Bonsai: invoicing software platform

Bonsai publishes a full per-seat rate card: $9, $19, $29 and $49 per user per month billed annually, checked 16 October 2026. Buy it if one tool should hold your CRM, proposals, projects, time tracking and invoicing. The catch is that invoicing starts at the second tier, not the cheapest one.

Rajat GuptaEditorial LeadReviewed 16 October 2026Pricing checked 16 October 2026 against the Bonsai pricing page

Bonsai in brief

Bonsai publishes a full per-seat rate card: $9, $19, $29 and $49 per user per month billed annually, checked 16 October 2026.

Price: $9 per user/month billed annually (Basic) · Per user per month, billed annually or monthly
Best for: Service firms consolidating CRM, proposals, time tracking and billing
Watch out for: The per-seat model with no cheap seat is the structural cost here.

The short answer

Buy Bonsai if you run a small service business or agency where the same work moves from a lead to a proposal to a tracked project to an invoice, and you would rather pay one per-seat price than stitch a CRM, a proposal tool, a time tracker and invoicing software together. Essentials at $19 per user per month billed annually is the real starting line, because that is where invoices and payments appear.

Skip it if you need accounting rather than billing: Bonsai integrates with QuickBooks and Xero from the Premium tier at $29 per user per month, it does not replace them. Skip it if your approvers and reviewers would each cost a full seat for occasional use, since every plan is priced per user. And skip it if you need published card and ACH rates before you commit, because Bonsai does not publish any.

Where Bonsai fits

Bonsai fits the service business that has outgrown a stack of single-purpose tools but is nowhere near needing an ERP. The product list is wide for the price: CRM, pipeline, scheduling, estimates, proposals, agreements, forms and a client portal on the client side, then projects, tasks, time tracking, timesheets, resource planning and reporting on the delivery side, with invoicing, payments, expenses, bookkeeping, rate cards and budget tracking on the finance side. Bonsai positions all of that as one platform for service businesses, and its own site names the industries it targets: creative, marketing, software, consulting, engineering, IT services, accounting, architecture and interior design.

The feature that decides fit is the link between tracked time and the invoice. Bonsai's billing is built to draw on the hours and expenses already logged against a project, with rate cards setting what each person or service bills at. For a consultancy where the invoice is a function of timesheets rather than a fixed monthly fee, that removes the export-and-reconcile step that usually sits between a time tracker and a billing tool. If your invoices are flat retainers that never vary, you are paying for machinery you will not use.

The second thing that decides fit is where the client experience happens. Proposals, contracts, forms and questionnaires, scheduling and a client portal all live in the same account as the invoice, which means a prospect can be sent a proposal, sign it, book a kickoff and later pay a bill without being handed a different login each time. Removing Bonsai branding from that experience is a Premium feature at $29 per user per month billed annually, so the white-label version of this argument costs a tier more than the functional version.

Bonsai is a Zoom company, which is worth knowing before you build a business on it. The pricing page footer also names its money movement arrangements: Bonsai partners with Stripe Payments Company for money transmission, with funds held at Evolve Bank and Trust and Fifth Third Bank, and Bonsai cards are issued by Celtic Bank. Those are the entities holding your money, and they are the ones to look up if a treasury or risk reviewer asks who the counterparties are. Bonsai also ships an MCP connector so an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT can create a project or draft an invoice directly, which is a genuine differentiator at this end of the market rather than a slogan.

Where Bonsai stops is the general ledger. It does bookkeeping and income tracking, and it syncs to QuickBooks and Xero from Premium, but the accounting system of record stays elsewhere for most buyers. Bonsai also caps the team story at Elite, which carries a 3 users minimum and tops out at custom permissions, custom roles and timesheet locking. That is enough governance for a thirty-person firm and not enough for a business with segregation-of-duties requirements written into an audit plan.

Bonsai pricing

Bonsai publishes everything, which makes this an unusually short pricing section to write. Read on 16 October 2026, there are four per-seat plans: billed annually they are Basic at $9, Essentials at $19, Premium at $29 and Elite at $49 per user per month, and billed monthly the same four are $15, $25, $39 and $59. The one thing to notice before you anchor on the headline is that the cheapest plan has no billing in it. Invoices and payments start at Essentials, so if invoicing is why you are here, your entry price is $19 per user per month and not $9.

