Blog · Behind the build
Free, offline and no account: how we built Billaroo
Before we wrote any code for Billaroo, we looked at what people complain about in invoice apps. Most of it wasn't about missing features. It was about accounts, limits, ads and subscriptions. So we decided what Billaroo wouldn't do before deciding what it would.
No account
You don't sign up for Billaroo. You open it, add your business details and make an invoice. There's no password to forget and no confirmation email, and nobody asks for your details before you've seen whether the app is any good.
Your data stays on your phone
Invoices, clients and business details are saved in the app's private storage on your device. Billaroo has no servers to send them to, no analytics and no ad trackers. A PDF only leaves your phone when you share it, and you choose where it goes.
It also means Billaroo works offline. You can write an invoice on a bus, in a studio with bad signal or on a job site with none.
No limits and no ads
Many free invoice apps stop after three or five invoices a month and then ask you to subscribe. Billaroo doesn't count. Unlimited invoices, estimates and clients, your logo, two templates, every colour, and PDF sharing and printing are all free, and there are no ads.
Why Pro is one payment
We still need to pay for the work, so Billaroo Pro adds extras for people who want them: three more templates, your signature, CSV export and no "Made with Billaroo" line on your PDFs. It's a single purchase through Google Play, and it's yours to keep.
A subscription makes sense for a service that runs on servers. Billaroo runs on your phone, so charging every month for it didn't feel right.
A design that looks like paper
Invoices are paper documents, even when they're PDFs, so we designed Billaroo like a ledger: warm paper colours, ink-black text, thin rules between rows, and a serif typeface for the amounts, with figures that line up in columns. Clean and Classic are free; Studio, Ledger and Bold come with Pro.
What's next
Recurring invoices, payment reminders and payment QR codes are the features people ask for most, and we're looking at them next. If something else would make Billaroo work for you, tell us at contact@airiz.dev.