Bonsai Reviews 624

Bonsai has excellent customer service. I am a solopreneur managing many different types of projects through the platform. When my account ran into trouble, they provided me with multiple solutions and asked me which one I wanted to go with, then made the changes to my account for me. The issue was resolved quickly and efficiently.

One of the best platforms for new freelancers and creatives!
It is easy to learn and is an all-in-one for clients to sign contracts, pay invoices, and store data in their CRM. And if that wasn't enough, their customer support team is nothing short of kind and professional (thanks Cara)!

Hello Bonsai is a great platform for freelancers.
I especially like the contracts and invoices features. This tool is very helpful for anyone who needs to follow up with clients, send them professional looking email reminders, sign legal binding contracts without hassle and process payments.

I had a little issue with my receiving my payments, but customer service chat answers within 24 hours and were very helpful to resolve this.

This is a perfect solution for a freelancer or independent business owner like myself. I have been using this platform for several years and have never had an issue, it makes writing proposals super quick and efficient along with sending out invoices, and recurring invoices for my services. If I ever have a question, the support team reaches out very quickly and offers help.

Everything is great other than they force you and trap you to using their horrible banking service. If that wasn't the case, it'd be 5 stars easily!

Also, the 2fa is very bad -- it asks you to verufy it's you multiple times in one sesssion.

If I could give them a Zero I would! Buyer BEWARE!!!!!! Unless you like the thought of your business getting, literally, shut down, out of nowhere, without notice, with out providing a reason. Then Run Away! Run Far Away!

I started Bonsai for my small business, due to a recommendation. I started my account and finally getting everything set up. Just tied in my whole business. I thought everything was going great! Paid for the service. Then I get this:
(This is Dorian with Bonsai Operations reaching out with an update about your Bonsai account.
Your account was subject to a manual review process. As a result of it, I regret to inform you that we will not be able to support your Bonsai account going forward.
While we wish we could support every business, there are certain cases in which we are not able to provide our service.
We have made sure to cancel your subscription and refund any unsettled payments.)
I received this on a Friday afternoon; (it was sent in the morning however my business is not in front of a computer). Dropping my company without a heads up, notification of an issue, without attempts to fix whatever problem they had, and without explanation as to why. When I went to find the number to call customer service, low and behold..........they no longer have one that they offer to their clients. I was hoping to resolve whatever issue, it was, that they had or at least get a reason as to why.
What you have to use is their messenger which, according to them, "Our usual reply time A day". I tried to ask the messenger AI for a number to call it replies; "The team will get back to you soon - our typical response time is 1 business day." This being a Friday, I wasn't going to hear anything till Monday at the earliest. Now what I can say is that, when I was begging for answers through the messenger, someone from service, not the AI, started to type me a reply, but they stopped at just typing. I never received a response and the rest of my messages after that have yet to be seen.
What I had figured out, on my own, is that the invoice that I sent that day was frozen, my clients who had paid through the system were refunded, anyone else that is trying to pay will not be allowed to, and I am still awaiting my refund from Bonsai.
What Bonsai does not see, is that the businesses that they just "Drop" have to jump through hoops and have actual damages. For having to rework everything, retrain, rebuild a whole new system, reinvoice, reach out to all of their clients and hope they understand and actually pay.
Bottom line, your business is nothing more than another account to them. They do not care about you or your lively hood. If they did then they would have worked with me and would at least have a direct way to contact support during business hours. Businesses that rely and trust you with their literal business need you to care about them! At least enough to assist them, and if there is an issue, communicate and pave a way for "your client" to achieve a resolution. Don't just drop them.

Originally I had a poor customer service experience after reaching out to support but after further follow up the Bonsai team swiftly reviewed my situation and resolved the issue, thanks!

