# Wave alternatives > What changed for Wave's free users on 1 June 2026, and the alternatives, compared from each vendor's own pages. Canonical page: https://superbooks.io/wave-alternative/ ## What moved behind Wave Pro (checked 2 September 2026) - **Bank connections and automatic transaction import**: Pro only. The Starter Plan keeps manual bank-statement upload. - **Auto-merge and auto-categorize imported transactions**: Pro only, and only for accounts connected to a bank feed. - **Collaborators — admins, editors, viewers**: Pro only. Wave: “As of June 1, 2026, your collaborators will not be able to access your account.” - **Third-party integrations**: Pro only on the plan comparison grid. - **Receipt capture with OCR**: Included with Pro, or a separate Receipts add-on for Starter at $8/month or $72/year USD ($11/month or $96/year CAD). - **Live-person chat and email support**: Pro, or Starter with any paid add-on. - **Attachments, reusable email templates, unbranded invoices**: Pro only. ## Other alternatives ### Akaunting - Starting price: Free if you host it yourself (Standard On-Premise). Hosted plans start at $12 USD a month, or $8 a month billed yearly. - Bank feeds: Its cloud plans list Bank Feeds from Premium Cloud, $36 USD a month, and don't list them on Standard Cloud (read 28 September 2026). The free self-hosted plan lists importing bank transactions; Bank Feeds is sold separately as an app, which its page says can be installed on your own server. - Canada: Prices are in USD. Akaunting says its bank feeds cover Canada. Its top plan, Ultimate Cloud, lists Regulations (GST, MTD, Form 1099); the plans page doesn't say which country's GST, and doesn't name a Canadian bank (read 28 September 2026). - Suits: A business that wants its accounting software on its own server. Akaunting's Standard plan is free to self-host; SuperBooks has no self-hosted edition. - Sources (read 2026-09-28): [Akaunting cloud plans](https://akaunting.com/plans), [Akaunting on-premise plans](https://akaunting.com/plans-on-premise), [Akaunting Bank Feeds app](https://akaunting.com/apps/bank-feeds) ### Brightbook - Starting price: Free, with no credit card required. - Bank feeds: Its site describes importing bank statements and reconciling them, and doesn't mention a live bank feed (read 28 September 2026). - Canada: Its site lists invoicing in any currency, converted back to your home currency, and HMRC and MTD tools marked UK only. It doesn't mention CAD, GST/HST or Canadian banks (read 28 September 2026). - Suits: A business that sends a lot of invoices, is happy to add bank statements by hand, and wants several people in the file at no cost. Brightbook lists unlimited invoices and users; SuperBooks Free stops at 5 invoices a month and 1 user. - Sources (read 2026-09-28): [Brightbook home page](https://mybrightbook.com/), [Brightbook features](https://mybrightbook.com/what_can_it_do/features/) ### FreshBooks - Starting price: Lite, $26 CAD a month. - Bank feeds: Yes. The pricing page ticks automated bank import on Lite, and lists bank reconciliation and accountant access from Plus, $42 CAD a month. - Canada: Its Canadian pricing page is in Canadian dollars, and doesn't mention GST/HST or name a Canadian bank (read 28 September 2026). - Suits: A freelancer who sends estimates to a handful of clients. Lite lists unlimited estimates and invoicing for up to 5 clients; SuperBooks has no estimates. - Sources (read 2026-09-28): [FreshBooks pricing (Canada)](https://www.freshbooks.com/en-ca/pricing) ### QuickBooks Online - Starting price: Lite, $20 CAD a month; EasyStart is $30 CAD a month. - Bank feeds: Yes, for up to 2 bank accounts on Lite. EasyStart and the plans above it lift that cap. - Canada: Prices are in CAD. The pricing page says sales tax is tracked so you can file with the CRA, and lists GST/HST tracking on every plan. It doesn't name a Canadian bank (read 28 September 2026). - Suits: A business that wants Canadian payroll in the same product as its books. Payroll is sold there as a monthly add-on; SuperBooks does not run payroll. - Sources (read 2026-09-28): [QuickBooks Online plans and pricing (Canada)](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ca/pricing/) ### Xero - Starting price: Starter, $25 CAD a month. - Bank feeds: Starter lists reconciling bank transactions. The pricing page doesn't say which bank feeds Starter includes, and its FAQ notes that a direct bank feed can carry its own charge (read 28 September 2026). - Canada: Prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude taxes, and the pricing page lists multiple currencies on Premium, $80 CAD a month. It doesn't mention GST/HST or name a Canadian bank (read 28 September 2026). - Suits: A business that tracks what it owes suppliers. Every plan lists bills, 5 on Starter; SuperBooks has no vendor bills. - Sources (read 2026-09-28): [Xero pricing plans (Canada)](https://www.xero.com/ca/pricing-plans/) ### Zoho Books - Starting price: Free, at C$0, while revenue for the financial year stays under C$50K. Standard is C$20 a month, or C$15 a month billed yearly. - Bank feeds: The pricing page lists bank reconciliation on Free and bank feeds from Standard, C$20 a month; it doesn't list bank feeds on Free (read 28 September 2026). - Canada: Priced in Canadian dollars. Free lists provincial and federal tax returns and a combined GST/QST return. The pricing page doesn't name a Canadian bank (read 28 September 2026). - Suits: A small Canadian business, under C$50K a year, that wants its sales-tax returns prepared in its books. SuperBooks