PaymentPing
Flat pricing. Reminders included on every plan.
- Trial (14 days)Free
- Starter (5 clients)$15/mo
- Pro (unlimited)$29/mo
- Pro + AI (with expenses)$49/mo
Honest comparison
PaymentPing vs Wave: Which Is Better for Freelancers in 2026?
Wave is famously free. PaymentPing costs $15/month. So why would anyone pay? Here’s an honest side-by-side, including the parts where Wave is genuinely the right answer.
Last updated May 7, 2026 · By Nick Hammond, founder of PaymentPing
The short version
Choose Wave if you’re truly cash-strapped, you’re comfortable manually clicking “send reminder” on overdue invoices, and you want a free, no-trial-expiry tool that also handles basic bookkeeping. Wave’s free plan has been free for over a decade and probably will be for the next one.
Choose PaymentPing if your real problem is that invoices sit unpaid for weeks and you don’t want to babysit them. PaymentPing automatically sends polite, on-brand reminders at days 1, 7, 14, and 30 with zero effort — on every plan, no upcharge for using your own payment processor.
The honest summary: if you’re starting out and don’t need automated reminders, Wave is hard to beat. But the second “chasing payments” becomes your top complaint, free stops being the right metric.
Side-by-side
The features freelancers actually ask about, compared straight. No marketing fog.
| Feature | PaymentPing | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $15/mo (Starter) | Free (Starter) |
| Free trial | 14 days, no card | Free plan, no trial needed |
| Automatic payment reminders | Editable, on-brand, sent for you | Only with Pro Plan or Wave Payments |
| Quote-to-invoice flow | Yes, one-click conversion | Yes (Estimates), manual approval |
| Public quote acceptance page | Yes | No |
| Custom branding on invoices | Yes (Pro) | Pro Plan removes Wave branding |
| Sliding scale / range quotes | Yes | No |
| Expense tracking | Yes (Pro+AI, AI-categorized) | Yes, free; receipt scanning Pro only |
| Time tracking | No | No |
| Best for | Freelancers who send quotes and hate chasing payments | Cash-strapped solopreneurs who want free DIY accounting |
Where Wave wins
Free is a feature, and Wave nails it.
Wave’s free plan is the real deal. Unlimited invoices, unlimited estimates, unlimited clients, basic expense tracking, and double-entry bookkeeping — all for $0, forever, with no trial countdown. They’ve been doing this since 2010 and the model still works because they make money on payment processing and the optional Pro Plan, not on the core software. If you’re a side-hustler sending three invoices a month and your accounting needs amount to “keep a list of what came in and went out,” Wave is genuinely a better deal than anything PaymentPing offers.
Their accounting layer is more serious than PaymentPing’s too. Wave does proper double-entry bookkeeping with a chart of accounts, journal entries, balance sheets, and profit-and-loss reports. The Pro Plan ($16/month annual) adds bank-feed imports and unlimited receipt scanning that pulls merchant, date, and amount from a phone photo. PaymentPing has expense tracking on Pro+AI but it’s invoicing-flavored bookkeeping, not real accounting. If your accountant wants a proper trial balance, Wave gives you one; PaymentPing gives you CSV exports and a hug.
And the UI is friendly. Wave is built for non-accountants and it shows — clear language, simple forms, decent mobile apps for iOS and Android. The learning curve is almost nothing. For someone who just wants to type up an invoice without thinking about software, that matters.
Where PaymentPing wins
Built for the freelancer who’s tired of chasing payments.
This is the headline gap. On Wave’s free plan, if you want automatic late-payment reminders, you have to either pay for the Pro Plan or accept payments through Wave (which costs you 2.9% + 60¢ per transaction in processing fees). If you’re doing neither, you’re manually clicking “send reminder” on every overdue invoice, every week. That’s the exact tax on your time PaymentPing was built to remove. With PaymentPing, every invoice gets a polite, on-brand reminder one day after the due date, then again at days 7, 14, and 30 — on every plan, with no payment-processor lock-in. Read more on the automatic payment reminders page.
The quote-to-invoice loop is the other big one. Wave has Estimates, but the workflow is clunky: you send the estimate, the client emails or calls to approve, you manually mark it approved in Wave, then you manually click “Convert to invoice.” Three steps, all on you. PaymentPing sends the quote with a public acceptance link, the client clicks accept (no login, no password, no “please make an account”), and a draft invoice is auto-created the moment they accept. You get a notification, they get a confirmation, the deal moves forward without you touching it.
Sliding-scale quotes are a PaymentPing-only feature. You can send a quote priced as a range — say $1,000–$1,500 — for projects where the scope isn’t fully defined yet. The PDF, the email template, and the public acceptance page all handle ranges natively. When the client accepts and scope firms up, you fill in the final number and convert. Wave has nothing equivalent — every estimate has to be a fixed total, which forces awkward conversations or padded line items on scope-flexible work.
