- Invoicing and Payments: Create professional invoices, send them to clients, and accept payments through multiple methods.
- Contracts and Proposals: Build legally sound contracts and proposals with customizable templates.
- Time Tracking: Record hours worked on projects with an easy-to-use timer.
- Task and Project Management: Organize projects, assign tasks, and track progress from start to finish.
- Client Management: Store client information and manage communication in one place.
- Forms and Scheduling: Collect details with forms and allow clients to book meetings.
- Expense and Income Tracking: Keep track of business expenses and incoming payments for clear financial records.
- Reports and Insights: Generate reports that show productivity, profits, and overall project performance.
- Integrations: Connect Bonsai with tools like QuickBooks, Zapier, Calendly, and Google services.
- Mobile Access: Use Bonsai on the go with its mobile app for iOS and Android.
Bonsai
Bonsai helps freelancers and small businesses create invoices, manage payments, and contracts.
Updated July 27, 2026
Bonsai Overview
Bonsai is a comprehensive business management platform designed for freelancers and small businesses. It offers tools for creating professional invoices, managing payments, drafting contracts, and tracking projects in one streamlined system.
With its user-friendly interface, Bonsai helps reduce administrative workload and ensures faster client payments. The platform also provides features for proposals, time tracking, and tax preparation, making it a reliable all-in-one solution for independent professionals.
Key Features
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Billing and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $15/user/month (Billed Monthly) $9/user/month (Billed Annually) |
Per-user plan with time tracking, task management, unlimited projects, CRM, service library, mobile apps, and unlimited clients. |
| Essentials | $25/user/month (Billed Monthly) $19/user/month (Billed Annually) |
Per-user plan with Basic features plus invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, templates, forms and questionnaires, scheduling, client portal, and expense and income tracking. |
| Premium | $39/user/month (Billed Monthly) $29/user/month (Billed Annually) |
Per-user plan with Essentials features plus project insights, workload management, Gantt view, deals pipeline, custom fields, reports, branding removal, and integrations. |
| Elite | $59/user/month (Billed Monthly) $49/user/month (Billed Annually) |
Per-user plan with Premium features plus custom permissions, timesheet locking, expense markups, Xero integration, and custom data import. Requires at least 3 users. |
Bonsai has a 7-day free trial with full, unlimited access.
Pricing source: Bonsai Pricing
Pros
| Competitor | Pros of Bonsai |
|---|---|
| FreshBooks | Bonsai Essentials, at $19 per user a month on annual billing, puts proposals, contracts, invoicing, scheduling, forms and expense tracking behind one login. FreshBooks starts at $23 a month and stops at accounting and invoicing, with no contract or proposal builder. Covering the same ground with FreshBooks means paying for a separate document tool alongside it. |
| PandaDoc | Bonsai adds time tracking, task management and expense tracking that PandaDoc leaves out entirely. PandaDoc’s Business plan is $49 per seat a month and still does not invoice or record project hours. Capterra reviewers credit the in-app timer with cutting weekly timesheet admin, including days split across two or three separate tasks. |
| HoneyBook | Bonsai starts at $9 per user a month on annual billing, against $29 a month for HoneyBook’s Starter plan. Bonsai Premium adds workload management, Gantt views, custom fields, profit and productivity reports, and removes Bonsai branding from client-facing documents. HoneyBook holds automations and its QuickBooks Online sync back for a higher tier. |
| ClickUp | ClickUp charges $7 per user a month on annual billing for Unlimited and $12 for Business, and neither tier issues invoices, contracts or payments. Bonsai covers billing and legal documents alongside projects and tasks, so one subscription replaces the pairing of a project tool with a separate billing tool. Payments run through Stripe, PayPal, wire transfer or mailed cheque across 180 currencies. |
| 17hats / Dubsado | Dubsado charges $335 a year for Starter and $525 for Premier, and 17hats sells one all-inclusive plan at $60 a month with bank connection, recurring billing and extra users priced as separate $5 to $10 add-ons. Bonsai keeps client portal, integrations and reporting inside its base tiers rather than metering them. A Spruce RD review graded its third-party integrations an A, naming Google Calendar, Zapier and Slack. |
