If you are a freelancer or solo operator looking for a free way to track your time, send invoices, and keep your money straight, you will run into Wave and Stintly on the same search results page. Both cost nothing to use for the basics. Both are aimed at small businesses rather than enterprises. But they are not the same kind of tool, and picking the wrong one means either paying for features you never needed or outgrowing an app six months in. This comparison lays out exactly how Wave and Stintly differ on price, platform, privacy, and day-to-day use, so you can make the call in a few minutes instead of a few weeks of trial and error.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Stintly | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no paid tier | Free core; paid payroll and payment processing fees |
| Works Offline | Yes, 100% offline | No, requires internet connection |
| Account Required | No | Yes, email signup and login |
| Best For | Freelancers and solo operators who want simple time tracking and invoicing | Small businesses that need double-entry accounting and online payments |
| Platform | iOS app (iPhone and iPad) | Web browser, with limited companion mobile apps |
| Key Features | Time tracking, invoicing, income and expense tracking, client management | Invoicing, bank sync, double-entry accounting, receipt scanning, payroll (paid) |
| Data Privacy | Data stays on your device | Data stored on Wave servers, owned by H&R Block, ads in free tier |
Pricing
Wave built its reputation on being the free accounting app, and that is still mostly true. Invoicing, expense tracking, bank connections, and the core accounting ledger cost nothing. Where Wave makes money is on the edges. If you accept credit card payments through Wave, you pay a per-transaction processing fee, typically around 2.9% plus a fixed amount per transaction, with higher rates for American Express. Payroll is a paid monthly subscription that scales with the number of people you pay. Wave has also introduced a paid Pro tier in recent years that bundles things like unlimited receipt scanning and discounted processing rates. And because the free tier is ad-supported, you will see promotions for Wave's paid products and partner offers inside the app.
None of that is unreasonable. A business that processes a lot of card payments or runs payroll will pay something to any provider. But it does mean that the "free" in Wave's tagline has fine print, and the total cost depends heavily on how you use it.
Stintly is free in the plainer sense. There is no paid tier, no payment processing cut, no ad placements, and no subscription that unlocks the "real" version. You download it from the App Store, open it, and every feature is available. The trade-off is that Stintly does not process payments for you. You send the invoice, and your client pays you however you have arranged: bank transfer, check, a payment link from a separate service, or whatever else works for your business.
Here is what that looks like over time for a typical solo operator who sends a handful of invoices a month and takes most payments by bank transfer, with one or two card payments of around $1,500 each per month through Wave:
| Cost | Stintly | Wave (free tier, 2 card payments/month) | Wave Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 | About $88 in processing fees | About $16 subscription plus reduced processing fees |
| 1 Year | $0 | About $1,056 | About $192 plus processing fees |
| 3 Years | $0 | About $3,168 | About $576 plus processing fees |
The Wave figures are estimates and will vary with your transaction volume and current rates. If you never take a card payment through Wave and never use payroll, your Wave cost is genuinely zero, aside from the ads. The point of the table is not that Wave is expensive. It is that Wave's cost is variable and tied to usage, while Stintly's cost is a flat zero regardless of how much you invoice.
Save money. Try Stintly free today. Download Stintly for Free — no account needed, works 100% offline.
Features
This is where the two apps diverge the most, and it is worth being clear-eyed about it.
What Wave does well. Wave is a real accounting system. It uses double-entry bookkeeping under the hood, which means your balance sheet, profit and loss, and cash flow reports are generated from a proper ledger rather than a running list of transactions. You can connect your bank and credit card accounts so transactions import automatically, then categorize them and reconcile against statements. Receipt scanning turns photos into expense entries. Invoices are customizable, support recurring billing, and can carry a "pay now" button that lets clients pay by card or bank debit without leaving the invoice. If you work with an accountant, Wave gives them a familiar set of reports and a chart of accounts to work from. For a business with inventory, multiple revenue streams, or a bookkeeper on retainer, those capabilities matter.
What Stintly does well. Stintly is built around the actual workflow of a solo operator: track the hours you work, turn those hours into an invoice, record what comes in and what goes out, and know at a glance whether the month is going well. Time tracking is first-class rather than an add-on. You start a timer or log hours against a client and project, and those entries flow directly into invoices without re-entry. Income and expense tracking is straightforward enough that you can keep it current in a minute at the end of each day. Client records keep contact details, rates, and history in one place. Everything is designed to be done on a phone, one-handed, between jobs.
What Stintly deliberately leaves out: bank feeds, double-entry accounting, payroll, and integrated payment processing. Those are not oversights. They are the features that make an app heavier, require an account and a server, and push a product toward subscriptions. If you need them, Wave is the better fit. If you have been using Wave and find yourself ignoring three quarters of the interface, that is a sign you may be better served by something simpler.
A quick note for operators in specific trades. Stintly is a general-purpose tool for freelancers and solo service providers. If your business is a trade with its own operational quirks, a purpose-built sibling may fit better. LawnBook handles route scheduling and recurring mowing clients for lawn care operators. ShineBook is built for residential and commercial cleaning businesses that juggle recurring appointments and crew assignments. KeyLoft covers rent collection, lease tracking, and tenant communication for small landlords. And TrestleBook handles job costing and progress billing for contractors on construction projects. All share Stintly's offline-first, no-account design.
