Why freelance software keeps charging you for two people
Two-seat minimums are a team-software habit that makes no sense for a team of one. It is worth knowing what you are paying for.
Freshlance3 min read
Look closely at the paid tiers of most project management tools and you will find a two-seat minimum. It is rarely advertised. You discover it at checkout, when the monthly total is double the per-seat price on the pricing page.
It is not malice, it is inheritance
These products were built for teams, priced for teams, and their unit economics assume teams. A solo user is an edge case in someone else's model, so the pricing does not accommodate you.
What it costs in practice
A team-priced project tool, plus an invoicing tool, plus a scheduling tool. Three subscriptions, three places for data to disagree, and one person doing the reconciling.
What to look for instead
A single seat that costs a single seat. A free tier that is genuinely usable rather than a countdown. And invoicing in the same product as the project tracking, so tracked time can become an invoice line without a copy-paste.