Wave

Free small business accounting, invoicing, and payroll

Also known as
wave

Available in: US, CA · Popular in: US, CA

What is Wave?

Wave is free accounting software for small businesses, offering invoicing, expense tracking, receipts management, and optional payroll and hands-on bookkeeping services. Free tier includes unlimited invoicing and basic bookkeeping, with paid Pro tier adding bank feed automation and discounted payment processing.

Independently observed

Wave pricing

Plans, per-tier features and add-ons, dated and linked to live pricing. Pricing changes often; always verify at source before you rely on it.

Pricing as of verify at live pricing ↗Independently observed
from $19/moFreeFree tier

Free Starter plan with unlimited invoicing. Pro from $19/month USD or $190/year USD. Wave Advisors from $149/month USD.

Starter

Free
Free

Just starting your business or looking for the basics

  • Create unlimited estimates, invoices, bills, and bookkeeping records
  • Option to accept online payments
  • 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction
  • 3.4% + $0.60 per Amex transaction
  • Invoice on-the-go with mobile app
  • Manage cash flow and customers in one dashboard

Pro

$19/month USD or $190/year USD (promo: $9.50/month for first 3 months)
monthly

Look polished, save time, conquer cash flow

  • Everything in Starter, plus
  • Online payments at discounted rate
  • 2.9% + $0 per credit card transaction
  • 3.4% + $0 per Amex transaction
  • Auto-import bank transactions
  • Auto-merge and categorize bank transactions
  • Digitally capture unlimited receipts and track expenses
  • Automate late payment reminders

Wave Advisors

Contact sales
Contact sales
monthly

Hands-off bookkeeping and financial guidance with in-house experts

  • Includes Pro Plan features
  • Dedicated bookkeeper
  • Monthly financial statements prepared
  • Expert bookkeeping support
  • Onboarding assistance when switching from other software
  • Optional one-on-one accounting coach packages

What Wave does

The capabilities that matter for accounting software, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.

Core
Double-entry GL
-
Multi-entity
-
Multi-currency
-
Bank feeds
Aggregator
Modules
AP automation
-
AR / invoicing
Inventory
-
Fixed assets
-
Project accounting
-
Compliance
Tax compliance
Tax-ready bookkeeping and tax season preparation
Workflow
Accountant collaboration
Payments
Payments capture
Ecosystem
API access
-
Deployment
Deployment
Cloud
Independently observed

Platform & deployment

Independently observed
Platforms
  • Web
Deployment
  • Cloud / SaaS

Wave alternatives

Other accounting software we track, ranked by the same independent score.

Independent · unbought · dated

The Vioscale score: one lens on the evidence

Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Wave, not the verdict.

Balanced composite 78 / 100
low · 40%
Signal contributions to the composite score
SignalScoreWeightContributionEvidence
Price Level1000.1211.7
Pricing Transparency1000.1010.5
Capabilities580.158.8
Reliability500.073.5
Integrations00.090.0-
Security Posture00.050.0-

Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.

All data & sourcesshow ↓

Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.

Features

AttributeValueEvidence
Capabilities{"bank_feeds":"aggregator","deployment":"cloud","ar_invoicing":true,"tax_compliance":"Tax-ready bookkeeping and tax season preparation","payments_capture":true,"accountant_collab":true}mediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60%

Market

AttributeValueEvidence
Availability{"primaryMarkets":["US","CA"],"availabilityScope":"regional","availableCountries":["US","CA"],"notAvailableCountries":[]}highsource · 2026-08-05 · 75%

Pricing

AttributeValueEvidence
TransparentYesmediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60%
Free tierYesmediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60%
Modelcommercialmediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60%
Price levelfreemediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60%
Starting gbp19mediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60%

Reliability

AttributeValueEvidence
Status pageYesmediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60%