Guide

Order Printer Pro Alternative: Faktwise vs Order Printer Pro (2026)

Updated 2026-09-30

Order Printer Pro is one of the most popular document apps on Shopify: over 2,500 reviews at 4.9 stars, on the App Store since 2014, and for good reason. It makes printing and emailing order documents from Shopify templates genuinely easy. But “popular document printer” and “EU e-invoicing compliance tool” are different jobs. If you’re a merchant facing Germany’s e-invoicing mandate, GoBD archiving duties or OSS reporting, it’s worth understanding exactly where Order Printer Pro’s scope ends. We build Faktwise, a compliance-focused alternative, so we’ll be explicit about what each app is for, including the cases where Order Printer Pro is the better pick.

What each app is built for

Order Printer Pro (by FORSBERG+two ApS, now part of Shop Circle) is a template-driven document app: invoices, packing slips and returns forms, designed, printed, and auto-delivered as PDFs. Its core value is flexible, brandable documents across many order workflows.

Faktwise creates structured e-invoices for eligible paid orders under your saved automation and source rules. It adds sequential numbering, supported credit notes, an archive and OSS reports from its own issued documents. It is not a general document designer or Shopify checkout tax service.

If your need is “nicely branded PDF documents for orders,” Order Printer Pro does that well. If your need is “invoices that satisfy § 14 UStG, the e-invoice mandate and a tax audit,” the comparison gets more pointed.

Pricing: the store-order billing model

Order Printer Pro’s pricing has a structural quirk that surprises merchants: paid plans are billed on your store’s total order volume, not on the documents you actually create. The tiers are: free up to 50 orders/month, then $10, $20, and $40 per month as your store’s order count grows.

That means a store processing 3,000 orders a month pays the higher tier even if it only needs invoices for a fraction of those orders. This is a recurring complaint among users (“billed on total store orders even if unused”). Two further complaint themes from public reviews are support quality declining after the app changed ownership, and service outages.

Faktwise offers free up to 5 invoices/month or Unlimited at $22 USD every 30 days, with a 14-day trial. That is approximately EUR 19 depending on exchange rates, not a fixed euro charge. Total Shopify order volume does not change this plan’s price.

A fair note in the other direction: Order Printer Pro’s free tier covers up to 50 orders/month, which is more generous than Faktwise’s free tier of 5 invoices/month. For a small store that just wants branded PDF invoices and fits under 50 orders, Order Printer Pro free is hard to argue with.

E-invoicing: add-on vs core

Germany’s mandate timeline is fixed: all businesses must receive e-invoices since January 2025; issuing becomes mandatory for businesses above €800k prior-year turnover in January 2027 and for everyone in January 2028. An e-invoice means a structured EN 16931 format: XRechnung, or ZUGFeRD/Factur-X (and for ZUGFeRD, only the BASIC, EN 16931 and EXTENDED profiles qualify; MINIMUM does not).

• Order Printer Pro: ZUGFeRD is available as a paid add-on; XRechnung support is unclear from its public materials; Peppol is likewise an add-on. There is no OSS support and no compliance archive. Credit notes exist as a template you can set up.
• Faktwise: ZUGFeRD and XRechnung for eligible orders under your rules. VAT ID and Leitweg-ID are collected in the cart; VIES is checked at invoice time or uses a result up to 30 days old. XRechnung requires complete seller details. You can validate a file separately; production does not run the official validators on every document.

The validation point is worth dwelling on: German public-sector portals and, increasingly, B2B recipients’ systems reject files that fail the official rules. An e-invoice feature that isn’t backed by validator checks can produce files that look right and still bounce.

Compliance plumbing: numbering, credit notes, archive, OSS

German bookkeeping standards (GoBD) and § 14 UStG impose requirements that a document-printing app does not set out to solve:

• Invoice numbering: § 14 UStG requires unique sequential numbers; auditors expect gaps to be explainable. Faktwise issues gap-free numbers per series and never deletes or edits an issued invoice. Shopify’s order numbers are not suitable invoice numbers (gaps from cancelled and unpaid orders are built in).
• Credit notes: Faktwise handles supported refunds against issued originals with separate credit notes. Source-selected processing supports item and shipping refunds from saved data; custom or incomplete amounts need attention. Legacy processing does not cover shipping-only or free-form amounts.
• Archiving: invoices must be retained unchanged for 8 years (§ 14b UStG, § 147 AO, since 2025). Order Printer Pro does not offer an archive. Faktwise keeps every document in a GoBD-compliant archive for 10 years, hosted in the EU (Paris), with ZIP/CSV exports for your accountant.
• OSS: With OSS enabled, Faktwise reports its own issued OSS documents quarterly. Reconcile missing sales and invoices issued elsewhere. The BOP file follows published rules, but a real-portal import remains unconfirmed.

Where Order Printer Pro is genuinely strong

• Template flexibility and document breadth. Packing slips, returns forms, picking lists, fully customizable Liquid templates. Faktwise doesn’t try to be a general document designer. If you need a wide range of branded operational documents, Order Printer Pro is built for that.
• Maturity and install base. On the App Store since 2014 with 2,504 reviews at 4.9 stars, a long track record across a huge variety of stores.
• Generous free tier for small stores (up to 50 orders/month), plus a trial.
• Outside the EU compliance problem, for merchants who simply need good-looking PDFs, it remains one of the best tools in its category.

Side-by-side summary

FAQ

Can I use both apps together?

Yes, and some merchants do: Order Printer Pro for packing slips and operational documents, Faktwise as the system of record for invoices, e-invoices, credit notes and the archive. Just make sure only one app issues the legal invoice, so you don’t create two parallel invoice number sequences.

Does Order Printer Pro satisfy the German e-invoicing mandate?

Its ZUGFeRD capability is a paid add-on and XRechnung support is unclear from public materials; it offers no compliance archive or OSS support. Whether the add-on output meets your obligations is something to verify against the official validators before relying on it.

Why does billing on store orders matter?

A plan can be based on total order volume rather than document needs. Check the current Order Printer Pro pricing. Faktwise Unlimited is $22 USD every 30 days, regardless of order volume.

Is Faktwise overkill if I only sell B2C in one country?

If you’re a German-established merchant, the invoice content rules, GoBD archiving and numbering requirements apply to you regardless of B2B or B2C. So no. If you’re outside the EU compliance scope entirely, a document app may be all you need.

Faktwise creates e-invoices for eligible paid Shopify orders according to your saved automation and source choices. Choose observed sources for automatic invoicing and review other orders individually. It provides ZUGFeRD PDFs with embedded XML, or XRechnung when the Leitweg-ID and required seller details are present, plus an archive and monthly accountant exports. Free up to 5 invoices per month; Unlimited is $22 USD every 30 days, approximately EUR 19 depending on exchange rates, with a 14-day trial. See the setup guide before enabling automation. Faktwise is software, not tax advice.