Looking for an Alternative to Andrew Benbow's PDF Invoices? Here's the Honest Answer

If you're reading this, you're probably one of the 5,000+ WooCommerce stores running Andrew Benbow's PDF Invoices plugin. It worked well for years. But the plugin has been effectively abandoned since 2024 — no updates, support tickets unanswered, no HPOS compatibility, and no movement on the EU e-invoicing formats stores increasingly need. This guide explains the situation honestly, your options, and how to migrate to invoice9 in about 10 minutes without losing invoice history.

What's actually happening with Benbow's plugin?

We want to be careful here. Andrew Benbow's plugin shipped a good product for many years and earned its 5,000+ active installations honestly. But the public evidence on the Woo Marketplace listing is consistent:

• Vendor responsiveness has dropped to near-zero in recent reviews.
• The last meaningful plugin update was in 2024.
• The top-voted feature request — UBL/XML output for government invoicing — has been open without a vendor response since 2023.
• The HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) compatibility ticket opened in December 2023 remains unresolved.
• WooCommerce's marketplace team has been auto-refunding some recent Benbow purchases, per multiple public review reports.

We're not making a personal judgment. Plugin abandonment happens — solo developers move on, get sick, change priorities. But if you're paying $79/year for a product that no longer ships updates, you deserve to know.

What this means for your store

If you're on Benbow and:

• You need country-specific e-invoicing (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung, Factur-X, PEPPOL): you're already non-compliant for at least one EU mandate, and Benbow won't fix it.
• You run HPOS-enabled WooCommerce (the new high-performance order storage, default since WC 8.2): the plugin may write to the legacy posts table and silently drift out of sync.
• You have a support question: based on the public review trend, you're unlikely to get an answer.

If you renewed your Benbow license recently, the WooCommerce 30-day refund policy may still apply — worth checking before you switch.

Your three options

• Stay — reasonable only if your current setup works and you have no new compliance needs.
• Switch — see the comparison below.
• Build custom — only viable if you have in-house developer resources and the volume to justify them.

Plugin alternatives — honest comparison

Why we recommend invoice9 (we're biased; here's why)

• Built specifically for the EU mandate wave. September 2026 (France) and January 2027 (Germany) drove our design. ZUGFeRD, XRechnung, and Factur-X aren't add-ons — they're the product.
• Country-specific formats, not just "e-invoice". Many plugins claim e-invoicing support; few actually generate schematron-valid country-specific files.
• HPOS-native day one. No legacy posts-table writes; clean WC CRUD throughout.
• $50/year — $29 cheaper than Benbow's renewal. Volume play, not a premium product.
• EU servers in Frankfurt — your invoice data never leaves the EU.
• Vendor reply on every review. We commit to this publicly. If we ever stop, switch.
• 30-day money-back guarantee via the Woo Marketplace.

Migration — what does it actually involve?

Most of what people call "migration" is just copying settings. There's no data export step because there's no new database to populate — invoice9 reads your existing WooCommerce orders directly via the WC CRUD API and generates invoices on demand.

The 10-minute settings copy:

• Company logo URL
• Company name, address, VAT ID, tax ID
• Invoice numbering format and next-number sequence
• Email-attachment trigger (which order status fires the invoice)

Historical orders: invoice9 generates invoices for orders placed after the plugin is configured. We do this deliberately — bulk-generating thousands of historical invoices from a different plugin's settings frequently produces wrong totals, wrong tax categories, or wrong sequence numbers. We'd rather you keep Benbow's old PDFs accessible (they stay in your media library) and let invoice9 handle everything new.

Step-by-step migration

1. Install invoice9 from the WooCommerce Marketplace.
2. Run the activation checklist. invoice9 detects Benbow on your site and surfaces a side-by-side settings copy screen.
3. Copy your settings — logo URL, company info, numbering format.
4. Choose your default e-invoice format. auto picks per buyer locale (recommended); or pick a fixed format (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung, Factur-X, PEPPOL).
5. Generate a test invoice from a recent order to confirm output before going live.
6. Disable (not uninstall) Benbow. Old invoices stay accessible in your media library.
7. Set invoice9 to handle email attachments going forward (one checkbox in the settings).

What happens to old invoices?

• Old PDFs: still in your WordPress media library, still downloadable from order details, untouched.
• Old invoice numbers: invoice9 lets you set the starting next-number to continue your sequence cleanly.
• Customer-facing My Account page: shows old (Benbow) + new (invoice9) invoices side by side, sorted by date.

Frequently asked questions

Will I lose my old invoices?

No. Old PDFs stay in your media library and remain downloadable. invoice9 doesn't touch them.

What about my numbering sequence?

invoice9 has a "next invoice number" setting. Set it to continue your existing sequence cleanly.

Is the switch reversible?

Yes. invoice9 doesn't modify Benbow's data. If you decide to switch back, disable invoice9 and re-enable Benbow.

Why is invoice9 cheaper than Benbow at $50 vs $79?

Volume play, lean ops, and zero legacy code debt to maintain. We'd rather price for the next 5,000 stores than the last 500.