Bonsai Pricing in 2026: Plans, Fees and What Coaches Pay
As listed in October 2026, Bonsai pricing runs from $15 to $59 per user per month on monthly billing, or $9 to $49 per user per month when you pay for a year up front. There are four plans (Basic, Essentials, Premium and Elite), every one is priced per user, and Elite needs at least three users. For a coach who has to send invoices and get paid, the realistic starting point is Essentials at $25 a month ($19 a month billed yearly), because the Basic plan includes no invoicing or payments at all.
The subscription is only part of the bill. Bonsai's help center listed card fees of 2.9% + $0.30 through Bonsai Payments as of September 2026, and Bonsai is built for freelancers and agencies, so coaches who sell programs, courses or a client community pay for other tools beside it. Below you will find every plan, every fee we could document, what three example coaching practices would pay, the gotchas, and how Bonsai compares with HoneyBook, Practice Better, Dubsado and Coachful. We make Coachful, so we will be clear about where Bonsai is the better buy.
What are Bonsai's plans and prices in 2026?
Bonsai has four paid plans and no free plan. Each is billed per user, and paying yearly cuts the rate by $6 to $10 per user per month, which the pricing page sums up as "up to 4 months free". Here is every plan as listed on Bonsai's pricing page in October 2026.
| Plan | Monthly billing (per user) | Billed yearly (per user, per month) | Yearly cost per user | Limits | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $15 | $9 | $108 (vs $180 paid monthly) | Per user | Time tracking, tasks, unlimited projects and clients, CRM, service library, iOS and Android app. No invoices or payments. |
| Essentials | $25 | $19 | $228 (vs $300) | Per user | Invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, templates, forms and questionnaires, scheduling, client portal, expense and income tracking |
| Premium | $39 | $29 | $348 (vs $468) | Per user | Project insights, workload, Gantt, deals pipeline, custom fields, client tasks and messaging, profit reports, Bonsai branding removed, QuickBooks, Xero, Zapier, Calendly and Google integrations |
| Elite | $59 | $49 | $588 per user; $1,764 at the 3-user minimum (vs $2,124) | Per user, minimum 3 users | Custom permissions, timesheet locking, expense markups, custom data import |
A few details sit around that table. The 7-day trial gives full access, and Bonsai does not ask for a card to start; at the end you choose a plan and enter card details "if you haven't already". Teams of 30 or more users can get a reduced rate that is not published. Two features, a custom domain and project phases, are marked "expected in 2026" rather than live. All prices are in US dollars.
Bonsai's Trustpilot page showed 4.3 out of 5 from 641 reviews when we checked in October 2026. Bonsai's core audience is freelancers and agencies, so when you read those reviews, filter for the workflows you would actually run as a coach: proposals, contracts, scheduling and invoices.
What does each Bonsai plan add for a coach?
Each Bonsai plan includes the one below it and adds a layer. For coaches, the jump that matters most is Basic to Essentials, where invoicing, contracts and scheduling arrive; the jump to Premium mostly buys branding control, client messaging and integrations.
Basic: $15 per user per month ($9 billed yearly)
Basic covers time tracking, tasks, unlimited projects and clients, a CRM, a service library and Bonsai's iOS and Android app. That is enough to keep a client list and log hours, but it stops short of money: Basic has no invoices and no payments. It only makes sense if you track hours on an engagement that someone else invoices.
Essentials: $25 per user per month ($19 billed yearly)
Essentials is where Bonsai becomes a usable back office for a coaching practice. It adds invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, templates, forms and questionnaires, scheduling, a client portal, and expense and income tracking. In coaching terms, you can send a proposal for a package, send your coaching agreement as a contract, collect intake answers through a questionnaire, let the client book a session and bill them, all from one account.
If your bookkeeper works in QuickBooks or Xero, or you already route bookings through Calendly, note that those integrations start on Premium, so you are a Premium customer from day one.
Premium: $39 per user per month ($29 billed yearly)
Premium adds project insights, workload views, Gantt charts, a deals pipeline, custom fields, client tasks and messaging, profit reports, the option to remove Bonsai branding, and integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, Zapier, Calendly and Google. For a coach, the useful parts are branding removal (clients see your business rather than Bonsai's name), client messaging, the deals pipeline for tracking corporate prospects, and the accounting integrations. Gantt charts and workload views are agency tools that most solo coaches will rarely open.
