Accounting Software for Designers: Best Picks for Interior Designers and Graphic Designers
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Next month Estimate
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In short
Designers split into two groups that need different software. Interior designers who purchase furnishings on behalf of clients need project-based accounting that separates client deposits from revenue: Studio Designer at $79 per user per month and Design Manager at $79 per user per month are the two purpose-built options, and Ivy is no longer sold because Houzz folded it into Houzz Pro. Graphic and digital designers who bill for time need invoicing-led tools instead: FreshBooks at $23 a month or Bonsai at $15 per user per month cover that well, and Wave keeps a no-cost Starter tier. None of these record what Gumroad, Etsy or Creative Market deducted before paying you, which is why designers selling templates and presets add an income tracker such as Earnly from $12 a month.
Last updated August 2026
The honest read
The reason most software roundups mislead designers is that they treat "designer" as one job. It is two, and they have opposite accounting shapes. An interior designer running a full-service project collects money from a client, holds it, and spends it with vendors on that client's behalf. A $40,000 deposit for furniture is not $40,000 of income, it is money you owe in goods, and recording it as revenue overstates your year badly enough to cause a real tax problem. On top of that sits procurement: dozens of purchase orders, partial shipments, backorders, freight, sales tax that varies by ship-to address, and markup or a design fee layered on cost. That is why purpose-built platforms exist. Studio Designer at $79 per user per month and Design Manager at $79 per user per month both carry a real ledger underneath the project tools, which is the feature that separates them from pure project management. Houzz Pro and Mydoma Studio sit in the same space with lighter accounting. Worth knowing before you compare: Ivy, which dominated this category for years, is no longer available to new customers after Houzz acquired it and migrated users into Houzz Pro, so a lot of Ivy pricing pages and reviews still circulating describe something you cannot buy. A graphic, brand, web or motion designer has none of that complexity. You sell hours or a fixed scope, you invoice, and the money is yours when it lands. What actually costs you time is chasing payment and reconstructing the year at tax time. FreshBooks at $23 a month is the standard pick because its estimates, retainers, time tracking and automatic late-payment reminders map onto how design projects are billed. Bonsai at $15 per user per month on monthly billing goes further into proposals and contracts and is popular with freelance designers for that reason. Wave keeps a no-cost Starter tier and a Pro plan near $16 a month if you want double-entry books without a subscription, Zoho Books Standard is $20, and QuickBooks Online Simple Start at $38 is the one your CPA already knows. The gap all of them share appears when a designer starts selling products rather than time. Template packs on Gumroad, fonts and mockups on Creative Market, printables on Etsy, a Skillshare or YouTube channel: each pays a net figure with the platform cut already removed. Etsy alone takes $0.20 to list, 6.5% on the transaction, roughly 3% plus $0.25 to process, and 12% or 15% on Offsite Ads orders. Gumroad takes 10% plus $0.50 and about 2.9% plus $0.30, and 30% on a Discover sale. Your accounting software reads the bank feed, so it books the deposit correctly and cannot tell you the gross or the blended fee rate, which are the two numbers that decide whether a product line is worth maintaining. Earnly covers that side at $12 a month: payouts from 12 platforms on one board showing gross, fees and take-home per source, plus a payout calendar and a next-month forecast that is always labeled an estimate. Earnly is informational analytics, not accounting or tax software. It does not track expenses, does not produce a profit and loss statement, and does not file anything, which is why designers with mixed income run one tool of each kind instead of hunting for one that does both.
Published prices
Accounting software for graphic and freelance designers
US list prices as published in August 2026. These are the invoicing-led and general bookkeeping tools that fit designers billing clients for time or fixed scope. Every one is a real product, and the right pick depends on whether invoicing or bookkeeping is the part currently eating your week.
