Toronto, Ontario, CanadaFact-checked September 5, 2026
Wave (Wave Financial) Review
B-Wave is a Toronto software company, started in April 2010, that gives away accounting and invoicing to very small businesses and makes its money when those invoices get paid. H&R Block bought it for $405 million in a deal that closed on 1 July 2019, and it has been a subsidiary ever since. Payments run at 2.9% plus 60 cents for Visa, Mastercard and Discover, 3.4% plus 60 cents for American Express, and 1% with a $1 minimum for bank payments, with no monthly fee on the free Starter plan; a $19-a-month Pro plan waives the 60-cent card fee on the first ten transactions each month and adds features. Card money lands in one to two business days, bank payments in one to seven, and eligible accounts can pull an instant payout to a debit card for a further 1%. Since November 2020 Wave has served the United States and Canada only. Its US card processing is powered by Adyen and Stripe, which Wave discloses in its own terms.
- Rate from
- 2.9% plus $0.60 per transaction for Visa, Mastercard and Discover (Discover is US only), and 3.4% plus $0.60 for American Express. On the $19-a-month Pro plan the 60-cent item fee is waived on the first ten card transactions each month, after which the standard rate applies. Apple Pay is accepted on invoices at the card rate.
- Monthly
- None on Starter; $19 on Pro.
- Payout
- 1–2 business days for cards.
- Contract
- None.
- Founded
- 2010
Connect with Wave (Wave Financial)
Tell them what you need. This goes to Wave (Wave Financial) only.
Best for
Freelancers, consultants, contractors and one-person service businesses in the United States or Canada who invoice a modest number of clients for meaningful amounts and want bookkeeping, invoicing and card acceptance in one free tool. It is particularly good value where clients will pay by bank transfer, because 1% capped-free-of-percentage-creep on a $3,000 invoice is $30 against $87.60 on a card. Anyone who currently pays for invoicing software and takes payment somewhere else should at least price this.
How it scores
Pricing4.5
Features3.5
Ease of use4.5
Support1.5
Contract4.5
Reputation score2.5
What it costs
Details →- Online
- 2.9% plus $0.60 per transaction for Visa, Mastercard and Discover (Discover is US only), and 3.4% plus $0.60 for American Express. On the $19-a-month Pro plan the 60-cent item fee is waived on the first ten card transactions each month, after which the standard rate applies. Apple Pay is accepted on invoices at the card rate.
- Monthly
- None on Starter; $19 on Pro.
What others rate them
Details →- BBB
- 4
- TRUSTPILOT
- 3.3
The takeB-
Wave is the best free invoicing product a micro-business can get, and the payment processing bolted to it is priced for convenience rather than value. 2.9% plus 60 cents is thirty cents a transaction above the flat-rate norm, which is invisible on a $2,000 invoice and brutal on a $30 one — this is a platform for people who send a few large invoices, not many small ones. The bigger caution is operational: Wave is an aggregator, its public record is dense with accounts frozen and funds held for weeks, and support is email-only with slow responses. B- reflects genuinely useful free software wrapped around processing you should not depend on as your only way to get paid.
Skip if you
Your average transaction is small. The 60-cent per-item fee means a $25 payment costs 3.3% all in and a $10 payment costs 8.9%, and no volume discount exists to fix it. Skip it if you take payment in person — Wave has no card-present offering worth the name — if you are outside the US or Canada, where Wave no longer signs up new businesses, or if a two-week hold on your receipts would sink you: frozen accounts and held funds are the single most common complaint against Wave, and support is email-only.
Chapter 1
Should you choose Wave (Wave Financial)?
The headline take, the audiences it's right (and wrong) for, and the genuine differentiators behind the verdict.
