Bonsai Pricing Explained (2026)
Bonsai runs $9 to $49 per user per month on annual billing, and the tier that actually replaces your freelance stack — contracts, proposals, invoicing — is the second one, not the first.
| Plan | Price | Billing | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $9/user/mo | billed annually; $15/user/mo monthly. 1 seat minimum, 10 GB storage | Time tracking, task management, unlimited projects and clients, CRM, service library, iOS and Android apps |
| Essentials | $19/user/mo | billed annually; $25/user/mo monthly. 100 GB storage | Everything in Basic plus invoices, payments, proposals, contracts, templates, forms, scheduling, client portal, expense and income tracking |
| Premium | $29/user/mo | billed annually; $39/user/mo monthly. 500 GB storage | Everything in Essentials plus project insights, workload management, Gantt view, deals pipeline, custom fields, client tasks and messaging, profit and productivity reports, branding removal, QuickBooks/Zapier/Calendly/Google integrations |
| Elite | $49/user/mo | billed annually; $59/user/mo monthly. 3-seat minimum, 500 GB storage | Everything in Premium plus custom permissions, timesheet locking, expense markups, Xero integration, custom data import |
The entry tier is not the entry point
Bonsai's price list opens at $9 per user per month on annual billing, which reads as remarkably cheap for a freelance business platform. It is, and it is also slightly misleading, because Basic contains no invoicing, no contracts and no proposals.
Those three things are what freelancers buy Bonsai for. Basic gives you time tracking, task management, unlimited projects and clients, a CRM and the mobile apps — a competent project tracker, but not the paperwork engine the product is known for.
The honest entry price is Essentials at $19/user annual. Everything below that is a trial with a price tag.
The annual gap is unusually wide
Most SaaS charges 20 to 25% more for monthly billing. Bonsai charges 40 to 67% more.
| Tier | Annual | Monthly | Monthly premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $9 | $15 | +67% |
| Essentials | $19 | $25 | +32% |
| Premium | $29 | $39 | +34% |
| Elite | $49 | $59 | +20% |
For a freelancer with variable income, the instinct to stay monthly is understandable and expensive — a year on monthly Premium costs $468 against $348 annual. If you are confident you will use it for more than eight months, annual is straightforwardly the right call.
What each tier is actually for
Basic at $9: time tracking and project management. Useful for someone who already invoices elsewhere.
Essentials at $19: the freelance admin stack. Proposals, contracts with e-signature, invoices, payments, forms, scheduling, a client portal, expense and income tracking. This is the product most Bonsai customers think they are buying, and for a solo freelancer it is genuinely complete.
Premium at $29: the business layer. Profit and productivity reporting, workload management, Gantt view, a deals pipeline, custom fields, client tasks and messaging — plus, importantly, the removal of Bonsai branding from client-facing documents and the QuickBooks, Zapier, Calendly and Google integrations.
That branding detail deserves emphasis. A freelancer sending proposals with another company's logo on them is a positioning problem, not a feature gap, and it pushes a lot of buyers from $19 to $29 for reasons that have nothing to do with functionality.
Elite at $49: custom permissions, timesheet locking, expense markups, Xero integration, custom data import — with a three-seat minimum. This is a small-agency tier, and the minimum makes it awkward for two-person studios that need exactly one of its features.
What it replaces
Bonsai's argument is consolidation, and at Essentials it is a strong one.
| Function | Typical standalone |
|---|---|
| Contracts and e-signature | $15–$25/mo |
| Proposals | $19–$49/mo |
| Invoicing and payments | $15–$30/mo |
| Time tracking | $8–$12/mo |
| Client portal | $15–$40/mo |
Against $19 a month, that is not a close comparison. The trade-off is depth: Bonsai's proposal builder is not as strong as a dedicated proposal tool, its invoicing is not as capable as dedicated accounting software, and its CRM is basic. For a solo freelancer, good enough across five categories beats excellent in one. For a growing agency, the ceilings start to show — which is why Premium's reporting and Elite's permissions exist.
The scaling question
| Team size | Essentials | Premium | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $19/mo | $29/mo | n/a (3-seat min) |
| 3 users | $57/mo | $87/mo | $147/mo |
| 10 users | $190/mo | $290/mo | $490/mo |
Teams of 30 or more can negotiate reduced rates, and dedicated onboarding is included at 10+ users on Premium and Elite. Below those thresholds the list price applies, and at ten users Elite is approaching the cost of a purpose-built agency PSA like Scoro — a comparison worth making explicitly at that size, because Bonsai's financial depth does not match it.
Who should buy it
Freelancers and small studios who want contracts, proposals, invoicing and time tracking in one place with one client record behind them. Essentials at $19 is the sweet spot for solo operators; Premium at $29 for anyone client-facing enough to need their own branding on documents.
It fits poorly for agencies past about ten people, where Bonsai's reporting and resource management are thinner than the PSA tools at similar prices, and for anyone whose main need is a single deep capability — a dedicated tool will do it better for the same money. Check hellobonsai.com/pricing for current rates.
What the pricing page doesn't show
- Basic has no invoicing, contracts or proposals. The features a freelancer actually buys Bonsai for start at Essentials, so the real entry price is $19/user annual, not $9.
- Monthly billing costs 40–67% more than annual depending on tier — $15 against $9 on Basic, $25 against $19 on Essentials. That is a far steeper monthly penalty than the 20% norm.
- Elite enforces a three-seat minimum, so the smallest Elite account is $147/month annual even for a two-person studio that needs custom permissions.
- Integrations are tier-gated rather than universal: QuickBooks, Zapier, Calendly and Google arrive at Premium, and Xero only at Elite. An Essentials user wanting accounting sync must move up two tiers.
- Bonsai branding stays on client-facing documents until Premium. For a freelancer sending proposals under their own name, that alone pushes the effective price from $19 to $29.