Wave migration. Honest math.

Stop the Wave clock.

On June 1, 2026, Wave moves legacy free accounts onto paid Starter ($19 per month). If you're going to start paying $19 a month anyway, BooksGPT Solo is the same $19/mo and adds a real AI accountant that does the categorizing for you. We will help you bring your books over before the clock hits zero.

Wave Starter starts billing in June 1, 2026 at 12:01 AM ET

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Start the 15-minute migration Book a concierge call

What actually changes on June 1

The clean version of the math.

Wave Pro is a reasonable product at $19 per month, and the team there has been transparent about why they need to charge. The question is what that $19 buys you. Here is the same monthly spend, side by side.

Wave Starter, after June 1, 2026Subscription, billed monthly

The free version becomes a paid one.

$ 19 per month, per business

5-year total$1,140 Bank connections, invoicing, and basic reports stay roughly the same as before. Wave Pro adds receipt capture and bills.

$19/mo and no AI accountant in the box.
Manual categorization. Rules-based only.
P&L only on Starter. Cash Flow and Balance Sheet on Pro.
No Schedule C, 1120-S, or 1065 mapping.
No multi-state sales tax. No 1099-NEC batch.

BooksGPT SoloSame $19/mo. AI accountant included.

Same price. More done.

$ 19 per month, all-in.

Same $19/mo as Wave Starter$19/mo AI categorization runs nightly. Reports live. Schedule C ready at year-end.

Same monthly price as Wave, with a real AI accountant.
AI auto-categorization at 91.2% on our eval.
P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, live.
Schedule C handoff at year-end, one click to your CPA.
30-day money-back. No questions, no hoops.

Where Wave wins: if you primarily invoice and need integrated card payments under a single brand, Wave Pro keeps that tight. If you have a true free tier need and your business is below 100 transactions per year, Wave Starter is still a reasonable choice. Pick the right tool for your shape of business.

The 15-minute migration

Four steps. None of them painful.

We have done this for 800-plus Wave customers since announcement day. The steps below are exactly what we will walk you through, in order, on a concierge call. Or do it yourself. Either works.

01 ~3 min

Export your Wave data

Wave, Settings, Data Export. The books file is accounting.csv — drop that into BooksGPT. customers.csv and vendors.csv are lists; we do not import those yet. Account Transactions (Reports) also works.

02 ~2 min

Drop accounting.csv

Drag accounting.csv into the BooksGPT import wizard. It detects the journal by header, groups every posting by Transaction ID, and shows you a preview. customers.csv and vendors.csv are named and refused — those lists are not imported yet.

03 ~7 min

Auto-map COA and opening balances

The AI proposes a chart-of-accounts mapping from Wave to BooksGPT, and a Dec 31 opening-balance entry. You confirm or override. The only step that needs your brain.

04 ~3 min

First reconciled month

Link your bank, run the first nightly close, tie the bank statement to the penny. Confirm. Cancel Wave when you are ready. Your books are live in BooksGPT.

Migration Wizard, step 2 preview

accounting.csv detected. Lists named, not imported.

accounting.csvThe Wave Data Export journal. Every posting line, grouped by transaction.

3,418 rows

Parsed

Account Transactions.csvOptional. Reports → Account Transactions is the other Wave ledger shape.

report

Parsed

customers.csvA contact list. Named and refused — not the ledger.

list

Named

vendors.csvSame as customers.csv. Import the journal, not the list.

list

Named

The 6 questions we hear most

Wave migration, answered.

Anything not covered here, email [email protected]. Real humans, real responses, usually within the day.

What exactly is changing at Wave on June 1?

Wave is moving accounts that were on the legacy free plan onto a paid plan called Starter, priced at $19 per month. Wave Pro at $34 per month is also available. The change affects long-standing free customers. New customers signing up after the announcement date were already paying. Wave has been clear about why they need to charge. If you are happy paying, no action needed. If you would rather put that same $19 toward software with an AI accountant built in, this page is for you.

What carries over from Wave, and what does not?

Carries over: every posting in accounting.csv (or Reports → Account Transactions), grouped into balanced journal entries, with Wave's own account types mapped onto BooksGPT's chart of accounts. Open invoices and bills carry over only if you also upload Aged Receivables / Aged Payables. Does not carry over: customer and vendor lists (named, not imported yet), Wave's bank rules (the AI re-learns these), saved invoice templates, and any direct connection to Wave Payments (you will re-link via Stripe).

Will I lose history if I switch?

No. Your full Wave history transfers in step 2 of the migration. Every prior transaction lands in BooksGPT with its original date, amount, and category. If anything fails to import (rare, but possible on very old CSVs), the wizard flags it and lets you correct before commit. Your prior Wave account stays available as a read-only archive as long as you want it, even if you cancel paid billing.

What about Wave Payments? I take cards through them.

Wave Payments is a Stripe re-seller for most US accounts. After migration, you re-link directly to Stripe in BooksGPT. Same Stripe account, same payouts, slightly better rates because there is no middleman. If you used Wave-branded checkout pages, those will need to be updated to point at your new invoicing URLs. We will help you reissue them on the concierge call.

What if I just want to keep paying Wave?

Then keep paying Wave. Honestly. Wave is a fine product, the team has been transparent about the change, and $19 per month is not unreasonable for what you get. We sell BooksGPT because, for that same $19, we think a built-in AI accountant beats manual categorization. But if Wave fits your business, stay. We will be here when that changes.

Can you help me migrate on a call?

Yes, free. The concierge migration is a 30-minute screen-share where one of our customer success engineers walks you through steps 1 to 4 in real time. You do not have to know which CSV option to pick or which gotcha applies to your shop. Book at [email protected]. We have 14 slots a day open through July.

Before June 1. Bring your books over.

15-minute migration. 30-day money-back. Or book a concierge call and we will do it with you.

Get BooksGPT, $19/mo Email [email protected]