If I could leave a ZERO star, I would. This is the absolute worst company I've ever stumbled across. I am a freelance social media manager and I was attempting to make invoices for my clients through Hello Bonsai. The invoice sending was successful, and my clients were able to easily pay. At that point, Hello Bonsai decided not to release the funds to me. Instead they continued to ask extremely vague questions about my business that led to them saying I couldn't provide them with enough information to validate my business. Vague questions where it was impossible for me to provide a suitable answer. So my belief is that this was intentional to keep the funds for themselves. I even went to the trouble of having an executive, from the company that hired me, write and sign a letter stating they hired me to do their social media management. That still wasn't good enough for them to release my funds. I also provided website addresses, Instagram handles, marketing strategies from private meetings within my company, and much much more. None of it was "apparently" sufficient. Additionally, multiple people were responding to the support messages from Bonsai, and none of them were in the loop with each other on what I had already provided. So I went in circles and provided duplicate information to Bonsai at least 5 separate times. All of which was never "enough info". I cannot stress enough that no one should ever ever use this company. They are FRAUD and they intentionally make it impossible to get your funds. I'm hoping that my client gets refunded, but who knows if that will happen. I opened an online investigation of their website and services, so maybe soon they will be shut down for good. BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely seamless experience. Everything I need for my client-facing business.

This terrible company randomly cancelled my account, blocking three of my new prospects from signing with me. We ended up losing over $60k in revenue. They also provided me with no reason why it happened.

Stay away from this company. Stick to docusign.

Excellent start for very small biz owners/consultants with many fabulous time-saving features. However, basic features are not set to grow with small businesses when they add even a single part-time employee.
First, the great - Bonsai has an extremely pleasant UI / user interface. It has a host of great time saving features - the ability to send clients a link to schedule online and link to one's ical is EXCELLENT! The automations, while limited, have incredible potential (for example, client signs a contract, invoice is sent or potential lead fills out a form, proposal is sent). One can easily add logos and color themes on client-facing documents and even provide clients with access to their client portal.
With all Bonsai has going for it (and there is a lot going for it) there are some short-sighted limitations.
Areas for improvement: Once a business has employees, or does any kind of volume work, some Bonsai features may be hard to work with. For example, hire a PT receptionist and want them to access Bonsai? You have only 2 options - 1) give very restricted access as a collaborator (in which case your employee can't do basic actions like send an invoice or create a project) or 2) assign them a "partner" role and turn over the reigns to ALL your financial details (which very few employers would be comfortable with). Similarly, Bonsai does not allow a contract to go out without business signature and the user sending the contract is the default name / signer on the contract - so to use the example again of say your part-time receptionist sending out a standard contract your contracts will all be between customer/client and your receptionist. There is no current way to have the owner's default signature or just have the customer sign.
The contract templates are similarly great for a brand new business starting out where the owner will spend time revising each new contract. However, I found the contracts very limited in terms of pulling in client or project details if you want to just open up template A or template B and send it to a client/project you created.

Also, there is no search feature for clients or projects - not a big deal if you're just starting out with a handful of clients, a real problem if you have built up many clients/projects.

To sum, this is a very innovative platform that would be well worth considering as a freelancer / brand new micro business owner. I have not been with Bonsai long enough to know how likely they are to build better features to grow with into their platform. I plan to stick around a bit longer in the hopes that their excellent start grows with my business.

I'm having quite a bit of trouble, but I'm staying the course for now because conceptually this app fits my needs, but here's my problems so far:

1. Technical and Formatting Issues:
• Inability to adjust certain images within the title page; automatic downscaling of images.
• Images on mobile devices are cut off, stretched, or contorted.
• Issues with image stretching and formatting in proposals, affecting visual quality.
• Images often appear pixelated or of low quality when uploaded to the platform.
2. Customer Service and Support:
• Slow response times (1-3 days) from customer service.
• Partial or inadequate addressing of issues raised.
• Unresponsive telephone support; calls go unanswered.
3. Billing and Pricing Transparency:
• Double charged within a 30-day period.
• Unclear additional charges for adding a partner and activating features.
• Forced payment for account feature access.
4. Platform Functionality and Management:
• Sent proposals don’t automatically move to the ‘sent’ column; manual adjustment required.
• The cell phone app lacks editing capabilities and clarity on useful features.
• No straightforward testing process for proposals; must send to self for testing.
• Resets in white glove branding feature after account adjustments, leading to unintentional branding presence.
• Inadequate preview functionality; does not fully display client’s view.
5. Delivery and Tracking:
• Partial delivery of proposals to recipients.
• Unreliable read receipt functionality.
• No confirmation of proposal receipt or review by recipients.

