Gingerbread

The freelance business suite
for designers.
Runs on any $5 host.

Invoicing, time tracking, tasks, clients, expenses. Instant on any connection, on any hosting. Self-hosted, or hosted for $49/mo. Pay once, or monthly.

Start the 14-day trialBuy self-hosted · $199
No credit card. 14 days free.Runs on Hostinger, SiteGround, Namecheap
INVOICE #042
Birch & Vine
Due Apr 24, 2026
Paid
Homepage redesign
$3,200
Brand refresh · 2 rounds
$1,400
Icons & illustrations
$820
Total
$5,420.00
Now tracking
Landing page · Maple
01:42:17
This month
↑ 22%
$12,480
The problem

You probably have
all of these.

A subscription to Dubsado or HoneyBook or Bonsai. A Notion template that does about 40% of what you need. A Google Doc with your client list because Notion got frustrating. An invoice tool that isn't the time tracker that isn't the CRM.

You're paying a lot of money to a lot of companies to run your freelance business. They're making it harder to leave on purpose. You're the retention metric. You're tired.

That's why Gingerbread exists.

Dubsado$12/mo
HoneyBook$39/mo
Bonsai$17/mo
Notion$10/mo
Trello$5/mo
FreshBooks$15/mo
Toggl$9/mo
Google Docs$0/mo
$107/mo total
What it does

One tool. Six things you were
doing in six different places.

Gingerbread is a freelance business suite, and it's deliberately small. It's not replacing your accountant or being your CRM-platform-of-the-future. It replaces the spreadsheet, the invoicing app, the task board, the time tracker, the client folder, and the "where did I put that file" ritual.

Tasks and projects

Kanban, list view, priorities, estimates. The task management doesn't need to be the whole app. It just needs to get out of your way.

Clients

Contact details, notes, history, the files you've swapped. Everything about every client, in one place.

Invoices and estimates

Send, track, get paid. PDFs that look like something a designer made, because one did.

Time tracking

Start a timer on a task. Stop it. It bills. That's the whole thing.

Expenses

Receipts go in, reports come out. Attach them to projects. Claim them at tax time.

Boards

Your own workspace, organized how you actually think, not how a product manager wanted you to.

Why it's different

Six things the other ones
don't bother to do.

01

Linear-fast.
On any host.

Every interaction is instant. Click a task, it's done. Mark an invoice paid, it's paid. Start a timer, it's running. The app isn't waiting for a server to answer. It already has.

The frontend reads and writes to a local store first, and the server catches up on its own time. Nobody else in freelance software bothers to build it this way. Which is why their tools all feel sluggish the moment your Wi-Fi wavers.

Full speed on 3G. Full speed on a $5 shared host. Full speed on the train. Works offline too. Because once the data's local, why wouldn't it?

Click to paid, in milliseconds
Mark invoice paid
8ms
Open client file
12ms
Switch project
6ms
Dubsado (typical)
740ms
HoneyBook (typical)
880ms
02

Runs on shared hosting.
Really.

If you have a portfolio site, you probably already have shared hosting. Upload Gingerbread, visit the installer, answer five questions. Ninety seconds later you have a working freelance business suite on your own domain, paying nobody monthly.

Hostinger works. SiteGround works. Namecheap works. That host with the ridiculous name your friend recommended in 2019 probably works. If you can run a WordPress site, you can run Gingerbread.

Or I can host it for you. Also fine. It's the same software either way.

# upload to your host
$ scp gingerbread.zip you@host:~
$ visit yourdomain.com/install
# answer 5 questions
✓ installed in 90 seconds
Hostinger
SiteGround
Namecheap
Bluehost
DreamHost
A2 Hosting
All tested. All working.
03

Your data.
Not ours.

There's a small service that handles PDF generation for people who want pretty invoices. It's designed so it cannot retain anything you send it.

Not a policy. An architecture. The source is published. Go read it.

Everything else lives where you put it. On your server or on the hosted tier. Nowhere else. Not in a data warehouse. Not in an analytics pipeline. Not in anyone's training set.

pdf-service/src/render.ts
// No disk writes. No logs.
// No retention. Not possible.
async render(req: Request) {
  const pdf = await toPdf(req.body)
  return new Response(pdf)
}
// That's the whole file.
Full source · published soon
04

Every feature.
Every plan.

No Pro tier with features the Free tier doesn't have. No Team plan for the one feature you actually need. No checkmark grid comparing what you get at each price point.

You pay for speed, not for access. If you host it yourself, you have the same software hosted customers have. They pay $49 a month because hosted plans come with Redis, Meilisearch, CDN, and nightly backups. Not because their version does more.

Comparison grid
(deliberately empty)
There's nothing to compare.
Every plan has everything.
(That's the whole point.)
05

Come in from anywhere.
Leave whenever you want.

Import from Dubsado, HoneyBook, Bonsai, Moxie, 17hats. One click, your data is in.

Export to JSON, CSV, SQL, or a portable SQLite file of your entire workspace. One click, your data is out.

Leaving Gingerbread is as easy as arriving. On purpose. Customers stay through quality, not captivity.

Import from
Dubsado
HoneyBook
Bonsai
Moxie
17hats
Export to
JSON
CSV
SQL dump
SQLite file
PDF archive
Markdown
One click in. One click out.
06

No SSH required.

The admin panel does everything a sysadmin would. Run migrations, clear caches, check for updates, inspect logs, download a backup, test your email setup. All of it, in the browser.

You shouldn't need a command line to run your own business software. So you don't.

gingerbread.yoursite.com/admin
Run migrationsup to date
Clear cachesready
Check for updatesv2.4.1
Inspect logs320 entries
Download backup64 MB
Test email setupconfigured
No SSH. No terminal. No tears.
How it stacks up

Side by side, honestly.

Not a trashing of competitors. Just a factual side-by-side so you don't have to open six tabs.

Your current stack
Dubsado + Trello + Toggl + Notion		GingerbreadYOU ARE HEREA Notion template
Monthly cost$80–150+$49 hosted, or $199 once$0–10
Own your dataNoYesSort of
Feels fastDepends on their uptimeYes, alwaysYes, for about a week
Works offlineNoYesNo
Self-hostableNoYesNo
Leaves gracefullyGood luckYes, one clickCopy-paste forever
Replaces all of itNo, that's the problemYesNot really
Pricing

Two ways to use it. Same software.

No other tiers. No feature gates. No enterprise upsell. Pay for speed, not for access.

Recommended
Hosted
I run it for you on fast infrastructure.
$49/ month
Up to 3 users · $490/yr gets you 2 months free
Start the 14-day trial
No credit card to start
  • Everything unlocked from day one. No feature gates.
  • Redis + Meilisearch + CDN
  • Nightly backups, 30-day retention
  • Updates included, always
  • Same software as self-hosted
  • Cancel anytime, export anything
Self-hosted
You run it, on any $5 shared host.
$199oncelaunch promo
Normally $249–299
Buy self-hosted
One year of updates included
  • Every feature, no exceptions
  • Unlimited users on your server
  • Works on shared hosting (PHP)
  • Renew updates, or don't
  • Same software as hosted
Questions

The things people ask first.

Yes. I test against Hostinger, SiteGround, Namecheap, and a handful of other common hosts. If it doesn't work on yours, I want to know.

Start where you are.

If you want to try it today, the hosted trial is 14 days, no credit card. If you'd rather own it, the self-hosted version is $199 for life.

Start the 14-day trialBuy self-hosted
Made by a person. Not a platform.