7 17hats Alternatives for Solos Who Don't Need $60/mo Software (2026)

17hats has been running small service businesses since 2014, and it earned its reputation honestly: deep automations, SMS reminders, and workflows thorough enough to run a photography studio from your phone. If you are a wedding photographer with a 14-step onboarding sequence, 17hats might genuinely be your tool.

But the pricing has become hard to ignore for one-person businesses. As of mid-2026, 17hats costs $60 per month, or $600 per year, on a single all-inclusive plan, per 17hats' pricing page and Taskip's 17hats pricing breakdown. First-year promos are frequent (often around 50% off the annual plan), which softens year one and makes year two sting. There are also paid add-ons, such as bank sync at $5 per month, per Taskip.

Add the widely reported steep learning curve and a UI that reviewers have called dated, per AgencyHandy, and plenty of solos are shopping around.

So here are 7 alternatives, with real prices (hedged and sourced, because this stuff changes), a best-for verdict, and the tradeoffs each vendor would rather not lead with.

A disclosure before the list: this is the Raoura blog, and Raoura is #1 on it. We think we belong here for reasons we can defend, but you should read our entry with the same skepticism you would read any vendor grading its own homework. We have kept the knives sharp for our own entry too.

1. Raoura: one flat $17 plan for solo client work#

Pricing: $17 per month, one flat plan, everything included. 14-day free trial with no credit card. No markup on payments: you connect your own Stripe account and Stripe's fee is passed through at cost.

What it is: Raoura covers the core loop of solo client work: proposals (templates plus AI drafting), e-sign contracts, invoicing with line items, tax, discounts, multi-currency, deposits, partial payments, payment plans and automatic overdue reminders, projects with client-approvable milestones, and a branded client portal where clients log in via magic link, no passwords. Point it at your website and it matches your brand automatically. AI drafting runs on credits: 30 per month included on the paid plan (10 during the trial), with packs at 25 for $5 or 100 for $15.

Why we put ourselves first, honestly: against 17hats specifically, the pitch is simple: $17 versus $60 as of mid-2026, an afternoon of setup versus a learning curve, and no add-on fees.

Raoura is deliberately smaller than 17hats. It has no automation builder, no SMS, no scheduling, no time tracking, no lead pipeline, and no team seats. If those are your reasons for using 17hats, Raoura will not replace it, and several tools below will serve you better.

Also honestly: Raoura is new. We will not quote you review scores or customer counts, because inventing social proof is exactly the kind of thing this list is supposed to help you avoid. Judge it on the trial.

Best for: solo freelancers doing fixed-price project work who want proposals, contracts, invoicing, and a client portal at a price that does not require a spreadsheet to justify.

Tradeoffs: no automations, scheduling, time tracking, or phone workflows. New product without a long public track record.

2. Moxie: the freelancer all-in-one done right#

Pricing: as of mid-2026, Starter is $12 per month ($10 annual), Pro is $25 ($20 annual), Teams is $40, per Moxie's pricing page. No markup on payments.

What it is: Moxie (withmoxie.com) is built only for freelancers, and it shows. You get CRM, proposals, contracts, invoicing, time tracking, a meeting scheduler, and automations (on Pro), plus Moxie Academy for learning the deeper features. Trustpilot ratings sit between 4.8 and 5.0 as of mid-2026, which is about as good as this category gets.

Best for: freelancers who want close to 17hats' breadth, including automations and scheduling, at a fraction of the price. If you are leaving 17hats because of cost rather than complexity, start here.

Tradeoffs: the Starter plan lacks automations, so budget for Pro at $25 if workflows are why you came. Teams caps at 5 seats, and support ratings are more mixed than the product ratings, per AgencyHandy's Moxie review.

3. Bonsai: polished, but watch the tiers#

Pricing: as of mid-2026, Basic is $15 per user per month, Essentials $25, Premium $39, Elite $59, with lower annual rates, per Bonsai's pricing page and Taskip's Bonsai breakdown.

What it is: Bonsai is one of the most polished freelance suites around: proposals, contracts, invoicing, time tracking, and increasingly project and client portal features, wrapped in a clean UI that makes 17hats look like it is from another decade (because, visually, it kind of is).

Best for: freelancers who want a modern, design-forward suite and are comfortable paying for a mid tier to get the full toolkit.

