Wave
Free accounting and invoicing for a very small business, with transactions from your bank feed categorised automatically instead of typed in by hand.
What you'd use it for
Doing real invoicing and double-entry bookkeeping for a one-person or very small US or Canadian business without paying for accounting software.
- Send unlimited professional invoices and estimates at no cost, with no volume cap on the free tier
- Scan and digitise receipts from your phone, either as a standalone $8/month add-on or included on Pro
- Pull in and auto-categorise every transaction from a connected bank or card account once you're on Pro
- Accept card and bank payments directly on an invoice, settled by ACH in the US or EFT in Canada
- Run payroll with automatic tax filing in all 50 US states, or in every Canadian province and territory except Quebec
The verdict
Wave gives away real double-entry accounting and unlimited invoicing for one user, which is more than most competitors offer for free, and it can do this because it earns money elsewhere: card payments cost 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction on the free tier, and payroll is a separate $40/month US or $25/month Canada add-on on top of per-employee fees. It suits a freelancer or a very small US or Canadian business with straightforward books who can live with manual bank entry for free or pay $19/month to automate it. It is not the tool for a business that has outgrown simple bookkeeping or that operates outside North America.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $0 | Essential invoicing, estimates and core double-entry accounting for one user. | Unlimited invoicing and estimates, professional double-entry accounting. |
| Mobile Receipts | $8/month or $72/year on Starter; included at no extra cost on Pro | Anyone wanting standalone receipt scanning added to Starter. | Unlimited receipt scanning and OCR for mobile expense tracking. |
| Pro | $19/month | Total bookkeeping automation with unlimited team seats. | Automated bank synchronisation and reconciliation, unlimited user seats and roles, discounted payment processing rates. |
Read from Wave's own pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
What you need to start
- A business based in the United States or Canada, since Wave withdrew support for every other country in 2020
- A bank or card account to connect before Pro's automatic transaction sync and categorisation will do anything
- A Canadian business outside Quebec if the job is Wave Payroll specifically, which does not operate there
A working invoice inside about ten minutes of creating an account; the Pro tier's bank sync needs a further account-connection step before it starts categorising transactions on its own.
Your first run Signing up asks for your business name and what you're there to do first, and most people are sending an actual invoice from Wave's own template within about ten minutes of creating the account.
Where it breaks
Wave's pricing page carries two sets of add-on figures, one for the United States and one for Canada, and shows only one of them without labelling which. Everything quoted here is the US set in USD: Mobile Receipts at $8 a month or $72 a year on Starter and included on Pro, payroll from $40 a month. The Canadian set is receipts at $11 a month or $96 a year, and payroll from $25. Both pairs are in the page's markup at once, so a figure lifted from a secondary source, or from the page read in the other country, can be a third out with nothing visible to flag it. Wave also only operates in the US and Canada at all.
Web, iOS and Android. Wave was acquired by H&R Block, which is part of why the core accounting and invoicing product stays free — payment processing and payroll add-ons are where the company actually makes money.
First entry in this reference. There is no previous check to compare it against.
When not to use it
Not for a business based outside the United States or Canada, since Wave withdrew support for every other country in 2020, nor for a Quebec business wanting Wave Payroll specifically. Also the wrong fit once a business needs inventory tracking, multi-currency support, or deep third-party integrations, since none of that is here at any tier.
Wave’s free tier is the actual pitch, not a stripped-down trial: real double-entry accounting, unlimited invoices and estimates, for a single user, at no cost. That’s unusual in a category where most competitors gate real bookkeeping behind a monthly fee, and it’s only sustainable because Wave makes money elsewhere — on payment processing fees and paid add-ons, not the software itself.
The Pro tier’s automation is the meaningful upgrade: bank transactions sync and get categorised on their own once connected, rather than requiring manual entry line by line. That happens continuously as new transactions land, not on a schedule you set — closer to a background process than a tool you open and run.
Against QuickBooks or Xero, Wave is the deliberately smaller option — built for a freelancer or a very small business with straightforward books, not a company that needs inventory tracking, multi-currency support, or deep third-party app integrations. Those bigger platforms cost real money from the first tier; Wave’s honest limitation is that its free ceiling is also roughly its feature ceiling.
Mobile Receipts is worth noting as a genuinely separate add-on rather than a Pro-only feature — a Starter-plan user who just wants receipt scanning without full bank automation can add it for $8/month, or $72/year, rather than jumping straight to the $19 Pro tier for a feature they may not need yet. On Pro it is included rather than discounted.
One caution about every figure on this page. Wave serves the United States and Canada, and its pricing table carries a second set of numbers for the other country that the page hides rather than labels. The figures here are the US ones, in USD: receipts at $8 a month and payroll from $40. The Canadian set runs receipts at $11 a month or $96 a year, and payroll from $25. If you are reading Wave’s pricing page from the wrong side of the border, or quoting a figure from an article that was, the number can be out by a third in either direction with nothing on the page to tell you.
Alternatives
Money & invoicingAgentsQuickBooks
Bookkeeping, invoicing and payroll for small businesses, with Intuit's AI categorising bank transactions, matching receipts and chasing unpaid invoices on its own.
Money & invoicingAgentsXero
Cloud accounting that reconciles your bank feed, reads incoming bills, and forecasts cash flow, aimed at replacing desktop bookkeeping software.
Money & invoicingAppsFreshBooks
Invoicing, expense tracking and time tracking built for freelancers and small service businesses, with AI categorising expenses and drafting reports.
Money & invoicingAgentsZoho Books
Accounting software where Zia, Zoho's AI, categorises transactions, chases overdue invoices and flags anomalies, priced low per organisation rather than per user.
Get Wave
Buying the tool is not the hard part.
The ebook is about what to hand over, in what order, and how you find out when it goes wrong. One payment, no subscription.