Invoicing · Lawn care
Wave vs FreshBooks for lawn care invoicing
A lawn-care shop that needs estimates, invoices, and a way to collect payment can start on Wave’s official free Starter plan, or pay for FreshBooks by client-count tiers. This page uses official US prices and payment fees only. We have not used either product to invoice a lawn-care route.
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Who this is for. A US lawn-care or landscaping business that mainly needs to invoice recurring or seasonal customers, send estimates, and take online payment. This is not a full field-service dispatch comparison.
Headline subscription prices (official, USD)
Wave’s help center, updated November 12, 2026, says the Starter Plan is free and includes basic accounting and invoicing, with paid add-ons such as online payments, receipt scanning, and payroll. A second Wave help article, updated November 9, 2026, lists Pro Plan fees for one business profile in the US: US$19 per month, or US$190 per year billed annually. The public pricing page retrieved the same day shows Pro at $190 USD/year billed annually (a monthly toggle on that page did not expose a $19 figure in the text we captured, so the $19 monthly rate is cited from the help article).
FreshBooks’ US pricing page on the review date advertised an “80% off for 4 months” promotion and also printed the regular monthly prices: Lite $23.00/mo, Plus $43.00/mo, Premium $70/mo. The promotional first-period prices shown were $4.60, $8.60, and $14 respectively. FreshBooks support says yearly plans include a 10% discount, and a FreshBooks 2026 price-change page lists yearly USD totals of $248.40 (Lite), $464.40 (Plus), and $756.00 (Premium). All FreshBooks accounts start on a free 30-day trial; the pricing page also states a 30-day money-back guarantee.
| Product and plan | Regular official price | What the official page ties to that plan |
|---|---|---|
| Wave Starter | $0 (free) | Unlimited estimates, invoices, bills, and bookkeeping records; mobile invoicing; optional online payments at the Starter card rates below |
| Wave Pro | US$19/mo or US$190/year | Everything in Starter, plus discounted payment rates for the first transactions in a period (see fees), auto-import of bank transactions, receipt capture, automate late payment reminders |
| Wave Receipts (add-on; also included in Pro) | US$8/mo or US$72/year | Receipt scanning for one business profile |
| FreshBooks Lite | $23.00/mo regular; $248.40/year on the 2026 price-change page; promo $4.60/mo for 4 months on the pricing page | Invoices to 5 clients; expenses; estimates; card, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later |
| FreshBooks Plus | $43.00/mo regular; $464.40/year; promo $8.60/mo for 4 months | Invoices to 50 clients; estimates, proposals, and retainers; reports; expense receipt scanning; same payment methods |
| FreshBooks Premium | $70/mo regular; $756.00/year; promo shown as $14 for 4 months | Unlimited clients; reports; receipt scanning with line items; 2 team member accounts included; Advanced Payments included; accountant access and project profitability, among other items on the official card |
FreshBooks team members are listed as $11/mo per user on Lite and Plus; Premium includes two team member accounts. Client limits count both active and archived clients still being billed, according to FreshBooks support. A lawn-care shop with more than five active customers will outgrow Lite unless it deletes clients it no longer bills.
Official payment processing fees
Wave’s pricing page lists Starter online payments at 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction and 3.4% + $0.60 per Amex transaction. For Pro, a footnote on the same page says that while subscribed to Pro you get 2.9% + $0 (Visa, Mastercard, Discover) and 3.4% + $0 (Amex) for the first ten cumulative transactions in a monthly subscription period, then 2.9% + $0.60 and 3.4% + $0.60 thereafter. Discover processing is only available to US customers, per that footnote.
FreshBooks Payments (USD) official support lists: standard consumer Visa, Mastercard, Discover and others at 2.9% + $0.30; commercial, corporate, business, and American Express at 3.5% + $0.30; bank transfer (ACH) at 1% (caps available for Select plans); Buy Now, Pay Later (Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna) at 6% + $0.30; $15 per dispute; $4 failed ACH. Transaction fees are not refunded on refunds. FreshBooks notes that charging a card fee back to clients is against some countries’ and state laws — check Illinois and card-network rules before adding a surcharge.
What this means for a lawn-care shop, on the published numbers only
- If you can invoice on Wave Starter and you accept the Starter card fees, the official software subscription is $0. You still pay processing fees when customers pay online.
- Wave Pro is officially US$19/mo (or $190/year) for bank import, receipts, and late-payment reminders, plus a short window of cheaper card fees each month.
- FreshBooks Lite’s regular $23/mo is in the same neighborhood as Wave Pro, but Lite is officially capped at 5 billable clients. Plus at $43/mo raises that cap to 50 and adds proposals, retainers, reports, and receipt scanning — closer to what a growing lawn-care book of clients may need.
- We did not find, on the pages cited below, a single official sentence that names “lawn care” as a required industry for either product. The fit is that both sell invoicing to small US businesses.
Use each trial (FreshBooks: 30 days; Wave: you can start on free Starter) with your actual customer list and a recurring seasonal invoice before you decide. This page is not a prediction of collection rates.
Wave (link coming soon) FreshBooks (link coming soon)
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#aff-freshbooks. Placeholder only. FreshBooks requires a live site with original content before approval; we have not applied in this preview.
Sources
All figures were read from these official pages on November 13, 2026 (America/Chicago). If a vendor has changed a price since then, the vendor’s page controls.
- Wave pricing — Starter feature list and card fees; Pro annual US$190; Pro payment-fee footnote. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- Wave help: Is Wave free? — Starter is free; Pro is paid. Updated November 12, 2026.
- Wave help: Receipts and Pro Plan subscription fees — US Pro US$19/mo or US$190/year; Receipts US$8/mo or US$72/year. Updated November 9, 2026.
- FreshBooks pricing — Lite/Plus/Premium regular and promotional USD prices, client caps, add-on list prices, 30-day money-back language. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- FreshBooks 2026 price-change FAQ — USD yearly totals and 10% yearly discount language.
- FreshBooks support: What is the pricing? — 30-day trial; 10% yearly discount; client limits include archived clients; Plus-and-up feature notes.
- FreshBooks support: USD Payments transaction fees.