Best Client Portal Software for Freelancers in 2026
Four tools, four different price floors, and one decision that matters most before you pick — what your branded URL looks like to the client on day one.
The Delivvo team· May 6, 2026 7 min read
Search "best client portal for freelancers" in May 2026 and you get four serious tools at four different price points. The chart-junk on most "Top 10" listicles makes them look interchangeable; the actual differences are real and worth knowing before you sign up.
This is the honest comparison — pricing, included clients, white-label boundaries, and where each one fits — for the four tools that show up on every freelancer's shortlist: Copilot, SuiteDash, Plutio, and Delivvo. We'll mention HoneyBook and Dubsado where they're directly comparable, but they're CRMs first and portals second; this post is about portals first.
The 2026 pricing snapshot
| Tool | Entry plan | Mid plan | Top plan | Free trial | |---|---|---|---|---| | Delivvo | $15/mo | (single tier) | — | 7 days | | SuiteDash | $19/mo START | $49/mo THRIVE | $99/mo PINNACLE | 14 days | | Plutio | $19/mo Core (9 clients) | $49/mo Pro (unlimited) | $199/mo Max (white-label) | 14 days | | Copilot | $39/mo (50 clients) | $149/mo custom domain | /mo white-label | 14 days |
The price floor moved up. $15–$19 is the new "freelancer entry point"; the $9–$12 tier that existed in 2022 is gone.
White-label cost varies wildly. SuiteDash includes branded subdomains on START at $19; Plutio gates full white-label to $199/month Max; Copilot gates it to $399/month.
How to actually choose: what does the client see?
When your client clicks the link to open their portal, four things determine their first impression:
The URL. Is it yourname.platform.com, portal.yourbrand.com, or just yourbrand.com?
The branding. Logo, colors, typography — yours or the platform's?
The login flow. Does the client see your name or the platform's first?
The mobile experience. What does it look like on their iPhone?
These four things drive whether the portal feels like part of your business or part of someone else's.
Here's how each tool handles them in May 2026:
Delivvo — portal.yourbrand.com (branded subdomain) at $15. Logo + colors yours. Login page yours. Mobile-first design.
SuiteDash — branded subdomain on START at $19 (SuiteDash pricing). Custom domain (portal.yourbrand.com) on START as well. Full white-label including hidden "Powered by SuiteDash" requires THRIVE at $49.
Plutio — branded subdomain (yourbrand.plutio.com) on Core at $19. Custom domain at $49 Pro. Full white-label with logo replacement requires Max at $199/month (Plutio pricing).
Copilot — branded subdomain on $39 Starter. Custom domain at $149/month. Full white-label requires the $399/month plan.
If the URL clients see is yourname.copilot.com and you're charging enterprise rates, the disconnect lands harder than you'd think. Most freelancers who specifically asked us about portal-vs-portal said the URL question came up *after* they switched and noticed how clients reacted.
What each tool optimizes for
Delivvo — purpose-built for freelancers delivering work to clients. The whole product is files, approvals, contracts, and Stripe-native invoices at one branded URL. Not a CRM, not a project management tool, not a help desk. $15/month, single tier, no upsell ladder.
SuiteDash — an "all-in-one business platform" that bundles CRM, billing, projects, files, and a client portal. The unlimited-users-on-every-plan model is genuinely different — most tools cap users at the entry tier. Best for small agencies that need 5+ team seats and want everything in one tool.
Plutio — closer to a freelancer-OS than a portal. Includes time tracking, invoicing, proposals, contracts, projects, and tasks in one app. The 9-client cap on Core at $19 is the gotcha: if you have 10 active clients, you're on Pro at $49. Best for solo freelancers who want one tool to run their whole business and don't need full white-label.
Copilot — the modern-UI play. Polished interface, native iOS app, deeper integrations (Stripe Apps, embedded apps). The $39 floor is meaningfully higher than the $15–$19 competition, and the white-label gates are the steepest in the group. Best for freelancers selling to enterprise buyers where UI polish and the iOS app drive the buying decision.
A small team gathers around a laptop showing a project plan — the multi-stakeholder reality every client portal eventually has to handle
The included-clients question that bites people
Three of the four tools cap clients on the entry tier:
Plutio Core at $19 — 9 active clients.
