Wave Accounting alternatives
Wave's free Starter plan no longer includes bank auto-import, receipt capture or logins for your accountant — those are Wave Pro, at $19/mo or $190/yr. Six ranked alternatives, free and paid, with prices read from each vendor's own page on September 28, 2026.
The five things a Wave leaver asks. QuickBooks Online is priced on Simple Start and Xero on Growing (Early is $25/mo with a 20-invoice, 5-bill cap). Every price checked September 28, 2026 on the vendor's US pricing page.
| What matters | Beancount.io | Zoho Books | QuickBooks Online | FreshBooks | Xero | GnuCash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free path and first paid plan | Free core; hosted Premium $99.99/yr if you want sync | Free (revenue ≤ $50K/yr); Standard $15/mo billed annually or $20 monthly | $38/mo regular list · $19/mo for the first 3 months · renewal terms not published · 30-day trial | Lite $1/mo for the first year, then $23/mo; Plus $43/mo | $55/mo regular list · $5.50/mo for the first 6 months · offer ends September 30, 2026 | Free, open source |
| Bank import | Free CSV import from any bank; hosted sync optional | Bank feeds from Standard; not on the free plan | Free plan connects 1 bank; paid-plan limits not itemised on the pricing page | Bank connection and reconciliation on paid plans | Reconcile bank transactions on every plan; auto-reconcile from Growing | File import (QIF, OFX, CSV) |
| Accountant & team access | Share the ledger file or give anyone access to the hosted books | Free: 1 user + 1 accountant; Standard: 3 users | Free: 1 user, no accountant; Simple Start: 1 user + 2 accountants | Accountant access from Plus; team members $11/mo each | Unlimited users on every plan | Single-user desktop file |
| Receipt capture | Attach receipt documents to any transaction in the ledger | 50 autoscans a month on the free plan | Not itemised by plan on the pricing page | Receipt scanning from Plus | Smart Document Capture on every plan; expense claims on Established | Link a document to a transaction by hand |
| What you keep if you stop paying | You do — plain-text files on your own disk | Zoho's cloud; CSV export | Intuit's cloud; report and list exports | FreshBooks' cloud; CSV export | Xero's cloud; CSV and report export | You do — a local file you back up yourself |
Ranked for what sends people away from Wave: bank feeds and collaborators behind Pro, card-processing fees, and outgrowing a free tool.
Free core · hosted Premium $99.99/yr
Plain-text double-entry accounting: import any bank's CSV for free, share the books with anyone who can read a file, and never lose a feature to a paywall.
Best for: Wave users who want free bank import and books they keep, and are comfortable with a first hour of setup.
Free (revenue ≤ $50K/yr) · Standard $15/mo billed annually or $20 monthly
The closest free swap: Zoho Books Free keeps an accountant seat and receipt scanning, and paid bank feeds cost less than Wave Pro on annual billing.
Best for: Small businesses under $50K a year in revenue who want a free plan with an accountant login.
$38/mo regular list · $19/mo for the first 3 months · renewal terms not published · 30-day trial
Where a growing business usually ends up: the accountant-standard ledger, with a free plan to start and a paid plan when someone else needs in.
Best for: Businesses that expect to add payroll, staff and an outside accountant within a year or two.
Lite $1/mo for the first year, then $23/mo
Invoicing-first like Wave, with a very cheap first year — but a client cap on the entry plan.
Best for: Freelancers and service businesses who chose Wave for invoicing and bill a handful of clients.
$55/mo regular list · $5.50/mo for the first 6 months · offer ends September 30, 2026
Unlimited users on every plan — the direct answer to Wave's collaborator paywall, if you can live with the Early plan's invoice cap.
Best for: Businesses where a partner, bookkeeper and accountant all need their own login.
Free, open source
Free, open-source desktop double-entry accounting — no subscription, no Pro tier, and no cloud.
Best for: Owners who want free books on their own computer and do not need anyone else to log in.
Zoho Books Free is the closest free swap for a small business: it keeps one accountant seat and 50 receipt scans a month, free while revenue stays at or under $50K a year, though its bank feeds start on the paid Standard plan. If you want free forever with no revenue limit, Beancount's open-source core imports any bank's CSV export at no cost, and GnuCash is free desktop double-entry accounting. Prices checked September 28, 2026.
Wave Pro is $19 a month billed monthly, or $190 a year billed annually, on Wave's US pricing page as of September 28, 2026. The free Starter plan keeps unlimited invoices, estimates, bills and bookkeeping records, but automatic bank import, unlimited receipt capture and admin, editor and viewer users are Pro features. Wave's page still shows a $9.50 promo whose footnote dates it to December 2025 through January 6, 2026, so it is not a current offer.
Zoho Books Free includes one user plus one accountant. QuickBooks Online's Free plan does not include accountant access; its Simple Start plan adds two accountant seats at $38 a month list, with a 50%-off first three months shown on the pricing page. With Beancount or GnuCash the books are a file, so you can hand your accountant a copy without buying a seat.
On the Starter plan Wave charges 2.9% + $0.60 per card payment (3.4% + $0.60 for Amex). On Pro the $0.60 fixed fee is waived for the first ten transactions in each monthly subscription period, after which the Starter rates apply. Wave's pricing page does not publish a bank-payment (ACH) fee. Figures checked September 28, 2026.
The usual signs are that you are keying bank transactions by hand to avoid Pro, that your accountant or a partner needs their own login, or that you need payroll, inventory or multi-currency that Wave does not cover well. Before switching, export your transactions, customer list and reports as CSV and keep them regardless of which tool you choose; a bank's own CSV exports can also be imported into Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Beancount or GnuCash.
Start free with a plain-text ledger — import your bank's CSV, share it with your accountant, and add hosted sync only if you want it.