About
Wave is a Toronto software company, started in April 2010, that gives away accounting and invoicing to very small businesses and makes its money when those invoices get paid. H&R Block bought it for $405 million in a deal that closed on 1 July 2019, and it has been a subsidiary ever since. Payments run at 2.9% plus 60 cents for Visa, Mastercard and Discover, 3.4% plus 60 cents for American Express, and 1% with a $1 minimum for bank payments, with no monthly fee on the free Starter plan; a $19-a-month Pro plan waives the 60-cent card fee on the first ten transactions each month and adds features. Card money lands in one to two business days, bank payments in one to seven, and eligible accounts can pull an instant payout to a debit card for a further 1%. Since November 2020 Wave has served the United States and Canada only. Its US card processing is powered by Adyen and Stripe, which Wave discloses in its own terms.
Pros, cons, and audience
Pros
- The accounting and invoicing are genuinely free — not a trial, not a feature-crippled tier — and have been since 2010, which is why millions of very small businesses run on Wave without ever taking a card payment.
- Every rate is published: 2.9% plus 60 cents on cards, 3.4% plus 60 cents on Amex, 1% with a $1 minimum on bank payments, and 1% for an instant payout. Nothing is quoted only by a salesperson.
- No monthly fee on Starter, no contract, no PCI fee and no cancellation fee, so the cost of trying it is zero and the cost of leaving it is zero.
- Bank payments at 1% are excellent value on larger invoices: a $3,000 invoice costs $30 by ACH against $87.60 by card, and the customer pays from the same invoice either way.
- Card money arrives in one to two business days, which is competitive, and eligible accounts can pull an instant payout to a debit card at weekends for a further 1%.
- Backed by H&R Block, which bought Wave for $405 million in a deal that completed on 1 July 2019 — an unusually stable owner for a free product.
- Card processing runs on Adyen and Stripe rather than on something Wave built itself, which is a good thing for reliability and for the range of payment methods accepted.
Cons
- The 60-cent per-transaction fee is double the industry-standard 30 cents and it is not negotiable. On a $25 payment that is 3.3% all in; on a $10 payment it is 8.9%. Wave is the wrong tool for small tickets.
- Frozen accounts and held funds dominate the complaint record, with published figures of $3,859, $7,000 and over $15,000, and reports of Wave refunding held payments to clients without the merchant agreeing. This is the defining risk of using it.
- Support is email-only, with response times reported in weeks rather than hours. There is no phone line to escalate a hold, which is exactly when a business needs one.
- Trustpilot is polarised rather than good — 3.3 overall but 46% of 533 reviews at one star — and the BBB file shows 232 complaints against an A- earned by answering them.
- The Pro plan's fee relief is largely cosmetic: waiving 60 cents on ten transactions a month saves at most $6 against a $19 subscription, so you are buying features, not cheaper processing.
- No card-present offering. There is no terminal, no reader and no real point-of-sale, so any business that takes payment face to face needs a second provider anyway.
- US and Canada only. Wave stopped signing up businesses elsewhere in November 2020 and withdrew support for them, so it is a dead end if you are expanding beyond North America.
- Wave has told established users it would stop processing their card payments on the basis of a personal credit assessment — a decision an aggregator can make, and one you cannot contract around.
What makes them different
The genuine differentiator
The software is free and it is not a trial or a loss-leader with a wall behind it — Wave's accounting and invoicing have been genuinely free since 2010, funded by payments and payroll. That inverts the usual arrangement, where the software costs money and the processing is dressed up as a bonus. It also means the incentive runs the other way: Wave earns nothing until you take a payment, which is why the per-transaction fee is above market and why the paid Pro plan is essentially a way to buy that fee back.
How we score it
4.5
Pricing Transparency
3.5
Feature Set
4.5
Ease of Use
1.5
Customer Support
4.5
Contract Terms
2.5
Industry Reputation
Chapter 2
What it costs
Real-world cost at three volumes, plus the rates, fees, payouts, and contract terms that drive them.
What Wave (Wave Financial) actually costs
Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Wave (Wave Financial)’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.
