The best CRM and invoicing software for a freelancer is the smallest system that can carry a real client from first conversation to paid invoice. Every is the strongest fit here when you want AI-assisted prospecting, CRM, proposals, invoices, and follow-up in one workspace. HoneyBook, Dubsado, Bonsai, Moxie, Plutio, and Agiled are better candidates when contracts, e-signatures, scheduling, or project management must also be native. FreshBooks is the better fit when accounting and bank reconciliation matter more than prospecting.
There is no universal winner. These products solve three different problems that are often grouped under “all-in-one”:
- finding and managing client relationships;
- moving scope through proposals, contracts, invoices, and payment;
- keeping accounting records after the payment arrives.
Quick comparison
| Product | Best fit | CRM and pipeline | Proposals and invoices | Contracts / e-signatures | Accounting boundary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Every | Solo operators and small teams that want AI to help find warm leads and carry context into proposals, invoices, and follow-up | Native CRM, relationship context, and pipeline | Native proposals, approval, invoices, Stripe payment links, expenses, and time | No contracts or e-signatures | Not a general ledger; keep bookkeeping, reconciliation, payroll, and tax tools |
| HoneyBook | Independents who want an established clientflow from inquiry through booking and payment | Client and project pipeline | Proposals, invoices, payments, and client portal | Contracts are included | Financial workflow and reports, but not a replacement for full accounting |
| Bonsai | Freelancers and agencies that need contracts plus project and client management | CRM; deals pipeline begins on Premium | Proposals, invoices, payments, expenses, time, and portal on Essentials+ | Contracts included on Essentials+ | Tracks income and expenses; deeper accounting may still require an integration |
| Dubsado | Service businesses with a repeatable intake, contract, scheduling, and automation process | Client and project management rather than a sales-first CRM | Invoicing on Starter; public proposals and automated workflows on Premier | Contracts included | Premier connects to QuickBooks and Xero; it is not the accounting ledger itself |
| Moxie | Solo freelancers wanting broad client and project operations at a low entry price | Client management and sales pipeline | Invoices, payments, proposals, quotes, expenses, and time | Contracts included | Describes basic accounting; QuickBooks integration is on Pro |
| Plutio | Freelancers and agencies that want projects, collaboration, client portal, and commercial documents together | CRM plus project workspace | Proposals, invoices, payments, time, scheduling, and portal | Contracts and e-signatures included | Operational finance, not a full accounting replacement |
| Agiled | Service teams that want CRM, projects, documents, support, scheduling, and finance modules | CRM and deal pipelines | Estimates, invoices, payments, expenses, time, and portal | Documents and e-signing included | Tracks operational finance; verify the bookkeeping and tax workflow you need |
| FreshBooks | Service businesses whose center of gravity is invoicing and accounting | Client profiles rather than a prospecting-led CRM | Estimates on Lite; proposals and retainers on Plus+; invoices and payments | E-signatures on Plus+ | Double-entry reports, bank reconciliation, accountant access, and receipt capture on Plus+ |
Pricing verified on August 18, 2026
Prices below are standard public USD prices, before tax and payment-processing fees. “From” uses the first paid plan relevant to a CRM-plus-invoicing evaluation, not a temporary discount. Annual prices are shown as monthly equivalents only when the provider publishes them that way.
| Product | Relevant starting price | Important limit or step-up |
|---|---|---|
| Every pricing | $25/month billed annually; $29 month-to-month | Solo is one member; Team is $129/month billed annually or $149 month-to-month |
| HoneyBook pricing | Starter: $29/month billed annually or $36 monthly | Essentials is $49/month billed annually when you need automations, more scheduling, and advanced integrations |
| Bonsai pricing | Essentials: $19/user/month billed annually or $25 monthly | Basic has CRM and projects but not invoices, payments, proposals, or contracts |
| Dubsado pricing | Starter: $35/month or $335/year | Premier is $55/month or $525/year for scheduling, workflows, public proposals, and accounting integrations |
| Moxie pricing | Starter: $10/month billed annually or $12 monthly | Pro is $20/month billed annually or $25 monthly for a white-label portal, automations, API integrations, and QuickBooks |
| Plutio pricing | Core: $19/month or about $15/month billed annually | Core is solo and limited to 9 active clients per month; Pro is $49/month for unlimited active clients and contributors |
| Agiled pricing | Starter: $24/month billed annually | Starter lists 500 contacts, 10 projects, 100 invoices, 25 documents, and one seat; Pro is $59/month billed annually |
| FreshBooks pricing | Lite list price: $23/month; Plus list price: $43/month | Lite is limited to 5 billable clients and omits proposals, e-signatures, and double-entry accounting reports; promotions change frequently |
Payment processing, payroll, extra seats, AI credits, white-labeling, advanced payments, and other add-ons can change the effective price. Open the linked provider page and price your actual setup before switching.
Which product should you choose?
Choose Every for warm-network growth through invoicing
Every’s AI CRM is unusual in this group because it starts before a lead enters a form. It can use relationship context you authorize to help surface warm opportunities, keep them in a pipeline, draft a proposal, prepare an invoice, and draft a follow-up. The same Person or Company context can support the whole sequence.
Every is a particularly good fit when you want to ask an agent to prepare work instead of configuring a long automation tree. Important external sends still require confirmation or an explicit instruction.
Do not choose Every if you need native contracts, e-signatures, public appointment booking, a shared client project workspace, bank reconciliation, payroll, or a general ledger. Proposal approval is not a contract. For those requirements, keep a specialist or choose a platform that includes them.
