Invoice Ninja vs Fee-Lion

If you’re coming from a tool like Invoice Ninja, the good news is the core job feels familiar: build something, send it, get paid. What Fee-Lion adds is a smoother path from a “yes” to money in your account, plus a few shortcuts that quietly give you hours back. Here’s how the day-to-day changes.

The flow: from estimate to paid, in one line

In Fee-Lion, the estimate and the invoice aren’t two separate chores you re-key. They’re the same job, captured once. You quote the work, your client approves it without logging in, and that approval becomes an invoice with one click.

1. Open Estimates in the left sidebar and build your quote with line items: tasks (hours × rate), fees or units (qty × rate), plus any discounts or surcharges. Tax and a deposit % apply automatically from your defaults.
2. Send it. Your client gets a magic-link portal page, no account or password required, where they can read, comment, and approve.
3. Once it’s approved, hit Convert to turn the estimate into an invoice (or kick off a project). No copy-paste, no re-typing line items.
4. The invoice carries a Pay button. Your client pays by card and the money lands in your own account.

Tip: Set your tax, payment terms, and deposit % once under Settings → Preferences so every estimate and invoice is pre-filled. You stop making the same decisions on every quote.

Payouts go into your own Stripe

This is the part worth slowing down for. When a client pays a Fee-Lion invoice by card, the funds settle directly into your Stripe account through Stripe Connect. Fee-Lion isn’t a middleman holding your cash, it’s just the layer that built the invoice and pressed go. You connect your Stripe once, and a small platform fee applies per card payment.

• You keep your existing Stripe payout schedule and bank account.
• Taking cash, a transfer, or a check instead? Record it as an offline payment so the invoice still reflects reality.
• Recurring invoices with auto-pay mean retainer clients pay on their own, every cycle, without you sending a thing.

The little things that add up

Two features tend to win people over once they’ve switched.

The ⌘K command palette

Press ⌘K from anywhere and just type what you want: pay INV-204, or create invoice for Acme. No hunting through menus. For anyone who lives in their billing tool all day, it’s the fastest way to move.

One portal your client actually uses

Because the portal needs no login, clients don’t bounce off a password wall. They approve estimates, leave comments, pay invoices, and download what they need, all from one link. You can brand it with your logo so it feels like yours, not ours.

Bringing your data across

You don’t have to start from zero. Head to Settings → Data Import to bring your clients and history into Fee-Lion, then tidy anything that didn’t map cleanly. Plans are simple: Solo at $9/mo, Studio at $29/mo, with a 14-day free trial so you can run a real estimate through the whole loop before you commit.

What’s next

• Import your data from another app
• How to convert an estimate into an invoice
• Connect Stripe to get paid
• Work faster with the command palette