Comparison
Herd vs Bonsai
An all-in-one freelance business suite: contracts, proposals, invoices, time tracking, expenses and light CRM, priced per user. This page puts it beside Herd for UK creators, with the pricing checked on 21 September 2026 and the places Bonsai wins written down as such.
Herd at a glance
- Plans
- From £99/month for creators, in GBP
- Covers
- Creators, brands and agencies in one account, on the same deal record
- Based
- United Kingdom. Herd UK Ltd, registered in England & Wales
- Best for
- UK creators who want the content, the paperwork and the money in one system rather than in eleven tabs
Bonsai at a glance
- Pricing
- Basic is $15 per user a month or $9 billed annually, Essentials is $25 or $19, Premium is $39 or $29, and Elite is $59 or $49 with a three user minimum, all in USD.
- Head office
- San Francisco, US
- Best for
- Freelancers who bill by the hour and need time tracking, and small teams who want contract templates covering many kinds of work.
Pricing last checked 21 September 2026 from hellobonsai.com.
Prices in USD, with GBP invoicing; features change, check Bonsai's site before deciding.
The short version
Bonsai is the better and much cheaper choice for general freelance admin, particularly if you bill by the hour. Herd is the better choice if the client is a brand and the deliverable is a post, because everything from the calendar to the media kit to the campaign invitation lives in the same place. Neither is trying to be the other.
Bonsai is run from San Francisco, US. It suits freelancers who bill by the hour and need time tracking, and small teams who want contract templates covering many kinds of work.
Herd is a UK product with three sides in one account. Creators run content, deals, contracts and invoices. Brands run campaigns, review content and pay creator invoices by card. Agencies run a roster with commission splits and white-label client portals. Herd costs from £99/month for creators, billed in pounds. That breadth is the whole trade: Herd covers more of the week, and in a few places it covers it less thoroughly than Bonsai does.
Feature by feature
Every line in the Herd column is a feature that works today. The Bonsai column is what its own site and the listings we read showed on 21 September 2026: a dash means we could not find the feature there, and a plan name in the Herd column is the plan the feature starts on.
| Feature | Herd | Bonsai |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | ||
| Creators | Free, £99 or £299 a month | From $9 per user a month annual |
| Brands | £999 a month | No |
| Agencies | £1,999 a month, roster and commission | Per-user seats only |
| Content | ||
| Content calendar and publishing | Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X | No |
| Video editor | Yes | No |
| Media kit and public profile | Yes | No |
| Deals & paperwork | ||
| Contracts with e-signature | Pro | Yes |
| Contract template library | Templates for creator deals | Large multi-industry library |
| Proposals with accept or decline | Yes | Yes |
| Deals pipeline shared with the other side | Yes | No |
| Money | ||
| Invoices with a card pay link | Starter and above | Yes |
| Time tracking | No | Yes |
| Expenses and tax view | Pro | Yes |
| Digital products and memberships | Pro | No |
| Communication | ||
| Gmail or Outlook inbox | Yes | No |
| Video meetings with guest links | Yes | No |
| Pricing & billing | ||
| Currency | GBP | USD, with GBP invoicing |
| Pricing model | Per account | Per user |
| Free trial | No, live demo on request | 7 days |
Where Bonsai is stronger
Nothing below is a concession for the sake of looking fair. These are the parts of Bonsai that Herd either does not have or does less well, and if one of them is the deciding factor for you, buy Bonsai.
- A very large library of contract templates covering many kinds of freelance work.
- Time tracking and timesheets, which Herd does not have.
- Much cheaper at $9 per user a month billed annually.
- Can invoice in GBP, so UK freelancers are not forced into dollars.
- A 7-day trial before you pay anything.
What Herd adds
The other direction. These are jobs Herd covers that we could not find in Bonsai's published feature list when we checked on 21 September 2026, taken from the same list as the table above, plus the differences in how the two are priced. Some of them sit on the higher Herd plans, and the pricing below says which.
- No social publishing, content calendar or video editor.
- No media kit, public profile or rate card for brand deals.
- No opportunities queue and no brand or agency counterpart.
- No digital products or memberships.
- No video meetings hosted in the product.
- Per-user pricing, so a small team costs several times the headline.
Pricing side by side
Basic is $15 per user a month or $9 billed annually, Essentials is $25 or $19, Premium is $39 or $29, and Elite is $59 or $49 with a three user minimum, all in USD. Those figures are from Bonsai's own pricing page, last checked on 21 September 2026. Herd is priced in pounds and costs from £99/month for creators, with 17% off when you pay for the year and a 14-day cooling-off period on every paid plan.
