Keel vs Wave: Free Accounting or On-Device Books?
Short answer: Wave is free cloud accounting for small businesses in the US and Canada, with real double-entry books, bank connections, and a login you can share with your accountant. Keel is an iPhone app that keeps invoices, receipts, and mileage on the device with no account and no bank link. Choose Wave if you want proper accounting records your bookkeeper can open. Choose Keel if you want nothing leaving the phone.
Most people comparing these two are not really comparing features. They are deciding whether their books belong on a server. Wave answers yes and gives you a genuinely capable free product in exchange. Keel answers no and asks you to do more typing. If you have not settled that question, on-device vs cloud bookkeeping is the piece to read before you shop, because it applies to every tool in this category.
What does Wave actually do?
Wave is cloud accounting and invoicing software aimed at small businesses, freelancers, and sole proprietors, focused on the US and Canada. You create an account, use it in a browser or on mobile, and your records live on Wave’s servers.
Underneath the friendly interface is a real double-entry general ledger — the same accounting structure a bookkeeper expects, not a list of transactions with a running total. That produces standard year-end reports: profit and loss, balance sheet, general ledger. Invoicing is included, and clients can pay by card or bank transfer from the invoice itself.
The commercial model is the interesting part. The accounting and invoicing core is free — unlimited estimates, invoices, bills, and bookkeeping records on the free plan. Wave makes its money on payment processing fees when a client pays you by card or ACH, on payroll, and on a paid plan that adds automatic bank import, receipt scanning, and extra users. Wave has moved features between its free and paid plans more than once, so check Wave’s current plan comparison rather than any third-party summary of it, including this one.
Where is Wave genuinely better?
At being accounting software, which Keel does not really claim to be.
It keeps a real double-entry ledger. If you have an accountant, this matters more than anything else in this article. A double-entry system with a chart of accounts produces a balance sheet, reconciles, and closes a year the way accounting is supposed to work. Keel’s ledger is append-only and hash-chained — tamper-evident, exportable, honest — but it is a solo operator’s record, not a general ledger. At the point where your accountant asks for a trial balance, Wave answers and Keel does not.
Bank connections do the data entry for you. Wave can pull transactions in from your bank and card accounts so that the expense you forgot exists anyway. That is the single biggest practical advantage a cloud tool has over an on-device one, and it should not be minimized: a book that is 90 percent automatic beats a book that is 60 percent remembered. Note that automatic import sits on Wave’s paid tier as the plans currently stand — verify on Wave’s site before assuming it comes free.
You can share the account. Your bookkeeper logs in and works in the same file you do, rather than waiting for you to export something. For anyone who hands off monthly instead of annually, that alone decides it. Adding users sits on Wave’s paid plan as the plans currently stand, so this is a reason to pay Wave rather than a free-tier win — but paying for it is still an option Keel does not offer at any price.
And invoicing comes with payments attached. Card and ACH acceptance is built in, at published processing rates, with the status flowing back into the books.
Where is Keel better?
On everything downstream of never connecting to anything.
Keel is an iPhone app that runs entirely on the device. No account, no login, no cloud sync, no bank connection. Its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected.” There is no server holding your invoices, no aggregator holding a read token to your checking account, and no vendor whose breach becomes your problem. Wave’s free tier is not free in exchange for your data in any advertising sense — that would be an unfair claim — but your records are still on their infrastructure, subject to their access controls, their outages, and their business decisions. Keel’s are not on anyone’s infrastructure. If the bank link is your specific objection, the trade-offs are laid out in is Plaid safe.
Keel also does things Wave does not. It reads photographed receipts on-device using Apple Intelligence, so the image is never uploaded to be processed. It logs mileage and applies the standard rate. It writes PDF invoices with your own numbering sequence, logo, brand color, and a payment-link QR code. It shows a Freeboard view of the business, produces reports, and exports the year as an Accountant Pack — a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF — so your preparer gets a file instead of a login.
And because nothing depends on a network call, Keel works in a basement, a crawlspace, or airplane mode. Keel Free is $0 with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage. Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.
How do Keel and Wave compare side by side?
| Wave | Keel | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Cloud accounting and invoicing | On-device invoicing, receipts, mileage, ledger |
| Where data lives | Wave’s cloud | Your iPhone only |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Bank connection | Yes (import on the paid tier) | None |
| Accounting model | Full double-entry, chart of accounts | Append-only hash-chained ledger |
| Accountant access | Shared login (added users on the paid plan) | Exported Accountant Pack |
| Card / ACH payments | Built in, processing fees apply | Payment link or QR on the PDF |
| Receipts | Yes (scanning on the paid plan) | Yes, read on-device |
| Mileage log | No built-in tracker | Yes |
| Estimates / quotes | Yes | Not yet (in development) |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | iPhone only |
| Geography | US and Canada focused | No country claims made |
| Pricing model | Free core, plus transaction fees and a paid tier | Free; Pro $249.99 one-time |
Both vendors change plans. Confirm on their own pricing pages before you commit.