| Tool | Entry price | Best at | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonsai | $15/user/mo Basic | Proposals, contracts and invoices in one flow | Elite tier needs a 3 user minimum |
| Wave | $0 Starter, $16/mo Pro | Simple double-entry books | Starter is limited, payments and payroll cost extra |
| Zoho Books | $20/mo Standard | Low-cost books inside a wider suite | Each tier caps users, extra seats about $2.50/mo |
| QuickBooks Solopreneur | $20/mo | Schedule C and quarterly estimates | Single user, not a full ledger |
| FreshBooks | $23/mo Lite | Project invoicing, retainers, time tracking | Extra team members cost $11/mo each |
| HoneyBook | About $36/mo Starter | Client workflow with contracts and scheduling | Payment processing fees apply per transaction |
| QuickBooks Online | $38/mo Simple Start | A real ledger your CPA already knows | Jumps to $75/mo for bills and 3 users |
| Earnly | $12/mo Solo | Template and marketplace payouts after fees | Income only, no expenses and no filing |
Bonsai and FreshBooks figures were confirmed on hellobonsai.com and freshbooks.com in August 2026. Bonsai annual billing drops Basic to $9 and Essentials to $19 per user per month. Vendors in this category run introductory discounts constantly, so the headline price on a landing page is often promotional rather than the renewal rate. Xero is a common pick here, but published US figures disagreed across sources at the time of writing, so no price is quoted rather than printing one we cannot stand behind.
Published prices
Interior design accounting and procurement software
These handle the thing general accounting software cannot: client funds held for purchasing, purchase orders, markup on cost, and profitability per project. Studio Designer and Design Manager prices were taken from the vendor pricing pages in August 2026. The others come from third-party directories, so confirm them with the vendor.
| Tool | Reported price | Real ledger built in? | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio Designer | $79/user/mo, $69 billed annually | Yes | Enterprise $89 and Premier $119 per user monthly |
| Design Manager | $79/user/mo | Yes | One plan, contact sales above 10 users |
| Mydoma Studio | Around $49 to $99/user/mo | Partly | Reported 15 day trial, integrates with QuickBooks |
| Programa | Around $59/user/mo monthly | No | Reported 3 user minimum, specification led |
| Houzz Pro | Reported from around $159/mo | Partly | Quoted by trade and market, confirm your own price |
| Ivy | No longer sold | Partly | Migrated into Houzz Pro after the Houzz acquisition |
Houzz acquired Ivy in 2019 and has since closed it to new memberships, migrating existing users into Houzz Pro. That matters when comparing options, because many Ivy pricing pages, reviews and tutorials still online describe a product you cannot subscribe to today. Houzz Pro pricing is quoted differently for interior designers than for contractors and varies by market, so treat any published figure as a starting point rather than your price.
Why interior designers cannot just use QuickBooks
This is the question that sends most interior designers looking, and the honest answer is that QuickBooks works fine as the ledger and badly as the whole system. The problem is client purchasing. When you collect a deposit to buy furnishings, that money is a liability until the goods are delivered, not revenue you earned. Book it as income and your profit and loss statement is wrong by tens of thousands of dollars, which shows up as tax you do not owe or a distorted view of whether the business is actually working. Purpose-built platforms handle this natively: they hold client funds against a project, generate purchase orders to vendors, track partial shipments and backorders, apply markup or a design fee to cost, and only recognize revenue at the right moment. Studio Designer and Design Manager, both at $79 per user per month, are the two that carry a genuine accounting engine rather than a project tracker with an invoice button. Both also integrate with QuickBooks Online, which is the setup a lot of firms land on: the design platform runs procurement and project accounting, QuickBooks holds the books your CPA works from. If you are a solo designer doing mostly flat-fee consultation with no purchasing, that stack is overkill and QuickBooks Online at $38 a month or FreshBooks at $23 is genuinely enough. Our wider accounting software for creatives comparison covers the neighboring disciplines facing the same choice.
What happened to Ivy, and what to use instead
Ivy was the tool most interior designers named for years, and searching for its pricing today turns up pages that no longer describe anything you can buy. Houzz acquired Ivy in 2019 and built Houzz Pro around it, then closed Ivy to new memberships and moved existing subscribers across, with their account closing once the migration completes. Designers who used Ivy have been vocal that Houzz Pro is a broader construction and remodeling product rather than the interior-design-specific tool Ivy was, which is a fair criticism and worth weighing rather than dismissing. If you are choosing now, the practical replacements fall into three groups. If you need real project accounting with client purchasing, Studio Designer or Design Manager at $79 per user per month are the direct answers. If you want the lead generation Houzz brings alongside the software, Houzz Pro makes sense, though the price is quoted by trade and market so you will need your own quote. If you mostly need project workflow and client presentation rather than a ledger, Mydoma Studio and Programa sit at a lower price point and expect you to keep books elsewhere. The one thing not worth doing is buying from a comparison page that still lists Ivy pricing, because that page has not been checked in years.
