The self-hosted Wave alternative
Invora — Self-hosted recurring invoicing for freelancers and small firms: every cycle lands as a draft you approve before it goes out, and each unpaid invoice carries your own payment link. Own it once, run it on your own server, and stop paying Wave every month.
Stop renting Wave
6 months of Wave equals this one-time price.
Assumption: Free-with-paid-add-ons: core invoicing is free (Starter); Pro is $19/mo ($190 billed yearly) and the extras are separately priced - Receipts $11/mo on Starter or $8/mo on Pro, Payroll from $25/mo, card payments 2.9% + $0.60. A $9.50/mo first-three-months promo was live at the 2026-09-03 read; the regular price is cited.
How Wave pricing grows with you
Wave charges a flat monthly subscription per business rather than per seat, with extras like payroll and bookkeeping sold as separate add-ons.
“The subscription fee for the Pro Plan is per business, not per owner.” — their own page, read 2026-08-11
What Wave does that we don't
Wave offers live-person support through chat or email during business hours.
“Our support team is available through live chat or email Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 4:45 PM Eastern.” — their own page
Who should stay with Wave
If you need built-in online card payment collection instead of recording payments manually, stay with Wave — Invora records payments manually and has no built-in online card payment collection. Full honest limitations are on the product page.
Why owning beats renting Wave
- One payment. No monthly, per-seat, or per-location fees — the license is perpetual.
- Your data stays on your server. It never lives in Wave's cloud.
- No plan ceilings. Records and users are limited by your hosting, not a pricing tier.
- It keeps working if the vendor doesn't. Self-hosted software can't be sunset or price-hiked out from under you.
Fair trade-offs: you host it, back it up, and apply updates yourself — see the product page for honest limitations, and the full Invora vs Wave comparison.
Sources
- Wave — price checked 2026-09-03 —
source “Pro $19 USD/month”
Competitor prices change — always confirm on the linked page. We only print figures we could verify on the date shown. This vendor is tracked in the Price Observatory — every figure verbatim, dated, re-checked quarterly.