Elite: $59 per user per month ($49 billed yearly), minimum 3 users
Elite adds custom permissions, timesheet locking, expense markups and custom data import. It is designed for agencies billing hours to clients. Because of the three-user minimum, Elite costs at least $177 a month on monthly billing, or $147 a month billed yearly ($1,764 a year), even for a team of two. Few coaching practices need timesheet locking or expense markups; the features a growing coaching team might want are custom permissions and the data import that helps with migration.
What fees does Bonsai charge beyond the subscription?
Bonsai's main extra cost is payment processing. The pricing page links fees out to the help center, and the schedule there as of September 2026 was 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment through Bonsai Payments, 3.25% + $0.30 for American Express, and 1% for ACH bank transfers with a $1 minimum. If you connect your own Stripe or PayPal account in a country where Bonsai Payments is available, Bonsai added a 1% platform fee (1.35% on Amex) on top of what Stripe or PayPal charge.
We could not re-read that help article in October 2026, so treat these as the most recent documented rates and confirm them in your account before you commit. Bonsai Payments is offered in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia; outside those countries, Bonsai works with Stripe and PayPal.
| Fee or extra cost | Amount | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Card payment through Bonsai Payments | 2.9% + $0.30 per payment | Each card payment a client makes (September 2026 schedule) |
| American Express through Bonsai Payments | 3.25% + $0.30 per payment | Clients paying with an Amex card |
| ACH bank transfer | 1%, $1 minimum | Clients paying from a US bank account |
| Platform fee on your own Stripe or PayPal | 1% (1.35% on Amex), plus the processor's own fees | When you use your own processor in a country where Bonsai Payments is available |
| Extra users | Full plan price for each user | Every plan; Elite needs at least 3 |
| Team onboarding | Price not shown | Offered to teams of 10 or more |
| Volume discount | Not listed | Teams of 30 or more users |
| Client or project overages | None listed | Projects and clients are unlimited on every plan |
Take a single $3,000 coaching package as an example. Paid by card through Bonsai Payments, it costs $87.30 in fees. Paid by ACH, it costs $30. Steering large package payments toward bank transfer is the easiest saving in Bonsai's fee schedule, and it applies to monthly retainers from corporate clients too.
Coachful handles this differently. Payments run through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account, and since August 2026 Coachful charges a 0% platform fee, so the only deduction is your processor's own fee. That covers one-time payments, subscriptions, payment plans, coupons, order bumps, refunds, Apple Pay and Google Pay, with Stripe Tax and an invoice generated for every transaction. The short walkthrough below shows how invoices and payments look inside Coachful.
What does a coach actually pay for Bonsai?
In the three examples below, a solo coach pays $19 to $39 a month for Bonsai itself and a three-coach team pays $87 to $177, and in every case card fees cost more than the subscription. The figures use Bonsai's October 2026 prices and its September 2026 fee schedule. The revenue numbers are examples to show the math, not suggested coaching rates; if you are still setting prices, start with our guide to pricing coaching packages.
| Cost line | New solo coach: 8 clients, 1:1 sessions | Established solo coach: 30 clients, packages and a group program | Small team: 3 coaches, about 70 clients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coachful | Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients. Booking, payments, contracts, programs, courses, community, website and email in one plan | Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients. Same toolset, with cohort groups created automatically on enrollment | Team plans add coach seats (Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients) |
| Bonsai plan you would need | Essentials, 1 user | Premium, 1 user (branding removed, client messaging) | Premium for 3 users, or Elite at its 3-user minimum |
| Bonsai subscription, monthly billing | $25 a month | $39 a month | $117 a month (Elite: $177) |
| Bonsai subscription, billed yearly | $228 a year ($19 a month) | $348 a year ($29 a month) | $1,044 a year (Elite: $1,764) |
| Example monthly card volume | 8 payments of $200 = $1,600 | 30 payments of $300 = $9,000 | 70 payments of $300 = $21,000 |
| Card fees through Bonsai Payments | $48.80 a month | $270 a month | $630 a month |
| Bonsai subscription plus card fees (monthly billing) | $73.80 a month | $309 a month | $747 a month (Elite: $807) |
| Tools you still need beside Bonsai | Program or course delivery if you sell one, an email list tool, a website | Program and course delivery, a client community, habit and check-in tracking, email marketing, a website | Everything on the solo list, set up so three coaches can share programs and clients |
Card fees exist on every platform. On Coachful, your Stripe or Razorpay account charges its own processing fee with no Coachful platform fee added. So the real difference between the two setups is the last row: what you still have to buy and connect beside Bonsai.
