What Wave is, and why it still shows up in "best free accounting software" searches
Wave is a Canadian invoicing and bookkeeping app founded in 2010. It used to be a go-to pick for freelancers and small businesses worldwide because it was genuinely free, with no monthly subscription. In 2019, H&R Block, the US tax giant, acquired Wave for roughly $405 million. Since then, Wave has operated as a subsidiary sitting alongside H&R Block's core tax business.
The part most reviews leave out: Wave cut off everyone outside the US and Canada back in 2020
This is the detail that matters most if you're a Thai freelancer who's seen Wave ranked in "best free accounting software" roundups. In November 2020, Wave announced it was narrowing its focus to the US and Canada only, and discontinued all product and customer support for users outside those two countries. In practice, that means users outside the US and Canada can no longer send invoices or payment reminders through Wave — and per Wave's own documentation, that policy is still in effect in 2026.
Put plainly: if you're a Thai freelancer and you sign up for Wave today, you're not just getting a tool that "doesn't handle Thai tax" the way most foreign software doesn't. You're getting a product that was never built to fully work for you in the first place.
Even where it still runs, it's not really being built forward anymore
Since the H&R Block acquisition, multiple 2026 reviews note the same thing: Wave's pace of meaningful feature updates has slowed considerably, with some describing it as being in "maintenance mode" rather than active development. Some features now sit behind a paywall, its community forums have been shut down, and live support is reserved for users paying for add-ons like Payroll or the Pro plan. Wave Money, its own business banking product, was discontinued entirely in 2024.
So Wave is still "free" — for users in the US and Canada. For Thai freelancers, it's a tool that shut its doors back in 2020 and was never built to handle Thai VAT, withholding tax, or e-tax invoices to begin with, because Thailand was never the market it targeted.
MANA also has a free plan — built for Thai freelancers specifically
MANA offers a free tier too, but unlike Wave, every part of it is built around the documents and tax obligations a Thai freelancer actually deals with: quotations, invoices, and receipts; VAT and withholding tax calculations; e-Tax Invoice by Email; and bank-verified PromptPay slip checking that confirms a client's transfer actually cleared, rather than just accepting a screenshot at face value.
Which one actually fits
If you're outside the US and Canada, Wave isn't a fully working option in practice, no matter how well older reviews rate it. For Thai freelancers who need to issue documents Thai clients expect, file with the Revenue Department, and get paid directly through PromptPay, MANA is the tool still being actively built for the problems you actually run into every month.