Wave Pricing
- Finance pricing
- $19/mo at the smallest
- Free plan
Wave pricing starts at $19 a month, which is $228 over twelve months. There is a free plan.
Opens the vendor's own pricing page. Figures here were read from it on 19 August 2026.
Wave pricing at a glance
| Entry price | Starter free; Pro $19/month or $190/year |
|---|---|
| Smallest invoice | $19 a month, or $228 a year |
| How that is reached | Pro at $19 a month |
| Seat minimum | None on the entry plan |
| Free plan | Yes |
| Free trial | No trial offered |
| How it charges | freemium |
| Prices read from | The vendor's own pricing page |
| Last checked | 19 August 2026 |
Every Wave plan and what it costs
Read from the vendor's own pricing page on 19 August 2026. Charged as freemium. No free trial is offered.
| Plan | Price | Billing | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $0 | per month | Unlimited users - Unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, and unlimited receipt capture. Card payments are 2.9% + $0.60 a transaction, or 3.4% + $0.60 for Amex |
| Pro | $19 | per month | Unlimited users - $190 a year. Waives the fixed part of the card fee, so cards are 2.9% + $0 and Amex 3.4% + $0 |
| Payroll (US) Add-on | $40 | per month | USD base fee plus $6 per active employee and $6 per contractor paid |
| Payroll (Canada) Add-on | $25 | per month | CAD base fee plus $6 per active employee and $6 per contractor paid |
| Wave Advisors Add-on | From $149 | per month | Bookkeeping done for you by Wave's in-house experts, starting at $149 a month in the US and $199 CAD in Canada. Mobile receipts are not included |
What Wave costs beyond the advertised price
Each of these is a figure you can check on the vendor's own page. The arithmetic is shown so you can redo it rather than take our word for it.
- Charged on top of a plan$1,788 a year
Wave Advisors is charged on top of a plan rather than instead of one: $149 a month, which is $1,788 a year on top of whichever tier you hold.
Working$149 a month x 12 = $1,788 a year, added to a tier price rather than replacing it.
Computed from the plan table on Wave pricing , read 19 August 2026
- Charged on top of a plan$480 a year
Payroll (US) is charged on top of a plan rather than instead of one: $40 a month, which is $480 a year on top of whichever tier you hold.
Working$40 a month x 12 = $480 a year, added to a tier price rather than replacing it.
Computed from the plan table on Wave pricing , read 19 August 2026
Fixed mechanics above add $2,268 a year to the advertised price. Usage-dependent charges are listed but not summed, because a figure that depends on how much you use cannot be added to one that does not.
What Wave actually costs over a year
A monthly price is not the same thing as a monthly contract. These are the plans above resolved both ways, per seat or unit where the plan is charged that way. Where a vendor quotes only a yearly figure it is divided by twelve rather than left out, and the Quoted column says which figure the vendor actually publishes.
| Plan | Quoted | Monthly | Over 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| ProUnlimited users | per month | $19 | $228 |
| Payroll (US) add-on | per month | $40 | $480 |
| Payroll (Canada) add-on | per month | $25 | $300 |
| Wave Advisors add-on | per month | $149 | $1,788 |
Cancelling Wave, and getting money back
Read from the published Wave terms on 18 September 2026. These are the terms, not legal advice: consumer law where you live may give you rights the terms do not mention.
| When you cancel | Pro or Receipts Plan features stay available to the end of the initial subscription period. A subscription that does not auto-renew needs no action at all. |
|---|---|
| Changing mid-term | Refunds fall under Wave's paid subscription terms, and one bought on the web has to be requested through the support chatbot rather than cancelled out of the billing page. |
Wave support, cancel a Pro or Receipts Plan subscription ↗ · read 18 September 2026
Wave pricing against its competitors
Compared on the smallest invoice each vendor will accept, not on the advertised per-seat rate. Where a product has a seat minimum, the figure below is the minimum times the rate, because that is the cheque you would actually write.
| Product | Cheapest paid entry | Free plan | Against Wave |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wave | $19 a month | Yes | This product |
| Xero | $25 a month | No | +$6 a month (+32%) |
| QuickBooks Online | $38 a month | Yes | +$19 a month (+100%) |
Which Wave plan should you buy?
| Your situation | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You are a freelancer invoicing a few clients | Starter | Free, with real double-entry accounting. Card processing at 2.9% + $0.60 is how Wave earns instead. |
| You take many card payments | Pro | $19 a month removes the $0.60 per transaction. At around 60 card payments a month it pays for itself. Count your transactions. |
| You run payroll in the US | Payroll (US) | $40 base plus $6 per active employee and $6 per contractor paid. |
| You run payroll in Canada | Payroll (Canada) | $25 CAD base plus the same $6 per person. The difference from the US figure is country, not service level. |
| You want the books kept for you | Wave Advisors | From $149 a month with a dedicated bookkeeper. |
| You are outside the US or Canada | Consider Xero instead | Wave's payments and payroll are US and Canada only. |
Free is real, and processing is where it pays
Starter costs nothing and includes unlimited invoices, estimates, bills and bookkeeping records. Wave makes its money when your customers pay you: 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction, or 3.4% + $0.60 for American Express.