The new solo coach
For a coach with eight 1:1 clients, Essentials billed yearly is inexpensive at $228 a year, and it covers proposals, agreements, scheduling, intake forms and invoices. The catch is what sits outside it. None of Bonsai's plan listings mention a website builder, email marketing, courses or a community, so the first time you want a lead magnet, a newsletter or a self-paced course, you add a tool and a login. Our Kajabi pricing and Skool pricing breakdowns show what those categories cost on their own.
The established solo coach
At 30 clients with a group program, Premium is the sensible plan: $39 a month, or $348 a year billed yearly, so clients see your brand and you can message them inside Bonsai. The gap here is delivery. Bonsai has no courses, community, client habits, check-ins or coaching programs, so a group program runs on a course platform, a community app or a chat tool, with your clients juggling separate logins. At this size, the subscription is a small line; the stack beside it, and the time spent keeping it in sync, is the larger one.
The small coaching team
Per-user billing does the most damage here. Three coaches on Premium pay $117 a month, or $1,044 a year billed yearly; if you need Elite's custom permissions, the three-seat floor makes it $177 a month or $1,764 a year. Each extra coach adds $39 or $59 a month on monthly billing. Teams of ten or more can buy onboarding, but the price is not shown, and the reduced rate only starts at 30 users.
What hidden costs and gotchas should coaches know about?
The biggest surprises in Bonsai's pricing are structural rather than hidden fees: the advertised entry price excludes invoicing, every seat is billed in full, and the coaching delivery side of a practice is not part of the product.
- The $9 headline is not a coaching price. Basic has no invoices or payments. The cheapest Bonsai plan that can bill a client is Essentials, at $19 a month billed yearly or $25 monthly.
- Every plan is per user. An assistant who manages your calendar or invoices needs a seat at the same price as you. Two users on Premium cost $78 a month on monthly billing.
- Elite has a three-seat floor. Even a two-person team pays for three users, so Elite starts at $177 a month.
- Branding and integrations sit on Premium. On Essentials, Bonsai branding stays on, and you cannot connect Zapier, Calendly, Google, QuickBooks or Xero. If you rely on any of those already, budget for Premium.
- Your own Stripe or PayPal can cost an extra 1%. Where Bonsai Payments is available, connecting your own processor added a 1% platform fee as of September 2026. On $9,000 a month of client payments, that is $90 a month, more than double Premium's monthly price.
- No custom domain yet. Bonsai marks custom domains as "expected in 2026", so client-facing pages cannot carry your own domain until that ships.
- The coaching side lives elsewhere. There are no courses, community, client habits, check-ins or coaching programs. Each of those is another subscription, another login for clients, and another place where client data sits.
- Migration help is on the top plan. Custom data import is an Elite feature, so on lower plans you rely on standard imports or manual entry. Leaving is simpler: clients, contacts and invoices export to CSV.
- The trial is short. Seven days is little time to build a proposal, a contract, a scheduler and an invoice flow and then run a real client through them. Draft your templates before you start the clock.
- Yearly billing is a commitment. The yearly discount is real, but you pay up front. Read Bonsai's cancellation and refund terms before you pay for twelve months.
If you want a structured way to weigh these costs against your own numbers, our coaching pricing audit walks through software, processing and delivery hours line by line.
Is Bonsai worth it for coaches?
Bonsai is worth it for coaches who run their practice like a consultancy, with proposals, contracts, time-tracked retainers and invoices to companies. It is poor value for coaches whose product is a program clients work through between sessions, because that delivery happens outside Bonsai and costs extra.