What Bonsai publishes

Basic: $9 per user/month billed annually, or $15 per user/month monthly (Per user per month, billed annually or monthly)Time tracking, task management, unlimited projects, unlimited clients, CRM, service library, iOS and Android apps, 10 GB storage. No invoicing or payments at this tier.
Essentials: $19 per user/month billed annually, or $25 per user/month monthly (Per user per month, billed annually or monthly)Everything in Basic plus invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, all templates, forms and questionnaires, scheduling, client portal, expense tracking and income tracking, 100 GB storage.
Premium: $29 per user/month billed annually, or $39 per user/month monthly (Per user per month, billed annually or monthly)Everything in Essentials plus project insights, workload management, Gantt view, deals pipeline, custom fields, profit and productivity reports, removal of Bonsai branding, and integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, Zapier, Calendly and Google.
Elite: $49 per user/month billed annually, or $59 per user/month monthly (Per user per month, 3 users minimum, billed annually or monthly)Everything in Premium plus custom permissions and roles, timesheet locking, expense markup, custom data import, onboarding and 500 GB storage.

Prices as published on the Bonsai pricing page and checked on 16 October 2026. The annual figures are each labelled billed annually; the monthly figures are the alternative rate for the same plan, not a different product. The yearly option is advertised as up to 4 months free.

The rate card is published, so the only real variables are the ones that decide which number you multiply.

Seat count, because every plan is priced per user with no approver-only or viewer tier. A firm where five people deliver work and three more look at reports pays for eight seats. Bonsai does say a reduced rate is available for teams with 30 or more users, but it publishes no figure for it, so that discount is a negotiation rather than a rate you can budget against today.
Which tier you need, which is usually set by one feature rather than by volume. Invoicing and payments force you off Basic. Removing Bonsai branding, the deals pipeline and the QuickBooks and Xero integrations force you off Essentials to Premium at $29 per user per month billed annually. Custom permissions and timesheet locking force you to Elite at $49, and Elite carries a 3 users minimum, so a two-person studio cannot buy it at all.
Billing term, which moves the rate by roughly a third at every tier: $9 against $15, $19 against $25, $29 against $39 and $49 against $59 per user per month. That is a larger annual-commitment discount than most tools in this category offer, and it is the single biggest lever you have on the subscription line.
Payment processing, which is charged on top and is not published. Bonsai's own pricing FAQ says it charges processing fees for online payments that vary by payment method, such as credit card or ACH, and points to a help article rather than printing a rate. For a firm collecting most of its revenue through Bonsai, that unpublished line can easily exceed the subscription, so get it before you sign.

What costs extra

Nothing is sold as a priced add-on. The feature table gates capability by plan instead, so more function means a higher tier rather than an extra line item.
Online payment processing fees are charged separately and are not published on the pricing page: the FAQ says they vary by payment method and refers you to a help article.
Onboarding, including data migration and training, is described as available for teams of 10 or more users, and onboarding is listed among the Elite features. No fee is published for either.
Storage steps with the plan rather than being sold by the gigabyte: 10 GB on Basic, 100 GB on Essentials and Premium, 500 GB on Elite.

Implementation and commercial terms

The rows below are what the Bonsai pricing page and its FAQ confirmed on 16 October 2026. Anything absent was not published, and the processing rates are the absence that matters most.

Published price: Yes, all four plans, in both annual and monthly form
Billing basis: Per user per month, billed annually or monthly
Annual discount: Advertised as up to 4 months free; the annual rates are $9, $19, $29 and $49
Seat minimum: None below Elite, which lists a 3 users minimum
Volume discount: A reduced rate is offered for teams with 30 or more users, with no figure published
Implementation fee: None published. Onboarding is offered for teams of 10 or more users
Free trial: 7 days of full access, after which you choose a plan and enter card details
Payment processing: Charged separately, rates not published on the pricing page

Budget Bonsai as two numbers. The first is easy: your seat count at $19, $29 or $49 per user per month on the annual term, picked by whichever gated feature you cannot do without. The second is the one Bonsai leaves blank, so ask for the card and ACH processing rates in writing and apply them to last quarter's collections before you compare this with anything else. If you are heading for 30 seats or more, ask for the reduced rate and the exact threshold in the same conversation, because the published card gives you no way to model it.