Cons
| Competitor | Cons of Bonsai |
|---|---|
| FreshBooks | FreshBooks is a real accounting product with bank feeds, sales tax handling and expense automation, from Lite up to $70 a month for Premium. Bonsai records income and expenses but is not a general ledger, so year end still goes elsewhere. Software Advice reviewers flag limits around tracking multiple bank accounts, running high-volume reports and setting user permissions. |
| PandaDoc | PandaDoc offers a genuinely free eSignature tier alongside its paid plans, with audit trails, content libraries and document analytics Bonsai does not match. Bonsai has no free plan, and invoicing does not unlock until the Essentials tier. Teams whose main need is document workflow end up paying for project tooling they will not open. |
| HoneyBook | HoneyBook’s Starter plan covers unlimited clients and projects, invoices, proposals, contracts and a client portal on a single seat price. Bonsai splits those across tiers, so a solo operator has to move up a level simply to send an invoice. Its Elite tier also enforces a three-user minimum, which prices out two-person studios. |
| ClickUp | ClickUp’s free tier is genuinely usable and Business at $12 per user includes automations, dashboards and timeline views built for complex workflows. Bonsai’s structure is fixed around freelance and agency delivery, and G2 reviewers describe some features as “messily put together”. Teams that want to design their own process will find it constraining. |
| 17hats / Dubsado | Dubsado bills $335 a year flat for one seat while Bonsai charges per user every month, so a growing team compounds the difference. 17hats adds users at $5 a month each, and both tools offer deeper workflow automation and template customisation for creative businesses. Bonsai’s most automated tier is also its most expensive, with a three-user floor attached. |
Reviews
- sprucerd.com Review: The clean design and straightforward focus on proposals, contracts, and invoicing made it easy to get started, especially with ready-made templates and integrations like Google Calendar and Slack. The lack of an automatic prompt for contract signatures and invoice payments adds extra follow-up steps, and the reviewer wanted more robust help docs and faster customer service.
- Capterra Review (Rating: 4.6/5): The in-app task timer reduced weekly timesheet admin and handled days split across ā2 or 3 different tasksā with ease. One long-term user valued the granular customizations and cohesive proposals, contracts, and invoices, noting Bonsai never caused payment processing issues, though tracking time at a very detailed task level can feel cumbersome.
- Reddit r/smallbusiness: Commenters in the thread push back hard. One year-long user wrote “I recommend against hello bonsai… It overpromises and under delivers, is buggy, and clunky. And over priced for what you are getting.” Another described a single chargeback that led Bonsai to hold their account and withhold funds for a week, and a third reported a Stripe connection that kept resetting to Bonsaiās own payment service despite support contact. A separate commenter suggested Mercury or Brex for the banking side and argued that setting aside 25% for taxes would be too low.
- Software Advice Review (Rating: 4.6/5): Electronic signatures, invoicing, and a client portal that keeps āmessages files and approvals in one placeā help teams stay organized and reduce email back-and-forth. Some businesses struggled with limits around tracking multiple bank accounts, running high-volume reports, setting user permissions, and reaching a live support person by phone.
- Trustpilot Review (Rating: 4.1/5): One customer highlighted āAmazing humans behind the scenes,ā praising Sawyer for fast, personal responses and resourceful help. Another long-time user enjoyed Bonsai since its early invoicing-only days and received prompt replies from support, while a different reviewer felt the experience had gone downhill with āone problem after anotherā in recent months.
- G2 Review (Rating: 4.3/5): Sending contracts, proposals, invoices, and forms from one place keeps freelance admin centralized, and one co-founder uses the platform almost every day with quick help from support. Limited Excel database integration with the CRM required extra coordination with customer service, and a few features felt āmessily put togetherā for end users.
