Wave vs QuickBooks Online
Wave or QuickBooks Online? Here is how they compare on price, free plan, platforms and the jobs each does best, from each vendor's own pages.
| Compared on | Visit | Visit |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Free invoicing and double-entry bookkeeping for small businesses, with a $19 Pro plan for bank sync | Intuit's cloud accounting for US small businesses, from a free tier to plans with AI bookkeeping |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $15.83/mo billed annually (Pro)Wave pricing | $38/mo (Simple Start)QuickBooks Online pricing |
| What it covers | Per business; $190 billed yearly. Card fees drop to 2.9% + $0 on the first 10 transactions each month. Canadian price CA$25/month or CA$250/year. | 1 user plus access for 2 accountants. Promotion: 50% off ($19/month) for the first 3 months. No annual contract; the pricing page shows no annual price. |
| Free trial | None stated | 30-day free trial, shown alongside the 50%-off offer on the pricing page |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Web, iOS, Android |
| Integrations (vendor's figure) | Not stated | 800+ integrations |
| Open source | No | No |
| Made by | Wave Financial Inc. | Intuit Inc. |
Choose Wave if…
- Price matters: its cheapest paid plan is $15.83/mo against $38/mo.
- The job is freelancers and sole owners who want free invoicing and bookkeeping.
- The job is small businesses in the US or Canada that invoice often on a small budget.
Choose QuickBooks Online if…
- The job is US small businesses that want accounting, invoicing and payroll from one vendor.
- The job is sole owners starting on a free plan with a few invoices a month.
Still weighing it up?
If neither is quite right, Wave and QuickBooks Online are also compared with their other rivals: QuickBooks Online vs Xero, QuickBooks Online vs FreshBooks and Zoho Books vs QuickBooks Online.
What Wave does
- Unlimited invoices, estimates and bills on the free plan, with deposits on estimates
- Online payments by credit card, bank transfer and Apple Pay
- Double-entry accounting with profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow reports
- Automatic bank imports through Plaid with auto-merge and categorisation (Pro)
- Receipt capture by mobile app, desktop or email, turned into bookkeeping records by OCR
- Automated late-payment reminders 3, 7 and 14 days after the due date (Pro)
Watch out for
- Automatic bank imports and transaction categorisation need the Pro plan
- Receipt capture costs $8 a month on the free plan
- Its pages do not describe AI features, multi-currency or inventory tracking
What QuickBooks Online does
- Bank and credit card feeds that sync transactions and learn how you categorise them
- Invoices that customers pay by card or bank transfer through QuickBooks Payments, with status updates and reminders
- Bill pay by ACH, with 1099 e-filing and approval workflows on Advanced (Bill Pay Elite)
- Receipt photos matched to expenses and mileage tracking in the mobile app
- Intuit Intelligence AI by plan: Accounting AI, Payments AI, Business Tax AI, Sales Tax AI, Customer AI, Finance AI and Project Management AI
- AI Chat for questions about your business (beta, limited capacity) from Simple Start
Watch out for
- Free plan: 1 user, 2 invoices a month unless QuickBooks Payments is enabled, 1 bank connection, no mobile app or third-party integrations
- User caps: 1 on Simple Start, 3 on Essentials, 5 on Plus, 25 on Advanced
- Inventory, budgets and project profitability need Plus ($140/mo); workflow automation and custom permissions need Advanced ($340/mo)
Questions
Is Wave or QuickBooks Online cheaper?
On published entry prices, Wave is cheaper: $15.83/mo billed annually (Pro) for Wave against $38/mo (Simple Start) for QuickBooks Online. What each plan includes differs, so compare the limits too.
Do Wave and QuickBooks Online have free plans?
Both do. Wave: Starter: unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records; mobile invoicing; optional online payments at 2.9% + $0.60 per card transaction (3.4% + $0.60 for Amex). No automatic bank import or auto-categorisation; receipt capture is an $8/month add-on; collaborators limited to payroll manager or Block Advisors tax pro access. QuickBooks Online: 1 user, no accountant access, up to 2 invoices a month (unlimited if you qualify for and enable QuickBooks Payments), the top 3 reports (profit and loss, balance sheet, account quick report), 1 bank connection, chat support. No credit card required. Mobile app access and third-party integrations are not available on Free.