Source: the Bonsai pricing page, checked 16 October 2026. Confirm current prices with the vendor before you budget.

What Bonsai gives up

The per-seat model with no cheap seat is the structural cost here. Bonsai has one user type, so an operations lead who opens a profitability report once a week costs the same as the project manager living in the tool all day. At Premium's $29 per user per month billed annually, three such occasional users cost more per year than some competitors charge for an entire account, and nothing in the published card lets you buy them more cheaply. Tools priced per company rather than per seat behave quite differently as a team grows, and that is the comparison to run before you commit to an annual term.

You give up a published view of what collecting money costs. Bonsai will happily take card and ACH payments on your invoices and tells you plainly that processing fees apply, but it sends you to a help article for the rates rather than printing them next to the plans. Every direct competitor in this group publishes something: HoneyBook prints card and bank transfer rates on its pricing page, and Wave prints both the percentage and the fixed component per transaction. An unpublished rate is not necessarily a bad rate, but it is one you cannot verify before a sales conversation.

Accounting stays somewhere else, and the integration that connects the two is a tier up. The QuickBooks and Xero integrations sit at Premium at $29 per user per month billed annually, not at Essentials where invoicing starts. So the realistic shape for a firm that already has a bookkeeper is Premium rather than Essentials, and the $19 tier is better understood as the cheapest way to send an invoice than as the plan a growing business stays on. Price the rollout accordingly.

Governance is thin until Elite, and Elite is expensive for a small team. Custom permissions, custom roles and timesheet locking are all Elite features at $49 per user per month billed annually, and Elite requires at least 3 users. If your reason for wanting locked timesheets is that two people cannot be allowed to edit each other's hours, you are buying the most expensive tier to get a control that larger platforms treat as table stakes. There is no published audit-trail or retention commitment on the pricing page either, so ask for both in writing if a client contract requires them.

The breadth that makes Bonsai attractive also means nothing in it is best in class. The CRM is not a CRM platform, the Gantt view is not project management software, and the bookkeeping is not accounting. For a small firm replacing five logins with one, that trade is clearly worth making. For a team that already has a strong tool in one of those lanes and would be downgrading it to consolidate, the maths is much less obvious, and the honest test is to name which existing tool you would switch off on day one.

How Bonsai compares

Invoicing software is one of the few finance categories where almost everyone publishes a price, so this comparison is about shape rather than secrecy. Bonsai and Harvest charge per seat, FreshBooks and HoneyBook charge per account with seats as an extra, and that difference decides the winner more often than feature lists do. Every figure below comes from that vendor's own pricing page, checked on 16 October 2026.

Tool	Best for	Price	Where it breaks
Bonsai	Service firms wanting CRM, proposals, time tracking and billing in one seat price	$9, $19, $29 or $49 per user/month billed annually	No cheap seat for occasional users, and payment processing rates are unpublished
FreshBooks	Solo operators and small firms who want accounting reports as well as invoices	$23.00, $43.00 or $70.00 per month, Select by quote	Billable client caps of 5 and 50, and team members cost $11/mo per user on top
HoneyBook	Client-service studios that sell through proposals and contracts	$29, $49 or $109 per month billed yearly	Team members capped at 2 below the top tier, and it serves only four countries
Harvest	Teams whose core problem is tracked time and project profitability	$0 free, then from $9 or $14 seat/month billed annually	Invoices, projects, clients and tasks above the base rate are billed on usage with no published rate

What to test in a Bonsai trial

Bonsai's FAQ says the trial starts at sign-up and gives full, unlimited access for 7 days, after which you are prompted to choose a plan and enter card details. Seven days is short, so go in with a plan rather than exploring. Because the prices are published, spend the week proving the product works on your data rather than working out what it costs.

