Wave’s smart dashboard organizes your income, expenses, payments, and invoices. We built our Payroll tool for small business owners, so it’s easy to use AND teaches you as you go. Unlike a majority of its competitors, Wave does not have a comprehensive mobile app.
Priced right for small businesses
Then answer questions from a drop-down menu about the direction you want to concentrate on—invoicing, accounting or payroll—and you are directed to link financial accounts. Wave is a free invoicing software that helps small businesses keep track of their bookkeeping needs from one location. It is a user-friendly, intuitive platform even for those with no prior accounting experience. As a free service, it is a good option for freelancers, entrepreneurs and small business owners who would like to keep their overhead low.
It also integrates with other Wave software to create a solid product for businesses that are looking for a simple way to invoice customers and get paid. In some cases, we may hold funds and request more information if we need it for the protection of your business and Wave’s. One of Wave’s most popular invoicing features is the ability to create user-friendly customizable templates. Not only can you customize the invoices to fit your brand, but you can also set up recurring invoices and automate credit card payments for repeat customers. Once invoices have been sent, you can easily track the status of each invoice to see if they are viewed, unpaid or Overdue. All payment information automatically syncs with the free Wave Accounting software included in your service, making accounting easy.
For all other card brands except American Express, Wave charges 2.9% + 60 cents per transaction. Payments received with an American Express card are charged 3.4% + 60 cents. Merchants accepting payments through ACH/ bank transfers are charged 1% with a $1 minimum fee. Wave’s recurring billing/ recurring payments feature is also free.
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How much does Wave take from payments?
- Once you have your payments set up, Wave gives you access to its virtual terminal.
- Wave is PCI Level-1 certified for handling credit card and bank account information.
- This is why every merchant and payment services provider has multiple scores across our site depending on the use case you are looking for.
Square also offers invoicing and online payments as part of its small-business solutions. Square features include creating and sending unlimited invoices, scheduling invoices for recurring payments, and even saving a card on file to charge automatically. Businesses can also send payment requests via SMS text messaging or sharable links to give customers the most convenient way to pay.
Wave’s transaction fees for American Express card payments are 0.5% higher than its fees for other card brands. It also charges one of the highest fixed per-transaction fees of 60 cents (PayPal charges 49 cents for US merchants and 30 cents per online transaction with Square). So while it lets you process unlimited payments, merchants with a regularly high number of transactions should consider a more affordable alternative. Wave’s flat-rate processing fees depend on your plan; other standard fees, such as ACH transfer fees, do not vary based on plan. Note that the lower processing fees on the Pro plan only apply to the first ten transactions in a month.
While it does offer a free iOS and Android app, the app is limited in the number of features and functions. Many, or all, of the products featured on this page are from our advertising partners who compensate us when you take certain actions on our website or click what is the journal entry to record prepaid rent to take an action on their website. Here is a list of our partners and here’s how we make money. Here, we scored based on our own experience of ease of use, plus research into account stability. The number and ease of integrations contributed to this score. Finally, we gave some weight to the input of real-world users as recorded in third-party user review sites like Capterra.
Wave, however, does offer instant payouts for an undisclosed fee. Merchants can also access their funds immediately from their mobile device, similar to PayPal Balance. With this feature, Wave also provides merchants with the ability to securely store customer payment information.