Shop and studio

Invoices, quotes, and signed PDFs without buying Outlook for three people.

A shop that emails quotes in DOCX and files signed PDFs does not automatically need Microsoft 365. WPS Office is the cheap, light suite for that week. Microsoft still wins if mail identity and VBA are the business. Google still wins if the whole staff types one brief. This page is the independent money-and-paperwork map.

Free vs Pro+ Suite comparison
Small shop counter with printed invoices and a laptop for quotes

The job is paperwork, not a brand

Count the files you actually produce: invoices, purchase orders, delivery notes, a price list in XLSX, a one-page service agreement, a scan of a signed page. If that list is the business, WPS Writer, Spreadsheet, Presentation, and PDF are sized for it. The ribbon is familiar, so a hire who learned Word last decade does not need a training week. The Windows install still fits Kingsoft’s modest help-doc floor: dual-core, 2 GB RAM, 4 GB disk. A counter laptop does not need a workstation GPU.

Install from the official center, the Windows page, or the Microsoft Store. Phones get the scanner from Play or the App Store. Do not let a supplier “send the installer” on a USB stick. That is how a second business problem arrives. Security is official channels, updates, and no cracks.

Invoices and sheets that other people must reopen

Save customer-facing files as DOCX or PDF, not as a mystery format. If a supplier lives in Excel, send XLSX and keep a PDF copy for your archive. Test one file in the other party’s suite when the first contract is large. Fonts on a Mac or a Linux bookkeeper machine will substitute; that is the compatibility lesson. When a layout is the contract — letterhead, stamps, pagination — freeze PDF from the machine that designed it.

VBA price lists and “the workbook that runs the shop” stay in Excel. Open them read-only in WPS if you only need a number. Do not become the new author of a macro you cannot see. That single rule prevents a class of disasters that no freemium PDF tool will fix. Microsoft 365 wins that row on compare.

PDF is the product you might pay for

Free Standard includes a basic PDF reader and limited conversion. The wall appears when you OCR a stack of delivery notes or convert in batches every Friday. Pro+ was listed around $5.83 a month in 2026, often less annually. Sharing sat near $2.49 per user per month. Those are list prices on wps.com — confirm before you budget. If OCR is rare, stay free and use a desktop scanner you already own. If OCR is the week, price Pro+ against a dedicated scan shop and against Adobe-class tools.

Ads on the free skin are a cost in attention, not a virus. A three-person shop that is tired of ads and shares templates may prefer Sharing over three consumer logins. Do not share one Pro+ password behind the counter. Offboarding becomes impossible when someone leaves. Details on pricing.

Cloud, mail, and the thing WPS will not replace

About 1 GB of free WPS Cloud holds quotes, not a photo archive of every job. Paid plans raise the bucket. Many shops already have a Drive or OneDrive folder. You can ignore Kingsoft cloud and keep files on a NAS. The web version is useful on a loaner PC at a trade show. Sign out.

WPS does not replace business email, domain identity, or device management. If customers mail you at a professional domain and you need shared calendars plus mobile wipe, look at Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 first. Buying Pro+ because a banner said “business” does not give you Exchange. Teachers who invoice tutoring on the side can keep school data in the LMS and client invoices in WPS; see teachers. Freelancers coming from campus can keep the student habits on students and add a real backup drive.

Phones in the van, PCs at the counter

Android and iOS are how you photograph a signed page on site. Gizmodo’s August 2026 directory put Play near 4.5 stars from about 5.98 million votes and iOS near 4.8 from about 17.8 thousand. Treat that as popularity, then still install only from the stores. Heavy edit on a phone is how totals slip. Finish the invoice at the counter on Windows or Mac. Linux bookkeepers should read the font page before they change one cell and reprint a legal form.

Languages for a mixed staff — English, Indonesian, German, Spanish, French, Thai, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Japanese, and more — are on the languages page. Shortcuts for the person who still thinks in Word are on shortcuts.

Backup is part of the suite, even if WPS is free

A free editor does not excuse a single copy of the invoice book on a failing 128 GB drive. Copy the folder to a second disk or a paid Drive plan you already have. WPS Cloud’s free gigabyte is not a disaster-recovery plan. If the counter PC dies, you need last week’s XLSX, not a memory of the ribbon color. Test a restore once. File associations and leftover AppData paths on uninstall are a later problem; surviving a spilled drink is this week’s problem.

If you hire seasonal help, write a one-page “how we name files” note. Official downloads only. No USB installers. No shared Pro+ password. That note prevents more loss than a new template pack.

A first-month business checklist

  1. Install from official links. Bookmark wps.com.
  2. Build one invoice template with styles and a clear filename rule.
  3. Export PDF. Open it on a phone. If the total wraps, fix the template.
  4. Decide cloud: WPS, Drive, NAS — one canonical folder.
  5. Count users. Compare Sharing at about $2.49 each to Google and Microsoft seats.
  6. Write down who owns file associations so a later uninstall does not break Word.
  7. Keep updates on. Skip AI for confidential client numbers unless policy allows it.

Related: why the suite is freemium, downloads, Windows notes.