does not prepare GST/HST returns. - Sources (read 2026-09-28): [Zoho Books pricing (Canada)](https://www.zoho.com/ca/books/pricing/) ## Moving from Wave 1. **Export from Wave before you cancel anything** — In Wave, run the account-data download: four XLS or CSV accounting files and a ZIP of receipt images. Do this while your subscription is live and from an Owner or Admin role — Viewer and Editor roles cannot export. Keep the archive regardless of what you decide next. 2. **Open a SuperBooks workspace** — Free plan, no card. Set your business currency and fiscal year end to match what Wave had, before importing anything — currency is the one setting that is painful to change after transactions land. 3. **Bring the transactions across** — Upload the transactions from Wave's accounting export as a CSV and map its columns — date, amount, description, counterparty — onto an account. Scope this honestly before you start: the importer takes transactions, one bank account at a time. Customers and vendors do not come across yet, so plan to re-enter those or keep Wave's files as the record. 4. **Connect the bank Wave stopped importing** — One connection on the free plan, read-only through Plaid, for a bank in the United States or Canada. Pick the account your business actually runs on. The feed backfills history where your institution provides it, which is what closes the gap left by manual statement uploads. 5. **Reconcile the overlap once** — Where the imported history and the live feed cover the same days you will have duplicates. Import a date range that stops where your connected feed starts, and you avoid most of the work; whatever still overlaps has to be reviewed by hand. 6. **Tell your accountant before you cancel Wave** — Send them the export and the new workspace. Keep Wave alive until they have signed off on the opening balances — a month of overlap costs $19 and buys you a clean cutover. Full guide: https://docs.superbooks.io/guides/migrate-from-wave ## Frequently asked questions ### What exactly did Wave change on 1 June 2026? Wave migrated businesses it classes as "legacy" — created before Wave introduced Starter and Pro in early 2024 — onto the free Starter Plan, unless the account was using payments, payroll or another paid Wave service. Wave notified affected businesses by email on 30 April 2026. On the Starter Plan, bank connections and automatic transaction import, collaborator access, auto-merge and third-party integrations require the Pro Plan. Wave's own words: "To continue to use bank connections for transaction imports or share your business with additional users, upgrade to the Pro Plan." Source: Wave's FAQ for legacy businesses, read 2 September 2026. ### How much is Wave Pro? $19 USD per month billed monthly, or $190 USD per year billed annually, as listed on waveapps.com/pricing on 2 September 2026. The same page shows $25 CAD per month or $250 CAD per year for Canadian businesses. Wave states there is no free trial of the Pro Plan. ### Is the SuperBooks free plan really free, or is it a trial? It is a plan, not a trial. No credit card, no expiry. It includes one live bank connection, five invoices a month, fifty inbox items a month, one user and 1 GB of document storage. If you exceed a ceiling you are asked to upgrade; nothing you already have stops working and nothing is deleted. ### What stops you doing to me what Wave did? A price lock, stated as a commitment rather than a promotion: the price you sign up at is the price you keep for as long as your subscription stays active, and no capability included in your plan will be moved out of it later. Founding members are locked at $19 and $49 per month, or $190 and $490 per year, in USD. That is the whole offer — there is no separate founding-member discount rate. ### SuperBooks Starter is $190 a year. Wave Pro is $190 a year. Why switch? If you are comparing paid tier to paid tier, you should mostly compare features, not price — and on estimates and vendor bills Wave is ahead of us today. The reason this page exists is the free tier: SuperBooks Free keeps one live bank connection with automatic import and categorization, and Wave's free Starter Plan does not import automatically at all. ### Can I import my Wave data? Transactions, yes. Wave's account-data download produces four XLS or CSV files covering transactions and journal entries, bill items, customers and vendors, plus a ZIP of receipt images. The SuperBooks importer takes a CSV of transactions, mapped onto one bank account at a time; customers and vendors are not imported today, so keep Wave's files for those. Export from Wave while your subscription is still active and from an Owner or Admin role, because Wave does not allow Viewer and Editor roles to export at all. ### Can my accountant still get to my books? Yes, in two ways. Invite them to a seat on a paid plan — Starter includes two users, Pro includes ten — or send them a transactions CSV, which exports from either role with no fee attached. Xero support is in progress and not available yet, so today the CSV is also how your books reach an accountant who works in Xero. There is no single-archive export bundling statements and receipt images; Wave has one and we do not. ### Will my bank actually connect? Only if it is in the United States or Canada. Our Plaid integration is configured for those two countries and no others, so a European or Australian bank cannot be connected at all today. Within the US and Canada, Plaid still does not reach every institution — Wave uses Plaid too and publishes the same caveat — so