Bigcapital 🧰 Platform Open source

Bigcapital is open-source (AGPL-3.0) accounting software for small and medium businesses, covering double-entry bookkeeping, sales and purchase invoicing, expense tracking, inventory, multi-currency accounting and payroll. It ships as a self-hosted Docker deployment or a hosted cloud plan, with role-based access for working alongside an accountant or bookkeeper.

For a publisher, creator or small business running several monetization methods at once (ads, affiliate payouts, digital product sales, sponsorships), Bigcapital is a back-office tool rather than a payment method itself: it is where you record and reconcile the income those methods generate, send invoices to sponsors or clients, and produce the reports a bookkeeper or tax filer needs. Because it is open-source and self-hostable, there is no per-transaction fee and no vendor lock-in, which suits anyone who wants to keep financial data on their own infrastructure rather than a SaaS vendor's servers.

It is not a payment processor: card and bank payments still run through a gateway such as Stripe or PayPal, and Bigcapital sits on top to track the books. Setup and maintenance (updates, backups, security) are on you if self-hosting, which is a real cost against a fully managed tool like QuickBooks or Xero, and the self-hosted community edition has thinner documentation and support than paid incumbents.

Best for technically comfortable publishers, indie SaaS builders and small agencies who want free, private, full-featured accounting software rather than a monthly QuickBooks or Xero subscription, and who are comfortable running (or paying someone to run) a self-hosted app.