Start on the tier you would buy, not the cheapest one. Invoicing and payments do not exist on Basic, and the QuickBooks and Xero integrations do not exist below Premium, so a trial configured as Basic tells you nothing about the plan you will be on. Decide on day one whether your floor is Essentials at $19 or Premium at $29 per user per month billed annually, and test that.
Run one real project end to end: a lead into the CRM, a proposal out, a signed agreement back, hours logged against the project by two people on different rates, then an invoice generated from those hours. That single pass is what you are buying. If the invoice needs manual correction because a rate card did not apply, you have found the thing that will cost you an hour a week forever.
Ask for the card and ACH processing rates in writing during the trial, and then take a real month of collections and apply them. Bonsai publishes no processing figure, so this is the only number in your eventual bill that you cannot look up. Compare the result against a competitor that does print its rates, because that is the comparison a finance reviewer will ask for.
Count every person who will need to log in, including the ones who only read reports, and price them all at the full seat rate. There is no viewer or approver tier, so do this arithmetic on paper before the trial ends. If you expect to cross 30 users inside the contract year, ask for the reduced rate and the exact threshold now rather than at renewal.
Test the integration and the exit on the same day. Push a handful of invoices to QuickBooks or Xero and inspect the result in the ledger yourself rather than trusting a success message. Then ask what you can export, and in what format, if you leave: a tool that holds your CRM, your contracts and your billing history is a tool whose export path you want to have seen before you depend on it.

Frequently asked questions about Bonsai

How much does Bonsai cost?

Checked on 16 October 2026, Bonsai publishes four per-seat plans. Billed annually they are Basic at $9 per user per month, Essentials at $19, Premium at $29 and Elite at $49. The same plans billed monthly are $15, $25, $39 and $59 per user per month.

Which Bonsai plan includes invoicing?

Essentials and above. Basic at $9 per user per month covers time tracking, tasks, unlimited projects and CRM but no billing. Invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, scheduling, the client portal and expense tracking all begin at Essentials at $19 per user per month billed annually.

Does Bonsai have a free trial?

Yes. Bonsai's pricing FAQ, read on 16 October 2026, says the trial begins when you sign up and gives full, unlimited access for 7 days. At the end of it you are prompted to choose a plan and enter card details. No card is needed to start.

Is Bonsai cheaper if you pay annually?

Yes, by roughly a third at every tier. The annual rates are $9, $19, $29 and $49 per user per month against monthly rates of $15, $25, $39 and $59. Bonsai advertises the yearly option as up to 4 months free, so the saving comes with a year of commitment.

What does Bonsai charge for payment processing?

It does not say. Bonsai's pricing FAQ confirms it charges processing fees on online payments and that they vary by payment method, such as credit card or ACH, but it points to a help article instead of publishing rates. Ask for the card and ACH rates in writing before you model collections.

Who owns Bonsai?

Bonsai is a Zoom company, as stated in the footer of its own site on 16 October 2026. The legal entity named there is Bonsai Technologies Inc. For money movement, Bonsai partners with Stripe Payments Company, with funds held at Evolve Bank and Trust and Fifth Third Bank.

Does Bonsai replace a CRM?

For a small service firm, often yes. Bonsai includes CRM, a deals pipeline, scheduling, estimates, proposals, agreements, forms and a client portal alongside its billing tools. The deals pipeline and custom fields sit at Premium at $29 per user per month billed annually rather than in the lower tiers.

Does Bonsai integrate with QuickBooks and Xero?

Yes, from the Premium tier. Bonsai lists integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, Zapier, Calendly and Google against Premium at $29 per user per month billed annually, so they are not available on Essentials where invoicing starts. Bonsai does not replace your accounting system.

What are the main alternatives to Bonsai?

HoneyBook is the closest on proposals and client experience, and unlike Bonsai it publishes its card and bank transfer rates. FreshBooks is stronger on accounting reports and double-entry reporting. Harvest covers time tracking and invoicing and offers a free tier for a single seat, which Bonsai does not.

Can Bonsai control who edits timesheets?

Only on the top tier. Custom permissions, custom roles and timesheet locking are Elite features at $49 per user per month billed annually, and Elite carries a 3 users minimum. Nothing below that tier offers locked timesheets, so a two-person firm cannot buy the control at all.