Countet vs Wave: the honest comparison for Canadian businesses.
✓ yes · ~ partial · ✗ no. Wave is a genuinely good free product (the best free starting point in the category), and this table gives it the marks it earns, including on price, where it beats us. Plans and pricing verified as of August 2026; verify before deciding.
Is Wave good for Canadian small businesses?
Yes. And we'll say it plainly, because it's true. Wave's Starter plan is free, it keeps a real set of double-entry books, and its invoicing is clean and fast enough that owners actually send invoices instead of putting it off. Payments are pay-per-use, so there's no monthly fee to accept a card. If you're a solo consultant with a handful of invoices a month and nobody on payroll, Wave is the best free starting point in the category, and you should use it.
What's worth knowing is where the line now sits. Automatic bank-feed imports and auto-categorization are Pro-only ($25 CAD/mo, or $250 a year), so the free plan means entering or uploading transactions yourself. Automated late-payment reminders and invoice logos and branding are also Pro. So is live chat and email support: on Starter you get the Help Center and a chatbot unless you upgrade or buy support as an add-on. Card processing costs 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction on Starter versus a flat 2.9% on Pro for the first ten transactions a month, and receipt capture is $11/mo on Starter versus $8/mo on Pro. Free is genuinely free. It's just manual.
Payroll is a separate product again. Wave Payroll is $25/mo plus $6 per active employee (and $6 for each contractor you pay), with automatic CRA remittance included where it operates. The catch for a lot of Canadian businesses: Wave Payroll isn't available in Quebec at all: it remits to the CRA only, not to Revenu Québec. And one more thing people assume wrongly: Wave started in Toronto, but it has been a subsidiary of H&R Block, the US tax-prep company, since 2019.
Where Countet is different
Countet isn't trying to beat free. It's one product for the whole back office (invoicing, payroll, expenses, vendor bills, and tax), posting to a real double-entry general ledger as you work. Payroll isn't a second app that syncs; it's the same ledger. Run payroll and the wages, source deductions, and employer costs are already booked, with CRA-aligned remittances, T4s, and ROEs coming out of data that's already there. Quebec included.
It's also built for the owner rather than the accountant. The language is plain, Tess (the built-in AI accountant) answers questions about what your books actually say, and the owner-facing pieces (paying yourself on Solo, the Tax Vault setting money aside before you spend it) exist because that's the part most tools leave to a bookkeeper. Nothing is behind a support paywall: bank feeds, categorization, invoice branding, and live support are on every plan. So is a free Accountant Access seat, which never consumes one of your paid seats.
Pricing compared
The comparison that matters isn't free vs paid: it's the real monthly cost once a business with employees adds payroll. Here's a typical 4-person business, all four on payroll:
CAD, verified August 2026. Countet: Books + Ops ($59) + People ($11, three employee seats included, then $10/seat). Wave: Pro ($25) + Wave Payroll ($25 base + $6 per active employee). On sticker price for this setup, Wave is slightly cheaper: $74 versus $80. We're not going to hide that, and it doesn't flip as you grow: at $6 per employee against $10 per seat after the first three, Wave's marginal cost stays lower. The case for the $80 is what's inside it: payroll in the same ledger instead of a separate silo, Tess, live support without an upgrade, Quebec coverage, a free Accountant Access seat, and one bill that's the same number in month seven.
Switching from Wave to Countet
Wave exports your customers, vendors, and transaction history as CSV, and Countet imports those directly: contacts and transactions in, opening balances reconciled to a trial balance that has to balance to the penny before anything goes live. If you're mid-year on Wave Payroll, year-to-date payroll figures come across too, so T4s at year end still reflect the whole year. Most businesses are live in days, and we help with the move. And if you ever leave, one-click export to a QuickBooks-compatible format means no lock-in: your books are yours in both directions.
Where each one wins, fairly.
