Wave: invoicing software platform

The short answer

Buy Wave if you are a sole trader, freelancer or very small business that wants invoicing, estimates and double-entry bookkeeping in one place without a subscription. Starter is $0 and allows unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, which is more than most free tiers in this category give you. Pro at $19 USD/month is worth it mainly for the bank-feed automation and unlimited receipt capture, not for the payment rate.

Skip it if you take more than a handful of card payments a month and expect Pro to remove the fixed fee on all of them: the footnote limits the 2.9% + $0 rate to the first ten cumulative transactions in a monthly subscription period, after which it reverts to 2.9% + $0.60. Skip it too if you run several businesses, because the Pro fee is charged per business and not per owner. And skip it if you need multi-entity consolidation or a quoted enterprise contract, because neither exists here.

Where Wave fits

Wave pricing

Wave publishes two software plans and a priced add-on list, which makes it one of the easier products in this category to budget. Read on 16 October 2026, Starter is $0 and Pro is $19 USD/month or $190 USD/year, also sold at $25 CAD/month or $250 CAD/year. Invoicing is unlimited on both. The published difference on payments is the fixed component: Starter pays 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction and 3.4% + $0.60 on Amex, while Pro is shown at 2.9% + $0 and 3.4% + $0.

What Wave publishes

Starter Plan

$0 (No charge)Unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, invoicing from the mobile app, one dashboard for cash flow and customers. Option to accept online payments at 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction and 3.4% + $0.60 on Amex. Receipt capture available as an add-on at $11/month or $96/year.

Pro Plan

$19 USD/month, or $190 USD/year (Billed monthly or annually, per business rather than per owner)Everything in Starter plus auto-import, auto-merge and categorisation of bank transactions, unlimited digital receipt capture, automated late payment reminders, removal of Wave branding from invoice footers, and admin, editor and viewer user roles. Card payments shown at 2.9% + $0 and Amex at 3.4% + $0, subject to the transaction footnote below. Receipt capture add-on reduced to $8/month or $72/year.

Pro Plan in Canadian dollars

$25 CAD/month, or $250 CAD/year (Monthly or annually)The same plan priced in Canadian dollars. The page advertises savings of $50 and $38 on the annual term.

Wave Advisors

Starting at $149/month (Monthly, shown on the page as starting at $149/month and starting at $199/month)Pro Plan features except mobile receipts, a dedicated bookkeeper, monthly financial statements prepared for you, expert bookkeeping support, onboarding when switching from other accounting software, and optional packages for one-to-one coaching.

Two cautions on these figures. The payroll and Advisors add-ons each appear twice with different numbers and the page does not label which applies to which currency or service level, so both are recorded rather than resolved. And the promotional Pro rate of $9.50 USD/month for the first three months carries offer terms naming an availability window from an earlier season, so it may no longer be live.

There are only two plan prices, so the drivers are about what sits around them.

1. How many card transactions you take, and how far the Pro rate actually goes. The headline is that Pro removes the fixed 60 cents, but the page's own footnote limits 2.9% + $0 and 3.4% + $0 to the first ten cumulative transactions in a monthly subscription period, reverting to 2.9% + $0.60 and 3.4% + $0.60 after that. That is a materially different proposition from the plan card, and it means a business taking many small card payments does not recover the subscription the way the headline suggests. Check the footnote against your own volume before treating Pro as a payments decision.
2. How many businesses you run. Wave is explicit that the Pro subscription fee is per business and not per owner: a single account can hold multiple business profiles, and putting three of them on Pro means subscribing and paying $19 USD/month or $25 CAD/month three times. For anyone with a side venture or a holding structure this is the figure that breaks a budget built from the plan card.
3. Which add-ons you actually need, because the published floors vary widely. Receipt capture is $11/month or $96/year on Starter and $8/month or $72/year on Pro. Payroll is listed as an add-on from $25/month and from $40/month. Wave Advisors is starting at $149/month and starting at $199/month. On both payroll and Advisors the page shows two figures without saying which is which, so confirm the one that applies to your country before you commit to either.
4. Billing term, and the fact that the two offers cannot be combined. Pro is $19 USD/month or $190 USD/year and the page advertises savings of $50 and $38 on the annual term. The promotional $9.50 USD/month rate is only available on a monthly subscription for new Pro subscribers buying through Wave's website, so you choose between the annual saving and the promotional quarter rather than stacking them.

