Frequently Asked Questions

Freelance CRM is a free, open-source, self-hosted client relationship manager built specifically for freelancers. It tracks your leads, proposals, projects, invoices, and revenue in one place — without paying for a SaaS subscription.

Clone the repo, install dependencies, set up your database, and run the dev server. The full walkthrough is on the Getting Started page.

Getting Started guide→

Yes. Freelance CRM is released under the MIT license. You can use it for personal or commercial purposes, modify it, and distribute it. No hidden fees, no premium tier, no telemetry.

Next.js 16 (App Router) with TypeScript, Prisma ORM with PostgreSQL, Tailwind CSS v4 with shadcn/ui components, NextAuth v5 for authentication, and Resend for transactional email.

Yes. The app ships with three themes — Paper (hand-drawn notebook), Minimal (clean SaaS), and Winamp (retro neon). Themes are powered by CSS custom properties, so you can create your own by overriding a few variables.

Browse themes→

When you type a project description in plain English, the AI extracts structured data like client name, budget, hourly rate, and timeline. It uses OpenAI under the hood, but falls back to regex-based parsing automatically when no API key is configured.

AI Features docs→

Yes. The invoice system integrates with Stripe to generate payment links. When a client pays through the Stripe checkout, the invoice is automatically marked as paid. You can also record manual payments for bank transfers or checks.

Invoice docs→

You host it yourself, so your data stays on your own infrastructure. Authentication is handled by NextAuth v5 with support for OAuth providers. All database access goes through Prisma with parameterized queries — no raw SQL, no injection risk.

Yes. Hourly projects support time entry logging with descriptions, hours, and dates. Uninvoiced hours are tracked and grouped automatically when you create an invoice.

Project Tracking docs→

Each client can have a "referred by" relationship pointing to another client. This forms a chain that lets you see which clients bring the most downstream revenue. Referral data flows into the Dashboard Sankey chart.

Client Management docs→

Yes. The app runs on any Node.js host that supports Next.js — Railway, Fly.io, DigitalOcean, AWS, or your own server. Docker support is planned. Vercel works out of the box but is not required.

The project is on GitHub. Fork the repo, create a feature branch, and open a pull request. Bug reports and feature requests are welcome as issues. All contributions follow the MIT license.

GitHub repository→