Cosmobill vs.
PayPal Invoicing

A straight, feature-by-feature look at how the two compare - pricing, invoicing, payments, and everything in between. Every Cosmobill claim here is enforced in the product; every PayPal data point is sourced from paypal.com's own merchant fees and feature pages.

Start invoicing free See all Cosmobill features

Free plan

Cosmobill Comet

5 invoices/mo, unlimited saved clients, estimates/time/expenses/attachments/multi-business all included - free forever

Base service

PayPal Invoicing

Unlimited invoices at no subscription fee - but no estimates, no recurring billing, no time/expense tracking, and per-transaction fees from 2.99% to 4.99%

PayPal Invoicing charges nothing to send an invoice - it makes money on the transaction fee when it's paid instead. Cosmobill only ever passes through PayPal's own fee, with no markup. See the full table below for everything else.

Pricing & limits

Feature	Cosmobill	PayPal Invoicing
Free plan PayPal doesn't charge a subscription just to create and send invoices - the base service is free, with revenue coming entirely from per-transaction fees when an invoice gets paid.
Invoices per month PayPal Invoicing has no invoice-count cap on its free base service. Cosmobill's free Comet plan caps invoices at 5/mo.	5 free, unlimited on Planet+	Unlimited
Saved clients	Unlimited, all plans	Unlimited
Optional paid add-on PayPal's official fee schedule lists a $14.99/month "Invoicing Subscription" service. PayPal's public documentation doesn't clearly spell out what this add-on changes versus the free invoicing service - we're disclosing its existence rather than guessing at what it unlocks.	Planet $5/mo · Galaxy $10/mo	Invoicing Subscription, 14.99 USD/month
Credit card required to start	–	no (PayPal account required)

Invoicing core

Feature	Cosmobill	PayPal Invoicing
Shareable invoice link
Customer self-fills their own billing details On PayPal, the seller enters the recipient's info themselves when creating an invoice. Cosmobill's customer opens the invoice link and fills in their own name/address/tax ID - you never mistype an EIN.		–
Live full-size invoice preview while editing
Itemized line items (qty × rate)
Estimates / quotes PayPal Invoicing goes straight to invoices - it has no separate estimate/quote document type or estimate-to-invoice conversion step. Cosmobill supports estimates on every plan.	Free, all plans	–
Recurring / repeating invoices PayPal Invoicing doesn't automate repeat billing on a schedule - each invoice is sent manually. Cosmobill automates this at its top Galaxy tier.	Galaxy ($10/mo)	no (one-off invoices only)
Multi-currency per invoice	Free, all plans
Invoice template choices Neither product offers a template gallery - PayPal Invoicing uses one fixed layout, and Cosmobill deliberately ships one polished design.	1 design, all plans	1 standard PayPal-branded layout

Getting paid

Feature	Cosmobill	PayPal Invoicing
PayPal payments		yes (native)
Card payments via invoice (Standard cards/Apple Pay/wallets) PayPal's own standard card rate on an invoice payment is 2.99%+fixed fee ($0.49 USD domestic) - lower than its 3.49% PayPal Checkout/Venmo/Guest Checkout rate. Cosmobill's free Comet tier is PayPal/card only at checkout - card processing beyond PayPal needs Planet.	Planet ($5/mo)+	Free, all plans (2.99% + fixed fee)
PayPal Checkout / Pay with Venmo / Guest Checkout via invoice	PayPal: free, all plans · Venmo: no	3.49% + fixed fee, all plans
Buy Now, Pay Later via invoice (PayPal Pay Later) PayPal lets customers split an invoice payment via its own Pay Later product at a 4.99%+fixed rate, on every plan; Cosmobill has no BNPL integration.	–	Free, all plans (4.99% + fixed fee)
Bank transfer (ACH / Pay by Bank) Cosmobill's bank transfer is a manual self-report the buyer and seller confirm between themselves, at no processing fee. PayPal's Pay by Bank via invoice is automated in-app, taking 1% capped at $10 per transaction.	yes (manual, self-report, no fee)	Free, all plans (1%, capped at $10/txn)
Deposits / partial payments PayPal Invoicing bills for the full invoice amount in one payment - it doesn't support scheduling a deposit followed by a balance payment on the same invoice. Cosmobill supports partial payments on every plan.	Free, all plans	–
Automatic overdue-payment reminders	Planet ($5/mo)+	Free, all plans (manual resend + reminder option)
Early-payment discounts PayPal Invoicing has no scheduled "pay within N days for X% off" incentive the way Cosmobill does.	Free, all plans	–
International transaction surcharge	None beyond PayPal's own international fee	+1.5%, all payment types
Transaction fee Cosmobill takes on top of processor	0% (only PayPal's own fee applies)	n/a - PayPal is the processor itself

