Wave kept its free plan in 2026 and moved the useful parts out of it. If you are now looking at a Wave bill, here is what that money is actually buying.
Try Kantivo FreeWave used to be a single answer — free bookkeeping, free invoicing, real double-entry, nothing to pay. The free plan is still there, and it is still genuinely free. What changed is what lives inside it. On 1 June 2026, after notifying existing free users at the end of April, Wave shifted three capabilities onto its paid Pro plan:
Pro is $19 a month, or $190 if you pay for the year. The part worth reading twice: that price covers a single business profile. Wave will happily hold fifteen businesses in one free account — but Pro is bought one business at a time, so three sets of books on Pro means three subscriptions.
That is not a criticism of Wave. Bank connections cost money to run and free plans eventually reflect that. It does mean the comparison you should be making has changed.
With one company and one person, Wave Pro undercuts us. We would rather tell you that than have you work it out after paying. Add a second company and the per-business billing changes the answer:
| Sets of books | Wave Pro | Kantivo |
|---|---|---|
| One | $190 yearly ($228 if paid monthly) | $299 — Basic |
| Two | $380 yearly ($456 monthly) | $299 — both included in Basic |
| Three to five | $570–$950 yearly | $540 — Professional covers five |
All of this is published on Wave's own pricing page. We list it because "free software" tends to be remembered without it:
| Feature | Kantivo | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP & IFRS Double-Entry | ✓ Both Standards | ⚠ Basic |
| Basic Accounting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Expense Tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Financial Reports | ✓ | ✓ |
| Desktop App (Local Data) | ✓ | ✗ (Cloud only) |
| Where the books are stored | ✓ On your own hardware | ⚠ On Wave's servers |
| Adding a second person | ⚠ One seat included, $120/yr per extra An outside accountant connects at no charge and uses no seat |
⚠ Requires Pro since 1 June 2026 |
| Multi-Currency | ✓ (15+ currencies) | ⚠ (Limited) |
| Multi-Company | ✓ 2 on Basic, 5 on Professional | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | ✓ (Pro+) | ✗ |
| Inventory Management | ✓ (every plan) | ✗ |
| Bank Reconciliation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automatic Bank Feeds | ✓ Two networks, included on every plan | ⚠ Pro only since 1 June 2026 |
| Payroll | ✗ Not offered | ✓ $40/mo + $6 per person, 50-state filing |
| iOS & Android apps | ✗ Desktop, with remote access | ✓ |
| A price you can budget against | ✓ Locked for 12 years | ✗ Free-plan features repriced in 2026 |
| Self-Learning AI Assistant | ✓ Community-powered | ✗ Support chatbot only |
One business, working on your own, happy to import bank transactions by hand? Wave Starter costs nothing and we cannot beat nothing. It is real double-entry bookkeeping with unlimited invoicing at $0, and telling you to pay $299 instead would be us selling rather than helping. Stay on it. If the day comes when the manual import stops being worth the hour it takes, come back and look at us then.
Wave Pro is priced per business, so two is $380 a year and it keeps climbing. Kantivo Basic covers two companies for $299 and Professional covers five for $540 — adding the fifth company does not change the invoice.
If you were on Wave's free plan before June 2026, the automatic feed you were used to now sits behind $190 a year. If you are going to pay for a bank feed anyway, it is worth seeing what else the money could cover.
Stock on hand, billable time, foreign currency, depreciation schedules, revenue recognition, a GAAP or IFRS presentation switch, and reporting dimensions you define yourself. Wave does bookkeeping well and stops there.
Kantivo installs locally and stores everything in a PostgreSQL database you control. It runs with the internet switched off, and nobody can restructure your plan halfway through the year.
Wave's free tier remains one of the best deals in small-business software for a sole trader who does their own data entry. The 2026 change is that the features most people meant when they said "I use Wave" — the bank feed, a second user, receipt capture — now cost $190 a year, per business.
Once that is true, the decision stops being free versus paid. It becomes a cloud plan billed for each company you own, against a desktop licence that covers two companies for $299, keeps your data on hardware you control, and holds its price for twelve years.
Thirty days free, no card required. Two companies, bank feeds on every plan, your books on your own computer.