Free Creative Invoice Template

Use this invoice when you bill a client for a creative project as a whole: the idea, making it, and the changes after the first delivery. It suits photo and video shoots, campaign content and similar projects where you agree a deposit up front and a usage term for the finished work.

If your work fits one of these better, use that invoice instead:

• the graphic design invoice bills fixed-fee design deliverables and hourly work, with a font license passed through at cost;
• the web design invoice bills a website design by phase, with revision rounds and stock images and fonts at cost;
• the artist invoice bills one commissioned artwork, with its size and medium, framing and delivery;
• the freelance designer invoice bills design work booked by the day, with licenses bought for the project at cost.

The invoice is titled CREATIVE SERVICES INVOICE and has these parts:

• Creative studio: business name, address, and phone or email.
• Invoice details: invoice number, invoice date, payment terms, due date and project number.
• Bill to (client): company, attention line and email.
• Project: the project, the delivery date and Usage and licensing, a placeholder for the usage terms you agreed, such as web and social media for 12 months.
• Concept, Production and Revisions: three tables with Item, Details, Qty, Unit, Rate and Amount columns, each with its own subtotal and one blank row.
• Totals: Subtotal, "Sales tax on services, if applicable", Total, "Less: deposit received" and Amount due.
• How to pay and Project notes.

Bill revision rounds beyond the ones your fee includes as their own lines in the Revisions table, and say in the notes how many rounds are included, so the client can see why an extra round is charged.

"Less: deposit received" is an amount you type in. Enter what the client has paid, and give the date in the notes. If no deposit was paid, set it to 0.00.

The Usage and licensing line restates what you and the client agreed the work can be used for: where, for how long, and whether the use is exclusive. Copy the wording from your agreement, so the invoice and the agreement say the same thing.

The PDF is a blank form to print and fill in by hand, with a blank for the tax percentage. It's sized for A4 paper, so if you print on US Letter, check the scaling setting in your print dialog so the whole page fits. The Word and Excel files have the same layout filled with the sample, for you to overwrite.

In the Excel file:

• each line's Amount is Qty × Rate, rounded to the cent;
• the three section subtotals and the Subtotal are formulas;
• "Sales tax on services, if applicable" is the Subtotal × its rate cell (0% in the sample), and Total is the Subtotal plus the tax;
• Amount due is Total less the deposit you type in;
• the file's tip says: to leave out the sales tax, set its rate to 0%; to leave out "Less: deposit received", set it to 0.00; and don't delete these rows, because the totals refer to them.

Whether creative services are taxable depends on where you work, so check the rules there before you set a rate. In the Word file the tax line shows its rate in the label ("(0%)"), so update it if you change the rate. In Word or on the PDF, work out the amounts yourself.

Invoice templates by format: PDF, Excel, Word, Google Docs and Google Sheets, or browse all invoice templates. Other creative invoice templates: photography, videography, logo design, freelance writing, musician and actor.