Copilot Starter at $39 — 50 clients (so usually fine).
SuiteDash START at $19 — unlimited.
Delivvo at $15 — unlimited.
The Plutio cap matters more than it looks. "Active client" includes any client whose portal is live, including past clients who occasionally come back to download a deliverable. Most freelancers cross 9 active clients within 6–9 months and then have to upgrade to Pro at $49 — a 158% price jump.
If you expect to break 9 clients, Plutio Core isn't actually $19/month — it's $49 deferred.
What the white-label tiers cost over a year
A common scenario: you start at the entry tier and decide you want full white-label after six months. The annual cost looks different than the monthly sticker:
Delivvo stays $15/month → $180/year. Branded portal at this price.
SuiteDash stays $19/month → $228/year. Branded URL at this price.
Plutio entry is $19 for 6 months ($114) + $199 Max for 6 months ($1,194) = $1,308/year if you go full white-label.
Copilot entry is $39 for 6 months ($234) + $399 white-label for 6 months ($2,394) = $2,628/year.
The price gap between "I want a branded portal" and "I want a fully white-labeled portal" is the variable that matters most for a 5-year freelance career.
When HoneyBook or Dubsado is actually the right pick
These two are CRMs first and portals second. Pick HoneyBook or Dubsado if your bottleneck is *getting and converting leads* (lead forms, automated nurture, scheduler, contract templates) rather than *delivering work to existing clients*. The pricing reflects this — HoneyBook Essentials is $49/month annual (HoneyBook pricing) and Dubsado Premier is $40 (Dubsado pricing). For a deeper read on each, see Delivvo vs HoneyBook 2026 and Delivvo vs Dubsado 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Why do all four prices feel like they went up in 2025?
Inflation pressure on SaaS, plus the post-2024 reset where investors started asking SaaS companies to actually be profitable. HoneyBook's 89% Starter hike was the most visible move; smaller increases happened across the category. The $9/month freelancer-portal price point that existed in 2022 doesn't really exist in 2026.
Can I run a fully white-labeled portal for under $50/month?
Yes — SuiteDash's THRIVE at $49/month is the cheapest fully-white-labeled option in the group, with branded subdomains and no platform branding. Delivvo's branded subdomain at $15/month is the cheapest "looks like your brand" option, though it doesn't fully hide the platform name in legal/footer copy the way SuiteDash THRIVE does.
Do any of these integrate with Stripe directly?
All four integrate with Stripe (Stripe documentation). The difference is *how*: Delivvo and Copilot use Stripe Connect so you keep the customer relationship; SuiteDash and Plutio also support Stripe Connect on higher tiers. The integration depth matters for chargeback handling, refunds, and tax reporting.
What about Notion, Trello, Google Drive, or just a folder share?
For 2–3 clients, those work. The breakdown happens around client #5 — you start losing files in shared Drives, missing approvals in Trello cards that no one notices, and forgetting to invoice on time. The price-of-tool vs cost-of-mistakes math flips somewhere between 3 and 5 active clients.
Is there a tool I'm missing here?
Bonsai used to be on every freelancer's shortlist; the Bonsai-Zoom acquisition shifted its trajectory and we don't recommend it for new accounts in 2026. Notion's "client portal" templates are popular but they're a workaround, not a tool. Wave Apps does invoicing well but isn't a portal. The four-tool shortlist above genuinely is the realistic 2026 set.
The takeaway
The 2026 client-portal market split into a clean structure: $15 for purpose-built freelancer portals (Delivvo), $19 for all-in-one business platforms (SuiteDash, Plutio Core), and $39+ for the modern-UI tier (Copilot). The CRM tools (HoneyBook, Dubsado) sit alongside but solve a different problem.
The decision that matters most isn't the feature matrix. It's the URL your client sees on the login page and how that lines up with how you want to be paid. Pick the tool whose branding tier you can afford from day one — not the one whose entry tier you can afford and whose white-label tier you'll need in six months.
Delivvo is the branded client portal at $15/month — files, approvals, contracts, and Stripe-native invoices on a URL clients see as your brand from day one. Single tier, 7-day free trial, no upsell ladder. The cleanest answer to "what does my client see when they open the portal."
