When Hello Bonsai launched, it made a bold promise: to give freelancers the kind of business tools usually reserved for agencies and enterprise teams—but tailored to the way freelancers actually work. That was an ambitious vision, and as someone who’s built my own tool with freelancers in mind (Ahsuite), I’ve always kept an eye on how Bonsai evolves.
In 2025, Hello Bonsai remains one of the most feature-rich platforms for managing a freelance business. It offers tools for proposals, contracts, invoicing, project management, and even tax prep—all in one account. But does that breadth of features help freelancers thrive, or does it weigh them down?
In this review, I’ll give you an honest look at what Hello Bonsai is good at, what it could do better, and how it compares to other options for running a modern freelance business.
What is Hello Bonsai?
Hello Bonsai is a unified platform for service businesses, designed to consolidate your projects, clients, and billing operations under one roof. It offers an integrated suite of tools across client management, project management, and finance—specifically tailored for freelancers and small teams who need structure without the overhead of a corporate system.
Bonsai began as a freelancer-first tool, and that DNA is still visible, but its feature set has expanded over time to support growing service businesses as well.
What is Hello Bonsai Used For?
Client Management
Manage client relationships using Bonsai’s CRM, proposals, contracts, forms, scheduling, and customizable client fields. Clients get their own portal, and you can offer a white-labeled experience on higher plans.
Project Management
Bonsai handles unlimited projects and tasks with support for Kanban, Gantt, recurring tasks, and project budgets. Use task templates, dependencies, and workload views to stay on top of deliverables.
Financial Management
Create invoices, accept online payments, send retainers or subscriptions, and track both income and expenses. Add time entries and mark up expenses to bill clients accurately.
Automation & Business Ops
Automate client workflows, send scheduled invoices, sync with your calendar and accounting tools, and even manage requests (request management and ticketing features are expected in 2025).
Who Uses Hello Bonsai?
While still popular among freelancers, Bonsai increasingly caters to boutique agencies and service businesses looking for an all-in-one client operations platform.
What are the Main Features of Hello Bonsai?
Proposal & Contracts
Send custom proposals, generate e-signable contracts, and use prebuilt templates to streamline onboarding.
Invoicing & Payments
Includes recurring and retainer invoices, time/expense attachment, multi-currency support, and payment integrations with Stripe and PayPal.
Time & Task Management
Includes native time tracking, Gantt and Kanban views, recurring tasks, and workload management.
Client Relationship Management
CRM with pipeline tracking, scheduling tools, onboarding forms, a dedicated client portal, and custom client fields.
Financial Management
Track income, expenses, profit margins, and productivity metrics. Sync with your bank, QuickBooks, Xero, and view profitability reports.
Forms & Questionnaires
Collect client input with branded, shareable forms and questionnaires.
Integrations
Connect Bonsai to your workflows with integrations like Google Calendar, Gmail, Zapier, Slack, QuickBooks, Xero, and Hubspot.
Things I Like About Hello Bonsai
- Built specifically for freelancers and service-based businesses
- Smooth end-to-end workflows from proposal to payment
- Helpful automations that reduce admin work
- Polished interface and user experience
Things I Don’t Like About Hello Bonsai
- Limited design customization for some client-facing assets
- Can feel bloated if you’re only using a few features
- Pricing can escalate quickly, especially for small teams
Hello Bonsai Pricing
Bonsai offers four paid tiers, each billed monthly or annually:
Annual Pricing:
- Basic: $9/user/month
- Essentials (Most Popular): $19/user/month
- Premium: $29/user/month
- Elite: $49/user/month (minimum 3 users)
Monthly Pricing:
- Basic: $15/month
- Essentials: $25/month
- Premium: $39/month
- Elite: $59/month
Key Plan Differences
- Basic: Time tracking, task management, unlimited projects, CRM, client portal, mobile apps, expense/income tracking (10 GB storage)
- Essentials: Adds proposals, contracts, scheduling, integrations, profitability reports, forms, and branding removal (100 GB storage)
- Premium: Adds project insights, workload view, Gantt charts, advanced integrations, custom fields, client messaging (500 GB storage)
- Elite: Adds permissions, timesheet locking, markup on expenses, and request management features (500 GB storage)
Hello Bonsai Alternatives
Ahsuite
Ahsuite is a clean, focused alternative for freelancers and agencies who need to share dashboards, files, and tasks in a professional client portal. It’s designed to reduce support queries and simplify client collaboration—without adding extra admin tools you may not need. Ahsuite is free for up to ten clients.
Monday.com
Monday.com is a highly customizable project management platform for teams of all sizes. It includes modules for CRM, IT, design, and marketing, with rich visualization and automation tools. It’s powerful, but not built specifically for freelancers.
ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform offering tasks, docs, whiteboards, goals, chat, time tracking, and more. It’s popular with tech-forward teams and agencies that want deep customization and automation—but it can be overwhelming at first.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a simple and effective invoicing and accounting platform for freelancers and small businesses. It lacks full project management capabilities but excels at making billing and expense tracking easy.
Dubsado
Dubsado is a CRM and workflow automation tool for creatives and service providers. It handles contracts, scheduling, forms, and client portals with a heavy emphasis on branded experiences—but setup can be complex.
HoneyBook
HoneyBook is another all-in-one platform for independent professionals, combining contracts, payments, and client communication. It’s sleek and easy to use, with strong support for proposals and team collaboration.
Consider Ahsuite
If you need a platform that handles every facet of your freelance business, Hello Bonsai is one of the most complete solutions available. But if you’re primarily focused on client-facing communication and don’t need all the financial bells and whistles, Ahsuite could be a better fit.
Ahsuite is free for up to ten client portals and was built with the same freelancer-first mindset. It simplifies the experience for both you and your clients—keeping your communication, files, and tasks in one clean, organized space.
Try Ahsuite today—you might find it’s all you really need.