<!-- /founder:pricing-strategy · 2026-11-02 · input: Tallybird, an invoicing tool for freelancers who bill by the hour. 400 people on the mailing list, no paying customers yet. Do not assume there are no competitors. -->Assumption: USD, monthly billing, self-serve, one user per account (a freelancer). Assumption: Tallybird has hourly time-to-invoice at its core. No other feature is known, so tier limits below are proposals, not facts about the product. Assumption: no paying customers means no price has been tested. Every Tallybird price below is an estimate. Competitor prices fetched 2026-11-02 from each company's pricing page. The pages showed no "last updated" date.
| Model | Fit | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat subscription | 5 | A freelancer wants one number to expense. Easy to explain to a 400-person list. | Heavy and light users pay the same. |
| Usage-based (per invoice) | 2 | Matches a quiet month. | Income is uneven for freelancers, so a bill that swings feels like a tax on sending invoices. |
| Per-seat | 1 | None. | The buyer is one person. |
| Freemium | 4 | Harvest already offers a free plan, so free is the market norm, not a gift. | Every free user costs something. Estimate only, see section 4. |
| Credits | 1 | None. | A balance to manage is one more chore. |
| One-time purchase | 2 | Simple. | Hosting and payment costs recur, so the revenue should too. |
Recommendation: flat monthly subscription with a small free plan. Because every competitor checked sells a flat per-user plan, and a flat price is the easiest thing to compare.
All Tallybird prices: Estimate, untested.
Upgrade trigger: a third client, or the sixth invoice in a month.
Upgrade trigger: a client asks for a signed quote, or you hire a helper.
Upgrade trigger: more than 3 people. There is no tier above this yet. Say so and collect the request.
Checked 2026-11-02. Competitors exist and are priced; Tallybird does not enter an empty market.
| Competitor | Price and inclusions | Tallybird sits |
|---|---|---|
| Harvest | Free: 1 seat, 2 projects, invoicing included. Teams $11 per seat monthly ($9 annual). | Level at Solo. Harvest Free is the real rival to Tallybird Free. Tallybird must win on invoice quality for hourly work, not on price. |
| FreshBooks | Lite $23/mo (5 billable clients), Plus $43/mo (50), Premium $70/mo (unlimited). Promo shown: 80% off for 4 months. | Below. Solo at $12 is $11 under Lite and has no client cap. |
| Bonsai | Basic $15, Essentials $25 ($19 annual), Premium $39. Invoices and payments start at Essentials. | Below. Solo at $12 includes invoicing that Bonsai sells from $25. |
Not found: pricing for any other tool. Not checked, not claimed.
No cost has been confirmed. Everything here is an Estimate. Replace with real bills at the first 20 users.
Solo, $12/mo. Hosting and email Estimate $0.40. Stripe 2.9% × $12 + $0.30 = $0.65 (Stripe's rate is a public figure the founder should confirm). Support Estimate 0.1 tickets × 15 min × $25/hr = $0.63. COGS Estimate $1.68. Margin Estimate (12 − 1.68) / 12 = 86%.
Studio, $24/mo. Hosting Estimate $0.80. Stripe 2.9% × $24 + $0.30 = $1.00. Support Estimate $1.25. COGS Estimate $3.05. Margin Estimate 87%.
Free user. Hosting and email Estimate $0.15/mo. 1,000 free users would cost Estimate $150/mo.
Break-even. Fixed costs are unknown. Estimate $100/mo for tools and domain, founder salary excluded.
Target blended ARPU: Estimate $15/mo, assuming 80% Solo and 20% Studio (80/20 split is a guess). That is $180 a year per customer.
What the mailing list can say. 400 people is known. How many will pay is not. If 5% paid, that would be 20 customers and about $300/mo. The 5% is an Estimate with no source and is shown only to size the break-even. Do not plan on it.
Anchoring: FreshBooks Lite at $23 is the anchor. Show it next to Solo, with the date checked. $12 beside $23 reads as half.
Decoy: Studio. At $24 it is two times Solo. Most solo freelancers should pick Solo. Studio exists to make $12 look small. Expect few Studio buyers.
Annual framing: "two months free." $120 is $12 × 10. Say that, not "17% off".
First 90 days: Solo at $8/mo for the 400 on the list, locked for 12 months. Estimate. Because there are no paying customers, the first goal is 10 real payers and real cost data, not revenue. Anyone outside the list pays $12.
Grandfathering. Early price held 12 months from signup. At renewal, 60 days notice and one email.
Raise price when all three hold for two months:
Do not raise to match FreshBooks. Raise only when Tallybird has a feature the competitors lack for hourly work.
If the founder's idea is to charge nothing until there are users: that is wrong for a product that already has a list. A free plan exists above. A paid plan should open on day one, because zero paid conversions would mean the price test never started.