The short answer: FreshBooks is an invoicing tool that grew a ledger and charges by the client; Wave is a free ledger that charges you to stop typing. FreshBooks Lite caps you at five billable clients and every extra team member costs 11 dollars a month. Wave's Starter plan costs nothing for unlimited invoices, bills and records, but automatic bank import, receipt capture and extra users live in the 19-dollar Pro plan. This post sets out what each vendor publishes, with prices as of September 2026, the 24-month math for three typical US businesses, and the four signs you should skip both and go to QuickBooks.
FreshBooks started as invoicing for freelancers and still prices that way. Its pricing page, read September 2026, lists four plans: Lite at 23 dollars a month for up to 5 billable clients, Plus at 43 for 50 clients, Premium at 70 for unlimited clients, and Select on custom pricing. Every plan sells team members at 11 dollars a month per user, an Advanced Payments add-on at 20 dollars a month, and payroll at 40 dollars a month plus 6 per person; annual billing takes a further 10 percent off and a 90-percent-off-for-three-months promotion was running on the day we read the page. Plus adds proposals, retainers, receipt scanning and accountant access; Premium adds accounts payable, project profitability and custom email templates; Select adds lower card fees, unbranded invoices and two team members at no charge.
Wave, a Canadian company owned by H&R Block and sold in the United States and Canada, lists two plans on its pricing page. Starter, at no charge, gives unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, the mobile app and the reports. Pro, at 19 dollars a month or 190 a year per business, adds automatic bank import and categorization, unlimited receipt capture, invoice branding without the Wave footer, automated late-payment reminders, admin and editor users, and live chat support. Card processing is 2.9 percent plus 60 cents on both plans, with Pro waiving the 60 cents on the first ten transactions a month; payroll is from 25 or 40 dollars a month by state. The Pro fee is per business.
| What you need | FreshBooks Lite / Plus / Premium | Wave Starter / Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly list price, one business | $23 / $43 / $70 (10% off annual) | $0 / $19 (or $190 a year) |
| Client limit | 5 / 50 / unlimited billable clients | Unlimited on both |
| Extra users | $11 a month per team member on every plan | Payroll manager and tax pro free; admin, editor, viewer on Pro |
| Automatic bank feed | All plans (expense tracking) | Pro only, via Plaid |
| Receipt capture | Plus and above; bill line items on Premium | $11 a month add-on on Starter; included on Pro |
| Accountant access | Plus and above | Both plans |
| Accounts payable (bills) | Premium and Select | Both plans |
| Proposals, retainers, project profitability | Proposals and retainers from Plus; profitability on Premium | Estimates with deposits; no retainers or project profitability listed |
| Card processing | Cards, ACH, Apple and Google Pay; lower fees on Select | 2.9% + $0.60; Pro waives the $0.60 on the first 10 a month |
| Payroll | $40 a month plus $6 per person | From $25 or $40 a month by state |
| Inventory, classes, locations | Not listed | Not listed |
Sources: freshbooks.com/pricing and waveapps.com/pricing, both read September 2026. Both vendors reserve the right to change pricing and both were running introductory promotions on the day we read them; the figures above are the regular list prices. Re-verify before you sign.
FreshBooks' limit is clients. Five billable clients on Lite is a part-time consultant; a designer with a dozen active accounts is on Plus at 43 dollars from day one, and the moment a second person needs to log time or send an invoice the bill goes up by 11 dollars a month per head. A three-person studio on Plus with two extra users pays 65 dollars a month, and at that point the comparison most FreshBooks customers eventually run is against QuickBooks Online, whose Essentials plan includes three users and Plus five without a per-seat fee.
Wave's limit is labour. On Starter every bank transaction is typed in or entered from a statement, because automatic import is a Pro feature, and only the owner and a payroll manager or tax pro can log in. For a freelancer with thirty transactions a month that is an hour on a Sunday; for a landscaping crew with three hundred it is a backlog by March, which is how most Wave Starter files arrive with us. Pro fixes both, and at that point Wave is a cheaper FreshBooks Plus with unlimited clients and no per-user fee; FreshBooks' remaining edge is proposals, retainers, time tracking and project profitability.
Use list prices and your own counts. A solo consultant with four clients who is willing to upload bank statements pays Wave nothing for two years and FreshBooks Lite 552 dollars; if the consultant wants the bank to do the typing, Wave Pro is 456 dollars, still 96 dollars less than FreshBooks' cheapest plan. A two-person creative studio with twenty clients pays FreshBooks Plus plus one team member 1,296 dollars over 24 months, or Wave Pro 456 dollars; the 840-dollar difference buys FreshBooks' proposals, retainers and time-to-invoice workflow, which a studio that bills by the hour may reasonably want. A five-person contractor with sixty clients, four users and payroll pays FreshBooks Premium plus three team members and payroll about 4,150 dollars over 24 months, or Wave Pro plus payroll about 1,500; but this business needs job costing and class reporting, which neither lists, so the honest comparison at this size is against QuickBooks Online Plus.
When one of these applies, the move is FreshBooks to QuickBooks or Wave to QuickBooks Online; the comparison pages for that decision are FreshBooks vs QuickBooks and Wave vs QuickBooks. If Xero is on the list, FreshBooks vs Xero and Wave vs Xero complete the set.
Clients, invoices, expenses and payments come out of both as CSV; Wave also exports its full double-entry ledger, which is why a Wave file converts more cleanly than a FreshBooks file never used for bank reconciliation. The FreshBooks trap is that time entries and retainers map to nothing in Wave and to service items in QuickBooks; the Wave trap is card-processor fees, which post per payout and need a clearing account. Either way the first post-cutover reconciliation ties to the legacy closing balance at the cutover date, and how much history to carry sets the price.
The Starter plan is free with no time limit for unlimited invoices, bills and records. It leaves out automatic bank import, receipt capture, unbranded invoices, extra admin or editor users and live chat, which come with Pro at 19 dollars a month or 190 a year per business. Card processing and payroll are paid on both.
The client limit on Lite (5) and Plus (50) counts clients you invoice or log time against; Premium and Select are unlimited. Team members are separate at 11 dollars a month each on every plan, with two included only on Select.
Both produce a profit and loss and a balance sheet. Wave is double-entry from the first transaction; FreshBooks' accounting reports and accountant access start on Plus, with accounts payable on Premium. Neither tracks inventory or cost of goods sold.
Yes. Both export clients, invoices, expenses and payments as CSV, and Wave also exports its full ledger. A managed conversion loads accounts, customers, vendors, invoices and bank transactions and reconciles opening balances to the source; card fees and payroll usually arrive as balances unless you scope the detail.
Outgrown FreshBooks? FreshBooks to QuickBooks conversion sets out the scope and the fixed price. Outgrown Wave? Start with Wave to QuickBooks Online.
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Founder of Numerawise Solutions, established MMXXIV in Atlanta. Intuit ProAdvisor Gold tier. Former Intuit Technical Support engineer. Has personally led two hundred accounting software conversions for US small businesses since founding the practice. Reachable directly at [email protected].