Want to try Stintly for free? Download Stintly for Free — no subscription required.
Offline & Privacy
This is the clearest difference between the two apps, and for a lot of solo operators it is the deciding one.
Wave is a web application. You use it in a browser, and everything you enter is stored on Wave's servers. That has real benefits: you can log in from any computer, your data is backed up without you thinking about it, and your accountant can be given access. But it also means Wave does not work without an internet connection. Wave has offered companion mobile apps for invoicing and receipts, but they are thin layers over the web service and still need connectivity to do most things. If you are on a job site with no signal, in a client's basement, or on a flight, you are waiting until you are back online.
There is also the ownership question. Wave was acquired by H&R Block in 2019. That is not inherently a problem, and H&R Block has kept the core product free. But it does mean your business financial data lives inside a large tax preparation company's infrastructure, and the free tier is subsidized by advertising for Wave's own paid services and partner offers. Some users are fine with that. Others would rather their invoicing app not have a business model built around upselling them.
Stintly takes the opposite approach. It runs entirely on your iPhone or iPad. There is no account to create, no login, and no server receiving your data. Your clients, hours, invoices, and expenses are stored on the device, and backups happen through whatever you already use for your phone, such as iCloud or an encrypted local backup. That means:
- It works everywhere your phone works, with or without signal. Log hours in a field, generate an invoice on a plane, check your numbers in a parking garage.
- Nobody at Stintly can see your client list, your rates, or how much you billed last month, because that information never leaves your device.
- There is no account to get locked out of, no password reset flow, and no risk of your data being caught up in a third-party breach.
- There are no ads, because there is nothing to upsell.
The honest trade-off is that offline-first means you take on responsibility for your own backups, and multi-device sync is not the seamless experience it is with a cloud service. If you regularly need to pull up invoices from a desktop computer or give a bookkeeper live access, Wave's cloud model is more convenient. If you mostly run your business from your phone and would rather keep your financial data to yourself, Stintly's model is the stronger one.
The question is not whether cloud or local is better in the abstract. It is whether you personally need to be online to run your business, and whether you want a third party holding your books.
Who Should Use Wave
Wave remains an excellent choice for a specific kind of small business, and you should pick it without hesitation if you fit the profile:
- You need real accounting, not just tracking. If your accountant wants a balance sheet, a general ledger, and reconciled bank accounts, Wave gives you that for free. Stintly does not attempt to.
- You want clients to pay by card from the invoice. Wave's integrated payments are convenient and can speed up collections. You pay processing fees, but you would pay those to any processor.
- You have employees or contractors to pay. Wave's payroll add-on handles tax filings in supported regions. That is well outside what a time tracking and invoicing app should do.
- You work mostly from a desktop. If your workday happens at a computer with a reliable connection, the web-only limitation is barely a limitation.
- You have a bookkeeper who needs access. Shared cloud access is simpler than exporting data from a phone.
- You use Android or Windows. Stintly is an iOS app. If you are not in the Apple ecosystem, Wave's browser-based approach works on anything.
In short, Wave is for the small business that is a little bigger than one person, or that is one person with the accounting needs of a larger operation.
Who Should Use Stintly
Stintly is the better fit if you recognize yourself in any of these:
- You are a freelancer or solo service provider. Consultant, designer, writer, developer, photographer, tutor, trainer, handyman. You bill for your time or for fixed projects, and your bookkeeping needs are income, expenses, and invoices.
- You bill by the hour or need to track time at all. Time tracking is Stintly's core, not a feature bolted onto an accounting system. Hours become invoices without re-entry.
- You work where connectivity is unreliable. Job sites, client homes, rural areas, travel. Stintly never asks you to wait for a connection.
- You run your business from your phone. If the iPhone in your pocket is your office, an app built for it beats a web app squeezed onto a small screen.
- You want your financial data to stay yours. No account, no server, no ads, no acquisition risk changing the terms later.
- You have tried a full accounting app and found yourself using a tenth of it. Simpler tools get used more consistently, and consistency is what actually keeps your books accurate.
- You want zero cost with no asterisks. Not free until you hit a limit, not free with ads, not free with a transaction cut. Free.
Stintly is for the person who wants to spend five minutes a day on their finances and the rest of the day on paid work.
The Bottom Line
Wave and Stintly are both legitimately free and both worth considering, but they solve different problems. Wave is a free accounting system that happens to include invoicing. Stintly is a free time tracking and invoicing app that happens to include enough financial tracking to keep a solo operation honest. Choosing between them comes down to three questions. Do you need double-entry accounting, bank sync, or payroll? Do you need to work from a desktop browser or share live access with a bookkeeper? Are you willing to have your financial data hosted by a large company whose free tier is funded by ads and upsells?
If you answered yes to the first two and do not mind the third, Wave is the right call, and it will serve you well as you grow. If you answered no to the first two and would rather keep things simple, private, and in your pocket, Stintly is the better fit. It costs nothing, works without a connection, and asks for no account. For most freelancers and solo operators, that is exactly the right amount of software.
Ready to switch? Download Stintly for Free — it takes 30 seconds and costs nothing.