Wave Accounting suits a micro client in the US or Canada whose books are simple enough that free is genuinely free: a few invoices a month, one bank account, no payroll. QuickBooks Online suits everything past that, and every client outside those two countries. The concrete difference a practice should look at first is not the feature list; it is what each vendor's free plan actually allows.
Wave's Starter plan carries unlimited estimates, invoices, bills, and bookkeeping records at no cost. Intuit's Free plan, as listed on its US pricing page on 18 August 2026, allows one user, two invoices a month, one connected bank, and states in the plan card that it has no accountant access. One is a working ledger a firm can review; the other is a way in. That single line decides most of this comparison.
The short answer
- Solo bookkeeper with a handful of freelance clients in the US or Canada: Wave. Free double-entry books, unlimited invoices, and the firm can be granted access to the account.
- Client that will hire someone this year: QuickBooks Online, or Wave with its payroll add-on if the client is in the US or a Canadian province other than Quebec. Wave's payroll page limits Canadian coverage to all provinces and territories except Quebec.
- Any client outside the US and Canada: QuickBooks Online. Wave's coverage in our record is the US and Canada only.
- Practice that wants one dashboard across the whole client book: QuickBooks Online. Wave has no equivalent multi-client practice layer.
- Client counting pennies but already sending more than two invoices a month: Wave, not Intuit's free plan. The Intuit free tier's invoice cap and lack of accountant access make it unusable as a managed client file.
What differs for a practice
The access model is where the two part company. Wave's pricing page describes granting trusted individuals such as partners, collaborators, or accountants access to a Wave account, with two roles free (payroll manager and Block Advisors tax pro) and the admin, editor, and viewer roles requiring the Pro plan. So a firm doing review work rather than payroll or tax filing generally needs the client on Pro at $19 a month for the access level it wants. That is still cheap, but it is not zero.
Intuit's model is the reverse: accountant access is a paid-tier feature, and once the client pays, it is generous. Its US pricing page lists access for two accountants on Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus, and three on Advanced. The Free plan has none.
Above the client file, Intuit has practice infrastructure that Wave does not attempt. Our record describes QuickBooks Online Accountant as free for accountants, giving a bulk-management layer over client files plus wholesale pricing through the ProAdvisor program. There is a change coming that any QuickBooks firm should have in its diary: Intuit's accountants page says QuickBooks Online Accountant retires on December 31, 2026, with firms moving to Intuit Accountant Suite, and describes an Intuit ProPartner Accountants rewards program as built into that suite. A practice planning its 2027 stack should confirm what its own tier looks like after that date rather than assuming continuity.
Wave has nothing comparable. Our record is direct about it: Wave lacks an accountant program with bulk client management or deep multi-entity reporting, and a firm managing more than a handful of Wave clients spends time on admin that larger platforms automate. For one or two Wave clients sitting alongside a QuickBooks practice, that is fine. As a practice standard, it is not.
Subscription ownership also differs in practice. Wave clients typically hold their own account and add the firm as a user. QuickBooks firms can hold the subscription through the accountant program and rebill, which changes who controls the file if the relationship ends.
AI features, as the vendors describe them
As of August 2026, Intuit's pricing page markets AI as the main reason to move up a tier. It lists Intuit Intelligence across the paid plans, in beta and marked limited capacity in places, covering expense categorization, an AI chat for insights, automated bookkeeping cleanup, AI-powered reconciliation, anomaly detection and resolution, sales tax checks, and a books check-in that runs once a year on Simple Start and Essentials and four times a year on Advanced. Intuit's accountants page adds Intuit Intelligence in beta for firms, described as grounded in the patterns of 8.7 million businesses and 600,000 accounting professionals.
Wave does not market an assistant. Its pricing page describes auto-merge and categorization of imported bank transactions on Pro, and optical character recognition turning uploaded receipts into bookkeeping records. Our record puts it plainly: Wave's automation is rules-based rather than AI-driven.
Reasoning from the two descriptions, the gap only matters at volume. On a client posting a few dozen transactions a month, a rules engine and an AI categorizer produce much the same result and both need a human review. On a client posting several hundred, Intuit's anomaly detection and reconciliation features are doing work a firm would otherwise bill for. Volume, not the AI itself, is the trigger to move a client.