Graphic and freelance designers: invoicing is the whole job
Strip out procurement and a design business becomes simple. You quote a scope, you do the work, you invoice, and the money arrives. What costs you money is not bookkeeping complexity, it is payment friction: quotes that never convert, invoices that sit for six weeks, scope that grew without a change order, and a January spent reconstructing the year from a bank export. That is why the invoicing-led tools win here rather than the accounting-first ones. FreshBooks at $23 a month for Lite is the safe pick: estimates that convert into invoices, retainers for ongoing clients, time tracking that maps to a project, per-project profitability, and automatic late-payment reminders that do the chasing you keep putting off. Team members cost $11 a month each, which matters once you subcontract illustration or development. Bonsai at $15 per user per month on monthly billing is the other serious option and is arguably better designed for freelance work specifically, since proposals, contracts, e-signatures, invoices and time tracking all sit in one flow. Its Elite tier requires three users, so read the seat rules before you commit. Wave is the right answer if you are early and your volume is low, because a no-cost Starter tier beats paying $23 a month to record fifteen invoices. Our FreshBooks alternatives page lays out the rest of the field, and freelance income tracking covers the money side once several clients are running at once.
The income no accounting tool can see: template and marketplace sales
A growing share of designers earn from products as well as clients, and this is where every tool above goes quiet. Sell a Figma UI kit on Gumroad, a font family on Creative Market, printables on Etsy, or presets bundled with a YouTube tutorial channel, and each of those platforms pays you a net figure with its cut already removed. Accounting software reads your bank feed, and a bank feed knows one number: what landed. When Gumroad deposits $840, the ledger records $840 and that is correct bookkeeping. What it cannot tell you is that the gross was $1,020, that the 10% plus $0.50 per sale took part of it, that payment processing took about 2.9% plus $0.30 more, and that three of those sales came through Gumroad Discover at 30% rather than your own link. Those two numbers, gross and blended fee rate, are the ones that decide whether a product line deserves another month of your attention. The same applies to Etsy digital downloads, where listing fees, a 6.5% transaction fee, processing and an Offsite Ads cut of 12% or 15% stack up invisibly. Designers routinely conclude a channel is not working when the real problem is that they are pricing against a net number. A per-platform fee breakdown closes that gap, and a payout calendar tells you when each platform actually pays so a slow month is not a surprise.
How much should a design business spend on software?
A useful benchmark rather than a rule: most solo designers land between $15 and $45 a month in total, and most interior design firms doing full-service purchasing land between $79 and $200 per user per month once the project platform is included. The step change is procurement. If you buy furnishings for clients, a purpose-built platform is not a luxury, because the alternative is tracking purchase orders in spreadsheets and discovering a missing $3,000 credit from a vendor eight months later. If you do not purchase for clients, that same spend is dead weight. Watch three things that quietly inflate the bill. Seat pricing is the big one: Studio Designer, Design Manager, Bonsai and Programa all charge per user, so a three-person studio triples the number on the pricing page. Payment processing is the second, since taking card and ACH payments through any of these tools carries a per-transaction fee that is separate from the subscription. Introductory discounts are the third, because a first-year rate that renews at list price is a common surprise. Against that, published 2026 US fee guides put a self-employed return at $300 to $600 with clean records and $500 to $1,500 when income is fragmented, so software that keeps records tidy often pays for itself at tax time. Our breakdown of what an accountant costs for self-employed work goes through those figures in detail.
A sensible software stack for a design business
Build the smallest stack that answers the questions you actually have. Start with one question: do you purchase goods on behalf of clients? If yes, the project accounting platform is your first purchase and everything else is secondary, so look at Studio Designer or Design Manager and plan to run QuickBooks Online behind whichever you pick, since both integrate with it and your CPA will want it. If no, buy the invoicing-led tool instead, which means FreshBooks if you want accounting underneath and Bonsai if proposals and contracts are the bottleneck. Second, add a general ledger only when someone needs it: a bookkeeper, a lender, an accountant who will not work from your invoicing tool, or an entity change. Plenty of solo designers run for years without one and are fine. Third, add an income tracker only if a real share of your money arrives from marketplaces rather than clients, because that is the only question the first two tools cannot answer. If all your income comes from six clients who pay by transfer, skip it. Our roundup of the best income tracker apps covers that category, and the multi-platform income tracker page explains how the consolidated view works in practice.