Executive and business coaches selling to organizations
This is Bonsai's strongest coaching fit. Corporate buyers expect a proposal, a contract and an invoice, and Bonsai handles all three on Essentials. Time tracking helps if you bill retainers against hours, the deals pipeline on Premium tracks prospects across a long sales cycle, and QuickBooks or Xero integration keeps your bookkeeper happy. Companies paying by bank transfer also keep your fees at the 1% ACH rate. If you are shaping those engagements, see our guides to retainer pricing for coaches and value-based pricing for executive coaches, and our page for executive coaches.
Coaches who also consult or freelance
If coaching is one service among several (facilitation, consulting, design or writing work), Bonsai's freelancer roots are an advantage. One account handles proposals, projects, time and invoices across every kind of work, which a coaching-only platform will not do as well.
1:1 life coaches with simple packages
Essentials works for the admin of a 1:1 practice: proposal, agreement, intake, booking, invoice. What it cannot do is support the client between sessions with check-ins, habits, resources or a program. If your packages are built around sessions only, Bonsai is a reasonable choice; if you want to add structure between sessions, a coaching platform fits better. Our pages for life coaches and on hourly vs package pricing go deeper.
Group, program and course coaches
This is a weak fit. Bonsai can invoice for a group program, but it cannot deliver one: no cohort groups, no community, no courses, no check-ins. You would pair it with a course platform and a community tool, and pay per user on top. See our pages on group coaching software and the online course platform for coaches.
Health, wellness and fitness coaches
Also a weak fit, because the daily work of these practices (habits, check-ins, workouts, nutrition targets, progress tracking) is not in Bonsai at all. A note on scope: coaching is not medical treatment. Refer clients with symptoms, diagnoses, eating-disorder concerns or medication questions to a licensed clinician. If you need HIPAA-covered records or insurance billing, you need a clinical system; Coachful is not HIPAA-certified, while Practice Better documents HIPAA-compliant messaging and telehealth. For non-clinical coaching, see our pages for health coaches and the Fitness & Nutrition pack.
Small coaching teams
Per-user billing makes Bonsai expensive as you add coaches, and Elite's three-seat floor penalizes small teams that want permissions. Teams that share programs and clients usually want shared delivery tools too. Our page on coaching teams covers what to look for.
New coaches
Essentials billed yearly is one of the cheaper ways to get proposals, contracts and invoicing. The question is where you will be in a year: if you plan to add a program, a course or a community, you will be choosing tools again. Our pages for new coaches and on starting a business coaching business help you plan that path.
How does Bonsai pricing compare with coaching alternatives?
Bonsai is mid-priced among client-management tools, but it stands out for charging per user on every plan, and like HoneyBook and Dubsado it does not deliver coaching programs. HoneyBook includes up to two team members on Essentials and unlimited team members on Premium, and Practice Better adds practitioners at $50 a month each on its Team plan. Coachful's team plans add coach seats to a flat plan.
We order these by what matters most to coaches: one login for the whole client journey, delivery between sessions, total stack cost, and how much setup you do yourself (Coachful's white-glove build service is free on every plan). Prices are as listed in October 2026.
| Tool | Entry price | Price for a growing practice | Fees and add-ons | Trial | Programs, courses and community |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coachful | Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients | Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients | 0% platform fee since August 2026; Stripe or Razorpay processing only | Free trial | Included: multi-week programs with habits and check-ins, courses, community, website, funnels and email |
| Bonsai | Basic $15 per user a month ($9 yearly); invoicing from $25 ($19 yearly) | Premium $39 per user a month ($29 yearly) | Cards 2.9% + $0.30 via Bonsai Payments; extra 1% on your own Stripe or PayPal (September 2026) | 7 days, no card to start | Not included |
| HoneyBook | Starter $29 a month billed yearly (monthly rate not shown) | Essentials $59 a month ($49 yearly), up to 2 team members | HoneyBook processing only; cards listed at both 2.7% + 10¢ and 2.9% + 25¢; ACH 1.5% | 30 days, no card | Not included |
| Practice Better | Starter $35 a month ($25 yearly), 10 clients | Plus $99 a month ($89 yearly), unlimited clients | SMS reminders 5¢ each (750 a month included on Plus); AI charting from $10 a month | 14 days (Team plan: 30) | Programs and courses, group sessions, journaling |
| Dubsado | Starter $35 a month ($27.92 yearly), 1 lead form, no scheduler | Premier $55 a month ($43.75 yearly) | No Dubsado platform fee stated; processor rates; optional surcharging | 21 days of Premier, no card | Not included |
If you are weighing a single-plan coaching tool, our Paperbell pricing breakdown covers it, and if scheduling is the only gap you need to fill, see Calendly pricing. For marketing-heavy practices, our GoHighLevel pricing guide covers that route. More side-by-sides live on our comparison hub.