And the whole product is smaller. Five things in the main nav: dashboard, quotes, invoices, clients, settings. You can be sending your first branded quote PDF fifteen minutes after you sign up. PaymentPing pricing is also flat — no “free, but actually you need Pro for the feature you wanted.” See the pricing page for the full breakdown, or the freelancers overview for how the workflow fits real client work.
Pricing, side by side
What you’ll actually pay.
Wave
Free core, plus payment fees and an optional Pro Plan.
- Starter (unlimited invoicing)Free
- Pro Plan (annual)$16/mo
- Card processing fee2.9% + 60¢
- ACH processing fee1% (min $1)
Wave’s free plan is genuinely free, but auto-reminders require either the Pro Plan or accepting payments through Wave. PaymentPing connects to your own Stripe account, so processing fees go to Stripe (2.9% + 30¢ for cards), not a third party.
Quick recommendation
Who should choose what.
Choose Wave if…
Free wins, and you don't mind doing the chasing yourself. Wave is the right call when:
- You're cash-strapped or a brand-new side hustle and any monthly cost is a deal-breaker
- You only send a handful of invoices a month and clients usually pay on time
- You need real double-entry bookkeeping with a chart of accounts and balance sheets
- You're comfortable manually clicking 'send reminder' on overdue invoices
- You want unlimited receipt scanning on mobile (Pro Plan, $16/month annual)
Choose PaymentPing if…
Free isn't free if it costs you hours every month chasing clients. PaymentPing is the right call when:
- You're tired of writing follow-up emails to slow-paying clients
- You want automatic reminders without paying extra or being locked into one payment processor
- You send quotes before invoices and want a real client-facing acceptance flow
- You quote ranges (sliding-scale pricing) for scope-flexible work
- You prefer your own Stripe account over a third-party payment middleman
- You'd rather pay $15/month and reclaim two hours a week than save $15/month and spend them
If you’re weighing other options, see how PaymentPing stacks up against FreshBooks, or read the dedicated overview for freelancers.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Wave really free?
Yes, genuinely. Wave's invoicing and accounting tools have been free for over a decade with no trial expiry, no client limits, no feature gating on the basics. They make money two ways: payment processing fees (2.9% + 60¢ for cards, 1% for ACH) and the optional Pro Plan at $16/month annual or $19/month monthly. If you only ever use Wave to type up invoices and email PDFs, you'll never pay them a cent. That's a remarkable deal and I want to be honest about it.
Does Wave have automatic payment reminders?
Sort of, but with a catch. Wave's auto-reminders only work if you're either on the Pro Plan ($16+/month) or accepting payments through Wave (which costs you 2.9% + 60¢ per card transaction). On the free plan with no Wave Payments, you have to manually click "send reminder" on each overdue invoice. Compare that to PaymentPing, where automatic reminders are the entire reason the product exists — they're on by default, fully editable, scheduled at days 1, 7, 14, and 30, and included on every plan starting at $15/month.
What does PaymentPing offer that Wave doesn't?
Three big things. First, automatic reminders that don't require you to also use Wave's payment processor or pay extra. Second, a proper quote-to-invoice flow with a public acceptance page — your client clicks accept on a link (no login), and PaymentPing auto-creates the draft invoice. Wave estimates require you to manually mark them approved and manually convert. Third, sliding-scale (range) quotes for projects where the scope isn't nailed down. Wave doesn't have anything like it.
Can I migrate from Wave to PaymentPing?
Not with a one-click import yet, no. Most freelancers who switch export their client list from Wave as CSV and re-add clients in PaymentPing as new invoices come up. Historical invoices stay searchable in Wave (the free plan never expires), so you don't lose access to old data. If you need help with the move, email me directly. A proper import tool is on the roadmap.
How do Wave's payment fees compare to Stripe through PaymentPing?
They're nearly identical for cards. Wave charges 2.9% + 60¢ per credit-card transaction; Stripe (which PaymentPing uses) charges 2.9% + 30¢. So a $1,000 invoice paid by card costs $29.60 through Wave and $29.30 through Stripe — basically a wash. ACH bank transfers are where it diverges: Wave charges 1% (minimum $1), while Stripe ACH is also around 0.8% capped at $5. For high-ticket invoices paid by bank transfer, Stripe is meaningfully cheaper. The bigger difference is that PaymentPing connects directly to your own Stripe account — payouts hit your bank, not Wave's, and you keep the customer relationship with Stripe.
Should I use Wave for accounting and PaymentPing for invoicing?
It's a reasonable combination if your accountant insists on Wave's books. You'd track expenses and run reports in Wave, and use PaymentPing for quotes, invoices, and the reminder workflow. The downside is two systems to keep in sync. Most freelancers I talk to find that running both is more friction than it's worth and end up consolidating to one or the other. If accounting reports are critical, Wave free is hard to beat. If chasing payments is your problem, PaymentPing is going to feel like a relief.
Ready to stop chasing payments?
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