This page is for small business owners and self-employed professionals who started on Wave because it was free, then hit the wall when they needed payroll, real depreciation, or a system their CPA actually respects. Bottom line up front: Wave is genuinely useful if you only need invoices and basic bookkeeping and you have zero employees. The moment you need to run payroll, track fixed assets with MACRS depreciation, or hand a clean file to a tax preparer, the math changes fast. FreshLedger Pro is a $799 one-time-purchase Windows desktop application that includes double-entry accounting, payroll, and full MACRS depreciation in the box, plus a free Accountant Edition for your CPA. No monthly fee. No tier upsells. Below we lay out the five-year cost, where each product genuinely wins, and the real limitations of switching off Wave so you can make the call honestly.
Let's do the actual math over five years. Wave: The core invoicing and accounting is $0. Wave Pro (which unlocks features like receipt scanning and bank connections without limits) runs $16/month, or $960 over five years. Payroll is $40/month base in self-service states and higher in tax-service states, plus per-employee fees. Even on the base plan, that's $2,400 over five years. A typical Wave user who needs Pro plus payroll lands around $3,360 over five years, and that's before per-employee charges and any price increases. FreshLedger Pro: $799 one-time. That includes the accounting engine, payroll module, MACRS depreciation, unlimited customers, unlimited invoices, and the Accountant Edition you send to your CPA. The only recurring optional cost is $99/year for updated federal and state payroll tax tables. Run payroll for five years with annual updates: $799 + ($99 × 5) = $1,294. If you don't run payroll, it's just $799, period. What's not included on the FreshLedger side: automatic bank feeds (you import OFX/QFX/QBO files from your bank), and Mac/mobile native apps. What's not included on the Wave side without paying: meaningful payroll, and you never own your data file — if you stop paying, you lose access to the working software.
1. Five-year cost, especially with payroll. A two-employee shop on Wave Pro plus payroll pays roughly $3,360 over five years before per-employee fees. The same shop on FreshLedger Pro pays $1,294 including annual tax-table updates. That's real money, and it compounds every year you keep the business open. 2. Payroll is in the box, not a paywalled upsell. FreshLedger Pro calculates federal withholding using current W-4 (2020+) elections, runs Social Security and Medicare, tracks state withholding and SUI, and produces the numbers you need for Form 941 quarterly, Form 940 annually, W-2s at year-end, and 1099-NEC for contractors. On Wave, payroll is a separate $40/month product that gates the feature behind a subscription you can never stop paying. 3. Real MACRS depreciation. If you buy a $35,000 truck, a $1,200 laptop, or a rental property, FreshLedger Pro applies the correct IRS Pub 946 conventions — half-year, mid-quarter when more than 40% of assets are placed in the last quarter, and mid-month for real estate. It handles 5-year, 7-year, 15-year, 27.5-year residential, and 39-year commercial classes, plus Section 179 elections and bonus depreciation. Wave does not do this; you or your accountant track depreciation on a spreadsheet. 4. You own your data file. The .fld file lives on your drive. If you stop paying for tax-table updates, the software keeps running with the last tables installed. With Wave, the day you stop paying for Pro or payroll, the gated features go dark. 5. Free Accountant Edition. Your CPA gets a free read/write copy, opens your file directly, makes adjusting journal entries, and sends it back. No exports, no "invite to collaborate," no extra seat fees.
1. Up-front cost when you don't need payroll. If you're a freelancer who sends a handful of invoices a month, has no employees, no fixed assets to depreciate, and just needs to track income against expenses for a Schedule C, Wave's free tier is genuinely hard to beat. Zero dollars is zero dollars. FreshLedger Pro at $799 is overkill for that profile, and we'll say so plainly. 2. Browser-based and cross-platform out of the box. Wave runs in any modern browser on Mac, Windows, Linux, Chromebook, iPad — anywhere you have a connection. There's also a mobile app for invoicing and receipt capture on the go. FreshLedger Pro is a Windows desktop application; Mac users run it in Parallels or a similar VM, and there is no native mobile app today. If your workflow is genuinely mobile-first, Wave fits that shape better. 3. Automatic bank feeds. Wave Pro connects directly to most US and Canadian banks and pulls transactions automatically. FreshLedger Pro imports OFX/QFX/QBO files that you download from your bank's site — it works fine, but it's a manual step every week or month. If clicking "download" once a week sounds like friction you don't want, Wave's automation is a real advantage.
| Feature | FreshLedger Pro | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $799 once | Free core, $16/mo Pro, +$40/mo payroll |
| Payroll | Included | +$40/mo |
| Check printing | Included | Not included |
| MACRS depreciation | Included | Not included |
| Fixed asset register | Included | Not included |
| 941 / 940 / W-2 forms | Included | Requires payroll subscription |
| 1099-NEC | Included | Limited |
| Accountant package export | Included | Not included |
| ACH / direct deposit | Included | Per-transaction fee |
| Recurring transactions | Included | Limited |
| Local data / no cloud | Yes | No (cloud only) |
| Mobile app | No | Yes |
Switching from Wave to FreshLedger Pro is not free of friction. Here's the honest list. First, data migration: Wave lets you export customers, invoices, and transaction history as CSV, and FreshLedger Pro imports CSV, but you'll spend an afternoon mapping accounts and reviewing opening balances. Plan for it. Second, it's Windows desktop only. If you're on a Mac, you'll need Parallels, VMware Fusion, or a cheap Windows mini-PC. There's no native mobile app, so invoicing from your phone at a job site isn't a workflow we support today. Third, bank transactions come in via OFX/QFX/QBO file download, not live feeds — five extra minutes a week, but real minutes. Fourth, it's a true double-entry system with a real chart of accounts, so the learning curve is steeper than Wave's invoice-first interface. Most owners are comfortable inside a week, but day one feels denser.
FreshLedger Pro is the right answer if you check most of these boxes: you have at least one W-2 employee or plan to hire, or you regularly pay 1099-NEC contractors; you own depreciable assets — vehicles, equipment, rental property, machinery — and you want MACRS handled correctly inside the books instead of on a side spreadsheet; you're tired of watching SaaS line items climb on your card every month; you want your CPA to open your actual file at tax time instead of receiving a PDF dump; you run a Windows machine (or are willing to) and you don't need to do bookkeeping from your phone. Typical fit: contractors, small manufacturers, professional services firms with 1-10 employees, landlords with a handful of properties, and any owner who plans to keep the business at least three more years and would rather pay once than rent forever.
Stay on Wave if you're a solo freelancer or side-hustler with no employees, no depreciable assets beyond a laptop, and a small enough invoice volume that the free tier covers you. Stay on Wave if your team is genuinely mobile-first — you invoice from your phone at customer sites, you work primarily on a Mac or Chromebook, and you don't want to run a Windows VM. Stay on Wave if multiple people need to be in the books simultaneously from different locations, since FreshLedger Pro's file is single-user at a time. For those profiles, Wave's tradeoffs are the right ones.
One-time-purchase accounting software with built-in payroll, full depreciation handling, and a free Accountant Edition for your CPA.
Buy FreshLedger Pro — $799One-time purchase. No subscription. Free Accountant Edition included.