A focused Wave alternative
Wave is accounting and invoicing software, and a lot of it is free. If you need books, invoices, and financial statements, that is the right tool. If you sell products on your own and the only thing you cannot answer is what you kept after COGS, fees, ad spend, and shipping, you are reading a set of books to solve a reporting problem.
Stay on Wave if any of this is true
You send invoices and need them tracked. You want proper double-entry books. You need financial statements, a profit and loss report, or a balance sheet for your tax return. Your accountant or bookkeeper already works from your Wave data. You value having accounting and invoicing in one free place.
In any of those cases nothing on this page replaces Wave. A profit tracker does not keep books or send invoices, so swapping one for the other would leave you short exactly where Wave is strong.
The mismatch, if none of that is true
Plenty of sellers do not have a bookkeeping problem. They have one unanswered question: did last month make money, and where did the margin go? Wave can get you close, but only after you have set up categories, categorised every transaction, and read a profit and loss report where ad spend sits as one more expense line rather than a cost measured against the revenue it drove.
That maintenance is the part that slips. The categorising drifts, the report stops matching reality, and the owner goes back to guessing from the sales total in their store dashboard. The books were never the thing they wanted.
What the month actually looks like
Here is one month of a small store. Gross sales look healthy. The profit line is the only one that tells you whether to reorder.
- Gross sales$18,600
- Cost of goods$7,440
- Ad spend across channels$3,720
- Shipping and packaging$1,860
- Platform and payment processing fees$930
- Refunds and returns$780
- App and software subscriptions$420
- Take-home profit$3,450
Costs total $15,150, so $18,600 in sales leaves $3,450, a net margin of 18.5%. Cut ad spend by a quarter without losing sales and the profit climbs to $4,380, or 23.5%. That is the kind of decision this number is for, and it is the one neither a store dashboard nor a raw profit and loss report hands you directly.
What TrueProfit gives you
One take-home figure
Gross sales minus COGS, platform fees, payment processing, ad spend, shipping, returns, and app subscriptions. One number, not a profit and loss statement to read.
Costs in categories you choose
Enter your cost lines under categories and subcategories you name yourself, and tag any row. Nothing is guessed from a chart of accounts, and the breakdown is the one you set up.
Fees and ad spend in the same math
Enter your platform fees, payment processing, and monthly ad spend per channel, and they are subtracted alongside COGS rather than filed as unrelated expense lines.
Expenses with receipts kept
Log a business expense, attach the receipt, and the file stays with it. At year end you hand your accountant a categorised list instead of a shoebox.
Profit by month and by category
See which months carried the year, and which cost categories took the margin apart once ad spend and fees were counted.
CSV in, or type it in
Import a sales or expense CSV from your store, marketplace, or processor, or enter figures by hand. There is no chart of accounts to design first.
An honest note on Wave
Wave is capable accounting and invoicing software, and offering the core of it free is a genuine strength. TrueProfit does none of that: no books, no invoices, no financial statements. If you need any of those, keep Wave.
One more limit worth saying plainly. There is no automatic bank sync in TrueProfit yet: outside a connected Shopify store, data comes in by CSV import or manual entry, with bank feeds on the roadmap.
What it costs
Free is $0, Pro is $19 a month, and Business is $49 a month, billed monthly. No card to start. Compare against Wave's current pricing rather than a figure quoted on a page like this one, since its plans and paid add-ons change.
Full books, or the profit number
Two tools answering different questions. The rows Wave wins are the reasons to keep it, not footnotes.
Yes Partial, or possible with extra work Not built in
Frequently asked questions
Is TrueProfit a full Wave replacement?
No. Wave is accounting software: it keeps double-entry books, sends invoices, tracks expenses, and produces financial statements, and much of that is free. TrueProfit does none of the bookkeeping. It answers one question: after COGS, fees, ad spend, shipping, and returns, what did you actually keep?
When should I stay on Wave?
Stay if you need proper books, invoicing, or financial statements for your return, or if your accountant already works from your Wave data. A profit tracker does not produce a ledger or invoices, so swapping one for the other would leave real gaps in your bookkeeping.
Who is better off with a profit tracker?
A solo seller or small e-commerce owner whose tax return is straightforward and whose real problem is not knowing which months make money, or where the margin went, once ad spend and fees are counted. That is a reporting problem, not a bookkeeping problem, and it is the one TrueProfit is built for.
Could I just read this off Wave's reports?
Partly. You can create categories for COGS, ad spend, shipping, and fees, categorise every transaction, and read a profit and loss report. What you will not get is a take-home profit figure handed to you, with ad spend read against the revenue it drove. You are building and maintaining that view yourself inside accounting software.
How does my data get into TrueProfit?
Connect a Shopify store and its order revenue imports on its own. Otherwise by CSV import or manual entry: export sales from your marketplace, export fees from your payment processor, and import them, or type in monthly totals for ad spend, shipping, and subscriptions. There is no automatic bank sync today, and no bank login is required.
How much does TrueProfit cost compared to Wave?
TrueProfit is Free at $0, Pro at $19/mo, and Business at $49/mo, billed monthly. Wave offers free accounting and charges for some add-ons such as payments and payroll, so check its current pricing yourself rather than trusting a number quoted on a comparison page.
Can I use both?
Yes, and it is a sensible split. Keep Wave for the books and invoices your accountant files from, and use TrueProfit to answer the weekly question of whether the current product mix and ad budget are actually profitable.
Know what you actually keep
Profit after COGS, fees, ad spend, shipping, and returns, across every channel you sell on. Free to start, no card.