September 22, 2026
Wave is a genuinely free invoicing and accounting platform, but it still asks you to create an account and set up a business profile before you can send your first invoice. If you just need one clean invoice out the door right now, that's a lot of setup for a single document.
Wave bundles invoicing with bookkeeping, receipts, and (in some regions) payroll — which makes sense if you want one system to run your whole business's finances. But that also means the invoicing feature sits behind account creation, business setup, and a dashboard built for ongoing use, not a one-off invoice.
SMBkits' invoice generator skips all of that: fill in your business info, your client, and line items, and it renders a PDF you can download immediately. Nothing is saved to an account because there is no account — the trade-off is that you re-enter your business details each time, which is the right trade for someone who invoices occasionally rather than running recurring billing.
This is really a question of what you're optimizing for. Wave optimizes for the business that invoices weekly and wants everything — client records, payment tracking, aged receivables — living in one dashboard. SMBkits optimizes for the moment: a single online invoice maker you can open, fill in, and download a professional PDF invoice template from in under a minute, with nothing to configure first.
If you're sending invoices every week and want saved client lists, payment tracking, and reminders, Wave's free tier is the better long-term fit. If you need to send invoices for free today, without an onboarding flow standing between you and the PDF, the free generator gets you there immediately.
| Feature | SMBkits | Wave |
|---|---|---|
| Account required | No | Yes, free account |
| Time to first invoice | Under 1 minute | 5-10 min setup |
| Saved client history | No | Yes |
| Bookkeeping & payroll | Not included | Included |
Wave's core invoicing and accounting features are free. It makes money on payment processing fees when a client pays an invoice through Wave, and on optional paid add-ons like payroll. There's no subscription fee for basic invoicing.
No — it runs entirely in your browser with no account, so nothing is stored on a server. Download the PDF when you're done; if you need a saved history of past invoices, that's a reason to use an account-based tool like Wave instead.
The free generator, in most cases — the setup cost of an account isn't worth it for low, irregular volume. Once you're invoicing multiple clients weekly, Wave's saved records start paying for the account creation step.