check your own bank on the free plan before you cancel anything. ### What if I pay and then change my mind? There is a 30-day money-back guarantee on both the monthly and the yearly cadence. Email the billing address within 30 days and the money goes back. No survey, no retention call, no requirement to speak to anyone first. ### Is there a case for staying on Wave? Several. Wave runs payroll and we do not. Wave Advisors puts a human bookkeeper in your file from $149 a month in the US. Wave's free plan issues unlimited invoices, estimates and bills, where our free plan caps invoices at five a month and does not do estimates or vendor bills at all. And if you have already upgraded to Pro and your books are clean, switching accounting systems mid-year is a real cost for no gain. ### What is a free alternative to Wave in Canada? Wave's own Starter plan is still free, and Wave moved its bank feed to Pro. SuperBooks Free keeps one live bank connection for a bank in Canada or the United States, with no card and no expiry. Zoho Books has a free plan priced in Canadian dollars for a business under C$50K in yearly revenue; its pricing page lists provincial and federal tax returns on Free, including a combined GST/QST return, and doesn't list bank feeds until Standard. Brightbook is free, and so is Akaunting if you host it yourself. Brightbook's site describes importing bank statements and doesn't mention a live feed; Akaunting's free self-hosted plan lists importing bank transactions, and its Bank Feeds app is sold separately. Figures are from each vendor's own site, read on 28 September 2026. ### Is Brightbook a Wave alternative? For some businesses. Brightbook is free with no credit card, and its site lists unlimited invoices, unlimited bills and unlimited users. Its site describes importing bank statements and doesn't mention a live bank feed, so it sits closer to Wave's free Starter plan than to Wave Pro. It lists invoicing in any currency and HMRC and MTD tools marked UK only, and doesn't mention CAD or GST/HST, so a Canadian business should ask Brightbook how it handles sales tax before moving. Read on 28 September 2026. ### Which Wave alternatives include a bank feed on their entry plan? Wave now keeps its feed for Pro, at $19 USD a month. SuperBooks Free includes one live bank connection at no cost. QuickBooks Online Lite includes feeds for up to 2 bank accounts, at $20 CAD a month. FreshBooks Lite lists automated bank import, at $26 CAD a month. Zoho Books' pricing page lists bank feeds from Standard, C$20 a month. Akaunting's cloud plans list them from Premium Cloud, $36 USD a month, and it sells Bank Feeds separately as an app. Xero's pricing page lists reconciling bank transactions on Starter and doesn't say which feeds that includes. Brightbook's site describes importing bank statements and doesn't mention a live feed. Prices are standard list prices, read on each vendor's own site on 28 September 2026. ## Sources - [Wave pricing page](https://www.waveapps.com/pricing) — Starter and Pro list prices, the plan comparison table, the receipts add-on price, and the card-processing rates. Rendered in full, including the tier-by-tier comparison grid. Note when re-checking: each price cell carries a `localize="US"` and a `localize="CA"` variant of the SAME figure, only one of which renders for a given visitor. The receipts add-on reads $8/mo · $72/yr US and $11/mo · $96/yr CA in one Starter cell; reading that pair as Starter-versus-Pro is an easy and wrong inference, since the Pro cell beside it is a plain checkmark. - [FAQ: Plans for legacy businesses](https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/26449863006612-FAQ-Plans-for-legacy-businesses) — The 1 June 2026 migration of legacy free businesses to the Starter Plan, the 30 April 2026 notification email, what the Starter Plan keeps, and the statement that there is no free trial of Pro. Article last updated 10 July 2026. - [Understanding user types and permission levels for collaborators](https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000077186-Understanding-user-types-and-permission-levels-for-collaborators) — “Only Pro Plan subscribers can invite Admins, Editors, and Viewers.” Article last updated 1 September 2026. - [Download your account data](https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/4411360860692-Download-your-account-data) — What a Wave export contains — four XLS or CSV accounting files, a ZIP of receipt images, and Canadian payroll files — and that Viewer and Editor roles cannot export. - [Wave's Developer Portal](https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/32752267432468-Wave-s-Developer-Portal) — Wave's GraphQL API, webhooks and OAuth, and the rule that a business connecting to a third-party app needs an active Pro or Wave Advisors subscription. - [Difference between business, account, and transaction currency](https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/31356002858516-Difference-between-business-account-and-transaction-currency) — That Wave models business, account and transaction currency separately, on both plans. - [r/waveapps — “Legacy access to pro features going away”](https://www.reddit.com/r/waveapps/comments/1t02f22/) — Evidence that the change landed badly with existing users. Cited for sentiment only, never for a fact about Wave's product. - [r/waveapps — “what other alternatives are you guys considering?”](https://www.reddit.com/r/waveapps/comments/1t1073w/) — Evidence that departing users are actively shopping, and what they say they need. Sentiment only.