Small business
$10K/mo volume · ~$75 avg transaction
$4.4K/year
≈ $370/mo · 3.70% effective rate
Growing merchant
$50K/mo volume · ~$100 avg transaction
$21K/year
≈ $1.8K/mo · 3.50% effective rate
High volume
$250K/mo volume · ~$150 avg transaction
$99K/year
≈ $8.3K/mo · 3.30% effective rate
Pricing details
What Wave is
Wave is free accounting and invoicing software for very small businesses, with card and bank payment acceptance built into the invoice. It started in Toronto in April 2010 with eight employees and an unusual proposition — give the bookkeeping away, charge for the money movement — and it stuck to it. H&R Block bought the company for $405 million in a deal announced in June 2019 and completed on 1 July 2019, and Wave has run as a subsidiary from Toronto since.
The business it serves is specific: freelancers, consultants, contractors, one-person service companies. Wave is not a retail platform, it has no terminal or card reader, and since November 2020 it has served the United States and Canada only, having withdrawn from everywhere else and stopped signing up businesses abroad.
The 60 cents is the whole story
Card processing is 2.9% plus 60 cents for Visa, Mastercard and Discover, and 3.4% plus 60 cents for American Express. The percentage is entirely normal. The 60 cents is double the 30 cents that Stripe, Square, PayPal and most of the flat-rate market charge, and it is where Wave makes back the cost of the free software.
That single design decision determines who Wave suits. On a $2,000 consulting invoice, 60 cents is a rounding error and the effective rate is 2.93%. On a $100 invoice it is 3.5%. On a $25 payment it is 3.3% plus — 5.3% all in. On a $10 payment it is 8.9%. There is no volume discount, no tiered pricing and no way to negotiate it down. If you invoice a handful of clients for hundreds or thousands of dollars, Wave is fine. If you take many small payments, it is one of the most expensive options available to you.
The $19-a-month Pro plan waives the 60-cent item fee on the first ten card transactions each month. That is a maximum saving of $6 against a $19 fee, so nobody should buy Pro to save on processing — it is a feature subscription with a token fee waiver attached.
Bank payments are the genuinely good deal: 1% with a $1 minimum, from the same invoice, one to seven business days to fund. A $3,000 invoice paid by ACH costs $30 where the card would cost $87.60. Any Wave user invoicing meaningful amounts should be nudging clients towards the bank option, and Wave makes that easy by putting both on the same pay button.
Getting the money out
Card payments deposit in one to two business days and bank payments in one to seven, both subject to cutoff times and risk review. Accounts Wave judges eligible can also pull an instant payout to a linked Visa or Mastercard debit card, weekends and holidays included, for 1% of the net. Wave's own worked example is clear about the stacking: a $1,000 card payment nets $970.40 after processing, and the instant payout fee is $9.70 on top, leaving $960.70 — about 3.9% all in for same-day money.
Eligibility for instant payouts is not something you apply for. Wave assigns it on its own criteria and emails you when it arrives, which is convenient when it happens and opaque when it does not.
The risk that actually matters
Wave is a payment aggregator. It signs businesses up in minutes with no traditional underwriting, and it manages the resulting risk afterwards — by reviewing accounts, freezing them and holding money. That is the trade every aggregator makes, and it is why the complaint record looks the way it does. Published complaints describe holds of $3,859, $7,000 and more than $15,000, accounts frozen for months, and payments automatically refunded to the client without the merchant's agreement. Long-standing users have been told Wave would stop processing their card payments after a personal credit assessment.
The ratings reflect a genuinely split experience rather than a uniformly bad one. Trustpilot puts Wave at 3.3 from 533 reviews, but the distribution is 37% five-star against 46% one-star with almost nothing in between — people who never have a payment problem love it, and people who do are stranded. The Better Business Bureau rates Wave Financial A- and has accredited it since 2013, with 232 complaints on file; an A- there means Wave answers what is filed, not that the underlying complaints are rare.
Compounding it, support is email-only. Wave moved away from phone support years ago, and reported response times run to weeks. A frozen account is precisely the situation in which a business needs to reach a person the same day, and that is the one thing Wave does not offer.