Pricing side by side
| Wave Accounting | QuickBooks Online |
|---|
| Entry price | $0 a month (Starter), permanently free | $0 a month (Free plan), with a $38 a month paid entry at Simple Start |
| Top published tier | $19 a month (Pro), or $190 a year | $340 a month (Advanced), per Intuit's US pricing page |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly, with a 90% off first three months promotion running at time of writing |
| Free trial | Not on accounting. Payroll carries a 30-day trial | Yes, 30 days, as an alternative to the promotional discount |
| Free tier | Yes. Unlimited invoices, bills, and bookkeeping records | Yes, but capped at two invoices a month, one bank connection, one user |
| User limits | Additional users depend on plan role permissions | 1 user on Simple Start, 3 on Essentials, 5 on Plus, 25 on Advanced |
| Accountant access | Payroll manager and Block Advisors tax pro roles free; admin, editor, and viewer roles on Pro | None on Free. Two accountants on Simple Start through Plus, three on Advanced |
| Price disclosure | Published | Published |
Prices checked against vendor pages on 18 August 2026. Per-tier detail sits on our Wave pricing page and QuickBooks Online pricing page.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Wave Accounting | QuickBooks Online |
|---|
| Double-entry bookkeeping | Yes, on the free plan | Yes |
| Bank feeds | Auto-import on Pro, via Plaid | Yes on paid plans; one bank connection on Free |
| Receipt capture | Included on Pro, a paid add-on on Starter | Yes on paid plans |
| Multi-currency | Not stated | Essentials and above |
| Inventory | Not stated | Plus and above |
| Projects and classes | Not stated | Project profitability, classes, and locations on Plus and above |
| Payroll | Add-on. US $40 a month base plus $6 per employee and $6 per contractor; Canada $25 CAD base plus $6 each | Paid add-on selected at checkout |
| Card payment fees | 2.9% plus $0.60 per card transaction on Starter; 2.9% plus $0 for the first 10 transactions a month on Pro | Not stated on the plan cards |
| Managed bookkeeping | Wave Advisors from $149 a month | Bookkeeper services offered separately |
| Geographic reach | US and Canada, with payroll excluding Quebec | US, UK, Australia, Canada, and beyond |
| Practice dashboard | No multi-client practice layer | QuickBooks Online Accountant, retiring December 31, 2026 in favor of Intuit Accountant Suite |
Switching between them
The move is nearly always upward, and it is a manual job. Our record describes Wave exporting transaction data, customer and vendor lists, and the chart of accounts as CSV, which QuickBooks Online can import, while bank-feed history, invoice attachments, and reconciliation lock points do not reliably survive. Plan roughly half a day per client for a clean migration, and more if the client has a year or more of messy history.
Three signals say a client has outgrown Wave, and all three are checkable from the vendor pages rather than a hunch. First, the client needs multi-currency or inventory, neither of which Wave's pricing page describes. Second, the client is outside the US or Canada, or is in Quebec and wants payroll. Third, the firm now has enough Wave clients that the missing practice dashboard costs more in admin time than the subscriptions would. Capability details here come from vendor-published pages, compared the same way across every tool in our core ledger and bookkeeping category; the approach is set out in our methodology.
Common questions
Is Wave actually free for a client, or does the firm end up paying?
The bookkeeping is free. What is not free is everything a growing client tends to add: receipt capture is included on Pro but a paid add-on on Starter, payroll starts at $40 a month in the US plus $6 per person, and card payments cost 2.9% plus $0.60 a transaction on Starter. A firm that wants admin, editor, or viewer access to the account also needs the client on the $19 Pro plan. For an invoice-only client, free means free.
Why not just put a micro client on the QuickBooks free plan?
Because a practice cannot work in it. Intuit's Free plan card lists one user, two invoices a month, one bank connection, and no accountant access. A client sending more than two invoices a month has already outgrown it, and a firm cannot be invited in at all. Wave's free plan is the better free plan for anyone who needs an accountant in the file.
When should a client move from Wave to QuickBooks Online?
When the business needs something Wave does not describe: multi-currency, inventory, project tracking, or operating outside the US and Canada. Volume is the softer trigger. Once a client is posting several hundred transactions a month, Intuit's automated reconciliation and anomaly checks start saving more time than the subscription costs, and the firm's review becomes a review rather than data entry.
Can an accountant be added to a Wave account for free?
Partly. Wave's pricing page lists payroll manager and Block Advisors tax pro as free roles, with admin, editor, and viewer roles available on the Pro plan. So an accountant handling payroll or US tax filing can be added at no cost, while a bookkeeper who needs to edit the books generally needs the client on Pro.
What happens to QuickBooks Online Accountant at the end of 2026?
Intuit's accountants page says QuickBooks Online Accountant retires on December 31, 2026, and points firms to Intuit Accountant Suite, describing the move as taking a few clicks with no data migration. Any firm running its client list through the accountant console should confirm what its own access, pricing, and rewards look like after that date rather than assume the current arrangement carries over.
If a client sits right on the line between the two, the CurateSuite matchmaker takes a few questions about size, country, and service needs and returns the ledger tools that fit, and the core ledger and bookkeeping category covers the rest of the field alongside our 2026 roundup of AI tools for accountants.