- Native Canadian payroll in the same ledger as the books: no second system to reconcile
- Payroll works across Canada, Quebec included
- Tess, the built-in AI accountant, answers questions about your actual books
- Bank feeds, categorization, invoice branding, and live support on every plan: no feature paywall
- Canadian-owned and built in Toronto; free Accountant Access seat on every plan
- No free tier: a 30-day trial, then $59/mo and up
- Higher sticker price than Wave for a small team on payroll
- Newer product, so less accountant name recognition and a smaller app ecosystem
- Canada-only, so not the pick for US or global operations
- A genuinely free Starter plan, the best free starting point in the category
- Clean, quick invoicing on a real double-entry ledger underneath
- Pay-per-use payments: no monthly fee just to accept a card
- Pro is inexpensive at $25/mo for what it adds
- Lower sticker price than Countet for a small team, even with payroll
- Bank feeds and auto-categorization are Pro-only: the free plan is manual entry
- Live chat and email support are Pro-only
- Payroll is a separate paid product that lives outside the books
- No payroll in Quebec at all: CRA remittance only, not Revenu Québec
- US-owned: a subsidiary of H&R Block since 2019
These trade-offs are framed for a Canadian business with people on payroll. If you're solo, pre-revenue, or sending a few invoices a month, Wave's free plan is very likely the right answer, and we'd rather you used it than paid us for capacity you don't need yet.
So which should you pick?
If you're solo or just starting, pick Wave. Free is a real advantage, the invoicing is good, and nothing about Countet is worth $59/mo to a business that isn't running payroll yet. Once you have people, the question changes: Wave still costs a few dollars less on paper, but you're running two products (books in one, payroll in the other) with support behind an upgrade and no option at all if you're in Quebec. That's where Countet fits: one ledger, one bill, payroll that posts itself, Tess to ask when something looks off, and a Canadian company on the other end of it. Six dollars a month is not the argument. What the eighty includes is.
Countet vs Wave, answered.
Is Wave really free?
The Starter plan is genuinely free: real double-entry books, unlimited invoices, no monthly fee. What changed is what sits behind the Pro plan at $25 CAD/mo ($250/yr): automatic bank-feed imports and auto-categorization, automated late-payment reminders, invoice logos and branding, and live chat and email support. On Starter you enter or upload transactions yourself, and card payments cost 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction instead of a flat 2.9%. So free is real, but free means manual.
Does Wave Payroll work in Quebec?
No. Wave Payroll is not available in Quebec at all: it remits to the CRA only, not to Revenu Québec, so Quebec businesses cannot run payroll on it. Everywhere else in Canada it costs $25/mo plus $6 per active employee (and $6 per contractor paid), with automatic CRA remittance included. Countet runs payroll across Canada, Quebec included, with CRA-aligned remittances, T4s, and ROEs generated from the same ledger as your books.
Is Wave Canadian?
Wave was founded in Toronto, but it has been a subsidiary of H&R Block since 2019, when the US tax-prep company acquired it for US$405 million. Product and pricing decisions now sit with a US parent headquartered in Kansas City. Countet is Canadian-owned and built in Toronto, and Canadian payroll and CRA compliance are the product rather than one market among many.
Can I import my Wave data into Countet?
Yes. Wave lets you export your customers, vendors, and transaction history as CSV, and Countet imports those directly: contacts, transactions, and opening balances reconciled to a trial balance before anything goes live. Most businesses are up in days, and we help with the move. If you ever want to leave Countet, one-click export to a QuickBooks-compatible format means no lock-in in either direction.
When does Countet cost less than Wave?
On sticker price for a typical 4-person business, it usually does not. Wave Pro plus Wave Payroll runs about $74/mo versus $80/mo on Countet, and Wave charges $6 per employee where Countet charges $10 per seat after the first three. Countet costs less when you count what you would otherwise buy separately or do by hand: payroll that posts into the books with no second system to reconcile, Tess answering questions about your actual ledger, live support without a plan upgrade, and payroll that works in Quebec. If none of that applies to you, Wave is the cheaper answer and we would rather you knew that.
Run the numbers on your own business.
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