The verdict
Use Wave for what it is unambiguously good at: free, competent accounting and invoicing for a small service business, with a pay button that works. Use bank payments wherever a client will accept them, because 1% is a real saving. Understand the 60-cent fee well enough to know whether your average transaction makes Wave cheap or expensive — the crossover is somewhere around $100, below which you are overpaying noticeably.
And do not make it your only route to getting paid. Keep a second acceptance method live, do not let a large balance sit in the Wave account waiting on a payout, and reconcile weekly. B- is a good free product carrying an above-market processing fee and a custody record that demands a backup plan.
Processing Rates
Online
2.9% plus $0.60 per transaction for Visa, Mastercard and Discover (Discover is US only), and 3.4% plus $0.60 for American Express. On the $19-a-month Pro plan the 60-cent item fee is waived on the first ten card transactions each month, after which the standard rate applies. Apple Pay is accepted on invoices at the card rate.
Card-not-present, e-commerce, and online payments
In-person
Not a card-present product. Wave is built around emailed invoices and payment links, and offers no terminal or point-of-sale hardware.
Card-present retail and point-of-sale transactions
Keyed
2.9% plus $0.60. Bank payments (ACH in the US, EFT in Canada) are charged separately at 1% per transaction with a $1.00 minimum fee.
Manually entered card-not-present transactions
Fees
Monthly Fee
None on Starter; $19 on Pro.
Recurring monthly account fee
PCI Compliance Fee
Not charged.
Annual PCI DSS compliance and security fee
Statement Fee
The Starter plan is free and charges nothing but transaction fees. Pro is $19 a month or $190 a year in the US ($25 and $250 in Canada) and waives the 60-cent card item fee on the first ten transactions a month — worth $6 a month at best, so Pro is bought for its features rather than its fee relief. Add-ons are priced separately: receipt capture at $11 a month on Starter or $8 on Pro, payroll from $25 a month on Starter or $40 on Pro, and Wave Advisors bookkeeping from $149 to $199 a month. Instant payouts cost a further 1% of the net amount. Wave publishes no setup fee, no PCI fee and no cancellation fee.
Monthly account statement and reporting fee
Early Termination Fee
None.
Fee for canceling before contract end
Payouts
Standard Payout Time
1–2 business days for cards.
Regular deposit schedule to your bank account
Expedited Payout Time
Instant payout for 1% of the net.
Faster deposit option (may have additional fees)
Minimum Payout Amount
Wave states one to two business days for credit card payments and one to seven for bank payments, with times varying by cutoff, third-party delays and risk review. Accounts Wave deems eligible — eligibility is assigned automatically, not applied for — can withdraw an instant payout to a linked debit card, including at weekends, for 1% of the amount after processing fees. Wave's own worked example: a $1,000 card payment nets $970.40 after the 2.9% plus 60 cents, and the instant payout fee on that is $9.70, leaving $960.70.
Minimum balance required before payout
Contract Terms
Flexible Contract Terms
This provider offers month-to-month terms with no long-term commitment.
Contract Length
None.
Required commitment period
Cancellation Process
There is no contract, no term and no cancellation fee on either plan; the Pro subscription is cancelled like any software subscription and the free plan costs nothing to abandon. The risk here is not contractual, it is custodial. Wave is a payment aggregator, and the dominant theme of its public complaint record is accounts frozen and funds held — sometimes for weeks, occasionally refunded to the payer without the merchant's consent. Complainants describe holds of $3,859, $7,000 and more than $15,000. Wave has also told long-standing users it would stop processing their payments on the basis of a personal credit assessment. None of this is contractually preventable, so treat Wave as one route to getting paid rather than the only one.
How to terminate your account
Wave (Wave Financial) Pricing Calculator
Estimate your monthly costs
Pick a published plan, enter your volume and transaction profile, and we’ll compute the math the same way an underwriter would. Real costs vary with card mix, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.