What can Keel not do?
Stated plainly, because none of it is arriving next week.
Keel does not create estimates or quotes — that feature is in development, but today it bills for work rather than quoting for it. It does not import from a bank feed. It does not file your taxes; it produces figures and an export, and you or your preparer file. It does not manage a team, crew, or dispatch. And there is no web interface: no desktop, no Android, no browser login.
If two of those five matter, this comparison is finished and Wave is your answer.
Who is Wave the right tool for?
The small business that wants accounting, not just paperwork. If you have inventory, a second person on the payroll, a business bank account you reconcile monthly, or an accountant who charges you by the hour to untangle a shoebox, Wave’s double-entry books are worth more than any privacy argument. You get a balance sheet. You get reconciliation. You get a system your bookkeeper already knows — and if you want that bookkeeper working inside it, Wave sells you the seat, which is more than Keel can do.
It is also the obvious pick if you work from a laptop, use Android, need clients to pay by card without a separate processor, or want the software to import transactions so you stop relying on your own memory. Be honest about that last one — manual entry is a discipline, and most people overestimate theirs.
Who is Keel the right tool for?
The one-person business whose bookkeeping is genuinely simple and whose privacy preference is genuinely firm. A tradesperson, a photographer, a consultant, a mobile technician: you invoice, you collect receipts, you drive, and once a year you hand something to a preparer. You do not need a chart of accounts, and you do not want a bank login sitting inside a third party.
Keel fits if the words “create an account” are the friction, not the price. Some people will not put financial records on someone else’s server on principle; others work under client agreements that make it awkward, which is the situation covered in data privacy for freelancers. The trade-off is stated without decoration: nothing imports itself, so an expense you fail to capture is simply not in the books, and if you lose the phone you have whatever you last exported.
If your real complaint is a monthly subscription rather than the cloud itself, Keel vs FreshBooks covers that angle more directly. Otherwise Keel is on the App Store: Keel — Invoice Maker & Receipts. The free tier is not a trial, so you can send real invoices before deciding anything.
Frequently asked questions
Is Keel a replacement for Wave’s accounting?
Not for full accounting, no. Wave keeps a double-entry general ledger with a chart of accounts and produces a balance sheet; Keel keeps an append-only, hash-chained record of invoices, expenses, and mileage and exports it. For a sole proprietor filing a simple return, Keel’s output is usually enough. For anyone whose accountant works in the books month to month, it is not.
Wave is free — why would I pay for Keel?
You would not, unless the free tier costs you something you care about. Wave’s free plan is genuinely capable, and if a cloud account is fine with you, the honest recommendation is to use it. Keel Free is also $0 with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; the $249.99 one-time Pro upgrade is optional and exists instead of a subscription, not on top of one.
Can Wave and Keel work together?
They can, awkwardly. Some people invoice and log mileage in Keel and keep Wave as the accounting file their bookkeeper touches, moving the exported CSV across periodically. It works, but you are maintaining two records and reconciling them by hand, which is overhead both products were meant to remove. Treat it as a transition arrangement rather than a system.
Does Keel connect to my bank the way Wave does?
No, and that is deliberate rather than unfinished. There is no bank feed, no aggregator, and no third party holding read access to your accounts. Expenses come from receipts you photograph, which Keel reads on-device, and from entries you make. The convenience loss is real; the exposure loss is the point.
Which one does my accountant prefer?
Usually Wave, if they are doing the bookkeeping. A shared login in a double-entry system is what most bookkeepers want, and Wave sells that seat on its paid plan. If they only prepare your return once a year, Keel’s Accountant Pack — a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF — is normally fine. Ask yours which they would rather receive before you decide; it is a two-minute email that saves an annoying migration.
Does Keel work outside the US and Canada?
Wave’s product is focused on the US and Canada. Keel makes no claims about which countries or currencies it supports, so check the App Store listing and try the free tier before you commit to it for a business outside those markets. Neither app should be assumed to handle local tax rules on your behalf.
This article is general information. Feature sets and pricing change — check both vendors’ current pages before deciding.
Where Keel actually fits
Private and on-device, with a real tradeoff.
Against cloud, bank-connected tools: no account and nothing readable leaving the phone — but no automatic bank import, and Keel does not file for you. Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
On-device · No account · Data Not Collected