Coachful: the whole client journey in one login
Coachful is the pick for coaches who deliver programs, not just sessions. Booking, payments, contracts, programs with habits and check-ins, courses, community, a website with funnels, and email sit under one subscription, with one login for you and one branded app for clients. Plans are flat and monthly, lower plans cap the number of clients, Pro is unlimited, and team plans add seats (Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients). The full picture is in the next section.
Bonsai: best for consultancy-style coaching
Bonsai is strongest where coaching looks like professional services: proposals, contracts, time tracking, retainers and invoices, plus project tools that agencies use. It is weakest at anything a client does between sessions. Pick it over Coachful if you mainly sell proposals and time-based retainers to companies, you need PayPal, or you also run a freelance or consulting business from the same account.
HoneyBook: polished proposals for service businesses
As listed in October 2026, HoneyBook's Starter plan costs $29 a month billed yearly (the monthly rate was not shown; an earlier listing put it at $36 after a February 2025 price rise). Essentials is $59 a month or $49 billed yearly, with up to 2 team members and 10 lead forms, and Premium is $129 a month or $109 billed yearly, with unlimited team members, unlimited lead forms and multiple companies. The scheduler and automations start on Essentials.
Payments must run through HoneyBook's own processing. The pricing page conflicts on card fees: its FAQ says 2.7% + 10¢, while the plan comparison shows 2.9% + 25¢. ACH is 1.5%, instant deposit costs 1%, and Premium accounts processing over $500,000 a year may qualify for lower rates. The trial is 30 days with no card, and Trustpilot showed 4.1 from 748 reviews in October 2026. Like Bonsai, HoneyBook has no programs, courses, habits, check-ins or community.
Pick it over Coachful if you want a polished inquiry-to-proposal-to-payment flow for a service business, you prefer flat team pricing over per-user seats, and you do not need to deliver programs.
Practice Better: a practice platform for health practitioners
Practice Better's pricing page in October 2026 listed a Sprout plan at no cost for students and recent graduates (up to 3 clients), Starter at $35 a month or $25 billed yearly (10 clients), Professional at $69 or $59 yearly (300 clients), Plus at $99 or $89 yearly (unlimited clients) and Team at $155 or $145 yearly with 2 practitioner licenses, plus $50 a month for each additional practitioner. Yearly Team billing includes a migration service the company values at $500. The trial is 14 days, or 30 days on Team.
Add-ons include an AI charting assistant from $10 per practitioner a month, ePrescribe at $49 a month, a Connector Hub at $49 a month on Plus and Team, and SMS reminders at 5¢ each from Professional up. Practice Better describes itself as an EHR for health and wellness practitioners, with charting, telehealth, programs and courses, journaling and group sessions. Our Practice Better pricing guide has the full breakdown.
Pick it over Coachful if you are a credentialed health practitioner who needs charting, HIPAA-compliant records or ePrescribing alongside your client programs.
Dubsado: workflow automation for client paperwork
Dubsado's Starter plan costs $35 a month or $27.92 billed yearly, with unlimited clients and projects but only one active lead-capture form and no scheduler or automations. Premier costs $55 a month or $43.75 billed yearly and unlocks unlimited lead forms. The trial runs 21 days with full Premier access and no card. Dubsado states no platform fee of its own, so processor rates apply, and you can optionally surcharge clients to pass card costs on.
Dubsado says it does not include website building and is not an email marketing platform, and its mobile app is a companion to the desktop web app. It has no courses, client community, habits or check-ins. Pick it over Coachful if you want deep, custom workflow automation for forms, contracts and invoices and plan to keep your website and email elsewhere.