$
$
Estimated Monthly Cost
$429.00
Effective Rate
4.29%
Discount rate (2.9% × $10,000)$290.00
Per-transaction fees ($0.60 × 200)$120.00
Monthly fee$19.00
Number of transactions200
Flat all-in rate (interchange built in)
Chapter 3
What you actually get
Products, integrations, payment-type coverage, security posture, and how their support holds up in practice.
Products & Services
other
Accounting and bookkeeping
Double-entry accounting, bank and card connections, transaction categorisation and financial reports, free on the Starter plan. This is the reason most people are on Wave at all.
invoicing
Invoicing and estimates
Unlimited customisable invoices and estimates with reminders and recurring billing, and a pay button that takes card, bank transfer or Apple Pay directly from the invoice.
payment processing
Online card payments
Visa, Visa Debit, Mastercard, Mastercard Debit, American Express and Apple Pay on invoices and payment links, at 2.9% plus 60 cents (3.4% plus 60 cents for Amex). Discover is accepted in the US only. Wave's US terms disclose that processing is powered by Adyen and by Stripe.
ach
Bank payments (ACH and EFT)
US ACH and Canadian EFT payments on invoices at 1% per transaction with a $1.00 minimum, funding in one to seven business days. Far cheaper than cards on any invoice above a few hundred dollars.
other
Instant Payouts
Withdraws an available balance to a linked Visa or Mastercard debit card, including at weekends and holidays, for 1% of the net amount. Eligibility is assigned by Wave automatically; there is no application.
other
Payroll
US and Canadian payroll from $25 a month on Starter or $40 on Pro, with tax filing in a subset of US states. Sold separately from the free plan.
other
Receipt capture
Unlimited receipt scanning and matching, $11 a month on Starter or $8 on Pro — one of the few things Wave charges for that used to be free.
other
Wave Advisors
Human bookkeeping and accounting coaching from $149 to $199 a month, aimed at owners who want the software kept tidy for them.
Support & Contact
Chapter 4
What others say
Synthesis of third-party platform reviews and industry ratings — agreements, disagreements, and which signals to weight.
Platform Ratings
Aggregated Trust Score
Based on 533 reviews across 2 rating platforms
3.7
out of 5
Overall Rating
Better Business Bureau
Reviewer Notes
Wave Financial Inc holds an A- from the Better Business Bureau and has been accredited since September 2013, from its Toronto address at 155 Queens Quay East; the file records the business as starting on 1 April 2010 and shows 232 complaints filed. An A- alongside that complaint volume means Wave answers what is filed against it, not that customers are satisfied — the complaints themselves are overwhelmingly about held funds and frozen accounts.
Trustpilot
Reviewer Notes
A TrustScore of 3.3 across 533 reviews, and the shape of the distribution matters more than the average: 37% five-star and 46% one-star, with only 12% in the middle. That is a product people either get on with completely or fall out with badly, and the one-star reviews cluster almost entirely on payment holds and the difficulty of reaching a human. Third-party summaries quoting a 1.2 score from around 180 reviews are out of date.
Chapter 6
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Pricing
2.9% plus 60 cents for Visa, Mastercard and Discover, 3.4% plus 60 cents for American Express, and 1% with a $1 minimum for bank payments (ACH in the US, EFT in Canada). The free Starter plan charges nothing else. The $19-a-month Pro plan waives the 60-cent item fee on the first ten card transactions each month. An instant payout to a debit card costs a further 1% of the amount left after processing fees.
General
Support
Setup & Onboarding
Contracts & Terms
How we evaluated Wave (Wave Financial)
We evaluate every payment processor independently — Payment Review does not accept paid placement. Our analysis combines hands-on product testing where possible, public pricing and policy documents, third-party reviews from BBB, Trustpilot, Google, and G2, and employee feedback from sites like Glassdoor and Indeed. We update reviews on a rolling cadence and flag the next review date so readers know how fresh the analysis is.
Last fact-checked September 5, 2026
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