The billing back office
Stripe and Square forgot to build.
Bookie turns a payment processor into a complete billing operation: invoices with real PDFs, recurring plans, dunning, receipts, reporting, customer self-service, and an API — all running on your server, with your database, on hosting that costs a few dollars a month.
See how it compares Explore featuresYour whole billing desk, one screen
Net revenue, MRR, receivables aging, dunning — live from your own database.
Everything a billing desk needs
No Composer, no CDNs, no SaaS lock-in. Every subsystem — the Stripe client, SMTP sender, PDF generator, charts, even the maps — is hand-rolled or bundled locally.
Invoices with real PDFs
Server-generated, multi-page PDFs with your logo and accent color. Long line items word-wrap and flow across pages. Amount paid and balance due always shown — including partial payments.
Cards, cash, checks & crypto
Stripe Checkout for cards, plus hand-recorded offline payments. One ledger, one balance, one report — however your customer pays.
Charge a saved card on file
Customer authorized you? Flip the toggle, adjust the amount (full or partial), and charge their stored card off-session — recorded, receipted, and webhook-deduplicated automatically.
Recurring billing, two ways
Invoice-mode plans Bookie drives itself, or native Stripe subscriptions — plus metered billable events pushed from your own apps via the JSON API.
Multiple Stripe accounts
Route different invoices and subscriptions to different Stripe accounts, each with its own webhook endpoint and signing secret.
Dashboard that answers questions
Net revenue, MRR/ARR, receivables aging, payment success rate, top customers, invoice-vs-subscription charts, open rates — every table exports to CSV.
Dunning & automatic receipts
A past-due worklist with one-click, editable reminder emails, and automatic paid receipts — sent once per invoice, over SMTP or Gmail with automatic fallback.
Every email & text, your words
All 11 emails and 5 text messages the app sends are editable templates with placeholders. Texts prefill your own Messages app — and with Twilio, a failed subscription payment can text the customer a fix-it link automatically.
Customer self-service
An embeddable "Manage subscription" button: customers get a magic link into Stripe's Customer Portal to update cards or cancel — no support ticket needed.
Import & reconcile history
Bulk-import Stripe or Square CSVs with dry-run preview, auto-detect subscriptions vs one-offs, and a cron pull from Stripe that back-fills anything a webhook missed.
Access control & webhooks
Failed-payment grace windows and outbound webhooks so your membership or hosting software suspends and restores customers automatically.
Bookable meetings, built in
A Calendly-style scheduler that bills: sharable booking pages, your Apple Calendar availability, surge pricing, and payment or invoicing baked into every booking.
Rentals: spaces, equipment & vehicles
Meeting rooms, cabins, campsites, party rooms — plus equipment and vehicle rentals. Hourly, nightly, or day-rate, hotel-style stacked taxes, QR check-in/check-out, optional AI-verified photo ID, and a live door-sign display for a wall tablet.
Digital deliverables
Sell downloadable files with an embeddable Buy Now button: tokenized links, download and IP tracking, suspendable access, versioned update delivery.
Security that's actually novel
Role-based users, CSRF everywhere, parameterized queries, sent-email and webhook logs, database backup/restore, an in-app updater — and an optional login geofence as a location second factor.
Scheduling that gets you paid
Why pay for Calendly AND an invoicing tool? Bookie's built-in scheduler books the meeting, charges the card or sends the invoice, and puts it on your calendar — Apple, Google, or Outlook. One system, one ledger.
Sharable booking links
Every meeting type gets a clean hosted page — yoursite.com/meet/intro-call — plus an embeddable button for any website. Customers pick a time from your real availability.
Apple, Google & Outlook calendars
Point it at any mix of calendars — iCloud published links, Google secret iCal addresses, Outlook published calendars — and busy time across all of them disappears from the schedule. Confirmed bookings arrive as calendar invites for both sides.
Surge pricing
Charge more for same-day bookings and after-hours slots — set it once per meeting type, and the price updates live as customers pick their time.
Pay to book — or bill after
Take card payment upfront through Stripe (with sales tax handled), or confirm free and invoice after the meeting. A PDF invoice lands in your ledger either way.
Meeting ran long? Bill it.
Adjust the amount before the automatic invoice goes out, put billing on hold, or send additional invoices later — the two-hour call gets billed like a two-hour call.
Onsite service ready
Collect the street address at booking for house calls and field work — it lands in the confirmation email and as the location on the calendar invite.
Rent out anything — rooms, cabins, campsites, equipment, vehicles
The same booking engine runs whatever you rent: spaces by the hour or night, and property like trailers, tools, boats, or bounce houses by the day. Renters book online, pay correctly taxed totals, check in and out with a QR scan, and the invoice takes care of itself.
Hourly or nightly, per listing
Party room by the hour, cabin by the night, excavator or boat by the day (nightly mode works perfectly for day-rate rentals). Each listing sets its own window, minimum, lead time, and calendar feeds that block availability.
Hotel-style stacked taxes
Up to three named taxes per space — sales + occupancy + city — calculated together on every charge and itemized on the invoice, so lodging tax rules stop being a spreadsheet.
QR check-in & check-out
Print a letter-size QR sign (or download SVG/PNG) for the door, pickup counter, or equipment yard. Renters scan, verify with the email or phone they booked with, and tap an emailed link — check-in/pickup and check-out/return, timestamped.
