Bonsai (Hello Bonsai) is all-in-one software for freelancers: contracts, invoicing, proposals, and time tracking. See pricing, features, and pros and cons.
Bonsai, marketed under the name Hello Bonsai at hellobonsai.com, is an all-in-one business management platform for freelancers and small agencies. It was founded in 2015, went through Y Combinator's Winter 2016 cohort, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and now reports serving more than 500,000 freelancers and agencies.
Hello Bonsai should not be confused with bonsai.io, a separate and unrelated company covered elsewhere in this directory that provides managed Elasticsearch and OpenSearch hosting for developers. The two products have no corporate relationship beyond sharing a similar name.
The platform aims to be a back-office operating system for independent professionals, combining client-facing documents like proposals and contracts with operational tools like invoicing, time tracking, and a lightweight CRM in a single subscription.
Hello Bonsai offers customizable proposal and contract templates with built-in e-signature support, invoicing with online payment collection and recurring billing, and an in-app timer for tracking billable and non-billable hours. A built-in CRM keeps client contact details, project history, and communication together.
Higher tiers add project and task management with a Gantt view, a client portal, expense tracking, custom fields, workload and profitability reporting, and integrations with QuickBooks, Zapier, Calendly, and Google, letting agencies extend Bonsai into their broader toolchain.
Hello Bonsai uses per-user, per-month pricing across four tiers: Basic (15 dollars monthly, 9 dollars annually), Essentials (25 dollars monthly, 19 dollars annually), Premium (39 dollars monthly, 29 dollars annually), and Elite (59 dollars monthly, 49 dollars annually, with a three-user minimum).
There is no permanent free plan, but every tier includes a 7-day free trial with full feature access, and users can change plans at any time as their business needs grow.
Hello Bonsai is business management software for freelancers and small agencies, covering proposals, contracts, invoicing, time tracking, and client relationship management.
No. Hello Bonsai is a freelancer business management platform, while bonsai.io is a completely separate and unrelated company offering managed Elasticsearch and OpenSearch hosting for developers.
No permanent free plan is offered, but every paid tier includes a 7-day free trial with full access.
The Basic plan starts at 15 dollars per user per month billed monthly, or 9 dollars per user per month billed annually.
Yes. Bonsai supports invoicing with online payment collection starting on the Essentials plan.
It is best suited to solo freelancers, consultants, and small creative or marketing agencies that want an all-in-one back-office tool.
Yes, QuickBooks integration is available starting on the Premium plan.
Yes, Bonsai offers mobile apps for both iOS and Android.