If you run a one-person business, you have probably landed on Wave at least once. It shows up in every "free accounting software" list, and for good reason — Wave has offered real double-entry bookkeeping and unlimited invoicing at no cost for over a decade. That is a genuinely hard thing to do, and Wave did it before almost anyone else. So why do people still search for a Wave alternative? Usually because of one of three friction points: the free tier keeps getting thinner, everything lives in a browser tab, and your books live on someone else's server. Stintly takes the opposite approach on all three. This comparison is meant to be honest about which tool fits which operator — including the cases where Wave is the better answer.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Stintly | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no paid tier | Free tier plus paid Pro plan; payroll and payments billed separately |
| Works Offline | Yes — 100% offline, always | No — requires an internet connection |
| Account Required | No — open the app and start | Yes — email signup and login |
| Best For | Solo operators and small crews who track time, jobs, and money on a phone | Businesses that want full double-entry books, bank feeds, and card payments |
| Platform | iOS app | Web browser, with a limited mobile companion app |
| Key Features | Time tracking, job and client records, invoicing, expense and income tracking, profit visibility | Double-entry accounting, bank connections, invoicing, receipt capture, card and ACH payments, payroll add-on |
| Data Privacy | Data stays on your device; nothing uploaded | Data stored on Wave's cloud servers; owned by H&R Block since 2019 |
Pricing
Both tools can be free, but "free" means different things here. Stintly is free with no tiers, no trial clock, and no upsell screen — there is nothing to upgrade to. Wave's free tier is real, but it has narrowed over time. Wave now separates a free Starter plan from a paid Pro plan, and the features that used to be free by default — unlimited receipt scanning, automatic bank transaction imports, and the removal of in-app promotions — increasingly sit on the paid side. Payment processing and payroll have always been priced separately, which is fair since those carry real per-transaction and compliance costs.
The numbers below reflect commonly published rates at the time of writing. Wave adjusts pricing periodically, so verify current figures before you commit. The point is not the exact dollar amount — it is the shape of the curve.
| Cost | Stintly | Wave (free tier) | Wave (Pro plan) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 | $0 | ~$16 |
| 1 year | $0 | $0 | ~$192 |
| 3 years | $0 | $0 | ~$576 |
| Card payment fees | None — no payment processing | ~2.9% + $0.60 per card transaction; ~1% for bank payments | |
| Payroll add-on | Not offered | ~$20–$40/month base plus a per-employee fee | |
A solo operator invoicing $60,000 a year through Wave's card processing pays roughly $1,700 in processing fees before touching a subscription. That is not a knock on Wave — every processor charges something similar, and Wave's rates are competitive. It just matters when you are comparing total cost of ownership rather than sticker price. If you get paid by check, bank transfer, or a payment app you already use, none of that applies, and the honest comparison becomes $0 versus $0 or $192 a year.
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Features
Wave's strength is accounting depth. It runs proper double-entry bookkeeping under the hood, which means your chart of accounts, journal entries, and financial statements are structurally correct. You get a balance sheet, a profit and loss statement, and a cash flow report generated from actual ledgers rather than a spreadsheet approximation. Connect a bank account and transactions flow in automatically for categorization. Add Wave Payments and clients can pay an invoice by card straight from the emailed link. Add Wave Payroll and you get tax filings handled in supported states. If your accountant wants to log in and look at your books, Wave gives them something they recognize immediately.
Stintly's strength is the part of the workday that happens before accounting exists. You are on a job site, in a truck, in a client's basement, or standing in a field. You need to start a timer, log what you did, note a material cost, and move on. Stintly handles time tracking against jobs and clients, expense and income entry, invoicing, and a running view of what each job is actually earning you. It is built to be opened for fifteen seconds and closed again.
That framing matters because the two tools sit at different points in the same pipeline. Wave is where numbers go to be reconciled. Stintly is where numbers are captured in the first place. Plenty of operators use a capture tool on the phone and hand a clean summary to an accountant at quarter end — that is a completely reasonable stack, and it is often cheaper and less fiddly than trying to make one web app do everything.
Trade-focused work has its own version of this problem, which is why the same offline-first approach shows up across a family of related apps: LawnBook for lawn care route scheduling and client management, ShineBook for residential and commercial cleaning operations, TrestleBook for construction job costing and contractor billing, and KeyLoft for landlords tracking rentals and tenant communication. Each one is shaped around a specific trade's actual workflow rather than asking that trade to bend itself around a general ledger.
