A lightning invoice works slightly differently from a traditional, on-chain bitcoin address.
On-chain bitcoin addresses have no expiration date, and the address can be used as many times as you like.
Pro tip 1 🏌️: Reusing on-chain addresses is not advised, so most wallets will automatically generate a new receive address for you these days. This article by Swan Bitcoin explains why.
On the other hand, lightning invoices, do expire after a specific date or time and can only be used once. At Bottlepay, when creating a lightning invoice, you have 1 hour to pay it before it expires.
Pro tip 2: 🏌️: LNURL invoices are a different type of lightning invoice. These invoices are static and can be reused or shared to receive instant payments over the lightning network.
Are you unsure whether to use a standard lightning invoice or an LNURL invoice? 🤔
For one-off payments where the person sending the invoice can set the specific amount to be paid 👉 Lightning invoice.
For recurring payments where the person paying chooses the amount to be paid 👉 LNURL invoice / lightning address.