Wave's offer is the one freelancers ask for by name: real bookkeeping with no subscription. The accounting is genuinely free. The receptionist is not, so to speak, and the three places Wave charges are worth knowing before the first invoice goes out rather than after.
Everything below was read from Wave's own pricing, payments, receipts and payroll pages on September 27, 2026, and the sources are listed at the end.
The Two Plans, Priced
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $0 | Unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, online payments, mobile app, cash-flow dashboard |
| Pro | $19 a month, or $190 a year | The discounted card rate, bank transaction auto-import and auto-categorization, unlimited receipt capture, automated late payment reminders |
| Advisors | From $149 a month and $199 a month | A dedicated bookkeeper, monthly financial statements, support, onboarding from other software |
The Pro promotion is printed with its own arithmetic rather than as a percentage: $9.50 a month for the first three months, saving $28.50. That is the first thing on this page worth noting, because a three month discount on a $19 plan is $28.50 once, and the comparisons people run against paid competitors tend to treat it as a rate.
What the Free Tier Covers
Starter is not a trial. The plan page lists unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, the option to accept online payments, a mobile app, and a cash-flow dashboard. For a one-person business that invoices clients and keeps its own books, that is the whole job, and it is the reason Wave is the default answer to the free-accounting question on this site.
Where it stops is worth stating as precisely as the page does. The list of what Pro adds includes auto-import of bank transactions and auto-merge and categorization of them. Reading those as Pro features means the free tier expects more manual entry than its reputation suggests, and anyone choosing Wave for the bank feed specifically should check that line before committing a year of transactions to it.
The Parts That Are Not Free
Receipt capture is the clearest example. On its own page it is priced at $8 a month billed monthly, and the description is unlimited receipts with OCR, uploads from mobile, desktop or forwarded email. It is included in Pro at $19, which is worth doing the subtraction on: $8 for receipts alone, $19 for receipts plus the bank automation plus the discounted card rate.
Payroll is the second paid part, at a $40 base fee plus $6 per active employee and $6 per independent contractor paid. Wave's payroll page also carries a note worth reading for anyone who found an older review: its base rate changed for some US states after April 2, 2025, when the tax service became available in all states rather than a subset of them. A review quoting two different payroll tiers, one for 14 states and one for 50, is describing a structure that no longer exists.
What Getting Paid Costs
Wave prints its processing rates on the pricing page rather than leaving them for checkout, and the difference between the two plans is in the fixed fee:
- Credit cards: 2.9% plus $0.60 per transaction on Starter. On Pro, 2.9% plus $0 for the first ten transactions each month, then Starter rates.
- American Express: 3.4% plus $0.60.
- Bank payments by ACH or EFT: 1% per transaction with a $1.00 minimum, on both plans.
The bank path is the one that matters at any real invoice size. On a $1,000 invoice, a card payment costs $29.60 and a bank transfer costs $10. The $19 Pro tier buys back 60 cents per card transaction up to ten a month, which is $6 a month at most, so the card discount alone does not pay for the plan. The reason people upgrade is the bank feed and the receipts, not the rate.
Who Should Skip It
Skip it if you want the bank feed to do the work. Auto-import and auto-categorization are listed as Pro features. If the reason you are moving off a spreadsheet is that you never want to type a transaction again, the free tier may not be the product you are imagining, and Pro at $19 is the honest comparison.
Skip it if you need your accountant in the file. Wave's paid route for that is Advisors, starting at $149 a month, which is a bookkeeping service rather than a software feature. If all you need is to hand a preparer a clean file, that is a different purchase.
Skip it if you have employees. Payroll is priced per person on top of a $40 base, so a business with staff is stacking subscriptions. At that point a platform that bundles the books and the payroll is worth pricing properly.
Skip it if the card rate is what you came for. 2.9% plus $0.60 is not a discount, it is the standard, and a freelancer collecting by card pays it at every provider. The cheaper move is asking clients to pay by bank transfer, which costs 1% here on the free plan.
Who It Fits
A solo freelancer who wants books without a bill. Unlimited invoices, bills and records at $0, with the option to add receipts for $8 in the months when the shoebox gets out of hand.
Someone whose clients pay by bank transfer. The 1% ACH rate is printed on the free plan, and on a four-figure invoice it is the difference between keeping $990 and keeping $970.
A business that grew into payroll or advisory services. Wave will sell those too, at printed prices, and by then the comparison is against dedicated payroll providers rather than against spreadsheets.
How This Score Works
The criteria below were written before this product was scored, and they are the same five on every review here. Each one takes only inputs you can check yourself on a vendor page: what a plan includes, where it caps you, what processing costs, what is sold separately, and what is printed versus quoted. Nothing in the score depends on how the software feels to use, because that is not something this page can evidence.
| Criterion | 2 points | 1 point | 0 points |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the entry plan includes | The cheapest paid plan does the product’s core job without an upgrade, and nothing a solo user needs monthly sits a tier up | Core job works, but at least one routine monthly need is only on a higher tier | The cheapest paid plan cannot do the core job without an upgrade or a paid add-on |
| Where the caps bite | No hard cap a one-person business would hit in a year | A cap exists but sits above ordinary solo use | A cap sits inside ordinary solo use |
| Cost of getting paid | Processing rates published, and a bank transfer path under 1.5% or capped | Rates published, but card only or the bank path is 1.5% or higher | Rates not published anywhere public |
| Add-on load | Nothing routine is sold separately; add-ons are genuinely optional | One routine need is priced as an add-on | Two or more routine needs are add-ons, or a required add-on costs half the plan again |
| Price transparency | Every plan price and the renewal price is printed, and promotions state what they renew at | Plan prices printed, but a material cost needs a call, a login or a quote | The entry price only exists as a promotion, or key prices are not public |
Ten points available, halved for a score out of five. A high score means the pricing is honest and the plan you buy is the plan you keep. It does not mean the product is the best one for you.