Where Wave clearly wins on features: bank feed automation, receipt OCR, integrated card payments, payroll, and multi-user access with an accountant seat. Stintly does not attempt any of those. If you need them, you need them, and no amount of offline convenience substitutes.
Want to try Stintly for free? Download Stintly for Free — no subscription required.
Offline & Privacy
Wave is a web application. That is a deliberate architectural choice with real benefits — automatic updates, access from any machine, easy accountant sharing — but it carries a hard requirement: you need a connection. Wave has offered mobile companion apps over the years with varying scope, and they have never been a full offline replacement for the browser experience. If you are in a rural service area, a basement, a parking garage, a job site with no signal, or a plane, you are not entering data.
Stintly stores everything locally on your device. There is no sync step, no login screen, no loading spinner, and no dependence on a server being up. Airplane mode changes nothing about how the app behaves. For anyone whose billable hours happen away from reliable coverage, this is not a minor convenience — it is the difference between logging time accurately and reconstructing it from memory three days later, which is how underbilling starts.
The privacy side follows from the same architecture. Your client names, rates, revenue figures, and job margins never leave your phone because there is nowhere for them to go. No account means no credential to be breached and no profile to be built. Wave was acquired by H&R Block in 2019, and while there is no evidence of anything improper, your financial data does sit on servers owned by a large tax preparation company, governed by a privacy policy that can change. Some operators are entirely comfortable with that. Others, particularly those handling client financial details or working under confidentiality expectations, would rather the data simply never be uploaded.
The honest framing: cloud storage buys you convenience and costs you control. Local storage buys you control and costs you convenience. Neither is objectively correct — but you should choose deliberately rather than by default.
The real trade-off with local-only storage is backup. If you lose your phone with no device backup configured, you lose your data. Wave's cloud model handles that for you. If you go the Stintly route, turn on your device backup and export periodically. That is a five-minute setup task, not an ongoing chore, but skipping it is a genuine risk.
Who Should Use Wave
Wave is the better choice if any of these describe you:
- You need real double-entry books. If you have inventory, loans, multiple accounts, or an accountant who wants a proper ledger, Wave gives you that for free. That is a remarkable offer.
- You have employees or contractors on payroll. Stintly does not do payroll. Wave does, with tax filing in supported states.
- You want clients paying by card from the invoice email. Integrated payments genuinely shorten collection cycles.
- You work primarily at a desk with reliable internet. The web-only limitation costs you nothing if you never leave your office.
- You want automatic bank transaction imports. Manual entry is fine at low volume and painful at high volume.
- You need multi-device or multi-person access. Cloud sync is the whole point, and local-only storage cannot match it.
Who Should Use Stintly
Stintly is the better fit if you recognize yourself here:
- You are a one-person operation or a very small crew. No payroll, no inventory, no complex ledger — you need to know what you worked on, what it cost, and what you are owed.
- Your work happens in the field. Job sites, client properties, vehicles, rural routes. Connectivity is not guaranteed and you need capture to work anyway.
- You bill by time or by job. Time tracking tied directly to clients and jobs is the core of the app, not a bolt-on module.
- You want zero setup friction. No signup form, no email verification, no onboarding wizard. Install and start.
- You would rather your financial data stay on your device. Client confidentiality, personal preference, or simple caution — all valid reasons.
- You are already paying an accountant at year end. If someone else is doing the books, you need clean capture, not a general ledger you will never open.
The Bottom Line
Wave is a legitimately good product and one of the more generous free offerings in small business software. If you need accounting infrastructure — ledgers, bank feeds, payroll, card processing — use Wave and do not feel bad about it. Nothing in this comparison suggests otherwise.
But a large share of solo operators do not actually need accounting infrastructure. They need to log four hours on the Henderson job, note a $38 supply run, send an invoice, and know whether the month is ahead or behind. For that person, Wave is a heavy tool that stops working the moment the signal drops, wrapped in a free tier that keeps getting narrower. Stintly does the capture half well, costs nothing, works everywhere, and keeps your numbers on your own device.
The practical recommendation: if you are unsure, start with Stintly. It takes no account, no commitment, and no money to find out whether the simpler tool covers your work. If you outgrow it and need real books, Wave will still be there — and you will arrive with clean time and expense records instead of a shoebox.
Ready to switch? Download Stintly for Free — it takes 30 seconds and costs nothing.