The Wave alternative that is free and has an AI bookkeeper

Wave is a genuinely good product with a free tier, but the automation is not part of it: automatic categorization requires the Pro plan at $19/mo and receipt capture is a further $8/mo. The most common reasons people look elsewhere are wanting that automation included rather than gated, needing features Wave does not offer such as inventory or broader country tax support, and wanting the product to keep investing in markets outside its core.

HelloBooks matches Wave on price — the Free Plan is permanent with no credit card — and adds the automation that free tools usually leave out.

• Unlimited invoices, bills and quotes, and unlimited email payment reminders
• 1 live bank feed through Plaid, with bank reconciliation included
• AI categorization on every plan, with free AI credits on Free (upgrade for more)
• 2 users on Free, so your accountant can work in the books with you
• Aging, P&L, balance sheet and cash flow reports
• On paid plans: multi-currency with auto FX, inventory, and multi-country tax

Wave’s free Starter plan has unlimited invoices but no bank feed. (Checked September 2026 on Wave’s pricing page.) That is a reasonable design for a free invoicing tool, and many people run it happily by downloading statements and entering or uploading transactions by hand.

If the manual step is what you want to stop doing, you have three honest options: move to Wave’s paid plan for bank connections; keep Wave for invoicing and reconcile somewhere else; or move the whole ledger to a free plan that includes a live feed.

HelloBooks Free includes 1 live bank feed through Plaid at $0. Transactions arrive daily, reconciliation runs against them, and if you need more than one connection Starter and Pro add more. For anything you do not connect, Free also gives you unlimited manual bank and credit-card accounts that you update yourself (or by statement import).

The pitch is simple: if you were going to use a free accounting tool anyway, use the one that also does the bookkeeping for you. HelloBooks Free is a real product, not a trial, and it scales to paid plans when you need more bank feeds, more users, or more AI.

For the maintained side-by-side — including how the free plans compare feature for feature — see the comparison page.