Cost per invoice: what sending an invoice costs, and how to work it out
Sending a paper invoice costs €4.44, a PDF by email €2.02 and a structured e-invoice €1.20. On your customer’s side the difference is even bigger: processing a PDF from the email costs €7.68, an e-invoice €2.27. Those are the averages from the cost model that the European Commission cited in 2024. What it costs your business depends on your own hourly cost and your own way of working. This article shows where the amounts come from, and how to use the same calculation to work out your own costs.
What does an invoice cost on average?
In 2024 the European Commission evaluated the directive on electronic invoicing (SWD(2024) 39). Its annex contains a cost model from Hasselt University that measures the cost per business invoice for the sender and the recipient:
| Type of invoice | Sending | Receiving |
|---|---|---|
| Paper | €4.44 | €8.04 |
| PDF by email | €2.02 | €7.68 |
| E-invoice | €1.20 | €2.27 |
These are model amounts. Hasselt University drew up the model in 2014, based on the introduction of e-invoicing in Belgium between 2012 and 2014, at an hourly rate of €35.21. The amounts show clearly how the three types relate to each other. You work out your actual costs yourself further on.
Two things stand out. A PDF by email saves the sender more than half compared with paper, but saves the recipient almost nothing: someone still retypes the details into the accounts. The e-invoice, with the details as structured data, is what makes it cheaper for both sides.
The same report gives a second estimate, and it comes out higher. Automating invoicing saves €5.28 per e-invoice sent and €8.40 per e-invoice received, at a labour cost of €46 per hour.
Where the time goes
The Hasselt model is a Standard Cost Model. It counts five steps for one invoice:
- Collecting the data. What was supplied, to whom, at what price?
- Drawing up the invoice in the accounting software.
- Printing and preparing the envelope.
- Sending.
- Archiving.
For a paper invoice the researchers arrived at 8 minutes, at an hourly rate of €35.21 for an administrative employee, plus €0.76 in postage.
In the Netherlands, Sira Consulting made a similar estimate in 2021, commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior. The firm measured the time per invoice from sender to recipient. An e-invoice took 5 minutes, a PDF invoice processed by hand 18 minutes.
What invoicing costs per year
Multiply the amounts per invoice by your number of invoices, and you see what it saves per year. These are the costs on the sender’s side, calculated with the Hasselt model amounts. They give the order of magnitude, not the costs of your business:
| Invoices per month | Paper per year | PDF by email per year | E-invoice per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | €2,664 | €1,212 | €720 |
| 250 | €13,320 | €6,060 | €3,600 |
| 1,000 | €53,280 | €24,240 | €14,400 |
| 5,000 | €266,400 | €121,200 | €72,000 |
At 250 invoices per month, switching from PDF to e-invoice saves you €2,460 per year. Your customers save another €16,230 between them, because for them it goes from €7.68 to €2.27 per invoice. That last figure is why more and more customers ask for an e-invoice.
Work it out for your own business
Averages are a start. Your own figure tells you more, and you work it out in four steps with the same formula as the Standard Cost Model.
- Count your invoices. How many do you send per month? Your accounts will tell you.
- Time one invoice. Take an ordinary invoice and clock the five steps above, from collecting the data to archiving. Include the follow-up work too: a question from the customer, a correction, a credit note.
- Take your hourly cost. Use the labour cost of whoever does the work, including employer’s contributions. If you do not know it, use the €46 per hour from the Commission’s report.
- Calculate. Cost per invoice = hourly cost × minutes ÷ 60, plus fixed costs such as postage. Cost per year = cost per invoice × invoices per month × 12.
An example. Say you send 120 invoices per month and one invoice takes you 12 minutes. At €46 per hour, an invoice then costs €9.20. That is €1,104 per month and €13,248 per year.
Then strike out the steps you no longer have to do by hand, and calculate again. The difference is what you win back each year.
Which steps SealDoc takes over
SealDoc turns your invoice data into an e-invoice under the European standard EN 16931. The third step, printing and the envelope, disappears. SealDoc takes over the work from the second and fourth steps:
- SealDoc assigns the invoice number from the series you choose.
- SealDoc calculates the line amounts, the VAT per rate and the totals.
- SealDoc checks every invoice before it is ready. An invoice that does not pass the check never goes out.
- SealDoc creates a PDF/A-3 with the e-invoice embedded as XML. Your customer reads the PDF, their accounting software reads the XML.
- SealDoc emails the invoice with your company name as the sender and with your attachments, such as the work order or photos, and records what was sent when.
- SealDoc creates a credit note directly from the original invoice.
What it costs: you start free with 5 invoices per month. Invoice 50 costs €7.50 per month (excl. VAT), which comes to €0.15 per invoice on a full bundle. With Invoice 500, at €29.95 per month, it is €0.06 per invoice.
What you do not see in euros
Not everything can be expressed in minutes. Sira Consulting calculated with an error-free process, and added a note of its own: with e-invoicing, the chance of errors is much smaller. An error on an invoice costs a credit note, a new invoice and a customer who pays later.
And demand from customers is growing. In Belgium the structured e-invoice between businesses has been mandatory since 1 January 2026. In Germany every business has had to be able to receive e-invoices since 1 January 2025. The Dutch government wants to make e-invoicing between businesses mandatory from 1 July 2030.
Frequently asked questions
What does it cost to send one invoice?
According to the Hasselt University cost model, which the European Commission used in 2024: €4.44 for a paper invoice, €2.02 for a PDF by email and €1.20 for an e-invoice. Your own costs depend on your hourly cost and on how many minutes an invoice takes you.
What does it cost to process a received invoice?
According to the same model: €8.04 for a paper invoice, €7.68 for a PDF by email and €2.27 for an e-invoice. Someone still has to retype a received PDF or have it recognised, while the accounting software reads in an e-invoice by itself.
How much time does it take to create an invoice?
The Hasselt model counts 8 minutes to send a paper invoice. In 2021 Sira Consulting measured the time from sender to recipient in the Netherlands: 5 minutes for an e-invoice, 18 minutes for a PDF processed by hand.
Is a PDF by email an e-invoice?
No. An e-invoice contains the invoice data as structured data under EN 16931, in a format such as UBL or CII, so the recipient’s software can read it in by itself. An ordinary PDF is made to be read. It can contain searchable text, but not that structured data. A hybrid invoice, such as Factur-X, is both: a PDF with the XML inside.
In short
An invoice costs more than you think, and most of it is manual work. Work it out with your own numbers: invoices per month, minutes per invoice and hourly cost. Then strike out what you no longer do by hand. To see what remains, start invoicing in SealDoc for free or see the packages.