Head-to-head comparison
Wave vs QuickBooks Online: the same month of books, side by side
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This site compares software. It does not give tax, legal or accounting advice.
The short answer
Both produced the correct September profit and loss, on cash and on accrual, from the same test month. Both took our bank statement file without a bank login.
Wave was the free one. We ran it on its Starter plan, which has no time limit. Its chart of accounts had ready categories for 9 of our 11 expense types under its own names (we added "Supplies" and used "Computer – Hardware" for equipment), and no personal details were copied into the business profile. The limits showed up around sending: Starter cannot email invoices from Wave and has no reminders, so nothing was sent from Wave in our test. Bank matching was manual.
QuickBooks Online ran in a 30-day free trial. Invoices imported from a file, and it proposed a match for every bank deposit. It also started with almost no expense categories, and one of its suggested matches was the wrong client's invoice.
A free plan and a free trial are not the same thing. Wave's Starter is free with no clock. QuickBooks' trial ends, and then its plans are paid. QuickBooks also advertises a separate free plan, which we did not test.
Task by task
We ran the same made-up month in both tools; the method is at the end of this page. The tasks were not fully comparable: Wave's Starter plan cannot email invoices, so the sending and reminder steps could only be run in QuickBooks.
| Task | Wave (free Starter plan) | QuickBooks Online (30-day trial) |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Set up the business, add 5 clients | Business profile reached from the invoice settings. None of the account owner's personal details were copied in. Customer import needs every one of Wave's column headings, in Wave's order, with no column matching. Our first file was read by position and would have imported the header row as a sixth customer; we caught it on the preview and used a file with all eleven headings. | About 8 onboarding screens, the last with no skip. The company profile was pre-filled with the account owner's real address, email and phone. CSV import matched the columns automatically, with an editable preview. |
| 2. Create 12 invoices | No invoice import. All 12 typed by hand. The first item name we typed was saved as a product, and every later invoice offered it pre-filled with the first invoice's text and price, which we overwrote each time. Saved invoices are drafts until approved. | CSV import of all 12. Our "Net 14" payment term was rejected as "Terms invalid" until we dropped it. Imported invoices are open, not drafts, so they counted as overdue at once. |
| Sending invoices | Not possible on Starter. The Send invoice window offered Copy link, Download PDF, "Launch email" (opens your own email program) and "Mark invoice as sent". Wave advertises sending from Wave as a Pro feature. We cancelled the window; nothing was sent. | Two invoices were emailed to our own address. Emails came from QuickBooks' notification address under the business name. Subject and body were editable on the trial. |
| 3. Record 20 expenses | Done through the bank statement. Wave has 31 expense categories to start with; the names differ from our test files and there was no "Supplies" or "Equipment", so we added "Supplies" and used "Computer – Hardware" for equipment. Per line: click the category, type part of the name, Enter. No vendor needed. All lines were categorized. | No expense import. Expenses come in through the bank statement. The new company had one expense account, "Uncategorized Expense", so we imported the 11 categories first. Each withdrawal then needed a category and a Post click, which sometimes needed a second click. |
| 4. Import the bank statement, match it | CSV upload, no bank login. A bank account had to be added first in the chart of accounts. Wave books every line at once, deposits as "Uncategorized Income", so until they are linked the profit and loss would count deposits as extra income. Automatic bank import is a Pro feature. | CSV upload, no bank login needed. Nothing reaches the books until each line is accepted. |
| The deposits | No match suggestions. For each deposit we picked "Payment Received for an Invoice in Wave" and searched for the invoice number. All 8 were linked this way. Searching an invoice number in the top-level category box found nothing; it only works inside that submenu. | A match was proposed for every deposit. 5 were right and needed one click each. The $150 partial payment was matched to the wrong client's $150 invoice, and the two $1,500 deposits showed 3 matches. "Find other matches" fixed both. |
| 5. Check a partial payment, send a reminder | The $150 partial payment showed correctly ($150 due on INV-1007). No reminder was possible: the invoice menu has no reminder option, and automatic reminders are Pro only. A Starter user would chase a client from their own email. | The partial payment showed correctly. The reminder opens as an AI-written draft (a "Switch to default message" option is there too): our draft had the wrong due date (October 11 instead of October 12), a cut-off subject line and a blank "contact us at". |
| 6. September profit and loss | Cash and accrual both matched the answer key exactly, under one switch. Export: CSV or PDF; the PDF downloads directly. | Cash and accrual both matched the answer key exactly, under one switch. Export: Excel, CSV or PDF. |
What each did better
Wave
- Free, with no time limit. The plan we tested is Starter, and Wave's pricing page lists it at $0.