Choose HoneyBook or Dubsado for a contract-led clientflow
HoneyBook and Dubsado both put contracts, invoices, and a structured onboarding flow near the center of the product.
HoneyBook’s current Starter plan includes unlimited clients and projects, invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, a client portal, and HoneyBook AI. Essentials adds automations, more scheduler capacity, expense management, and integrations including QuickBooks and Zapier.
Dubsado Starter includes contracts, invoices, payment plans, templates, client portals, and up to three additional users. Premier adds scheduling, public proposals, automated Flows, Zapier, and QuickBooks/Xero integrations. It is the more natural shortlist entry when the workflow itself needs extensive configuration.
If Dubsado is already on your shortlist, use the Dubsado alternatives guide to compare plan boundaries, migration risk, and the jobs Every deliberately does not replace.
Choose Bonsai for contracts plus project operations
Bonsai’s Basic tier covers CRM, time, tasks, and projects. The client-commercial workflow starts in Essentials, which adds invoices, payments, proposals, contracts, scheduling, a client portal, expenses, and income tracking. Premium adds the deals pipeline, project insights, workload management, and additional integrations.
That tier structure matters: comparing Every’s invoicing workflow with Bonsai Basic would be misleading because Basic does not include invoicing.
Choose Moxie when a solo freelancer wants broad coverage for less
Moxie Starter currently lists client and project management, invoices and payments, proposals, quotes, contracts, time, a sales pipeline, basic accounting, forms, scheduling, and its AI assistant. Pro adds a white-label portal, workflows, integrations, a custom domain, and collaborators.
Moxie belongs near the top of a price-sensitive shortlist. Test the depth of each module, exports, and the accounting workflow rather than inferring depth from the long feature list.
Choose Plutio or Agiled for an operational workspace
Plutio and Agiled extend farther into delivery than Every, HoneyBook, or Dubsado.
Plutio includes projects, tasks, CRM, proposals, contracts, invoices, time tracking, scheduling, forms, a client portal, automation, and an AI assistant across plans. Core’s 9-active-client limit makes its low price most relevant to a solo operator with a small concurrent book; Pro is the realistic comparison for a growing studio.
Agiled combines CRM and pipelines with projects, tasks, time, invoices, estimates, expenses, scheduling, documents, e-signatures, tickets, and a client portal. Its plans scale through record, automation, storage, and seat limits. It is worth testing if you want one workspace to cover sales, delivery, support, and billing.
Choose FreshBooks when accounting is the center
FreshBooks is the clearest accounting-led choice in this group. Its current Plus and higher plans list double-entry accounting reports, bank reconciliation, accountant access, expense receipt capture, proposals, client retainers, and e-signatures alongside invoicing and payments.
FreshBooks is not designed around mining an existing relationship network for opportunities. If your main need is accurate books and a mature invoice workflow, that is an advantage, not a weakness. If your main need is to connect prospecting, CRM context, proposals, and follow-up, pair accounting with a client-operations layer or evaluate Every.
How we evaluated these products
We evaluated the public US product and pricing pages for each vendor on August 18, 2026. The comparison focuses on the minimum viable client lifecycle:
- capture or identify a prospective client;
- keep relationship and pipeline context;
- send scope or a proposal;
- collect a contract or approval where required;
- invoice and accept payment;
- follow up and preserve records;
- hand financial data to the appropriate accounting workflow.
We used provider-owned pages for prices and capabilities: HoneyBook, Bonsai, Dubsado, Moxie, Plutio, Agiled, FreshBooks, and Every. We did not score products by feature count, accept vendor savings claims, or assume “AI” means the same workflow in every product.
A practical trial script
Run the same safe test in every finalist:
- Import 20 representative contacts and inspect duplicate handling.
- Create a lead from a real relationship and record the next action.
- Draft a proposal with scope, price, and payment terms.
- Test the required contract or approval path without confusing the two.
- Turn the accepted scope into an invoice and correct one line item.
- Open the client-facing page and inspect the payment experience.
- Record time and one billable expense, then prepare the next invoice.
- Find an overdue invoice and verify exactly what is automatic versus reviewable.
- Export clients, proposals, invoices, contracts, and financial records.
The winner is the product that completes this workflow with the fewest unsafe assumptions and the least duplicate entry—not the product with the longest homepage.
FAQ
What is the best CRM with invoicing for a solo freelancer?
Every is a strong choice when the freelancer wants warm-lead discovery, CRM, proposals, invoicing, Stripe payment links, and AI-assisted follow-up in one workspace. Moxie is a strong low-cost alternative when native contracts, scheduling, and project management matter. FreshBooks is stronger when accounting is the primary job.
Is HoneyBook or Bonsai better for contracts?
Both include contracts and client-commercial workflows. HoneyBook centers the broader inquiry-to-booking clientflow, while Bonsai combines contracts with project, time, expense, and resource-management features. Test your own contract templates, signature path, client portal, and plan limits before choosing.
Can CRM and invoicing software replace accounting software?
Not automatically. A product can track invoices, payments, and expenses without providing a complete general ledger, bank reconciliation, payroll, tax filing, or accountant workflow. Keep an accounting system when those are requirements.
Does Every include contracts or e-signatures?
No. Every supports proposals and recipient approval, but it does not currently provide contract entities, contract templates, or e-signatures. Use a specialist contract product or choose a platform such as HoneyBook, Dubsado, Bonsai, Moxie, Plutio, or Agiled when native contracts are non-negotiable.
For the adjacent CRM decision, read our evidence-led AI CRM guide. For an accounting-first comparison, see FreshBooks alternatives.