Bonsai's Free Plan Lets You Read Everything and Send Nothing
You keep every document and the export button. What you lose is the ability to create or send - which is a well-judged place to draw the line.
On this page
Having now documented how two dozen products behave when you stop paying, it is worth pausing on one that gets it right, because the pattern is instructive.
Bonsai's free "Limited" plan draws its line in exactly the place that protects the user: you keep everything you have, and you cannot make anything new.
What you keep
"Viewing all existing documents (Proposals, Contracts, Invoices)."
Every proposal you have written. Every contract a client signed. Every invoice you have issued. All of it stays readable.
And alongside it, more than you would expect:
- Projects, tasks and time tracking.
- Adding income and expenses from the Overview page.
- Client records and leads.
- The Services and Forms Library, for viewing.
- Integrations.
- Exporting and importing account data.
That last one matters more than anything else on the list.
Export is not paywalled
Compare this with what we found elsewhere in the same category.
Clockify moved CSV and Excel export to paid plans, leaving free users with PDFs. Several products in this series gate the useful export format behind the subscription, which quietly converts "stop paying" into "lose practical access to your own history".
Bonsai does not. The Limited plan keeps the export, which means a freelancer who stops paying retains both the ability to read their records and the ability to take them away.
That is the correct design, and it is worth naming because so few vendors choose it. A company confident in its product does not need to hold your history hostage.
What you lose
"Create or send new invoices."
"Create or send new client documents (e.g., proposals or contracts)."
So the plan is a complete archive and a non-functional business tool. You cannot bill anyone and you cannot sign anyone up — which is, reasonably enough, the thing Bonsai charges for.
For a freelancer between contracts, or someone who has moved to another tool and wants their old records to stay reachable, that is close to ideal. For anyone still trading, it is not a plan you can work from.
The one thing to grab first
Forms are the exception to the otherwise generous read access.
Access to forms and form responses is blocked on the Limited plan, and Bonsai's own guidance is to download forms and form responses before cancelling.
That is an odd asymmetry — everything else stays visible — and it means form responses are the single category of data you cannot retrieve afterwards. If you have used Bonsai forms for client intake or project briefs, those responses contain information clients gave you once and will not give you again.
Download them before you downgrade. It is the only irreversible step on this page.
What the article does not resolve
- Whether existing invoices, proposals and contracts can be edited on the Limited plan, or only viewed. The documentation mentions viewing only.
- Whether existing invoices can still be paid by clients - which, given FreshBooks documents that clients cannot pay after cancellation, is the question worth asking before you downgrade with money outstanding.
- Whether recurring invoice series continue, stop, or are removed.
That middle one is the consequential gap. Collect what you are owed before changing plans rather than finding out empirically.
Using it well
The Limited plan is genuinely useful in two specific situations.
Between contracts. Rather than cancelling outright and losing the records, drop to Limited and keep everything readable until work picks up. Nothing is destroyed and the upgrade restores a working tool.
After migrating elsewhere. Keep the old account on Limited as a read-only archive of historical invoices and signed contracts, instead of relying on an export you did once and have not opened since.
Both are better options than the usual binary of paying or deleting, and they exist because Bonsai left the door open.
If you are going further than downgrading, the difference between deactivating and deleting is significant and permanent — see Bonsai: deactivate or delete.
Questions people ask
Can I still see my invoices on the Bonsai free plan?
Yes. Bonsai lists viewing all existing documents - proposals, contracts and invoices - as something the Limited plan allows. Your historical records stay readable, which is not true of every tool in this category.
Can I send invoices on Bonsai Limited?
No. The plan explicitly blocks creating or sending new invoices, and creating or sending new client documents such as proposals or contracts. It is a records plan rather than a working plan.
Can I export my data from Bonsai's free plan?
Yes - account settings include exporting and importing account data on the Limited plan. That makes it unusually safe to sit on while deciding what to do next, because the exit is not gated behind the subscription.
What else still works on the Limited plan?
Projects, tasks and time tracking; adding income and expenses from the Overview page; viewing the Services and Forms Library; managing client records and leads; and managing integrations. It is a surprisingly full read-and-record experience.
What should I download before dropping to Limited?
Forms and form responses, because access to those is blocked on the free plan. Bonsai recommends downloading them before cancelling, and since they are the one category you cannot reach afterwards, that advice is worth following exactly.
Where this information comes from
Product details change often. Each item below links to the primary source we checked, so you can confirm anything that matters to your decision.
Spotted something out of date or incorrect? Tell us and we will fix it.