Opportunities › Open-source billing and payment processing › Proposed app
Ledgerleaf
Open billing for software teams: invoices, VAT, retries and reconciliation in one place
- Score
- 45
- confidence 53
- Evidence
- 7
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 1
- named in sources
- First version
- 60 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 2003
- Mature market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: Finance teams work through invoices, tax rules, payment reconciliation, and accounting exports—all dense, multi-step desk work. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Today
2 need review$12,480
- Paid invoices
About this appAI proposal
Ledgerleaf is a billing app for software companies that charge customers across borders. It connects to Stripe, PayPal and crypto wallets, creates invoices, applies VAT and sales tax rules, and keeps a ledger that matches what the payment providers report.
It is built for teams that outgrew a homegrown billing script but do not want a closed-source system. Every payment event is stored, retried safely and checked against the ledger, so a failed webhook does not turn into a lost payment.
The core is meant to be open source, with a hosted version for teams that would rather not run it. Tax rules and accounting exports are visible and testable, so you can see why an invoice shows the amount it does.
- Tagline
- Billing you can read, check and run yourself.
- Voice
- PlainCarefulOpen
- Why this name
- A ledger is the book of record and a leaf is a page in it. The name is two plain words that suggest careful, open accounts.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Multi-provider payments
Take payments through Stripe, PayPal or crypto and see them as one stream of invoices and receipts.
No member yet
VAT and tax rules you can read
Tax rates by customer country and type are plain rules with tests, so you can check each invoice line.
No member yet
Safe payment delivery
Every provider event is saved, deduplicated and replayed if your system was down. Nothing drops silently.
No member yet
Reconciliation view
Match provider payouts to ledger entries and flag gaps, fees and refunds that do not add up.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#14493ADeep Forest · primary#F6F3EAPaper · surface#1D2420Ink · text#E3A33BAmber · accent#B5533CClay · alert#8DAA91Sage · data
Typography
Aa
Ledgerleaf
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
PricingAI proposal
WHMCS's verified pricing page lists 6 paid plans from $9.99 to $84.95 a month. These tiers sit in that range as a starting point to test. Per-transaction fees are not set.
Self-host
Free
- Open-source core
- Stripe, PayPal, crypto connectors
- Community support
Starter
$9 a month
- Hosted instance
- Invoices and VAT rules
- Reconciliation view
- Email support
Growth
$39 a month
- Failed payment recovery
- Accounting exports
- Migration import
- Priority support
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- Shared outputs. Invoices, receipts and payment pages sent to end customers carry a small 'Billed with Ledgerleaf' link, and the open-source repository gives developers a place to find it.
- Do they become customers?
- Customers who receive invoices are mostly not software founders, so few would buy. Test whether the footer link and repository bring in developers who start a trial.
- First customers
- Small SaaS companies with 500 to 5,000 paying customers that run custom billing on Stripe and sell to EU buyers, led by the founder or lead developer.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News: Post a write-up on billing edge cases and the open-source repository, then answer questions in the thread.
- GitHub: Publish the core with clear docs and good-first-issue tags to draw contributors and early users.
- Indie founder communities: Offer free migration help to a handful of teams with homegrown billing in exchange for feedback.
- First milestone
- Five SaaS teams run live payments through the hosted version for 60 days, and three pay.
Why people already pay for this
- Public claimA company with 4000 paying customers lost payments with their custom billing solution until migrating to WHMCS
- Public claimBuilding billing in-house introduces errors in tax and accounting that developers make repeatedly
- Public claimNo mature open-source alternative exists for billing and payment processing
- VerifiedWHMCS's pricing page lists 6 paid plans, from $9.99 to $84.95 a month
- Public claim
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Background jobsDurable queue for webhooks and retriesPayment events must be stored, deduplicated and replayed without loss.
- This app · Tax rules dataMaintained VAT and sales tax rate tablesRates change by country and customer type and need a reliable update source.
RisksAI inference
- RegulatoryTax rules differ by country and change often. Wrong VAT on an invoice can cause real liability, so rule coverage must be narrow at first and clearly stated.
- TechnicalPayment reliability is the selling point. Duplicate or missed events, or ledger mismatches, would destroy trust quickly.
- CommercialAn open core may make it hard to charge. Teams could self-host for free and never pay for the hosted or support tiers.
- PlatformStripe, PayPal and crypto gateways can change their APIs or terms, and hosted use may need provider approval.
- CommercialMaterial shows WHMCS as the trusted choice with a large customer base per its own claims. Switching from it needs strong migration tools.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.