The Score
| Criterion | Score | Why, from the printed facts |
|---|---|---|
| What the entry plan includes | 1 / 2 | Starter is $0 and covers unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, which is the core job. Two routine things sit above it anyway: receipt capture is a $8 a month add-on on its own and part of Pro, and the plan page lists auto-import and auto-categorization of bank transactions among Pro features rather than Starter ones. |
| Where the caps bite | 2 / 2 | No cap is printed on clients, invoices, bills or bookkeeping records on either plan, and the free tier is described as unlimited on all four. |
| Cost of getting paid | 2 / 2 | The rates are printed on the pricing page and the payments page: 2.9% plus $0.60 per credit card transaction on Starter, with Pro dropping the fixed fee to $0 for the first ten transactions a month, and bank payments at 1% per transaction with a $1.00 minimum on both. A 1% bank path is under the 1.5% line this criterion looks for. |
| Add-on load | 1 / 2 | One routine need is priced separately: receipt scanning, at $8 a month standalone, which is the feature freelancers most often assume is part of a free accounting product. Payroll is also sold separately, at a $40 base fee plus $6 per person paid, though that is not a routine need for a one-person business. |
| Price transparency | 2 / 2 | Both plans print their price, the annual price is printed beside the monthly one, the promotion states its own size and term (save $28.50 off the first three months), the add-on prices are printed, and the per-transaction rates are printed on the pricing page itself rather than being left to a checkout screen. |
| Wave Accounting | 8 / 10 | 4 out of 5 |
Eight out of ten, or 4.0 out of 5. Wave prints both plan prices, the annual equivalent, the promotion's own size and term, the add-on prices, and the processing rates on the pricing page. The 1% bank payment path is the best printed transfer rate of the products this site has reviewed, and it is on the free plan.
The two points given up are the same shape. Receipt scanning is $8 a month rather than included, which is one routine need priced as an add-on, and the bank feed automation sits on Pro, which means the free tier does less of the work than its reputation claims. Neither is hidden, and both are the kind of thing a reader should learn from the plan page rather than from an invoice.
What the score cannot capture is how the bank feed behaves in practice, and that is the feature people choose this category for. Import a month of transactions during the trial before moving a year of books onto it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Wave really free?
The accounting is. Starter costs $0 and its page lists unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, plus a mobile app and a cash-flow dashboard. What is not free is receipt capture at $8 a month, the auto-import and auto-categorization of bank transactions listed among the Pro features, and the payroll service.
How much does Wave Pro cost?
Pro prints $19 USD a month billed monthly, currently discounted to $9.50 a month for the first three months, saving $28.50. Billed annually it prints $190 USD. What Pro adds is the discounted card rate, the bank transaction automation, unlimited receipt capture and automated late payment reminders.
What does Wave charge to get paid?
Credit cards cost 2.9% plus $0.60 per transaction on Starter. On Pro the fixed fee drops to $0 for the first ten transactions each month, after which Starter rates apply. American Express is 3.4% plus $0.60. Bank payments by ACH or EFT cost 1% per transaction with a $1.00 minimum on both plans, which makes the bank path the cheaper one on any invoice over about $100.
What does Wave payroll cost?
The payroll page prints a $40 USD base fee plus $6 per active employee and $6 per independent contractor paid. Wave also notes on that page that its base rate changed for some US states after April 2, 2025, when its tax service became available across all states rather than only some of them, so an older review quoting two different tiers is describing a structure Wave no longer uses.
What is Wave Advisors?
A hands-off bookkeeping service that includes the Pro features and adds a dedicated bookkeeper, monthly financial statements and support, starting at $149 a month and $199 a month depending on the package. The fine print notes that mobile receipts are not included.
Should I use Wave or pay for QuickBooks or FreshBooks?
If the job is invoices, bills and books for one person, Wave Starter does it for nothing and the case for paying is thin. Software earns its fee when you need inventory, payroll for several people, accountant access with a paper trail, or a bank feed you do not want to reconcile by hand, and this site prices those alternatives in the accounting software roundup.
Sources
Prices, plan contents, rates and quoted wording were checked against these pages on September 27, 2026.
- Wave pricing, for the $0 Starter plan, the $19 monthly and $190 annual Pro prices, the $9.50 three month promotion with its $28.50 saving, the Pro feature list, the Advisors starting prices and the card rates
- Wave receipts, for the $8 a month standalone receipt price and its inclusion in Pro
- Wave payments, for the card, Amex and 1% bank payment rates with the $1.00 minimum, and the Pro rate for the first ten transactions each month
- Wave payroll, for the $40 base fee plus $6 per person, and the note about the April 2, 2025 rate change when the tax service reached all states
For how the free tier compares with paid accounting software, see the accounting software roundup and the FreshBooks review. For what the numbers on those books feed, see the deductions checklist.