What costs extra

• Online payments, an opt-in add-on applied to whichever plan you hold: credit card 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction on Starter and 2.9% + $0 on Pro, Amex 3.4% + $0.60 on Starter and 3.4% + $0 on Pro, with the Pro rate limited to the first ten cumulative transactions each monthly period.
• Digital receipt capture: $11/month or $96/year on Starter, $8/month or $72/year on Pro.
• Run payroll: an add-on listed from $25/month and from $40/month, with the page not stating which figure applies to which case.
• Wave Advisors bookkeeping: starting at $149/month and starting at $199/month, again shown as two figures without a label.
• Approval for online payments is not automatic: Wave states it is subject to eligibility criteria including identity verification and credit review.

Implementation and commercial terms

Wave publishes commercial terms more plainly than most, and what follows is what the page confirms, read on 16 October 2026.

Published price

Yes, for both plans and every add-on

Billing basis

Per business, monthly or annually. Not per user and not per owner

Implementation fee

None published. Advisors includes onboarding when switching from other accounting software

Free trial

None published, because Starter is $0 and open-ended

Cancellation

Any time, taking effect at the end of the billing period in which you cancel

Security

Connections protected by 256-bit SSL encryption. Wave states it is a PCI-DSS Level 1 Service Provider

Support hours

Live chat and email Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 4:45 PM Eastern

For a one-person business, budget Wave at nothing and spend the decision on payments instead: 2.9% + $0.60 per card transaction is the whole cost of the Starter plan, and if clients pay by bank transfer it is less again. For anyone considering Pro, price it on the bookkeeping automation and the user roles, not on the card rate, because the footnote caps the rate benefit at ten transactions a month. And if you run more than one business, multiply the $19 USD/month by the number of business profiles you intend to subscribe, because Wave will.

Source: the Wave pricing page, checked 16 October 2026. Confirm current prices with the vendor before you budget.

What Wave gives up

How Wave compares

The invoicing end of small-business accounting is unusually transparent: all four of these publish rate cards. What differs is where the ceiling sits and what it costs to get paid. Every figure comes from that vendor's own pricing page, checked on 16 October 2026, and where a figure is promotional the standing rate is given instead.

What to test on the free Wave plan

There is no free trial because there is no need for one: Starter is $0 and open-ended, so you can run the real thing on real invoices for as long as you like and only decide about Pro afterwards. Five things are worth settling before you subscribe.

1. Connect your actual bank account first, before anything else. Auto-import runs through Plaid and Wave says not all institutions are supported, so this single test decides whether the main reason to pay for Pro applies to you. If your bank does not connect, you have learned the most expensive fact about this product at no cost.
2. Send five real invoices and let clients pay them however they normally would. Then read the fee on each: 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction, or 3.4% + $0.60 on Amex. That number, multiplied out over a quarter, is the actual cost of using Wave on the free plan, and it is almost always larger than the Pro subscription you are considering.
3. Count your monthly card transactions against the Pro footnote. The 2.9% + $0 rate applies to the first ten cumulative transactions in a monthly subscription period. If you routinely take more than ten, work out what you save on ten transactions rather than on all of them, and compare that against $19 USD/month honestly.
4. Set up the automated late payment reminders and watch one fire. Reminders deploy 3, 7 and 14 days after a sent invoice falls due. If chasing payment is the problem you are actually solving, confirm the cadence suits your clients and that the emails read the way you want, since this is the feature most likely to recover real money.
5. Add your accountant and check what they can see. On Starter you can add a payroll manager or a Block Advisors tax pro at no charge, but the admin, editor and viewer roles are Pro features. If you need someone else working in the books under their own login, that control requirement, not the card rate, is probably your reason to subscribe.

Frequently asked questions about Wave