Bonsai is an all-in-one business management platform for freelancers, consultants and small agencies. It combines proposals, contracts, invoicing, time tracking, project management, expense tracking and a client portal in one product, and it’s now owned by Zoom.
Bonsai lets you send, edit and e-sign contracts, starting from lawyer-vetted templates, and its templates also cover invoices, proposals and briefs. You can collect upfront deposits when a project starts, set up recurring payments and retainers, and add tracked billable hours to invoices. In the client portal, clients can follow project progress, milestones and deliverables, and find shared contracts, proposals, invoices and files in one place. You can style the portal with your own logo and colors.
Bonsai’s small business page has sections for creative, software, accounting, architecture and interior design work. For software work it highlights tracking billable hours alongside projects, and for architecture it points to tracking revisions and keeping projects on budget. It also mentions contracts for event planners, session booking and client intake questionnaires. On the sales side, you can manage leads and automate your client workflow.
Bonsai has an API for moving data in and out automatically, such as pushing form leads into a CRM or pulling invoice and time data into a report. It reaches data such as invoices, time entries, projects, tasks and subtasks, deals, contacts, companies and comments, and docs.hellobonsai.com holds the authentication guide and endpoint reference. Client portal members can’t use the API. For larger teams, Bonsai offers onboarding that runs from data migration to training, along with support from real people by chat, email or phone.
Bonsai is priced per user across four plans. Basic covers time tracking, tasks, projects and CRM. Essentials adds invoices and payments, proposals, contracts, forms, scheduling, the client portal and expense tracking. Premium adds a Gantt view, workload management, a deals pipeline, reports, branding removal and accounting and app integrations, and Elite adds custom permissions, timesheet locking and expense markups. Current prices are in the pricing box above.