What does Coachful include, and who is it for?
Coachful is a coaching platform that puts booking, payments, contracts, program delivery, courses, a community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant into one subscription, with one login for the coach and one branded app for the client. It is built for coaches who deliver programs rather than only sessions, solo coaches growing into a small team, and coaches replacing four to six tools. Pricing is flat and monthly: lower plans cap the number of clients, Pro has unlimited clients, and Studio and Agency team plans add coach seats (Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients).
Compared with Bonsai, the difference is what happens after the agreement is signed. In Coachful you build multi-week programs with weekly goals, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins, goals with progress bars and streaks, and the client works through them in their own branded home and app.
Every client record pulls together goals, check-ins, habits, notes, intake answers, tags, payments and sessions, with a status of thriving, active, quiet or at risk, so you can see who needs attention before the next call.
The business side covers the same ground as Bonsai Essentials. Booking pages handle availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection, with two-way Google, Apple and Outlook calendar sync and built-in video or automatic Zoom, Meet and Teams links. Reminders go by email, plus SMS and WhatsApp once messaging is enabled. Coaching agreements with e-signature go out before the first call and are stored on the client record. See our pages on scheduling software, coaching contracts and coaching payment software.
On top of that sit the parts Bonsai does not offer: courses with modules, drip and completion tracking; a community feed with group chat, direct messages and video events, with cohort groups created automatically when someone enrolls in a program; a section-based website builder with a blog, custom domain, SEO settings and 30 designed homepage templates; booking, application, lead-magnet and checkout funnels; and email lists, broadcasts and multi-step sequences with branching. Michelle, the built-in AI assistant, works from your live practice data to build programs, draft emails, summarize recorded sessions and brief you before calls; questions and planning are included in the membership, while confirmed builds and changes use AI credits. Executive and life coaches working toward an ICF credential can also track hours and clients against ACC, PCC and MCC thresholds with ICF hour tracking.
This walkthrough shows how a program is built and delivered to clients in Coachful.
What Coachful does not do
- It is not HIPAA-certified and does not sign a BAA, so it is not for clinical record-keeping or insurance billing.
- It does not take PayPal; payments run through Stripe Connect or Razorpay.
- There is no permanent no-cost plan; you start with a trial.
- The client app ships under the Coachful listing with your branding, not under your own App Store account.
- No Garmin, Fitbit, Whoop or Oura sync, and no stock exercise videos.
- No multi-stage sales deal board for large teams, and no Salesforce or HubSpot integration.
- Affiliate tracking covers links, clicks, conversions and revenue, but payouts are recorded manually rather than sent by Coachful.
If hourly time tracking and timesheets are central to how you bill, Bonsai is built around them and may suit you better.
How to start
Start with a free trial, then request a build and move your clients across. Clients, programs and content are imported for you during onboarding, and monthly plans cancel in one click. Coachful holds a 4.5 rating on Trustpilot from 21 reviews.
Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. From Create, choose "We'll build it for you" and describe what you want built: a website, funnel, offer or sales page, program, course outline and written material, email sequence, form, lead quiz, event or webinar, or automation. Attach up to 8 reference links and up to 10 files such as logos, photos, brand guides and copy (no video files). The Coachful team builds it inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours, and leaves gaps for you to fill rather than inventing credentials, testimonials or prices. It does not cover recording videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing. One recent build: a leadership coach with a Squarespace renewal days away got one clean homepage with a repeated "talk with me" button. Read more about the white-glove service.
How can you pay less for Bonsai?
The biggest savings come from yearly billing, staying on Essentials, keeping seats to a minimum and moving large payments to ACH.
- Pay yearly once you are sure. Yearly billing saves $72 a year per user on Basic and Essentials and $120 a year per user on Premium and Elite. If you are unsure, use the trial and a month or two of monthly billing before committing.
- Start on Essentials. Move to Premium only when you need branding removal, client messaging, the deals pipeline or one of the integrations.
- Keep seats to people who need a login. Every user costs the full plan price, so review your user list before each renewal.