Time, expenses & files

Feature	Cosmobill	PayPal Invoicing
Time tracking (log or start/stop timer) PayPal Invoicing has no time-tracking feature to bill hours on an invoice - Cosmobill includes this on every plan.	Free, all plans	–
Expense tracking, optionally billable to an invoice PayPal Invoicing doesn't track general business expenses - Cosmobill does, on every plan.	Free, all plans	–
File attachments on an invoice PayPal Invoicing doesn't support attaching a separate file (contract, spec sheet) to an invoice - Cosmobill does, on every plan.	Free, all plans	–
Invoice discussions / comment thread PayPal's invoice view shows payment status but has no back-and-forth comment thread the way Cosmobill's discussion feature does.	Free, all plans	–

Reporting & organization

Feature	Cosmobill	PayPal Invoicing
Dashboard revenue chart (this month vs. last)	Free, all plans	Free, all plans (PayPal activity/reports)
Filterable, searchable invoice table
CSV export of invoices	Planet ($5/mo)+	Free, all plans
Business-health / income-vs-expense reports PayPal shows transaction history and payout activity but has no dedicated income-vs-expense report - it's a payments ledger, not a lightweight bookkeeping view. Cosmobill includes this on every plan.	Free, all plans	–

Team, branding & businesses

Feature	Cosmobill	PayPal Invoicing
Team members PayPal Business accounts support employee logins with permission levels at no extra charge - a broader raw seat count than Cosmobill's, though it's a general account-access feature rather than something scoped specifically to invoicing.	Up to 5 (Galaxy, $10/mo)	Up to 200 employee logins, free (Business account feature)
Read-only role at no extra cost Cosmobill's read-only role is bundled with Galaxy's team seats at no separate charge; PayPal's employee-access permission granularity isn't fully detailed on its public pricing pages.		Permission levels available, exact free-tier role granularity not fully published
Multiple business identities under one login A PayPal login is tied to one Business account; running multiple distinct businesses means separate PayPal accounts, not one shared login the way Cosmobill's multi-business feature works.	Free, all plans, shared entitlements	no - one PayPal Business account per login
Custom logo upload PayPal invoices use PayPal's own standard layout with no seller logo upload option. Cosmobill unlocks logo upload at its $5/mo Planet tier.	Planet ($5/mo)+	–
Custom brand color / appearance PayPal Invoicing has no custom color/branding options for the invoice itself. Cosmobill unlocks this at its $5/mo Planet tier.	Planet ($5/mo)+	–
Remove the provider's own branding from invoices PayPal invoices are sent from and formatted by PayPal itself, so there's no branding to remove at any price. Cosmobill removes its own branding for $10/mo (Galaxy).	Galaxy ($10/mo)	Not possible - invoices are inherently PayPal-branded

A note on this comparison

PayPal details above come from paypal.com's official merchant fees page and business/invoicing feature pages as of when this page was written - fee schedules change, so if something here looks off, treat paypal.com/us/business/paypal-business-fees as the source of truth for their current rates. Worth flagging honestly: PayPal's own fee page also lists an optional "Invoicing Subscription" add-on at $14.99/month, but PayPal's public documentation doesn't clearly spell out what that add-on unlocks versus the free base service - we're disclosing that it exists rather than guessing at its contents, and this comparison is built against PayPal's free invoicing tier. PayPal Invoicing's real strength is reach and trust: nearly everyone already has a PayPal account, and there's no subscription cost at all to start sending invoices - you only pay when you get paid. Where Cosmobill differs is breadth of features per invoice: estimates, recurring billing, time/expense tracking, file attachments, and invoice discussions are all baseline on Cosmobill and simply don't exist in PayPal's invoicing tool at any price. On transaction cost, PayPal's card rate (2.99%+fixed) and ACH rate (1%, capped at $10) apply directly since PayPal is both the invoicing tool and the processor - Cosmobill's own PayPal integration passes through the exact same PayPal fee with no markup on top. Every Cosmobill row marked available on a plan is a feature that actually ships in the product today, not a roadmap item.

Cosmobill vs.PayPal Invoicing