- Ready-made categories. Every expense in our test had a home, with one category added by us. Nothing ended up uncategorized.
- No personal details copied into the business profile.
- Nothing sent on its own. On the free plan no automatic emails went out.
QuickBooks Online
- Less typing for invoices and clients. Invoices imported from a file, and most columns were matched for us. On the invoice file we picked the customer column by hand.
- Bank matching. A suggested invoice was offered for every deposit, and most needed one click.
- Sending from the tool. Invoices and a reminder could be emailed from QuickBooks, with the business name in the From line.
Where each tripped us up
Wave: customer import by position, safe only if you read the preview; 12 invoices typed by hand with a saved product that re-filled the first invoice's text and price; no way to email an invoice or send a reminder on Starter; fresh bank lines booked as uncategorized income; invoice search that works only inside the payment submenu; a tax-creation window that opened from a stray keystroke.
QuickBooks Online: long onboarding with no skip at the end; personal contact details copied into the company profile; no expense import and almost no expense categories at the start; the wrong-client match suggestion; an AI reminder with a wrong date and a blank contact line.
Price check
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wave Starter | $0 | No time limit (the plan our test ran on). Card payments 2.9% + $0.60 each, per Wave's page |
| Wave Pro | $19 a month, or $190 a year | Adds bank import, automatic late reminders and sending invoices via Wave, per Wave's page |
| QuickBooks Online Simple Start | $38 a month | 1 user (the plan our trial ran on) |
| QuickBooks Online Essentials | $85 a month | |
| QuickBooks Online Plus | $140 a month | |
| QuickBooks Online Advanced | $340 a month |
Prices are the regular prices on each company's own pricing page: both read on October 22, 2026. QuickBooks' page also showed lower introductory prices for the first months; Wave's page showed no current offer. Prices change; check the pricing page before you buy.
QuickBooks also advertises a separate free plan, "$0/mo, no credit card required". We did not test it, so we cannot say how it compares with Wave Starter.
Who should pick which
- You want to pay nothing and can live without emailing invoices from the tool: Wave Starter. You would send invoices and chase payments from your own email, and match deposits by hand. Pro is $19 a month if you want sending, reminders and bank import inside Wave.
- You want the tool to send invoices and suggest bank matches, and you can budget for it: QuickBooks Online. Plan time to build your expense categories, and check every suggested match on partial payments.
- You are comparing free options: Wave Starter is the one we tested. QuickBooks' free plan is advertised but untested by us, so read its limits on QuickBooks' page.
How we tested
We made up one month for a one-person web design business, Riley Park Design (September 2026): 5 clients, 12 invoices totaling $8,425, 20 expenses totaling $612.28, and a 28-line bank statement with one partial payment. We ran the same six tasks in each tool and checked each tool's profit and loss against an answer key worked out from the test files. QuickBooks ran in its 30-day free trial. Wave ran on its free Starter plan.
An AI assistant carried out the tasks in our own accounts. A person did the sign-ups and logins and approved every email and download. So we report the steps and problems for each task, not minutes. Test emails went to our own address, and every client in the test is made up.
The test files are the same for every tool we compare, so results line up across pages. How we test lists every task and the answer key.
Tested October 20 (QuickBooks) and October 21-22 (Wave), 2026. Screenshots on file.
Try them: Wave · QuickBooks Online