- Steer big payments to ACH. At 1% versus 2.9% + $0.30, a $3,000 package costs $30 by bank transfer instead of $87.30 by card.
- Use Bonsai Payments where it is available. As of September 2026, connecting your own Stripe or PayPal in a Bonsai Payments country added a 1% platform fee.
- Prepare before the trial starts. Write your proposal, coaching agreement and intake questions in a document first, so the seven days go to testing, not drafting.
- Ask about volume pricing at 30 users or more. Bonsai offers a reduced rate at that size, but it is not published.
- Count the whole stack, not one subscription. Add Bonsai to your course, community, email and website tools and compare the total with an all-in-one coaching software platform. Our guide to coaching package pricing and checkout software shows how to line those costs up.
Should a coach pay for Bonsai?
Pay for Bonsai if your coaching business works like a consultancy: proposals to companies, signed contracts, time-based retainers and invoices, perhaps alongside freelance work. Choose Essentials for one coach, Premium if branding, messaging or accounting integrations matter, and skip Elite unless your team needs custom permissions.
If your clients buy a change that happens over weeks, Bonsai covers only the paperwork, and you will pay separately for the programs, courses, community and check-ins that deliver it. A coaching platform such as Coachful puts that delivery and the admin under one subscription and one login (Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients), and its team will build your site, funnel or program for you. The coaching CRM page shows how the client side fits together.
Bonsai pricing FAQ
Does Bonsai have a free plan?
No. Bonsai offers a 7-day trial with full access instead, and you do not need a card to start. At the end of the trial you pick a plan and enter card details if you have not already.
How much does Bonsai cost for one coach?
Most solo coaches need Essentials, which costs $25 a month on monthly billing or $19 a month billed yearly ($228 a year), as listed in October 2026. Premium, at $39 a month or $29 billed yearly, adds branding removal, client messaging and integrations. Card fees come on top of either plan.
How much do you save by paying Bonsai yearly?
Per user, yearly billing saves $72 a year on Basic and Essentials and $120 a year on Premium and Elite. Bonsai describes this as "up to 4 months free". At Elite's three-user minimum, the saving is $360 a year.
Does Bonsai charge transaction fees?
Yes, on client payments. As of September 2026, Bonsai Payments charged 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment, 3.25% + $0.30 for Amex and 1% for ACH with a $1 minimum. Using your own Stripe or PayPal where Bonsai Payments is available added a 1% platform fee, so check the current schedule in Bonsai's help center before you sign up.
Can you take PayPal payments with Bonsai?
Yes. Bonsai lists Bonsai Payments (in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia), Stripe and PayPal as payment options. Where Bonsai Payments is available, connecting PayPal or Stripe added a 1% platform fee as of September 2026. If your clients insist on PayPal, note that Coachful does not support it.
Why does Bonsai Elite cost more than the listed price?
Elite is $59 per user per month ($49 billed yearly), but it requires at least three users. The real minimum is therefore $177 a month, or $1,764 a year billed yearly. A solo coach or a two-person team pays for seats nobody uses.
Can Bonsai run coaching programs, courses or check-ins?
No. Bonsai covers the business side: proposals, contracts, scheduling, forms, invoices, payments and projects. It has no courses, community, client habits, check-ins or coaching programs, so coaches who deliver those pay for a separate tool.
Is Bonsai or Coachful better for a coach?
Bonsai is better if you bill companies through proposals and time-based retainers, or also run a freelance business. Coachful is better if clients buy programs you deliver between sessions, since booking, payments, contracts, programs, courses, community, website and email share one login. Compare current plans (Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients) with Bonsai plus the tools you would add beside it.
What is Coachful's free white-glove service?
Every Coachful plan includes a free white-glove build: you describe what you want (a website, funnel, program, course outline, email sequence, form and more), attach up to 8 links and 10 files, and the team builds it inside your account, usually within about 24 hours. Nothing is invented; gaps are left for you to fill. It does not include recording videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing.
Can I move my clients from Bonsai to Coachful?
Yes. Bonsai exports clients, contacts and invoices to CSV, and Coachful imports your clients, programs and content for you during onboarding. Export everything you need before your Bonsai subscription ends.
