How much does Wave cost?

Wave publishes 3 tiers, from Free for Accounting up to On request for Payments. The entry tier costs nothing.

What is the difference between Accounting and Payroll on Wave?

Payroll costs $35/month against Free, and adds $35/month base + $6/employee, tax calculations, direct deposit, tax filing (select states).

Is the Payments plan on Wave worth it?

That depends entirely on whether you need what it adds, which on the published record is 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction, credit card processing, bank payments (1%), recurring billing. It costs On request against $35/month for Payroll. Softwr has not used either tier, so this page can tell you what changes, not whether it is worth the difference to you.

Which freelancers tools can I use without paying?

1 of the 5 freelancers tools listed alongside Wave have a free tier: Hiveage.

What am I actually paying for with Wave?

The record lists 21 features across 6 areas: core, integrations, security, deployment, platform, localization. In practice it is brought in for invoicing and bookkeeping for very small businesses and freelancers, accepting card payments against issued invoices.

Does Wave charge per user?

The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 3 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.

Are these Wave prices current?

They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.

What should I compare Wave against before paying?

The closest freelancers tools in this directory are Bonsai, Freelancer.com, Guru, Hiveage. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Wave covering price, platforms and features.

Freelancers · pricing

Wave pricing

Wave publishes 3 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.

Entry price: Free
Model: Freemium
Tiers: 3
Free tier: Yes

Wave plans, side by side

Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.

Wave pricing tiers
Plan	Price	Features listed	Step up from the tier below
Accounting	Free	5	Entry tier
Payroll	$35/month	4	+$35/month, 4 more features
Payments	On request	4	Priced on request

What each tier adds

The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.

Accounting

Free

The entry tier. It covers unlimited invoicing, expense tracking, financial reports, receipt scanning, bank connections.

Payroll

$35/month

Over Accounting, this tier adds:

$35/month base + $6/employee
Tax calculations
Direct deposit
Tax filing (select states)

Payments

On request

Over Payroll, this tier adds:

2.9% + $0.60 per transaction
Credit card processing
Bank payments (1%)
Recurring billing

Where Wave stops being free

Accounting, Free

Unlimited invoicing
Expense tracking
Financial reports
Receipt scanning
Bank connections

Payroll, $35/month

The first thing you pay for:

$35/month base + $6/employee
Tax calculations
Direct deposit
Tax filing (select states)

What the product covers

The full Wave feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.

Core

Double-entry accounting
Invoicing
Expense tracking
Financial reporting
Bank reconciliation
Receipt scanning
Multi-currency
Sales tax tracking

Integrations

PayPal
Stripe
Etsy
Shoeboxed

Security

PCI compliant
256-bit encryption
2FA

Deployment

Cloud deployment

Platform

Web support
Ios support
Android support

Localization

English language support
Spanish language support

People bring Wave in for invoicing and bookkeeping for very small businesses and freelancers, accepting card payments against issued invoices. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Wave are worth a look before you commit to a tier.

How that compares in Freelancers

Too few freelancers tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.

Wave entry price against other Freelancers tools
Tool	Entry price	Model	Rated	Head to head
Wave (this page)	Free	freemium	-
Bonsai	On request	subscription	-	vs Wave
Freelancer.com	On request	subscription	-	vs Wave
Guru	On request	subscription	-	vs Wave
Hiveage	Free	freemium	-	vs Wave
Plutio	On request	subscription	-	vs Wave

Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Wave badges page.

Before you pay for Wave

Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.

What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 3 tiers between Free and On request, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.

Wave runs on web, ios, android, and is published by Wave Financial Inc of Toronto, Canada. The full record is on the Wave review, and the rest of the category is under best freelancers tools.

Wave pricing on the vendor's own site

Wave pricing questions

How much does Wave cost?: Wave publishes 3 tiers, from Free for Accounting up to On request for Payments. The entry tier costs nothing.
Does Wave have a free plan?: Yes. The Accounting tier costs nothing and covers unlimited invoicing, expense tracking, financial reports. Paying starts at $35/month for Payroll.
What is the difference between Accounting and Payroll on Wave?: Payroll costs $35/month against Free, and adds $35/month base + $6/employee, tax calculations, direct deposit, tax filing (select states).
Is the Payments plan on Wave worth it?: That depends entirely on whether you need what it adds, which on the published record is 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction, credit card processing, bank payments (1%), recurring billing. It costs On request against $35/month for Payroll. Softwr has not used either tier, so this page can tell you what changes, not whether it is worth the difference to you.
Which freelancers tools can I use without paying?: 1 of the 5 freelancers tools listed alongside Wave have a free tier: Hiveage.
What am I actually paying for with Wave?: The record lists 21 features across 6 areas: core, integrations, security, deployment, platform, localization. In practice it is brought in for invoicing and bookkeeping for very small businesses and freelancers, accepting card payments against issued invoices.
Does Wave charge per user?: The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 3 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
Are these Wave prices current?: They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
What should I compare Wave against before paying?: The closest freelancers tools in this directory are Bonsai, Freelancer.com, Guru, Hiveage. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Wave covering price, platforms and features.