FreshBooks vs Wave: which should a solo freelancer actually use?
FreshBooks and Wave solve the same problem — send an invoice, get paid, keep the records straight — from opposite ends of the price spectrum. Wave's invoicing and accounting are free; you pay only when a client pays you by card or bank transfer. FreshBooks charges a monthly fee from day one, starting with Lite at $23 a month, and in return gives you a deeper invoicing tool: built-in time tracking, automatic payment reminders, and client records that hold up as your roster grows.
Who is each one for? Wave is built for a freelancer in the US or Canada who sends a handful of invoices a month, works with a small number of clients at a time, and would rather pay a percentage on money coming in than a fixed fee on money that might not. FreshBooks is built for a freelancer whose billing is getting complicated — several active clients, hours that need tracking against projects, recurring invoices — and who can justify $23 a month because the admin it removes is worth more than that.
The honest complication: on the card fee itself, there is almost nothing between them. The decision is really about the client cap, time tracking, and where you live. The maths below shows why.
How we tested
We created a fresh account on each platform in November 2026 and ran the same solo-freelancer scenario through both: signup and business setup, adding a first client, creating and sending a first invoice for $2,000, and checking the payment settings a client would see. We did the fee maths on that $2,000 invoice using each platform's published card rate, and we used both mobile apps to create a test invoice from a phone. Prices and fees were re-checked against the published pricing pages in November 2026; both products change terms from time to time, so confirm the current rate before you commit.
Our verdict
Wave is the right default for most beginners. If you are in the US or Canada, bill a few clients, and do not track time inside your invoicing tool, paying $0 a month and the same card fee everyone else charges is hard to argue with. Choose FreshBooks once you regularly bill 5 or more clients, or you need time tracking tied to your invoices — that is the point where Lite's $23 a month buys you something Wave structurally cannot do, and where Wave's limits start costing you more time than FreshBooks costs money.
The fee maths on a $2,000 invoice
Here is the scenario that settles most of the argument: a client pays a single $2,000 invoice by card. Both platforms charge card processing at 2.9% + $0.60 per payment, via their payment partners — checked November 2026. So the card fee is identical: $58.60 either way. What differs is the monthly fee sitting underneath it.
| On a $2,000 invoice paid by card | FreshBooks Lite | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| Plan price | $23 / month | $0 (free plan) |
| Card processing (2.9% + $0.60) | $58.60 | $58.60 |
| You keep from this invoice, before any monthly fee | $1,941.40 | $1,941.40 |
| You keep if this is your only invoice that month | $1,918.40 (after the $23 fee) | $1,941.40 |
| Time tracking built in | Yes | No |
| Client limit | 5 billable clients on Lite | No client cap |
| Payments available | Most major markets | US and Canada only |
Read the table the right way round: Wave does not win because its card fee is lower — it is not. Wave wins the months when you bill little, because $0 beats $23 when there is barely any revenue to spread it across. FreshBooks' fee starts to look reasonable the moment the alternative is your own unpaid admin time: at a $50 hourly rate, Lite pays for itself if it saves you roughly half an hour a month, which built-in time tracking and automatic late-payment reminders plausibly do once you have several clients on the go.
Two limits matter more than any feature list. FreshBooks Lite caps you at 5 billable clients — the sixth active client means upgrading to a higher tier, so count clients, not invoices, before you subscribe. And Wave Payments only works in the US and Canada: if you or your clients are elsewhere, Wave can still send invoices, but it cannot take the payment, which removes most of the point.
Scores from our tests
Scores are out of 10, from the scenario in our test method above. The overall scores match the ones published on our homepage.
| Category | FreshBooks | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | 8.6 | 9.2 |
| Invoicing depth | 8.8 | 8.4 |
| Time tracking | 8.7 | 4.5 |
| Cost for a solo freelancer | 6.9 | 9.8 |
| Support | 7.5 | 7.6 |
| Overall | 8.1 | 7.9 |
Two scores need a word of explanation. Wave's time-tracking score is low because there is no timer to score: you can type hours onto an invoice line by hand, which works, but nothing tracks them for you. And FreshBooks' cost score is its weakest because $23 a month is real money at the start — it is buying depth Wave does not offer, but you pay it in months when you bill nothing, too. Wave's near-perfect cost score is the mirror image: free software with the standard card fee is, on price alone, unbeatable.
Which one fits you?
Pick FreshBooks if…
- You bill 5 or more clients in a typical month, or expect to soon
- You charge by the hour and want the timer inside your invoicing tool
- You send recurring invoices and want late payments chased automatically
- You or your clients are outside the US and Canada
- $23 a month is less than the admin time it replaces — for you, it is
Pick Wave if…
- You are just starting out and invoices are still occasional
- You are based in the US or Canada and your clients pay by card or bank transfer
- You track time somewhere else — or do not track it at all
- You would rather pay a fee only when money actually comes in
- You want basic accounting and invoicing in one free account
The honest limits
Wave's limits are structural. There is no time tracking at any price, payments are US and Canada only, and the product develops slowly — features freelancers ask for, like deeper project costing, have been "coming" for a long time. Support on a free product is also what you would expect: documentation and community first, a human later. If your practice grows into multi-currency billing or a bookkeeper who wants richer reports, you will outgrow it and face a migration.
FreshBooks' limits are commercial. The 5-client Lite cap is the sharpest: it counts billable clients, so a freelancer with six small clients pays for a higher tier (Plus, $43 a month when we checked) while a freelancer with two large ones stays on Lite. Extra team members cost extra, some advanced features sit in higher tiers, and the monthly fee runs through quiet months and holidays alike. Neither product handled our test invoice badly — the limits that bite are the ones in this paragraph and the fee table, not the invoicing itself.
One more option worth naming, because it is ours and it is free: if you send fewer than five invoices a month and do not need the accounting behind them, you may not need either product yet. Our free invoice generator builds a clean invoice in your browser with nothing uploaded and no account — and when the volume grows past that, this comparison is the right next step.
Questions
Related: do the maths before you subscribe
Two free WorkKitly tools pair with this comparison. Work out the rate your invoices need to carry with the freelance hourly rate calculator — it includes taxes, expenses and non-billable time, the things a $23 subscription has to fit inside. And if you are not ready for either platform, the free invoice generator produces the invoice itself in your browser: no sign-up, no watermark, nothing uploaded.