Finance and accounting decision

Wave

A capable developer can build a useful invoicing+bookkeeping replacement (invoicing, ledger, bank import, payments) but replicating Wave’s payroll, advisory services, polished mobile apps, scale, and payment/merchant integrations is costly—keep paying for full parity.

Visit website

Subscription$19/month ✓ verified

Initial build80 hours

Monthly upkeep10 hours + $50

Evidence2/3 runs agree

Open-source builds that already do this

Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need — the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship.

akaunting/akaunting10,032licence unclearWeb-based accounting software for small businesses with invoicing, expenses, and reports.Open on GitHub Dolibarr/dolibarr7,491GPL-3.0Modular ERP/CRM web app managing invoices, accounting, contacts, stock, and company operations.Open on GitHub

What a replacement has to do

Create and send invoices; record and categorize bookkeeping transactions; import bank transactions; accept online payments; view basic financial reports (P&L, balance sheet).

What it still won’t have

Payroll (regulated payroll processing and tax filings)
Wave Advisors (in-house bookkeeper / advisory service)
Polished mobile app (iOS/Android companion)
Built-in receipts OCR add-on as provided by Wave
Payment processing discounts / integrated merchant relationships and PCI handling at Wave scale

What remains hard

Brand trustOver 350,000 small businesses trust Wave to easily button-up their books
Execution qualityWave is rock solid.

Read the build prompt

First-year cost

Keep paying

Paying is—cheaper in year one.

On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 4 seats.

Paid seatsseats

Money you would actually spend

Keep paying

—

Subscription price × seats × 12

Build it

—

AI build —APIs + hosting —

Time you would spend

—

What you would spend

AI to build it$ onceAPIs + hosting$/mo

What we assumed

Initial buildhrsMonthly upkeephrsYour rate$/hr

The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.

Runnable build prompt

Not run yet

Build a minimal self-hosted Wave-like service using Node.js (Express), Postgres, React, and Docker. Include: (1) user auth and single-business multi-tenant data model, (2) invoice creation with PDF generation and email sending, (3) transaction CRUD and a simple chart-of-accounts, (4) bank import endpoint supporting Plaid and CSV upload with auto-merge rules, (5) payments integration via Stripe for card/ACH and reconcile into transactions, and (6) dashboard pages for P&L and balance sheet. Out of scope: payroll tax filing, managed bookkeeping services, and native mobile apps. Provide error handling, input validation, unit tests for API endpoints, and deployment scripts (Docker Compose).

How we checked4 sources · 2/3 runs agreed · evidence score 63

How the score was reached

Partly verdict base52
An open-source build was found+5
4 cited sources+3
Price verified on pricing page+3
Evidence score63

The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time — so the same evidence always produces the same number.

How scoring works →

Cited sources · 4

Every page the run actually retrieved.

official productWave: Small Business Software - Wave Financial
official pricingWave Pricing - Wave Financial
open sourceakaunting/akaunting
open sourceDolibarr/dolibarr

Integrity checks

What held up, and what did not.

✓ Price read off the page! 2 of 3 runs agreed; the verdict is the majority✓ Citations limited to fetched pages! 2 moats quoted from the page