Pro at $19 a month, or $190 a year, mainly buys that $0.60 away. Card processing drops to 2.9% + $0, Amex to 3.4% + $0.
So the upgrade is arithmetic, not features. If you take 60 card payments a month, the $0.60 fee costs $36 and Pro pays for itself. If you take five, it does not. Count your transactions before subscribing.
Payroll pricing depends on which country, not which plan
This one is easy to get wrong, because the pricing table shows two figures side by side:
- $40 USD base fee per month in the United States
- $25 CAD base fee per month in Canada
Both then add $6 per active employee and $6 per independent contractor paid. The difference is currency and country, not a service tier, and the per-person fees are where the real cost sits: ten employees is $60 a month on top of the base.
The add-ons are priced by plan
Receipt capture with OCR is an add-on, and it is cheaper if you already pay for Pro: $11 a month or $96 a year on Starter, $8 a month or $72 a year on Pro. Wave Advisors, which is outsourced bookkeeping with a dedicated bookkeeper, starts at $149 a month.
The two real limits
Geography. Wave Payments and Payroll work in the United States and Canada. If you invoice from elsewhere, the free accounting still functions but the parts that make it convenient do not, and Xero or a local product will serve you better.
Headroom. There is no inventory management, no project or job costing, and no public API. That is a deliberate scope decision rather than an oversight, and it means a business that adds stock, staff and systems eventually moves to QuickBooks Online or Xero. Migrating accounting data mid-life is unpleasant, so if you can already see that growth coming, it is worth weighing against a year or two of saved subscription fees.
Wave questions, answered
- Does Wave have a free plan or free trial?
- Wave has a free plan. No free trial is offered.
- Can I self-host Wave?
- No. Wave is a hosted service only, so your data lives on the vendor's infrastructure.
Opens the vendor's own pricing page. Figures here were read from it on 19 August 2026.
What this profile is based on
Nobody here has used Wave. This profile is desk research: prices read from the pages cited below, on the dates shown , from 2 primary sources , with 2 captures taken by us . How we research a profile.
Desk research from Wave's own pricing and payroll pages, read on 19 August 2026 through a United States egress. Nobody here has kept books in Wave or run a payroll through it. The geographic limitation - that payments and payroll serve the US and Canada only - is the fact that decides whether any of the rest applies to you.
Where Wave appears on this site
- Another profile Akaunting names it as a competitor
- Another profile Zoho Books names it as a competitor
Counts pages on this site that name the product by choice - price guides, pricing question pages, deal records and other profiles. Category and directory indexes list everything automatically and are not counted.
Provenance and freshness
Individually sourced claims
-
Starter is free with unlimited estimates, invoices, bills, bookkeeping records and receipt capture, and unlimited users
Wave pricing ↗ · checked
-
Pro is $19 a month or $190 a year, and removes the fixed part of the card fee, taking cards from 2.9% + $0.60 to 2.9% + $0
Wave pricing ↗ · checked
-
Wave Payroll is $40 a month plus $6 per active employee and $6 per contractor paid, with tax service now available in all 50 US states
Wave Payroll ↗ · checked
-
Wave Advisors starts at $149 a month in the US and $199 CAD in Canada
Wave pricing ↗ · checked
What has changed
-
August 2026
- Removed the separate receipt-capture charge, which the pricing page no longer carries - unlimited receipt capture is now listed on both Starter and Pro
- Classified Wave Advisors as an add-on rather than a tier, which it never was
- Recorded that Wave Payroll's tax service now covers all 50 US states at one price
- Re-read the card fees, unchanged at 2.9% + $0.60 on Starter and 2.9% + $0 on Pro
-
August 2026
- Payroll pricing verified as a country difference, not a service tier
- Added plan picker and verdicts
Sources & verification
Facts on this page were read from the sources below on the dates shown. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, we record it as not disclosed rather than estimating it.
- Wave pricing - checked 19 August 2026
- Wave Payroll pricing - checked 19 August 2026
Spotted something out of date? Email contact@everyany.one and we will re-check it. Corrections are logged on the page.