Live door sign for a tablet
A full-screen display that knows the time: green "Available" with a booking QR when free, red "In use" with the check-out QR when occupied — plus today's schedule and your booking policies. Refreshes itself every 5 minutes.
Bill the hours they actually used
Party ran long? With actual-time billing, check-out timestamps the real end and the invoice charges the hours used, rounded up — no chasing, no awkward conversations.
A booking page per space
Every space gets a clean sharable link — yoursite.com/space/cabin-3 — with live availability, tax-inclusive totals, and pay-to-book or invoice-after, your choice.
Photo ID at booking
Flip one switch per listing, meeting type, or plan and first-time renters attach a photo of their ID — any format, converted to compact WEBP and stored on the customer record. Essential when handing over keys, vehicles, or equipment.
AI-verified IDs
Add your Anthropic API key and Claude checks each upload — real ID, name matches the booking — and marks the guest verified in seconds. Anything unclear goes to you for review; the AI never turns a customer away. Verified guests are never asked twice.
Serious security, zero hassle
No more two-factor headaches. Signing in takes two things: your password and being where you're supposed to be. No codes, no authenticator apps, nothing to lose.
Locked to your location
Draw a circle on a map — your office, shop, or town. Sign-in only works inside it. That's your second factor.
Bots can't even knock
Hackers' automated login attacks fail instantly — they're never in the right place. Repeated wrong guesses get blocked automatically.
The right access for each person
Your team works with invoices and customers; only admins touch settings and payment connections. Suspend anyone with one click.
Flexible for people on the move
Each person can have their own allowed area — the bookkeeper at the office, you wherever you work from.
Why not just Stripe alone — or Square?
They're excellent at moving money. Bookie is what wraps around them: the invoicing desk, the ledger, the reporting, and the customer records — without per-invoice fees or another SaaS subscription.
| Capability | Bookie | Stripe alone | Square |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extra software cost | $0 — self-hosted, flat | 0.4–0.5% per invoice* | Free tier, paid add-ons* |
| Own your data (your server, your MySQL) | Yes | No — lives in Stripe | No — lives in Square |
| Offline payments (cash / check / crypto / wire) in the same ledger | Yes, first-class | Manual workarounds | Limited |
| Multiple Stripe accounts, one dashboard | Yes | One account at a time | — |
| Adjustable card-on-file charge with authorization audit trail | Yes | Build it yourself | Card on file, less control |
| Receivables aging, MRR/ARR, dunning worklist | Built in | Partial, spread across pages | Basic reports |
| Every outgoing email & text is an editable template | SMTP or Gmail, your wording, logged & resendable | Stripe-branded templates | Square-branded |
| Automatic text (SMS) when a subscription payment fails | Built in — Twilio, with a self-serve fix-it link | — | — |
| JSON API for subscriptions & metered events | Yes, token-authenticated | Yes | Limited |
| Import historic payments (Stripe/Square CSV) & reconcile | Yes, with dry-run | — | — |
| Sell digital downloads with tokenized delivery | Built in | Third-party tools | Separate product |
| Bookable meetings with payment (Calendly-style) | Built in — booking, payment & invoice in one | — (add Calendly, ~$10+/user/mo*) | Square Appointments (separate app) |
| Surge pricing for same-day & after-hours slots | Yes, per meeting type | — | — |
| Bill-after-meeting with adjustable amounts | Yes — adjust, hold, or bill extra | — | Manual invoicing |
| Space, equipment & vehicle rentals with QR self check-in | Built in — stacked lodging taxes, door-sign display | — | — |
| Photo-ID capture with AI verification | Built in — verified guests skip re-upload | — | — |
| Space & room rentals with lodging-style stacked taxes | Built in — hourly or nightly | — | Separate booking products |
| QR self check-in/out + live tablet door sign | Built in, no extra hardware fees | — | — |
| Works on cheap shared hosting | Yes — pure PHP, no Composer | n/a (SaaS) | n/a (SaaS) |
| Vendor lock-in | None — move hosts by copying files | High | High |
* Processor invoicing/add-on pricing varies by plan and region — check current pricing. Card processing fees always apply regardless of tooling; Bookie adds no fees on top.
External dependencies
No Composer packages, no JS frameworks, no CDNs. The Stripe client, mailer, PDF engine and charts are all in the box. Upload the folder, point your web root, done.
Folder to deploy
Private code ships locked down behind app/.htaccess. Installer writes the config, runs the schema, and the in-app updater handles upgrades with migrations.
Yours
Customers, invoices, payments and email logs live in your MySQL database. Back up and restore from inside the app. Leave any host, keep everything.
Simple pricing, no subscription required
Buy it once, own it for life. Add hosting or hands-on help only if you want it — and in-app AI support is free for everyone.
Lifetime license
- One active copy, bound to one domain
- Yours for life — take it and host it anywhere
- 24 months of free updates
- Free in-app AI support
HIPAA-compliant hosting
- App deployment included free
- Uptime monitoring included free
- SSL certificate included free
Deployment & data import
- Full setup on any host you choose
- Your existing data imported for you
- Handed over running and ready
Support & training
- One-on-one help from a real person
- One-hour minimum
- In-app AI support always free
Keep the processor. Own the billing.
Bookie rides on top of Stripe for card payments and plays nicely with your Square history — while everything that matters stays on your server.