Just Use Wave Starter for Creator Brand-Deal Invoicing

You’re landing YouTube sponsorships, newsletter ads, podcast integrations, and UGC contracts — maybe 10–30 deals a year. You don’t have recurring retainer clients. You don’t need double-entry accounting. You need to send a professional invoice, get paid, and move on. Don’t pay $43/month for features you won’t use.

Just use Wave Starter.

Why Wave Starter

Wave Starter does the three things a creator needs from invoicing software: send a professional invoice, accept payment, track who has and hasn’t paid. It does all three for $0/month, permanently. Not a trial. Not a freemium tier that locks you out after 5 invoices. Permanently free.

Here’s what you actually get on the free tier:

• Unlimited invoices to unlimited clients — no caps, no upgrade prompts
• Unlimited estimates and quotes
• Customizable invoice templates (logo, brand colors, payment terms)
• Card payment acceptance via Wave Payments (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex)
• Bank/ACH payment acceptance at 1% (min. $1 per transaction)
• Basic cash-flow tracking and customer management tools
• Mobile invoicing via the Wave app
• Up to 2 collaborators on Starter (Payroll Manager and Tax Pro roles only)

The processing fees are the only real cost. Wave Starter charges 2.9% + $0.60 per card transaction, and 3.4% + $0.60 for Amex. Card-processing rates are set by payment processors and vary; Wave’s card fees are in line with typical merchant rates — compare processors if transaction fees are a major cost for you.

For large invoices, bank transfers are the better move. Wave charges 1% for ACH/bank payments with a $1 minimum. On a $5,000 brand deal, that’s $50 in processing versus $145.60 by card. Sponsors with net-30 terms and finance departments that pay by ACH anyway will default to bank transfer if you offer it — just enable Wave Payments and both options appear on the hosted payment page automatically.

To make the card math concrete: on a $500 brand deal, the card processing fee is $15.10. On a $2,000 deal, it’s $58.60. In both cases, you’re paying for payment processing alone — not for a monthly subscription. A creator sending 15 invoices a year at $2,000 average pays $879 in card processing fees and $0 in subscription fees with Wave Starter. That same creator on FreshBooks Plus pays $879 in processing fees plus $516/year in subscription fees.

Wave Starter’s limitations are real but narrow. Automatic late-payment reminders require a Pro upgrade — follow-up is manual on the free tier. Wave branding appears in the footer of your invoices. Bank feeds are Pro-only; Starter requires manual CSV imports for bookkeeping records. If any of those three things matter to you, the upgrade is Wave Pro at $19/month — not FreshBooks at $43/month.

Getting Your First Invoice Out

Wave’s onboarding is fast enough that you can send your first invoice the same day you sign up. Here’s how it goes:

1. Create a free account at waveapps.com — no credit card required
2. Add your business name, logo, and brand colors under Customize
3. Enable Wave Payments to accept card and bank payments (requires basic KYC verification — takes under 10 minutes)
4. Create a client record for the sponsor (name, email, billing address, PO number if required)
5. Create a new invoice, attach it to the client, set your payment terms (Net-30 is standard for brand deals)
6. Send — Wave delivers the invoice by email with a hosted payment page

The sponsor clicks the link, pays by card or bank transfer, and you get notified. No PDFs attached to emails, no “let me send you my Venmo” awkwardness with a brand’s finance team.

When to Upgrade to Wave Pro (Not FreshBooks)

Wave Pro at $19/month (or $190/year) solves the two pain points creators actually hit as volume grows.

The first is sponsor follow-up. Sponsors are slow payers. A $5,000 YouTube integration invoice sitting 45 days past due is a cash-flow problem, and manually drafting “just checking in” emails is time you don’t have. Wave Pro adds automated late-payment reminders — scheduled, automatic, no manual intervention. The free tier doesn’t have this. If you’re regularly chasing payments, $19/month pays for itself after one recovered invoice.

The second is tax season. Starter requires manual CSV imports to keep bookkeeping records current — automatic bank feeds via Plaid are a Pro feature. If you’re pulling everything together manually in March and hating your life, that’s the signal to upgrade. Pro also removes Wave branding from invoice footers, which matters if you’re pitching to premium sponsors who’ll notice the “Powered by Wave” line. Pro additionally unlocks unlimited collaborators with Admin, Editor, and Viewer roles — useful if you bring on a bookkeeper or business partner beyond the two-role Starter cap.

One nuance on Wave Pro payment processing: the $0.60 fixed fee per card transaction is waived on your first 10 card transactions per monthly billing period. After 10 transactions, rates revert to the standard 2.9% + $0.60. For most creators, 10 invoiced payments per month is more than enough headroom.

The upgrade path is Wave Starter → Wave Pro. Not Wave Starter → FreshBooks.

Why Not FreshBooks

FreshBooks Plus is the right invoicing tool for a freelancer managing 20+ recurring clients with contracts, time tracking, proposals, and bank reconciliation all in one place. That person exists. That person is not a creator billing 15 sponsors a year.

FreshBooks Plus costs $43/month and caps you at 50 billable clients. The cap isn’t the problem — you won’t hit 50 sponsors. The price is the problem, because you’re paying for capabilities you won’t use:

• Proposals (sponsors come to you with a rate card — you’re not writing proposals)
• Client retainers (your brand deals are one-off or campaign-based, not monthly retainers)
• Double-entry accounting reports (Wave’s bookkeeping handles this for free)
• Time tracking integration (you’re not billing hourly)

That’s $516/year for invoicing software when Wave Starter is $0 and Wave Pro is $190/year.

FreshBooks Premium at $70/month ($63/month annual) adds unlimited clients and project profitability tracking. Neither matters when your “projects” are individual sponsored posts.

If you’re a creator who has crossed into true freelance territory — recurring retainer clients, time-billed projects, a growing client roster where you need proposals and contracts alongside invoicing — FreshBooks Plus is the right call. But you’ll know when that’s you.

Why Not the Rest

Bonsai — Zoom announced the acquisition on November 5, 2025, and the deal closed in December 2025. Zoom has stated it plans to integrate Bonsai’s features into its platform over time, which means the standalone product roadmap is subject to Zoom’s priorities, not creators’. Bonsai’s contract and invoicing workflow was genuinely creator-friendly, but a tool whose future depends on how a video-conferencing company decides to bundle its acquisitions is not a tool worth building your billing process on right now.

QuickBooks Online — QuickBooks is accounting software. It handles inventory, payroll, multi-entity reporting, and tax filing. A creator sending 15 sponsor invoices a year does not need any of that. The interface reflects this complexity. You’d spend more time learning QuickBooks than you’d save using it.

Xero — Same problem as QuickBooks. Xero is built for accountants managing business finances, not creators chasing a brand integration payment. The feature set is deep and the price reflects it. Wrong category entirely for this use case.

When to Reconsider

Wave Starter works until your business model changes underneath it. Here are the measurable thresholds:

• More than 10 card-paid invoices per month: upgrade to Wave Pro to get the $0.60 fixed fee waived on your first 10 transactions each billing period
• More than 30% of your invoices are more than 30 days overdue: automated late-payment reminders in Wave Pro pay for the $19/month in recovered cash flow
• Large invoices ($2,000+) paid by card: switch sponsors to ACH/bank transfer — 1% beats 2.9% + $0.60 at that deal size
• More than 3 recurring retainer clients: at that point you’re a freelancer, not a creator running brand deals — read our FreshBooks pick instead
• Tax prep is taking more than a weekend: Wave Pro’s automatic Plaid bank feeds eliminate most of that pain for $19/month

None of those thresholds apply to most creators right now. Start at $0, upgrade when the problem is real.