwards $10. How are you able to finance that with $9/month?
Or do you not handle invoicing/money transfer ala remotify.co?
I'm currently a freelancer using Harvest to track time by project and task with a Chrome plug-in, and it generates an invoice every month. Works really well, even on their free plan. Wondering if Onigiri offers any benefits?
Well, in my case, I'm always in Chrome anyway, so having it as a browser popup is super convenient for being able to start/pause the timer in 2 clicks.
If it was an app, I'd probably never use it because it would take too much time to unlock my phone, find the app, wait for the app to launch, go to the timer, and then hit pause. It's a lot of friction for something I'll typically do 3-4 times a day, starting and stopping the timer to work on other things or just to take a break.
Just for time tracking? That seems overkill to me, in terms of having to manage the app downloads, installs, and updates across multiple machines. And I'd worry about security concerns. The Chrome extension is tied to your user profile and auto-synced across browser instances when you log in, and is just a tiny bit of JS that's sandboxed and subject to Chrome's robust permission model. I'd choose that over a desktop app any day for something as simple as a time tracker. This is the one I use, and I think it's not even an official Harvest app but a third-party thing that hooks into their API: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/harvest-time-tracke... (edit: My bad, it DOES seem like an official app)
On the other hand, if you were thinking of building the full web app into a native experience, then yeah, a desktop app would be better than an extension. But I still probably wouldn't use it over the regular website, especially if it were just an Electron/Webview wrapper anyway. In my experience the desktop apps/PWAs tend to be clunky and limit the UI in some significant way (such as not being able to easily right-click, or see the URL bar, or use uBlock, or easily silence notifications or prevent on-launch updates, etc).
My work currently uses Basecamp and I tried their desktop app once or twice, but it was so bad I went back to the website.
got it! Thank your for the details. Will consider chrome extensions for sure.
May I somehow connect you later when I'll start playing around with it? Wanna hear feedback from an experienced harvest extension user
I used to create my invoices with Excel. What does this provide that I could not do with Excel? I think the big value add would be tying it with accounting software but this has no such component?
Stupidly simple invoicing should be easier than this. probably invoice dragon is closest to that. What you should focus on as an additional layer to stupid is database and recordkeeping. "save an invoice" -> 'list of saved invoices" -> "database of invoice, order, product, customer, [etc]".
And use logins for storing this data online, with customer info, and product info. Offer fancy templates under paywall. Offer (monthly) reports under paywall. Offer data retention under paywall.
Which I have used on and off as a freelancer; if Onigiri is even 60% of the way there in feature parity, I’ll switch today. Bonsai has always been far to expensive for my tastes.
What do you love most about their features? 60% of full functionality can be useless when you need only three features but don't wanna pay for them so much.
Not the OP, but I pay for Bonsai because it does a better job of competitors of bringing a variety of tools together in a way that saves me time.
- Scheduling/calendar for client intros and meetings.
- Client info is then available to create a project.
- I track time to a project as I work on it.
- I invoice monthly or at the end of the project.
- Forms for collecting feedback and testimonials.
- Tax tracking for knowing how much I owe the IRS every 3 months.
It doesn't do any one thing outstandingly, but having a single point of reference for all my clients and my business interactions with them is really valuable. I looked at a few similar options (https://www.withmoxie.com/, https://www.waveapps.com/) but Bonsai beat them on functionality and usability.
The main part of Bonsai that I don't use is project management - that always happens in email/slack/asana/monday.
(Wont mention libreoffice until their UX for their powerpoint has the text size on the main screen. They have some FOSS saboteur on the team of something)
I'm not a lawyer but I doubt that. Onigiri + the stylized Onigiri vs. a tent for Basecamp is pretty different. There's many brands with very simple logos that are similar.
Being a freelance myself for a while I've used dozen of well-known services to run my routines.
I've acknowledged that I don't need THAT many different tools & functions where I just getting lost.
So I created Onigiri, a stupidly simple & convenient invoicing which allows you to create, send & store your invoices easily
Nick