Herd, in pounds
For creators
- FreeFree, no card
- Starter£99/month, £986/year
- Pro£299/month, £2,978/year
Annual billing saves 17% on creator and Brand plans and 20% on the Agency plan. 14-day cooling-off on every paid plan. Brands and agencies can book a live demo before subscribing.
Bonsai, as published
- Basic$15/user/mo or $9/user/mo annual
USD
- Essentials$25/user/mo or $19/user/mo annual
USD
- Premium$39/user/mo or $29/user/mo annual
USD
- Elite$59/user/mo or $49/user/mo annual
USD · Minimum 3 users
Pricing last checked 21 September 2026 from hellobonsai.com.
Those figures are from Bonsai's own pricing page, last checked on 21 September 2026.
Prices in USD, with GBP invoicing; features change, check Bonsai's site before deciding.
Invoices and money
The invoice, the pay link and the payout in one place
An invoice in Herd is attached to the deal it came from and carries a card pay link, so the brand can settle it without a bank transfer form. What it is not is a general accounting package: Herd does not replace your accountant, and it does not track billable hours.
- Send real invoices with a card pay link from Starter upwards.
- On Pro, Stripe Connect settles the money into your own bank rather than a platform wallet.
- Expenses, cashflow and a tax view sit beside the invoices in Financials.
Herd and Bonsai, asked and answered
- No, not for one person. Bonsai Basic is $9 per user a month billed annually. Herd Starter is £99. Bonsai gets more expensive as you add people, because it charges per user, while Herd charges per account.
- No. Herd has no time tracking or timesheets. If you bill hourly, Bonsai does that job and Herd does not.
- Bonsai has the bigger template library across many industries. Herd’s contracts are built for creator deals, can be pre-filled from a deal, and the brand or agency signs inside their own Herd account rather than through an emailed link.
- Everything social: publishing to four networks, a content calendar, a video editor, a live media kit, a rate card, an opportunities queue, digital products and memberships, plus the brand and agency sides of the same deal.
Creator pricing
Start free and stay there as long as you like. Paid plans add real invoices, the inbox, the media kit and everything else.
Free
Have a proper look around
£0/month
No card needed.
- Content calendar and drafts
- One draft deal to set up
- Invoice preview
- Dashboard with sample data
- Video editor · 1 watermarked export a month
- Community
- Send invoices or activate deals
- Inbox, meetings, media kit
- 7 days of history
- No social integrations
Starter
Run the business by hand
£99/month
Billed monthly. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Active deals · Up to 5 at a time
- Send invoices your clients pay by card through Stripe
- Stripe payouts to your own bank
- Gmail or Outlook inbox and opportunities queue
- Live media kit, rate card and video meetings
- Video exports · 5 a month, no watermark
- Social integrations · 2 connected accounts
- Contracts, expenses, products and memberships
- 90 days of history
- No automated reminders
Pro
The whole business, no limits
£299/month
Billed monthly. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Unlimited active deals and video exports
- Contracts with e-signature
- Proposals to brands and agencies
- Payments page with your Stripe balance and payout history
- Digital products and memberships
- Expenses, cashflow and tax-ready exports
- Asset library and email
- Unlimited social integrations
- Prices in GBP. VAT added where applicable.
- Annual billing saves 17% on creator and Brand plans and 20% on the Agency plan.
- 14-day cooling-off period on every paid plan.
- Card payment through Stripe. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Platform fee on digital product sales: 5%.
Keep reading
The switching notes for Bonsai, the other comparisons UK creators tend to read, and how Herd works day to day.
Herd has a page for each side of the market: creators, brands and agencies. The full list of what the product does is on the features page, and every plan and fee is on the pricing page.
- Bonsai alternativeWhat changes if you move, what you give up, and the steps for leaving Bonsai.
- Herd vs BeaconsA creator toolkit built around a link-in-bio page, with a storefront, an auto-updating media kit, email and invoicing attached to it.
- Herd vs KitlyA media kit and collaboration tracker for creators, with a separate product, Kitly Business, for agencies managing a roster.
- Herd vs LaterA social media scheduler with a visual planner, publishing to seven or more networks, a link-in-bio page and post analytics.
- How creators use HerdA working week on Herd from the creator side, feature by feature.
Run the business side from one screen
Plan the week, send the invoice, sign the contract and watch the money land in your own bank account.
The free plan does not expire and needs no card.