Wave vs FreshBooks: the card fee is the price, and only one of them tells you what it is

By Marcus Webb · Pricing verified on both vendor pages October 23, 2026 · Hands-on testing in progress — see note below

On subscription price this is not close: Wave starts at zero, FreshBooks starts at $23 a month. But invoicing software is not bought on subscription price. It is bought on what happens when a client pays by card — and there, Wave publishes a rate and FreshBooks does not.

The two price lists

Both vendors' figures in USD as displayed. FreshBooks is currently showing an 80%-off introductory rate for the first four months — Lite $4.60, Plus $8.60, Premium $14.00 — after which the published monthly prices above apply.

First, the limit that ends the FreshBooks Lite conversation

Lite caps at five billable clients. Not five invoices — five clients. A freelancer who bills six different companies in a year has to move to Plus at $43, nearly double. And because the cap is on clients rather than volume, it bites hardest at exactly the stage where a freelancer starts to grow: the sixth client is a good month, and it triggers an upgrade.

FreshBooks does not hide this, and it is a coherent product decision — Lite is priced for someone with a handful of repeat clients. But it means the real entry price for a working freelancer is $43, not $23, and every comparison that starts at $23 is starting one tier too low.

Second, the asymmetry nobody mentions

Wave prints its processing cost on its pricing page: 2.9% plus $0.60 per credit card transaction, 3.4% plus $0.60 for Amex. On Pro, the percentage stays at 2.9% but the $0.60 disappears for the first ten transactions of the month.

FreshBooks prints no rate. Its pricing page lists card, digital wallet, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay and buy-now-pay-later as available payment methods, and states that the top Select plan gets "access to lower credit card transaction fees" and capped bank transfer fees. What the actual percentage is does not appear. The only honest thing a reviewer can do with that is say so.

This is not a minor omission, because at normal invoice sizes the processing fee is several times the subscription. Work it out at ten invoices a month averaging $800:

• Wave Starter: 10 × ($800 × 2.9% + $0.60) = $238 a month, $2,856 a year.
• Wave Pro: 10 × ($800 × 2.9%) + $19 = $251 a month, $3,012 a year.
• FreshBooks Lite: $23 a month, $276 a year plus an undisclosed processing rate.

Read the first two lines again. Wave Pro costs more than Wave Starter at ten invoices a month — $19 of subscription against $6 of saved per-transaction fees. Pro only wins once the $0.60 you avoid exceeds $19, which is around 32 card transactions a month. Above that it is cheaper; below it, the upgrade is a subscription you bought for a fee you were not paying.

What the comparison actually says

• If your clients pay by bank transfer, Wave Starter is free and stays free. Unlimited invoices, unlimited estimates, unlimited bookkeeping records, zero subscription, zero processing. Nothing FreshBooks sells at $23 a month beats that on cost, and most freelancers who "need invoicing software" need exactly this and have been sold a tier.
• If your clients pay by card, the fee is the budget line — and you should not choose between these two until you know both rates. One publishes its number. Ask the other in writing before you sign.
• FreshBooks' $23 tier is a five-client tier. Price yourself at $43 and the comparison becomes: $516 a year against $0. That is a real difference and it should be justified by something other than invoicing.
• Both charge for the things that make a business run: Wave's receipt capture is $11/month or $96/year, payroll from $40/month, a human bookkeeper from $149/month. FreshBooks' Advanced Payments is $20/month, payroll $40/month plus $6 per person, and each extra team member $11/month. Neither is a $0 or $23 product once you staff it.

How we would decide it

• Under 5 clients, paid by transfer: Wave Starter. It costs nothing and the bookkeeping is included.
• Under 5 clients, paid by card: Wave Starter, then re-check at 32 transactions a month whether Pro's $19 beats the $0.60.
• 5–50 clients who need project profitability: FreshBooks Plus, after you have the processing rate in writing.
• You need payroll in the same tool: compare $40 + $6/person on both — the add-on, not the plan, is the deciding number.

This is the pattern we keep running into: the plan price is the visible number and the fee or cap is the real one. We collected the general method in how to read a SaaS pricing page, and the broader version of the same trap in the hidden costs of cheap software.

What we cannot verify

All figures were read from Wave's and FreshBooks' pricing pages on October 23, 2026, in USD. FreshBooks' card processing rate is genuinely not published on its pricing page; we have not obtained it from a sales conversation, and we have therefore not modelled a total cost for FreshBooks that includes it — the $276 and $516 figures above are subscription only. The 80%-off introductory pricing is time-limited and its end date is not stated on the page. Wave's "2.9% + $0 for first 10 transactions" is quoted as printed; we have not confirmed what applies after the tenth transaction in a month, and the assumption that it reverts to $0.60 is ours, not Wave's. Neither product has been run against a live client invoice by us. See How We Test.