Side by side
Where the boards differ
| What you get | Earnly | Designer accounting software |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace gross -> fees -> take-home per sale | Yes | No |
| Payout calendar with expected pay dates | Yes | No |
| 12+ marketplace and creator platforms on one board | Yes | Bank feeds only |
| Next-month forecast (labeled estimate) | Yes | No |
| Client purchasing, purchase orders and markup | No | Studio Designer, Design Manager |
| Double-entry ledger and chart of accounts | No | Yes |
| Client invoicing, proposals and contracts | Lite invoicing | Yes |
| Expense and receipt tracking | No | Yes |
| Price | From $12/mo | $0 to $119/user/mo |
Comparison reflects published pricing and feature descriptions as of July 2026; both products change. Pick the tool that fits how you earn. See what the board looks like on the income tracker homepage, or start with the revenue dashboard.
Questions people actually ask
What accounting software do interior designers use?
Most established interior design firms use a purpose-built platform rather than general accounting software, because client purchasing needs real project accounting. Studio Designer at $79 per user per month and Design Manager at $79 per user per month are the two with a full ledger built in. Houzz Pro, Mydoma Studio and Programa cover the lighter end. Many firms run one of these alongside QuickBooks Online, which both Studio Designer and Design Manager integrate with.
What software do interior designers use?
Interior designers typically run three kinds of tool. For drawing and visualization it is AutoCAD, SketchUp, Revit or Chief Architect. For project and client management it is Studio Designer, Design Manager, Houzz Pro, Mydoma Studio or Programa. For books it is usually QuickBooks Online behind whichever project platform they chose. Ivy used to sit in the middle group but is no longer sold to new customers after Houzz migrated it into Houzz Pro.
Do designers need accounting software?
It depends entirely on whether you purchase goods for clients. If you do, yes, and general accounting software is not enough, because client deposits held for furniture are a liability rather than revenue and booking them as income overstates your profit badly. If you sell only your time, a spreadsheet is defensible early on, but invoicing software usually pays for itself the first time it collects an invoice you would have let slide for six weeks.
What is the best accounting software for graphic designers?
FreshBooks at $23 a month is the strongest all-round pick, because estimates, retainers, time tracking and per-project profitability map directly onto how design work is billed. Bonsai at $15 per user per month on monthly billing is better if proposals and contracts take more of your week than bookkeeping does. Wave has a no-cost Starter tier that is genuinely enough while your invoice volume is low.
What happened to Ivy for interior designers?
Houzz acquired Ivy in 2019 and has since closed it to new memberships, migrating existing subscribers into Houzz Pro, after which the Ivy account closes. Feature development moved to Houzz Pro as well. It is worth knowing because a large amount of Ivy pricing, review and tutorial content is still online and describes a product you cannot buy, and because Houzz Pro is a broader construction and remodeling platform rather than the interior-design-specific tool Ivy was.
How much does accounting software for designers cost?
Between $0 and about $119 per user per month in August 2026. Wave has a no-cost Starter tier and a $16 Pro plan, Bonsai Basic is $15 per user, Zoho Books Standard and QuickBooks Solopreneur are $20, FreshBooks Lite is $23, HoneyBook runs from about $36, and QuickBooks Online Simple Start is $38. Interior design platforms sit higher: Studio Designer and Design Manager are both $79 per user per month, with Studio Designer Premier at $119.
Does accounting software track Gumroad or Etsy fees for designers?
No, and it is the most common blind spot for designers selling templates, fonts or presets. Accounting software imports the bank feed, so a Gumroad or Etsy payout arrives as one net deposit with the platform cut already removed and invisible. You get a defensible income figure but no gross and no fee rate, which are the two numbers that tell you whether a product line is worth maintaining. Earnly sits on that side of the line, showing gross, fees and take-home per source from $12 a month, and it is informational analytics rather than accounting or tax software. The Etsy payout tracker shows how that looks in practice.