Invoicing

The job

You need a numbered invoice, a clear unpaid or paid state, a way for the customer to pay without a scavenger hunt, and a PDF that lives in a folder you control. That is the whole job. Inventory, payroll, and project profitability are other jobs. Glue them on too early and you will pay for a suite you open when tax season scares you.

A Stripe payment link is fine for a fixed-price product. It is a weak record for “May website work, due in 14 days.” Use a real invoice for service work.

Who this page is for

• You bill a handful of clients by project or retainer, not hundreds of SKUs.
• You are in the US or Canada (Wave’s home turf), or you already know you can use their product from where you sit.
• You want an agent to draft templates and reminder settings, and you will still send the invoice and hold the bank login.

Who should leave

• Someone whose accountant already lives in QuickBooks Online and will not touch anything else — shop that, not this page.
• A shop that needs multi-currency payroll, inventory, or sales tax machinery Wave will not honestly cover.
• Anyone hunting an “AI that chases invoices for you” so they never have to look at money again. That is how you get rude reminders and a ruined client.

What “good” looks like in 90 days

• Every open invoice has a number, a due date, and a status you trust without opening three tabs.
• Customers can pay from the invoice (card or bank) without emailing “what’s your Venmo.”
• You have a folder of PDFs named like a tired person in December (2026-05-acme-site.pdf), not only files trapped in the vendor.
• Reminders go out on a cadence you chose. You are not rewriting the same “just checking in” email every Friday.

If you cannot point at those, the tool did not finish the job.

The pick

Primary

Product: Wave Plan: Starter — free, as listed on Wave’s pricing page on 5 Sep 2026. Unlimited estimates, invoices, bills, and basic bookkeeping. Online payments are optional and separately approved. Why this one: The job is invoicing, not buying a second ERP. Starter closes numbered bills, estimates, and a paid state without a monthly software invoice. You can add Wave Payments later (list card fee 2.9% + $0.60, Amex 3.4% + $0.60 on Starter as of that date). Pro exists when you want automated bank feeds and polished automation; it is not required to send your first real invoice. When it stops being the pick: Your accountant refuses Wave exports, you outgrow US/Canada realities, or you need inventory and payroll in the same product more than you need a free invoice tool.

Runner-up (only if the split is real)

Product: Stripe Invoicing Choose this instead when: You already take money through Stripe, your buyers expect a Stripe-hosted invoice page, and you do not need Wave-style books — just send → pay → reconcile in Stripe. Starter invoicing is 0.4% per paid invoice on top of normal Stripe Payments fees, with no monthly Invoicing subscription, as listed on Stripe’s invoicing pricing page on 5 Sep 2026. Cost of being wrong: You still need somewhere for expenses and a year-end pack. Stripe will not be your accountant’s favorite CSV. Moving invoice history later is a weekend of exports and awkward PDFs.

Skip

• FreshBooks Lite “because freelancers use it”: List price $23/month for five billable clients on FreshBooks pricing as of 5 Sep 2026 (promos come and go; renewal is the list price). Fine product. For a one-person shop that needed a numbered PDF and a pay link, it is a suite tax before the first reminder fires.
• QuickBooks Online as day-one invoicing: Right tool when books are the job. Wrong first buy when you only needed to get paid for June’s work. The admin console and the subscription both arrive early.
• A spreadsheet plus emailed PDFs forever: Works until the third unpaid invoice and the first “I never got that.” No payment page, no status, no export that matches what the customer saw.

Cost

The honest comparison is not $0 vs $23. It is “will this still be the system in December when you are tired.”

Who owns what

• You own: Customer list, invoice PDFs, the bank account payouts land in, the numbering scheme you can explain.
• The vendor owns: The running app, payment approval, and anything you never downloaded.
• The agent never owns: Bank login, Wave/Stripe identity verification, the card on file, who you threaten in a reminder email.

Setup

You do

1. Create the Wave account with your legal business name. Complete identity checks if you enable online payments. Pay any Pro upgrade yourself.
2. Connect the payout bank account only while you are at the keyboard. Turn on 2FA before the first real invoice.
3. Send yourself a $1 test invoice and pay it. If that loop fails, stop.

The agent does

1. Draft the invoice template: logo placement, default due days, tax line if you already decided one, footer text you approved.
2. Create the first few customers and a product/service list from a checklist — not from inventing rates.
3. Set default reminder checkboxes once you have decided Pro or online payments (see the invoice reminders guide).

The agent does not

• Submit identity documents, link the bank, or change payout details.
• Invent late fees, threat language, or who gets cut off.
• Mark invoices paid without a payment you can see.

Day to day

Open Wave when work ships, not all day. Create the invoice the same day the milestone is done. Due in 14 days unless the contract said otherwise. If online payments are on, let the customer pay the hosted invoice. Once a week, scan unpaid. Once a quarter, run Data Export and drop the files next to your PDF folder so you know the button still works.

The agent can draft the next invoice from a template. You hit send.

How you know it is working

• A client pays from the invoice link without asking for a new PDF.
• You can answer “who owes what” in under a minute.
• Last quarter’s PDFs open from your disk, not only from Wave.

How you know it is failing

• You are still pasting payment links into email because the invoice never got a pay button. Finish payments setup or send a PDF with clear instructions — do not run both half-ways.
• Unpaid piles up and you have no reminder cadence. Fix reminders before you write angrier copy.
• You cannot export. That is the leave condition, even if the dashboard is pretty.

Switching off

Download Accounting (and Receipts if you used them) from Business settings → Data Export. Pull invoices through Wave Connect if you want a sheet. Keep the PDF folder forever. Overlap: finish open invoices in Wave before you stop sending new ones from the new tool. Customers do not need a speech if the next invoice simply arrives from the new system with the same business name and a coherent number series.

Affiliate notes

No affiliate links on this page. Wave and Stripe are named because they close the job, not because a partner URL is approved. See the live Wave pricing and Stripe Invoicing pricing pages before you pay; this writeup is dated.

Last verified

• Date: 2026-09-05
• What was checked: Wave Starter free / Pro $19/month or $190/year on waveapps.com/pricing; Starter card fees 2.9% + $0.60; Pro lists automated late reminders and discounted first-ten transaction pricing. Stripe Invoicing Starter 0.4% per paid invoice on stripe.com/invoicing/pricing. FreshBooks Lite list $23/month on freshbooks.com/pricing. Wave Data Export and reminder eligibility described on Wave’s help center.
• What may have changed: Wave Pro price, payment fee footnotes, FreshBooks intro promos, Stripe’s invoicing percentage or caps by region.