Great web application w/ prompts to help you set it up! Really guides you and gets you up and running with it in an easy way. I also reached out for assistance w/ a question I had and they got back to me promptly with a helpful response!

Very clean, easy-to-use software with terrific customer support!!! SO GOOD!!!

I've used Bonsai for almost a year so far. I'd give them a 4/5. They provide the invoicing and payment options I need. Their customer service is efficient and friendly. If they make a mistake they make it right. Overall, I am satisfied with their product as a small business owner.

Like others, the moment I was paid through Bonsai, I received an email from “Dorian” indicating my account was frozen and I must verify my identity via an emailed link that was never sent.
Additionally, this account freezing without warning happened on the weekend, so of course no one is available to respond or release my payment. I’m unable to access my account to provide any missing information & I set up my account as thoroughly as indicated before this incident. Reviews within the App Store show this is a common occurrence and receiving my payment could take weeks. Do not use Bonsai for payments. Actually just don’t use Bonsai - their platform is buggy and glitches out regularly.

This email was sent by Dorian at HelloBonsai;

Hello,

Your account was subject to a manual review process. As a result of it, I regret to inform you that we will not be able to support your Bonsai account going forward.

We have made sure to cancel your subscription and will refund any unsettled payments. This will allow you to receive payment from your client via an alternative means.

We will issue the refund at the end of business day tomorrow, 09/29/2023.

We wish you and your business the best going forward.

Thanks for your understanding,

Dorian

Bonsai Operations

Please find the communications that I originally sent to Dorian -

There are no links available - I am currently in the process of an event and I am required to send links to my client. If I at minimum had received a courtesy email stating that my account is up for review this would have allowed me to provide the necessary information to ensure that I am not at a disadvantage.

In addition to this; upon signing up we were required to enter literature about our company. This literature was absolutely clear - I do not understand the purpose behind what you all are doing.

I am well within my rights to determine if I wish to refund the funds to my client and bill on another platform. I am paying a fee to use your platform. I will need to understand in its entirety what this means.

Please resend the link and if possible - due to the event I will need to resend all emails and invoices to my clients email address.

Is there a contact number for this company ?
. How do your customers find you? At the hospitality hub customers are normally found at hotels and events. We facilitate special events at hotels to increase brand awareness and visibility. These events can be weddings; themed parties and or networking events.


2. Provide your SS-4/CP575/EIN assignment letter for the business - ATTACHED!


3. Provide any online presence for your business - Our partnerships are with hotels thereby all proposals and promotional materials are sent directly between us and resorts.

Hence, I think its necessary to know as a business owner that you may want to seek another solution, considering the discretionary policy of cancelling the plan was not from a legalistic standpoint but rather because I strongly communicated with the rep about the terms and conditions. I would pleased to share my email thread with you if you desire to understand and if it assist with making a decision when moving forward with this platform.

amarakia.thompson at gmail.com

This platform is extremely unprofessional. When you sign up you are requested to upload all documents needed, business, and identity. Then because you're new to the platform, your funds are put on a 7-day business hold. Well on day 7 I was told that my identity couldn't be verified and my account was frozen after sending in my driver's license 3 times. I wasn't informed until it was time to pay out my profits. There's no customer service line and their chat feature is used more as an email feature. They get back to you when they feel like it. It also lets you know when they've read your messages. I can't tell you how many times my messages were in "seen" status for hours and still no response. I have employees to pay and operational expenses. This is honestly the worst experience a business owner should ever have to endure. Please do not ever use Hello Bonsai.