Meridian vs Bonsai · Updated August 2026

Bonsai charges per person. Meridian doesn't move.

Both run the client side of a consultancy — pipeline, engagement letters, time, invoices. The difference shows up the moment you bring in a second pair of hands.

£0 £100 £200 Bonsai · £248/mo Meridian · £59/mo 1 3 5 8 people in the business
Bonsai Premium at $39 per user per month, converted at £1 ≈ $1.27. Meridian Solo £29, Team £59 — flat, whoever you add. Check both providers' current pricing before you decide.

Section 01 · The comparison nobody runs

If you're on Asana or Monday, you're not comparing like for like

Work-management tools track what you're doing. They don't track what you're owed. Here's what a three-person UK consultancy typically buys around them.

Projects and tasksMonday Standard, three-seat minimum
£28/mo
Proposals, contracts, e-signaturePandaDoc or DocuSign, per seat
£15–32/mo
Time against client workHarvest, Toggl, or Asana's timesheet add-on
£0–28/mo
Invoicing and booksXero Standard or FreeAgent
£29–33/mo
Somewhere the client can lookNothing. You email PDFs.
—
Four logins, none of which talk to each other £72–121 / month

The cost isn't really the money. It's that the proposal never becomes the project, and the timesheet never becomes the invoice. Somebody re-keys it. In a small consultancy, that somebody is you, on a Sunday.

Section 02 · Head to head

Bonsai is the real alternative. Here's where each one wins.

Bonsai is a good product with years of road behind it. We'd rather you saw the whole picture than a table we rigged.

Meridian
Bonsai
Cost
£29 solo, £59 for the team. Add people without adding cost.
$15 / $25 / $39 / $59 per user, per month. Five on Premium is roughly £150.
Trying it properly
14 days. Long enough to run a real client from enquiry to invoice.
Seven days, and no free plan.
Where you are
Built in the UK for UK practice. Sterling, VAT, UK contract wording, your accountant's file format.
US-first. Workable here, but the tax and contract templates weren't written for you.
Your books
Feeds Xero and FreeAgent. Your accountant keeps the tool they know.
Wants to be your accounting as well, which duplicates what you already run.
Template library
Fewer templates. UK engagement letters and SOWs, not a catalogue.
Deep, mature library covering most freelance trades. A genuine strength.
Integrations
Xero, FreeAgent, Stripe, Google Calendar. Deliberately short.
Broader: QuickBooks, Zapier, Calendly, Slack, Gmail.
Track record
Newer, smaller, and built by one named developer you can ring.
Years of reviews and a large user base. If that's what decides it, take Bonsai.
Who answers
The person who wrote the software. Usually the same day.
A support queue.

Section 03 · Fit

Built for one kind of business

Not freelancers billing by the hour, and not agencies with an ops team. The bit in between, where the founder is still the back office.

Fractional executives

Three or four retained clients, monthly invoices, no admin support. The engagement letter and the invoice should be the same system.

Independent consultants

Day rates and defined pieces of work. Proposal, scope, delivery, bill — one thread instead of four apps.

Small professional practices

Surveying, H&S, HR, planning, IT. Two to five people, recurring clients, real paperwork obligations.

Not for you if: you need deep third-party integrations, a large template catalogue, or the reassurance of a big vendor. Bonsai will serve you better, and we'd rather say so now than after you've moved your client data.

Start

Fourteen days. One real client, start to finish.

Put an actual enquiry through it — proposal, engagement letter, time, invoice. If it hasn't saved you an evening by day fourteen, it isn't the tool for you.

Start the 14-day trial

No card. £29 solo, £59 for the team, cancel any month.