Tradeoffs: the tier structure is the catch. Reports as of mid-2026 indicate the entry plan gates core items like proposals, contracts and invoicing behind higher tiers, per Taskip, so read the plan matrix carefully before you commit. Per-user pricing also means costs climb if you ever add anyone.

4. HoneyBook: the big ecosystem, at a bigger price#

Pricing: as of mid-2026, Starter is $36 per month, Essentials $59, Premium $129, with annual discounts, per Taskip's HoneyBook pricing page. Payment processing is 2.9% plus 25 cents for cards and 1.5% for ACH. US and Canada only.

What it is: the biggest name in creative client management: scheduler, payments, lead pipeline, a large template marketplace, and a genuinely useful community. HoneyBook raised prices by up to 89.5% in February 2025 and has been repositioning as an AI-first platform, per AgencyHandy.

Best for: US or Canada freelancers who live in scheduled sessions and inquiries, want templates made by peers in their exact niche, and use enough of the platform to justify the price.

Tradeoffs: it is barely cheaper than 17hats after the hike, so it only makes sense as an alternative if you specifically want HoneyBook's scheduler, marketplace, and community rather than a lower bill. Not available outside the US and Canada.

5. Dubsado: automation depth, DIY assembly#

Pricing: as of mid-2026, Dubsado's Starter plan is around $20 per month and Premier around $40, though some 2026 sources report higher current pricing, so check Dubsado's pricing page directly. Both plans allow unlimited clients and projects, and the free trial has no time limit (it caps you at a small number of clients instead).

What it is: Dubsado is the closest thing on this list to 17hats' automation philosophy: forms, workflows, scheduling (on Premier), and deep customization. People who invest the setup time build remarkable systems in it.

Best for: freelancers leaving 17hats for price but not for complexity: you want the workflow depth and you are willing to build it yourself.

Tradeoffs: the learning curve is the tradeoff. Dubsado is famous for requiring weeks of setup, and there is an entire cottage industry of paid Dubsado setup specialists, which tells you what you need to know. If 17hats felt like too much homework, Dubsado will too.

6. Indy: the budget all-rounder with a free tier#

Pricing: as of mid-2026, Indy has a free plan that includes 3 proposals, contracts, and invoices per month, and a Pro plan at $25 per month or $225 per year, per Indy's pricing page.

What it is: Indy (weareindy.com) bundles proposals, contracts, invoicing, tasks, file storage, and client portals into a simple package. The free tier is a real free tier, not a demo: if you only close a couple of deals a month, you might pay nothing.

Best for: part-time freelancers and people just starting out, where 3 documents a month covers real life and $0 covers the budget.

Tradeoffs: it is lighter than everything above on automation and workflow depth, and the 3-document monthly cap on the free plan means a busy month pushes you to Pro at $25, at which point Moxie and Raoura are both in the conversation.

7. Wave: free invoicing, if invoicing is all you need#

Pricing: as of mid-2026, Wave's Starter plan is free with unlimited invoices and estimates, and the Pro plan is around $16 per month, per Wave's pricing page. Payment processing runs about 2.9% plus 60 cents per card transaction and 1% for bank payments.

What it is: Wave is not a client management platform at all. It is free invoicing and bookkeeping. No proposals, no contracts, no client portal, no projects. It is on this list because some 17hats refugees discover that invoicing was the only feature they actually used, and the correct price for that feature alone can be zero.

Best for: solos whose entire need is "send professional invoices and get paid", with basic bookkeeping thrown in.

Tradeoffs: everything else this article is about. The moment you need a signed contract or a client-facing project view, you are stitching together separate tools again, which is usually how people ended up at 17hats in the first place.

Quick comparison#

How to actually choose#

Skip the feature matrices and ask three questions.

1. Why are you leaving 17hats? If the answer is price alone, Moxie Pro or Dubsado gets you most of the automation power for $20 to $25. If the answer is "it always felt like more machine than I needed", that is a complexity problem, and buying a different complex tool will not fix it: look at Raoura or Indy.
2. What do you use weekly? Pull up your 17hats account and list the features you touched in the last month. Most solos we talk to land on some version of: proposals, contracts, invoices, a place clients can see things. If your list includes automations and SMS sequences, respect that and shop accordingly.
3. What does year two cost? 17hats' first-year promos, per Taskip, are a reminder to always price year two, not year one. Raoura is $204 a year, flat. 17hats at full freight is $600 plus add-ons. That difference recurs every year you are in business.