Calisto Pro vs Dubsado & Bonsai
Dubsado and Bonsai are freelancer paperwork tools: a form, a contract, an invoice. Calisto runs the studio around them, with brief intake, deliverable versioning, retainer billing, a portfolio site and a print store across 56 products. Core carries no additional cost. Every other suite is priced per app in the Marketplace.
Freelancer invoicing vs. a studio platform
Feature by feature
Feature-by-feature comparison with leading alternatives
| Feature | Calisto Pro | Dubsado | Bonsai |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead Capture Forms | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured Creative Brief Intake | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Proposals with Line-Item Scope | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Contracts with E-Signature | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Work-for-Hire & IP Transfer Clauses | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Invoicing & Payment Plans | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bring Your Own Payment Processor | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Deliverable Gallery with Version History | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Client Comments on a Specific Revision | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Retainer Billing with Scope-Creep Alerts | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Time Tracking Against the Agreed Scope | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Capacity Planning & Utilization | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Portfolio Site with Case Studies | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Print & Fine-Art Storefront | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Font & Asset License Archive | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Brand Asset Library with Client Access | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Branded Slide Presentations | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Workshop & Gallery Event Ticketing | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Course & Masterclass Hosting | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Newsletter to Past Clients | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Multi-Currency Invoicing | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| VoIP Calling from the Client Record | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
And against the stack most studios actually run
Dubsado for paperwork, Notion for the brief, Figma for the work, Dropbox for the handoff. Four tools, four client lists, no shared record.
| Feature | Calisto Pro | Honeybook | Notion + Figma + Dropbox |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project Pipeline with Stage Tracking | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Structured Creative Brief Intake | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Work-for-Hire & IP Transfer Contracts | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Deliverable Gallery with Version History | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Client Portal (Brief, Deliverables, Comments) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Retainer Billing with Scope-Creep Alerts | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Portfolio Site with Case Study Pages | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Behance & Dribbble Review Aggregation | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Print Sales & Fine Art Checkout | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Font License & Source File Archive | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Brand Asset Library with Team Access | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Branded Slide Presentations | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Workshop & Gallery Event Ticketing | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Design Course & Masterclass Hosting | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Newsletter to Past Clients | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| 75 Payment Gateways (Your Choice) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Multi-Currency Invoicing | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| E-Signature with Audit Trail | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Cross-Channel Client Inbox | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Studio SEO & Local Search | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Capacity Planning & Utilization Tracking | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| VoIP for Client Calls | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Invoice in their currency. Get paid in yours.
Dubsado and Bonsai route you to their processor at their rate. Calisto connects to 75 payment gateways across 11 global regions, so a studio in Santo Domingo can invoice a client in Berlin and settle where it banks. Your merchant account. Your rates.
The gaps a freelancer invoicing tool leaves
Dubsado and Bonsai end at the invoice. A design studio also has to take a brief, ship versioned deliverables, bill a retainer without absorbing scope creep, and sell the work. None of that lives in either tool.
Deliverables: Versions, Not a Dropbox Link
Neither tool ships work. Designers send a Dropbox link, the client comments in email, and three rounds later nobody can say which file was approved. Calisto delivers from Depot into the client portal that already holds the brief and the contract: every revision kept and the approved one marked, comments attached to the revision they refer to, source files and licences archived beside the exports, and an approval that is recorded rather than remembered.
Retainers: Scope Creep You Can See
A retainer invoiced as a flat recurring line hides the month where the client asked for twice the work. Calisto bills retainers in Registry and tracks hours against the agreed scope rather than a running total, so the overage is visible while there is still time to talk about it rather than at renewal. Utilization per designer falls out of the same numbers, which is what capacity planning actually needs.
Selling the Work: A Store, Not a Portfolio
Illustrators and fine artists sell prints, licences and originals. Dubsado and Bonsai sell nothing. Calisto publishes the portfolio in Sites on your own domain and turns it into a storefront: prints, licences and workshop or gallery-opening tickets priced in Catalog, checked out through Pulse, paid through your own processor, with the order landing on the same customer record as the commission work.
No setup cost. Pay when you use it.
Dubsado charges an annual subscription per user. Bonsai charges a monthly plan and gates the useful parts behind the higher tier. Calisto charges nothing to set up and never charges per client or per project. Core carries no additional cost. Every other suite is priced per app in the Marketplace.
Switching questions
Yes. Export your contacts and projects from Dubsado or Bonsai as a CSV and upload it in the Switch portal. You review the column mapping before anything is written, and you can import contacts first and projects later.
No. The portal opens from the link you send. They see the brief, the contract, every delivered revision, their comments and their invoices in one place, from any browser.
A retainer is billed against a defined scope, and hours book against that scope rather than a running total. When the month goes over, you see it while the month is still running. Nothing is auto-invoiced above the agreed amount without you approving it.
Yes. The portfolio site and the store are the same site. Prints, licences and originals are priced in Catalog and checked out through Pulse using your own payment processor, and the order attaches to the same customer record as your commission work.
Setup costs nothing and there is no credit card required. Core carries no additional cost. Every other suite is priced per app in the Marketplace.
Bring your Dubsado data with you.
Upload your current contract and we will read the cancellation terms and credit your wallet for the exit fee. Bring your records across with a CSV import. Setup costs nothing.